Second Skin (5 page)

His laughter kept on building. ‘My God, what you and your pals are missing back in the States, Tōrin. Locked into your monopolistic system, you can’t do what we’re doing so successfully. We’re forging our own kind of
keiretsu
– for the twenty-first century – built with alliances between telecommunications, consumer electronics, electronic media, and computer companies that have downsized. They’ve shed the fat of the last decade, become more productive and competitive while the Jap companies are still overstaffed and over-diversified.’

‘Don’t you think you’ve rather overstepped the bounds of good manners, old man?’ Nguyen Van Truc said in his evenly modulated voice. He had been educated in England and, thus, possessed the exaggerated accent the foreigner often brings to the language.

‘Who the hell are you?’ McKnight asked. ‘I’m only saying what’s right. Unless you have something constructive to say, butt out.’

Van Truc looked around the crowd. He knew just about everyone and was in his element. He gave the American a superior smile. ‘I think you’re being overly emotional and over–’

‘Not constructive,’ McKnight snapped, and returned his attention to Tōrin. ‘Here’s what I mean. We Americans have changed. We’re lean, mean fighting machines now. We can already transmit billions of digital bits of multimedia information to millions of households throughout the United States because we’ve got the most advanced cable system in the world.’ His laugh was a derisive bark this time. ‘And what’ve you got? Zip. Hey, you know you’re the only developed country without a mature cable industry? Your manic desire to keep closed your telecommunications and broadcasting industries will be your downfall. The closed field has put you at an insurmountable disadvantage.

‘Ever hear of competition, buddy? It’s the American way and it’s going to beat you back into the sea. You need only look at high-definition TV to see the future. You’ve had to abandon an industry into which you’ve sunk – what? – hundreds of billions of dollars. Why? Because Japanese HDTV is analog and, therefore, obsolete. Ours is digital, so superior to your version there is no contest.’

‘You’re speaking of the past, Mr McKnight,’ Nicholas said. His voice caused a stir, and Tōrin glowered briefly over his shoulder. Nicholas wondered whether Tōrin was happy to see him. ‘Here, tonight, the future is now. The TransRim CyberNet is already on-line in Russia where it has far exceeded our expectations within an exceptionally short time. Check with Tōrin-san, he has all the most up-to-date figures.’

The younger man nodded stiffly. ‘I will be presenting the full range of statistics during dinner.’

McKnight scowled. ‘You’re Nicholas Linnear, am I right? Well, Linnear, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there a CyberNet already active in Russia? Who needs another one?’

‘Tōrin-san can answer that better than I can.’ It wasn’t strictly speaking true, but Nicholas needed to give Tōrin back some of the face McKnight had taken from him.

‘True enough, in Russia, the CyberNet was not first as it is in Southeast Asia, but that is irrelevant because it is the best,’ Tōrin said, right on cue. ‘It is fast gaining on the indigenous Relkom, which lacks the many proprietary features of the CyberNet that your American cyberjockeys came up with. The CyberNet’s bandwidth – that is, the amount of information that can be transmitted along it – is far greater than Relkom’s, or any other current net, for that matter. The CyberNet is already on-line there and in Southeast Asia with the Kami’s next-generation communication: digital video.’

Nicholas spotted Sergei Vanov, a young black-haired man with a Slavic face and soulful eyes. He pulled the Russian over and, smiling winningly at McKnight, said, ‘Let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth.’

‘I don’t know about a horse, but this Russian’s in love with TransRim,’ Vanov said with a chuckle. As an inveterate cyberjockey, he loved Americanisms or any foreign jargon, for that matter. It made him feel relevant, like a part of the world community. ‘My country is particularly ripe for the CyberNet, because it is filled with people like me, twenty-first-century entrepreneurs who understand how valuable the Net is to them, even with only a cheap clone of the first-generation IBM-PC and a modem. All we need do is plug into the Net for a fee and wheel and deal without any governmental influence or regulation.’

Nicholas spread his hands wide. ‘Imagine. They trade everything from crops of potatoes to trainloads of potash, from rights to a portion of a new Siberian oil pipeline, Ukrainian wheat, to Bulgarian fruit.’

Tōrin nodded, at last warming to the one-two-punch offensive that Nicholas had devised. ‘Anything and everything is possible – all one needs is the hardware, a commodity with which to barter, the imagination to close the deal – and, of course, the CyberNet.

‘Electronic mail, the current darling of Net-jockeys, will soon be a thing of the past,’ Tōrin added. ‘Why type words into a computer when you can simply send the message via a video image? In our world, speed is of the essence. In that regard, nothing can beat a vid-byte. With the Kami one can word process, do update spreadsheets, downlink and uplink to office computers, receive and send vid-byte faxes and vid-mail, buy, sell virtually anything, transact business on all the financial bourses.’

‘So great, but will the digital vid-thing really work?’ McKnight said sourly. The wind had been taken out of his sails.

‘That,’ Nicholas said, ‘is why we’re all here tonight.’

‘I, for one, already applaud the CyberNet,’ Raya Haji said. He was a tall, dusky-skinned Muslim, the Singapore government’s representative. Nicholas had worked with him several years ago on Sato’s fiber-optic project in his country. He had been one of the Net’s most enthusiastic supporters from its very inception. ‘I can attest to its worth.’ He pulled out a prototype Kami. ‘After the official opening, I plan to call the prime minister himself. And I can tell you I look forward to seeing his astounded face.’

There was general laughter and applause from the crowd.

‘My workload has been cut by a third because of the CyberNet,’ the Vietnamese Nguyen Van Truc chimed in. Throughout Vietnam, now there is a reliable means of communication. No more blackouts or constant busy signals or overloaded, outmoded phone lines for me.’

