Insider X (16 page)

“Well… the food is amazing,” Na said.

“And the company?” Huiliang said with a touch of fun in her voice.

Na looked at Huiliang.  There didn’t seem to be any hidden jealousy in her eyes, or any mixed message with that question.  Na was still trying to figure out what that hand squeeze from Crush had meant?  Had Crush and Huiliang once been a couple?  That didn’t seem to be it.

“I like it so far,” Na said.  She dropped her voice so Crush wouldn’t hear.

Huiliang gave a soft little giggle.  “Excellent.  Here… you have to try this,” Huiliang said, pulling over a tray.

“I can’t,” Na said.  “I’m already full.  I’ve been pigging.”

“Liar.  You’ve hardly eaten anything,” Huiliang said.

“Are you kidding?” Na said.  “Have you not seen what I’ve eaten?”

Huiliang gave her a look.  “I know your secret now.”

“My secret?” Na said.  Her heart briefly skipped a beat.

Huiliang nodded.  “How you stay so thin.  You eat like a bird.”

“You’re one to talk,” Na said, smiling.

“Oh, just wait,” Huiliang said.  “They haven’t served desert, yet.  I’m saving up.”

Na took another sip of her wine.  Her head swam for a brief second. “I think this wine is going to my head,” she said.

“Good!” Huiliang said.  She dropped her voice lower, “Then now is the perfect time to invite him to your place.”  She giggled.

“I have a feeling you’re going to be a very bad influence on me,” Na said.

Huiliang took another generous swallow from her glass.  “Yes,” she said, “Yes, I am.”  She reached for a wine decanter.  “Ready for more?”

Na looked at her glass.  It was almost empty again.  Was this her second or third glass?  It was hard to tell, as Crush had topped it a few times.  “I think I’ve had enough,” Na said.  “It is my first day tomorrow.”

Huiliang filled her glass to the rim.  “Well… I will have to drink for both of us then.”  Huiliang giggled.  “You’re going to find we’re all lushes here.”  She took another big swill from her glass.

A half hour later, or maybe a little more, after an amazing round of deserts were served and consumed, the party came to an end.  Na never saw any check come to the table.  No money or keycards were used to pay the tab.  She asked Huiliang about it, but Huiliang brushed off the question.  “Don’t worry,” she said.  “It’s taken care of.” 

They all left the restaurant.  The place was emptying out almost en masse.  Very few diners remained.  Outside, it was still light, of course.  Inside the restaurant it had been deceiving, because there were no windows.

“Well, goodnight, Na,” Huiliang said.  “Remember roll call is at twenty thirty-five.  Just put your keycard in the slot by your bed.  And leave it there.  That way you won’t need to put it in again for the next roll call.  And you remember where to go for duty?”

Na nodded.  “Building with big steps and big columns.  Be there at zero three hundred.”

“Perfect,
hic
,” Huiliang said.  “And make sure to wear your uniform.”

“I will,” Na said.  “Thank you for all of this.  It was fun.”

“It was…
hic
…
we’ll do it again,” Huiliang said, her face brightening.  “How ‘bout tomorrow?”

“Are you serious?” Na said.

“Of course,
hic
, it’s an odd Friday,” Huiliang said.  “But no tour around the park.  We’ll go to the pool first.  Work on our girlie figures. 
Hic
.
  Then dinner.  Stay out late.  No duty this Saturday and Sunday.  Goody. 
Hic
.
”

“Okay,” Na said, bemused.

Huiliang flitted off with a cheery inebriated wave.  Na had a buzz too, but nothing like Huiliang’s.  Na glanced at her watch.  Twenty thirty-five, or 8:35 PM, was thirty minutes from now.

This was around her usual bedtime.  Having to get to work at 3 AM every day for the last five months had made Na used to going to bed early.  Around Na the others were starting to walk to their respective living quarters.  Very few were heading the direction Na needed to go.  Na noticed that Crush hadn’t left, yet.  He was still talking with a guy and a girl.  He said goodbye to them and suddenly noticed Na.  He walked over with a grin.

