Code Name Komiko (3 page)

Torch:
But lay your reason on us.

Komiko:
Got delayed by a dead girl.

Torch:
?

Torch:
That might just be a good reason, after all.

Crowbar:
4 real what do U mean?

Lian sat back in her desk chair and took a deep breath. Every time she dove into one of these chats with the rest of 06/04, she had to brace herself against Crowbar’s lack of punctuation and insistence on homophonic shorthand. But having to puzzle out whether “2” meant “to” or “too” or actually just “two” was a petty annoyance, she knew, and a small price to pay for Crowbar’s contributions to the cause.

Komiko:
Body was found a little west of Big Wave. Young girl, about 16–18.

She’d very nearly typed “about my age,” but that would have violated the first and most important rule of the group: no
identifying details
. “Lian” didn’t exist in this chat room, and “Komiko” didn’t exist outside it. She didn’t know the age, race, profession, or even the gender of her two comrades, nor they hers. It was safer that way; they couldn’t be coerced to spill information they’d never had to begin with.

Strength in anonymity.

Which is not to say that Lian hadn’t formed her own mental images of her chat partners, based on the questions they asked, the causes they championed, and even the apostrophes they neglected to use.

Crowbar:
U got 2 see the body? What stage? Macerated?

For example, Lian wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Crowbar—whoever he or she was—had something to do with the medical profession, or at the very least had several well-worn texts from the field. This wasn’t the first time that Crowbar had tossed out a term that Lian had to look up in a separate browser window.

Komiko:
Some swelling, yes. Her skin was kind of gray/blue. She was face down, I couldn’t tell how much damage there was.

Crowbar:
99% of corpses face down in h2o . . . more bacteria in the torso means more gas so it floats & limbs hang

Torch:
Appetizing image.

Crowbar:
U snap any pix?

Lian ejected the memory stick—a 16-gig drive encased in a lucky rabbit’s foot—from her laptop, clicked the USB cable into her phone’s port, and quickly uploaded the photos of the man in the tracksuit. She was playing a hunch, and maybe it was nothing. But if anyone could identify the man or hunt down the facts on him, she felt sure it would be her compatriots in 06/04.

The name, of course, was a nod to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and the unforgettable military actions on June 4. Students and intellectuals in cities throughout Main-land China had begun demonstrating in favor of liberalization. What started as a small-scale tribute to the late, deposed General Secretary Hu Yaobang soon became a sweeping, nationwide demand for political and economic reform. The conservative government declared martial law, and on that dark day in June, the People’s Liberation Army mowed down thousands of civilians in the areas around the square.

Lian hadn’t even been alive then, and learning the facts of the massacre had been an uphill battle. Her textbooks had contained no mention of this event, and the Chinese Communist Party blocked Web searches. For most of her life, the protests had been a mythical thing. They existed only in guarded whispers in the school hallways, or in overheard conversations when her parents thought she was asleep. Lian had become fascinated by these hidden injustices and by the smoke and mirrors that had been used to cover up the facts.

But a quote from Stewart Brand, lettered in tidy zhōngwén script and pinned to her corkboard, reminded Lian every day: “
Information wants to be free.
” She had pieced together the whole story and had been stunned enough to seek out the like-minded souls of 06/04. Together, they would effect change in this nation—and in this world.

One tracksuited fat man at a time, if need be.

Komiko:
No photos of the girl; didn’t have my phone then. But this guy showed up and started bossing the cops around. He set off any alarms for you guys?

5:57 PM HKT —
Komiko has uploaded five JPGs

Crowbar:
I got nothing

Torch:
Nice work with the full-on and side shots. That should make it easier for me to find something on him.

Komiko:
Thanks. Eager to see what you turn up.

Whatever info there was on the man, Lian felt sure that Torch would root it out. Much of what she’d learned about Tiananmen, and about other abuses of government power, had come from following the 06/04 blog back when she lived on the mainland. Torch pushed reams of stolen data onto the short-lived mirror sites, and Lian had devoured as much as she could before each URL went dead. She didn’t know anything about Torch as a person—though, from the proper grammar and the bullish attitude, she’d long suspected an educated male and had taken to thinking in terms of “him”—but as a hacker, he was without peer.

