"Three days?" Chen said. "I'd hoped . . ."
Ling lowered his head slightly. "Well . . . Come. Let's talk of such matters within. I'm sure we can come to some kind of accommodation, neh, Shih Tong?"
Chen returned the man's bow, then followed him down the hallway to another door. A guard moved back, letting them pass, the door hissing open at their approach.
It was all very sophisticated. Herrick had taken great pains to make sure he was protected. But that was to be expected down here. It was a cutthroat world. He would have had to make deals with numerous petty bosses to get where he was today, and still there was no guarantee against the greed of the Triads. It paid to be paranoid below the Net.
They stepped through, into the cool semidarkness of the inner sanctum. Here the only sound was the faint hum of the air filters overhead. After the stench of the corridors, the clean, cool air was welcome. Chen took a deep breath, then looked about him at the banks of monitors that filled every wall of the huge, hexagonal room, impressed despite himself. The screens glowed with soft colors, displaying a thousand different images. He stared at those closest to him, trying to make some sense of the complex chains of symbols, then shrugged; it was an alien language, but he had a sense that these shapes—the spirals and branching trees, the clusters and irregular pyramids—had something to do with the complex chemistry of the human body.
He looked across at the central desk. A tall, angular-looking man was hunched over one of the control panels, perfectly still, attentive, a bulky wraparound making his head seem grotesquely huge.
Ling turned to him, his voice hushed. "Wait but a moment, Shih Tong. My master is just finishing something. Please, take a chair, he'll be with you in a while."
Chen smiled but made no move to sit, watching as Ling Hen went across to the figure at the control desk. If Karr was right, Herrick would have kept copies of all his jobs as a precaution. But where? And where was the guard room? Or had Herrick himself let them in?
He looked down momentarily, considering things. There were too many variables for his liking, but he had committed himself now. He would have to be audacious.
He looked up again and saw that Herrick had removed the wraparound and was staring across at him. In the light of the screens his face seemed gaunter, far more skeletal than in the dragon portrait on the wall outside.
"Shih long . . ." Herrick said, coming across, his voice strong and rich, surprising Chen. He had expected something thin and high and spiderish. Likewise his handshake. Chen looked down at the hand that had grasped his own so firmly. It was a long, clever hand, like a larger version of Jyan's, Chen's dead companion. He looked up and met Herrick's eyes, smiling at the recollection.
"What is it?" Herrick asked, his hawklike eyes amused.
"Your hand," Chen said. "It reminded me of a friend's hand."
Herrick gave the slightest shrug. "I see." He turned away, looking around him at the great nest of screens and machinery. "Well . . . you have a job for me, I understand. You know what I charge?"
"Yes. A friend of mine came to you a few months ago. It was a rather simple thing, I understand. I want something similar."
Herrick looked back at him, then looked down. "A simple thing?" He laughed. "Nothing I do is simple, Shih Tong. That's why I charge so much. What I do is an art form. Few others can do it, you see. They haven't the talent or the technical ability. That's why people come here. People like you, Shih Tong." He looked up again, meeting Chen's eyes, his own hard and cold. "So don't insult me, my friend."
"Forgive me," Chen said hastily, bowing his head. "I didn't mean to imply . . . Well, it's just that I'd heard . . ."
"Heard what?" Herrick was staring away again, as if bored.
"That you were capable of marvels."
Herrick smiled. "That's so, Shih Tong. But even your 'simple things' are beyond most men." He sniffed, then nodded. "All right, then, tell me what it was this friend of yours had me do for him, and I'll tell you whether I can do 'something similar.'"
Chen smiled inwardly. Yes, he had Herrick's measure now. Knew his weak spot. Herrick was vain, overproud of his abilities. He could use that. Could play on it and make him talk.
"As I understand it, my friend was having trouble with a soldier. A young lieutenant. He had been causing my friend a great deal of trouble; so to shut him up, he had you make an implant of the man committing a murder. A young Hung Moo girl."
Herrick was nodding. "Yes, of course. I remember it. In a brothel, wasn't it? Yes, now I see the connection. Liu Chang. He made the introduction, didn't he?"
Chen felt himself go very still. So it wasn't Liu Chang who had come here in that instance. He had merely made the introduction. Then why hadn't he said so?
"So Captain Auden is a good friend of yours, Shih Tong?" Herrick said, looking at him again.
Auden . . . 1 Chen hesitated, then nodded. "Ten years now."
Herrick's smile tightened into an expression of distaste. "How odd. I had the feeling he disliked Han. Still. . ."
"Do you think I could see the earlier implant? He told me about it, but. . . well, I wanted to see whether it really was the kind of thing I wanted."
Herrick screwed up his face. "It's very unusual, Shih Tong. I like to keep my customers' affairs discreet, you understand? It would be most upsetting if Captain Auden were to hear I had shown you the implant I designed for him."
"Of course." Chen saw at once what he wanted and took one of the chips from his pocket. "Would this be guarantee enough of my silence, Shih Herrick?"
Herrick took the chip and examined it beneath a nearby desk light, then turned back to Chen, smiling. "I think that should do, Shih Tong, I'll just find my copy of the implant."
Herrick returned to the central desk and was busy for a moment at the keyboard; he came back with a thin film of transparent card held delicately between the fingers of his left hand.
"Is that it?"
Herrick nodded. "This is just the analog copy. The visual element of it, anyway. The real thing is much more complex. An implant is far more than the simple visual component." He laughed coldly, then moved past Chen, slipping the card into a slot beneath one of the empty screens. "If it were simply that it would hardly be convincing, would it?"
Chen shrugged, then turned in time to see the screen light up.
"No," Herrick continued. "That's the art of it, you see. To create the whole experience. To give the victim the feeling of having committed the act, whatever it is. The smell and taste and touch of it—the fear and the hatred and the sheer delight of doing something illicit."
He laughed again, turning to glance at Chen, an unhealthy gleam in his eyes. "That's what fascinates me, really. What keeps me going. Not the money, but the challenge of tailoring the experience to the man. Take this Haavikko, for instance. From what I was given on him it was very easy to construct something from his guilt, his sense of self-degradation. It was easy to convince him of his worthlessness, to make him believe he was capable of such an act. That, too, is part of my art, you see—to make such abnormal behavior seem a coherent part of the victim's reality."
Chen shuddered. Herrick spoke as if he had no conception of what he was doing. To him it was merely a challenge, a focus for his twisted genius. He lacked all feeling for the men whose lives he destroyed. The misery and pain he caused were, for him, merely a measure of his success. It was evil. Truly evil. Chen wanted to reach out and take Herrick by the throat and choke him to death, but first he had to get hold of the copy and get out with it.
An image began to form on the screen. The frozen image of a naked girl, sprawled on a bed, backing away, her face distorted with fear.
"There's one thing I don't understand, Shih Herrick. My friend told me that Haavikko took a drink of some kind. A drug. But how was the implant put into his head? He's only a junior officer, so he isn't wired. How, then, was it done?"