“Good,” Crush said.  “You waited for me.  I was hoping you would.”

“I wasn’t waiting for you,” Na said.  She noticed he had a strange look in his eyes.  Was he drunk too?

“You weren’t?”  He leaned in, and she smelled the wine on his breath.  She suddenly realized what he was about to do.

Before she could think, she jerked her head back, turned quickly, and walked away.

23

CRUSH DIDN’T FOLLOW her.  A part of her hoped he would, and a part of her hoped he wouldn’t.  She had panicked when he’d leaned in.  It had caught her off guard.  She was twenty years old and she could count on one hand how many boys she’d kissed.  Yes, her love life left more than a little to be desired.

She could talk it, but walking it was another story.

Not that she was innocent and inexperienced in certain things, but she was definitely out of her depth with some things.  She’d never had a real boyfriend.  And some of the concepts, such as attraction, lust, love… were mostly just words to her she read in books.  She understood the first two; she had eyes after all, but the third word, ‘love’, was completely foreign to her.

Seeing the look that boy, Chen, had given An was what love must be like she realized.  It was just like Na had read in books.  Others could see it, feel it, just by being around them.  It radiated off them.

That must be love.  But how did it feel to be Chen or An?  Were they all warm inside?  Did they have tingling feelings?  Orgasmic feelings?  She blushed thinking that thought.  She had little experience, but she knew enough.

Shhh!  Be quiet!  Taboo talk.  Others are listening.  We don’t share that.

Was that love? 

No.  She was pretty certain that wasn’t love.  Love was something else, something much stronger.

Oh, but you know love is not just rosy.
 
Who said that?  Na didn’t hear that voice often.  It was one of the jaded ones.  The survivor.

Such thoughts… voices.  They raced through her head now.  She knew nothing about this stuff in the real world.  Only the imaginary world.  The book world; the world that writers created for her.

It was almost like she’d lived on the moon all these years.  To know nothing of such things.  Her life was so disjointed; full of interruptions, restarts, setbacks and tragedies.

Yes, tragedies.

She knew those.

Always living someplace new.  Always running from something.  Just when things seemed to get good, she could “put it in the bank” that something bad would happen and upend her life again.

LOVE.

What did she know of love?  Just a funny word to her.  Four letters.  And four was bad.

But tragedy?  Yes, she knew tragedy.

Tragedy had taken her family—her mother, her dad.  Tragedy had caused “the accident”.  The accident.  Such a silly way to say it.  Such a lie.

LIE!

Yes, it was.  But enough!  No talking about that.

After the accident her “auntie” (no relation) had raised her.  But not for long.  Another “accident”.  And another consolation visit by the men in grey—the grey men—telling them that things would be fine.  Rebuild.  Start over.

Her auntie was gone, though.  Nothing to rebuild.  Nothing to save.  Na had only been ten.  Ten years old and all alone in the world.

Yes, she knew tragedy.  She knew emptiness.  She knew sadness.  Those emotions she knew all too well.

The only continuity, the only good things in her life, had been of her own making.  From being strong.  By finding a way to get to a better place.  The inner voices, which guided her, gave her company, and helped her through all the bad times.  And there were plenty of bad times.  Somehow through those times she’d held fast to the idea that there was more to life than just enduring things, scraping by, and living a life of toil.  That she too could become someone.  Be more than just a casualty of her tragic circumstances.

The jobs she’d done, the ones she’d run from and the ones she’d sought out, had made her who she was.  She was a survivor, a chameleon, and also a cipher.  She had remade herself more than once.  The name she had now, was not the one she’d been born with.  She’d had several different last names over the years.  But she’d always kept her first name.  It was her last name that was as fluid as the Fu and the Nan.

Everything she’d learned after the age of ten, she’d had to teach herself.  No one else was going to teach her things, so she made it her job to do it.  Her auntie had impressed upon Na the importance of knowledge.  It was the one thing Na had taken with her everywhere she went.  Never stop learning.

It had served her well.