Lian dithered, though, on whether she thought Crowbar might be an older female health professional or a young schoolboy with anatomy textbooks tucked under his mattress; the depth of knowledge sometimes felt out of step with the juvenile typos and emoticons.

Crowbar:
U guys think Blossom is goin 2 show?

Torch:
Doubting she will, at this point. Maybe we work best as a trio anyway.

Komiko:
Wait, why do you think it’s a “she” we’re talking about?

Torch:
. . .

Torch:
Seriously? With a handle like “Blossom,” I think it’s pretty obvious.

Komiko:
What happened to never taking anything for granted? Besides, he/she/it, makes no difference. Blossom has earned a place in 06/04 and deserves a warm welcome.

Crowbar:
Agreed x 1000

Lian smiled. At least two of them were on the same page. This wasn’t the first time that Torch had suggested keeping their membership capped at three, but the group hadn’t felt quite whole since Mynah Bird’s arrest two months back. That had taken them all by surprise: Mynah had turned out to be a forty-year-old environmental activist, caught in the act of heavy-duty corporate theft. They had known from his sometimes-manic posts that he was a risk-taker who recklessly skirted the law, and he’d gone one step too far with a digital signature in his bank-hacking code. Now he was in jail—or worse—and, after weeks of discussion, the group was ready to fill his chair.

She was just thankful that Mynah had been the paranoid type who deleted all his 06/04 files every time he logged off. The authorities hadn’t connected him to the group, which meant that their work could continue even in his absence.

Lian heard the click of her bedroom doorknob turning. She quickly keyed the letters “BRB”—“be right back”—and hit the function key to kick her laptop into screensaver mode. By the time her mother entered the room, there was nothing more damning on display than digitized woodcuts of pandas among bamboo.

“You always knock so quietly!” Lian said with a smile.

Her mother turned back to the door and gave a knock on the inside. “Sorry, little panda. I wasn’t thinking. We’re leaving for the restaurant in half an hour. You need to get changed.”

“Fine, fine,” Lian said, standing up and moving between her mother and the computer. “I just have to wrap up a couple of things online, okay?”

“You spend too much time online, Lian. There’s a whole world that doesn’t fit inside your computer. It’s not normal for a pretty girl like you to hibernate playing video games all day.”

“Well,” Lian said, ushering her mother back into the hall. “You’ll be horrified to know that you and Mingmei are on the same page about something. Why don’t the two of you get together over bubble tea and figure out what’s best for me? Let me know what you decide.”

“Half an hour, Lian.”

“Not a second later,” Lian said, closing the door. She sat back down at her desk and returned to the chat just as a new message popped up.

6:00 PM HKT—
Blossom has requested access to this conversation

Crowbar:
[Allow]

Torch:
[Allow]

Komiko:
[Allow]

And just like that, 06/04 had a new member.

Crowbar:
Welcome & glad U R on the team! So much 2 B done

Blossom:
Thank you. An honor and a little overwhelming. Not sure Im ready for the big leagues.

Komiko:
Nonsense. You wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think you were qualified. Torch vetted you like crazy.

Torch:
True. I have to admit, the Drax takedown . . . not too shabby.

Lian rolled her eyes. That sort of grudging respect, extracted like a pained tooth? Torch was definitely male.

Blossom had been responsible for compiling and crunching the mountains of data needed to prove that a company called Drax Plastics was breaking almost every environmental regulation on the books. The discovery of a temporarily unprotected subfolder on the Drax cloud drive had put all the pieces into place, with the names, account numbers, and staggering payoff amounts given to the lawmakers who looked the other way. It had been a major victory of the lone citizen against the big corporation, and 06/04 had certainly taken notice.