Hadn’t it, Kitty Kat?

Kitty Kat didn’t respond.  Why was she being so quiet?  Not a word yet. 

That was not like Kitty Kat.  Normally Na couldn’t shut Kitty Kat up.  The one voice in her head that always seemed to be making mischief, causing trouble, and prompting her to do things… say things.

Why are you so quiet, Kitty Kat?  What do you think of Crush?  Should she have kissed him? 

Still no answer.  Well… that wasn’t quite true.

Na suddenly realized she was crying.

Oh goodness.  Not now!  Go away!

Na felt herself getting angry.  She brushed the tears away.

Go back in your box, you ugly monsters!
she said in her head.  But the memories were there.  The voices.  They always were there.  And always would be.  Always ruining things.

With some effort, she got her tears under control.  Don’t be a big baby, she told herself.  You are better than this.

She used her keycard and entered through the glass doors that led into her apartment condominium.  Her apartment.  Now that was a new concept to get her head around. 
Her apartment.

Was any of this real?  This was all like a dream.  Her heels smacked loudly on the tiles.  Just like in a dream, she was all alone now.  None of the others from the restaurant had come this way.  And there wasn’t anyone around as she stepped into the building.  She walked through the empty first floor lobby.

She realized her feet really hurt.  That pain certainly felt real.  She wasn’t used to wearing heels for so long.

Ouch.  Ouch.  Ouchy, ouchy, ouchy!

She pulled them off and walked barefoot.
 
The lobby she was walking in wasn’t as big as the one on the ground floor, but it was finished.  No construction.  No unfinished walls.  To think that just five hours ago she’d been dropped off by those men in suits—those grey men.  That now seemed like days ago.  Not hours.

Her head swam.  Why had she had so many drinks?  That was dumb.  She should be thinking how to get out of here.  But why was it she didn’t want to leave?  She didn’t.  She realized that.  
She didn’t want to leave.

CRAZY.  Or was it?  Just look at this place… these people.  All those fun guys and girls.  This was la-la land.

You big dummy.  What about what she was seeing?  She could sense it, see it.  The things not said.  Huiliang’s fear.  She was being watched.  There were watchers here.  Could they see her now?  Had they seen her tears?

Na forced a smile.  Put on a happy face.  Make it seem like those had been tears of joy.

JOY!

Fake it till you make it.

Na held her shoes in one hand and pushed the button to call the elevator.  The doors to one of the elevators opened up immediately.  She stepped in, fumbled, and got her card.  She ran it over the reader and was about to push the button for her floor, when she paused.  She looked at the button for the ground floor.  It was the one button that Huiliang had told her would not work.

She pushed it.  It didn’t light up.

Sorry
, said Kitty Kat,
just had to see.

Kitty Kat, you’re back!

Thank goodness, Na said in her head.  I need you.

Meow.
 
Kitty Kat rubbed against her leg.

Na tapped the button for the 60
^th
floor.

24

Hive, Facility 67096

THE ROOM WAS enormous and full of LCD screens.  Nicknamed “Hive”, it was here under the watchful eye of the men in charge that everything was visible.  Like busy-busy bees the four thousand two hundred and twenty-two members of the Online Blue Army were all just a mouse click away.

“How’s the new one turning out?” a man with a pink scar that traveled his jawline said to the soldier that was sitting.

“Could be a runner,” the soldier said.  Like many of these men at their stations, he seemed bored.

“Explain,” the man with the scar said.

“A minute ago she pushed the button for the ground floor.”

The man with the scar frowned.  “Are you sure?”

“Saw it myself,” the soldier said.

They both watched her on the screen.  She’d entered her apartment.  Like all members of the Online Blue Army she was young.  The man with the scar told the soldier to pull up her info.  The soldier moved his mouse, and a second later, a full dossier came up on another screen.  The man with the scar scanned it.