Blossom:
Thanks. Ive followed 06/04 for a while now, very impressed with the work you do. I think Im in good company. Crowbar, your stint in Junk Bay . . . Komiko, exposing the Wan Chai construction bribes—

Torch:
Okay, you’ve researched us, we’ve researched you, everybody loves everybody. If you’ve done your homework then you know our rules, but it’s worth stating for the record:

Torch:
Don’t *offer* personal info, don’t *ask* for personal info. Strength in anonymity.

Lian grimaced. Blossom was just through the gates, and already Torch was posturing.

There was a rap at Lian’s door, and her mother said, “Twenty-five minutes.” Lian sighed. It was time for her to stop being an activist for the evening and slip into the role of dutiful daughter.

Komiko:
Guys, I have evening plans, so I need to log off. Don’t haze the new kid too hard while I’m gone, all right?

Crowbar:
Goodnite Komiko

Blossom:
Cool, where you headed?

Torch:
WHAT DID I *JUST* SAY?

Torch:
Personal details compromise the safety of the whole group. Komiko’s activities outside this board are none of our business.

Blossom:
. . .

Blossom:
Sorry.

Crowbar:
Dont sweat it, Torch is always prickly. U will learn to <3 it.

Lian wasn’t sure that was quite true, but this wasn’t the time to weigh in.

6:06 PM HKT —
Komiko has logged off

She closed the laptop, set it on the desk, and moved to her closet. Her father had requested that she wear the cheongsam—the traditional Chinese dress—for tonight’s event. Lian knew it was a beautiful and respectful article of clothing; that wasn’t the problem. She just didn’t like the way she felt in that clothing. She might as well drape herself in a neon sign that read PRIVILEGE. It felt like such a betrayal of the 06/04 ethos. What would the others have thought of her if they knew the truth—that she was heading off to smile and nod her way through a dinner in an exclusive Central District restaurant?

She unzipped the garment bag and felt a pang of unease. The dress was precisely the same deep shade of crimson as the surfboard that had nearly taken off her head earlier. It was hard to fathom that her carefree beach trip had been just a few hours ago. She’d showered and scrubbed, but somehow she didn’t feel as if she’d been able to wash off the stain that Big Wave Bay had left on her.

She laid the cheongsam carefully on her bed and went back to the closet for a matching pair of heels. That she had so many to choose from suddenly made her feel sick.

Was it this? Was it guilt over her family’s position here, and the niceties it afforded her, that had led her to join 06/04? Was she playing dress up as an activist just to ease her conscience over the high-rise living, the private schools, the closet full of shoes?

She shook her head to dispel these thoughts. No, she decided. She had read the blog back on the mainland. She had believed then, and believed more fervently now, in the group’s causes. It was hypocrisy that she couldn’t stand, that she strove to root out and expose.

And that meant capitalists and communists alike were in their sights.

Lian stood briefly at her window—looking down at the whole of Hong Kong Island that lay out at her feet—and then drew the shades so she could get changed.

“You look uncomfortable,” her mother said, barely louder than a whisper.

“Not surprising,” Lian answered, “considering that I am uncomfortable.” Penned in between her parents, she shifted in the backseat of the taxi, tugging at the hem of the cheongsam where it bit into her thigh.

“I understand,” her mother said, pursing her lips. “But it’s important that you not
look
it.”

Lian sighed and turned to stare out the cab’s window. Truth be told, it wasn’t just the dress that was making her feel ill at ease. As they cruised through the Central District, the skyscrapers looming to either side seemed to glare down at her. She doubted she’d ever feel “at home” among these monuments to commerce.

But her mother was right; she knew the importance of this dinner to her father’s business—they had been emphasized repeatedly and in no uncertain terms. She could play “dutiful daughter” for one night.

As if on cue, her father cleared his throat and inclined his head toward her.

“My little Xiao-Lian,” he said, and Lian tried not to wince at the overly parental tone of his voice. “You look beautiful tonight. Like a little porcelain doll.”

Lian tried to smile. She knew he meant it as a term of endearment, but she chafed at the thought that she was as fragile, or merely decorative, as a doll.

“I am counting on both of you,” he continued, “to help ensure that this evening goes perfectly.”