According to what was on the screen, the girl was twenty-two years of age. 
Na Zhou
was her name.  She’d graduated from Beijing Jiaotong University two years ago where she’d received a bachelor’s degree in Computer Software Engineering.  She’d taken the English course curriculum.  That degree was only taught in English at that particular university.  There were other universities that gave Chinese degrees for that area of studies, but the English version of that degree was considered infinitely more valuable to have, as students with those degrees usually had a much easier time finding jobs upon graduation.  One reason was the government hired tens of thousands of graduates with that particular degree every year.  Proficiency in ‘English’
computer software was a requirement.  The Chinese Communist Party had been building their cyber capabilities for some time.

The West had their silly Pacific Fleet.  They’d spent hundreds of billions on their water and air capabilities, purchasing warheads, advanced missile defense systems, and fifth-generation fighter jets, little realizing that technology was all obsolete.  They all had Achilles’ heels.  Computers ran them.  Chips controlled their guidance systems.  Software was embedded in all the hardware that allowed those boats and planes to operate.

So, while The West spent money they didn’t have, the CCP spent their money much more wisely.  They invested in personnel with certain skills.  University graduates with degrees like this girl had, or other degrees like in information security, communication engineering, network infiltration… the list was quite extensive.

Surprisingly, this girl had not landed a coveted job within the CCP’s vast array of PLA-run cyber warfare units.  Instead…
this couldn’t be right
…
she’d been discovered at one of the dens?

He read that part of her dossier again.  Den 3577.  Yes, that was what the dossier said.  She had been working there for a little over five months.  There was an assessment written next to that area of her dossier.

“Inventive… highly intelligent… creative… sarcastic… quick wit… incredible range…” were some of the comments that had been written about her work at Den 3577.

Hmm
,
the man with the scar thought.  Not a surprise.  The girl had a university degree.  Of course she was intelligent.  He read some more of her bio, and glanced back at the screen that showed the girl in her apartment.

The girl was quite beautiful, he realized.  Again, that was not a surprise.  The committee that selected new members for the Online Blue Army did seem to have a certain profile they looked for with new candidates.  The man with the scar wondered if it had anything to do with these screens?

The girl had entered her bedroom.  She hadn’t turn on the light.  The blinds in the room were closed.

The dim light did not affect the cameras.  They operated in all kinds of light.  With the conditions now, they’d automatically gone into night-vision mode.  With the exception of the washed out color aspect, NV footage was crisp and captured everything.

The girl took off her shoes and went to put them in the closet.  She wasn’t acting like a runner.  In fact, she seemed to be settling in just fine.

“Pull up the footage from the elevator,” the man with the scar said.  “I want to see it myself.”

The soldier moved his mouse again and brought up Camera T9-10258.  Live video appeared on the screen that showed the inside of an empty elevator cab.  It was the same elevator cab the girl had been in just a few minutes ago.  The soldier moved the scroll bar and older footage streamed on the screen.  He stopped the scroll bar just as the girl was stepping in the elevator.  They both watched as her hand went to the panel and she pushed the button.  She then pushed <60>.

“Play it again,” the man with the scar said.

The soldier moved the scroll bar and they watched the girl push both buttons again.

“Hmm,” the man with the scar said.  “Probably nothing.  But keep an eye on her.”

“Yes sir,” the soldier said.  “I will.”  He seemed much more attentive now.

The man with the scar smirked.  The girl was still in her bedroom.  She was slipping out of her dress now.  
I bet you will, comrade.

He stayed, looking himself, unable to walk away quite yet.  And to think: he was paid to do this?

The girl went into the bathroom.  She was only in her underwear now.  Lovely looking—simply lovely—slim and trim with curves in all the right spots.  The girl didn’t turn the light on.

Apparently, her greeter, Huiliang, must have already warned her about the cameras.  These kids.  It was hard to keep secrets from them.  Not that the cameras were intended to be a secret.  Better they know they were being watched.  It kept them from misbehaving.  Made his job much easier.

The girl was now on the toilet making water.

“Tough job this,” the man with the scar said.

“Sir?” the soldier said.  He didn’t look up; his eyes were riveted on the screen.

“Nothing.  Keep me informed.”  The man with the scar walked away.