‘Now that we’ve given you the unsolicited testimonial portion of tonight’s program,’ Nicholas said lightly, ‘why don’t we get on with dinner? I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m starved.’

There was general and enthusiastic assent. The guests consulted the small cards they had been given on arriving that indicated their tables and slowly milled toward their respective places. Koei stood by Nicholas as he shook hands and mouthed pleasantries with this VIP or that. When they were, at last, alone for a moment, she took his hand discreetly and squeezed it.

‘Quite a good showing for someone who despises this sort of thing,’ she whispered.

‘Someone had to come to Tōrin’s defense. The man may be a first-rate administrator, but he’s still got a lot to learn about diplomacy.’

‘So, apparently, does McKnight.’

Nicholas nodded. ‘He’s quite a bear, all right. But, in a sense, he’s only doing his job. It seems that one of the avowed goals of the current American administration is to push, bully, threaten, and goad the Japanese into opening as many of their businesses as possible.’

Koei frowned. ‘We opened our rice market to the Americans, after months of bitter dispute and near riots by our farmers, and you’ve seen for yourself all that’s done is cause rice lines at the shops. Any more of this and we’ll turn into a third-world country just like Russia.’

Nicholas and Koei were seated at a group of tables with many of the top Japanese politicians and bureaucrats. He wondered what their reaction would be come tomorrow morning when their prime minister delivered his resignation. Tōrin, who was with McKnight, Raya Haji, and several others some distance away, glanced darkly – and covetously – in Nicholas’s direction.

‘Poor Tōrin,’ Koei said as they greeted their tablemates and sat down, ‘he looks as miserable as a drenched kitten.’

Nicholas, who assumed the seating arrangements had been decided upon by Nangi, grinned and said, ‘It’ll do him good to enter the bear’s den. He’s got to master difficult people, and sooner is always better than later. Anyway, McKnight is essentially harmless. Even if Tōrin blunders and further angers him, there’ll be no real harm done.’

Waiters were already circulating with the first course, poached tiger prawns with Chinese-herbed aioli. The striped shells were so thin and translucent no one bothered taking them off. They all crunched down, munching heads and all. Next came wooden trays piled with fresh cold soba noodles. The pale, buckwheat pasta was something of a delicacy, and Nicholas’s guests slurped noisily and appreciatively. Sake was served, along with beer and wine.

Following this course, the room darkened and Tōrin took his position on a spotlit area of the dance floor. Just above him, a large screen had been lowered. He looked quite dashing, tall and handsome with his thick hair slicked back and his ramrod-straight demeanor. He looked, once again, the cool, unflappable executive.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, much as I hate interrupting your enjoyment of the wonderful food we’ve prepared tonight, it is my pleasure to preside over the opening of Sato International and Denwa Partners’ Japanese-based TransRim CyberNet.’

Denwa Partners?
Nicholas thought.
Who or what the hell are they? Sato has no partners in TransRim!

Down on the dance floor, Tōrin was holding a Kami, using the touch screen to dial a number. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is a historic occasion and I am honored that all of you are here to witness the first official digital video communication via the TransRim CyberNet. Please direct your attention to the screen.’

‘Moshi-moshi.’
The screen had lit up. It was filled with the face of the prime minister of Japan. The clarity and detail of the digital image was astounding.

Nicholas glanced over at the table Tōrin had been seated at, wanting to see the look on McKnight’s face, but he could not find him. His place was empty. No one seemed to notice he was missing except Nicholas.

‘Prime Minister,’ Tōrin said. ‘This is Kanda Tōrin, vice president of CyberNet Operations for Sato International speaking to you from the nightclub Indigo in Shinjuku.’

‘Greetings, Tōrin-san,’ said the prime minister. He looked gray and tired. Nicholas was not surprised. ‘This is Prime Minister Takanobu, speaking to you from the floor of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Nihonbashi. My word, Tōrin-san, but you look your best in that tuxedo. Would you or any of your distinguished guests care to execute a trade on the New York Stock Exchange?’

His comment was greeted by a roar of laughter from the assembled guests, which was quickly followed by a long round of thunderous applause. As the demonstration proceeded, to the continuing delight of the audience, Nicholas slipped out of his seat and, keeping to the shadows, exited the nightclub. He crossed the mezzanine lobby and had entered the chairman’s elevator to go up to check on the CyberNet data transfer when he saw McKnight striding quickly out of the men’s room on the far side of the lobby. McKnight, who had no view of Nicholas inside the private elevator car, went into Indigo.

Nicholas pressed the button for the fortieth floor and the bronze door began to close. At the last instant, he shoved his foot between the door and the frame, punched the
DOOR OPEN
button. He peered across the lobby. Another man had come out of the men’s room. He had gone immediately to the bank of public elevators, pressed the
UP
button.

Now, as Nicholas strode quickly out of the chairman’s elevator, the man slumped against the wall and would have collapsed completely had Nicholas not caught him. Still, he was all but dead weight.

Nicholas thought he had recognized him from across the lobby, and now he was sure. This was Kappa Watanabe, one of the R&D techs in charge of making the CyberNet data transfer. He should have been on the fortieth floor. What was he doing coming out of the men’s room on the mezzanine? And what had happened to him?

‘Watanabe-san,’ Nicholas said, but there was no response. The tech’s eyes were mere slits, but the pupils were dilated and unfocused.

Nicholas listened to Watanabe’s heartbeat and pulse. Both were unnaturally slow, as if he were slipping into a coma. And unless Nicholas was mistaken, a faint bluish tinge was coming into Watanabe’s lips. Nicholas was about to call for an ambulance when he noticed the fingers of the tech’s right hand. They were curled inward in a curious kind of clawlike gesture.

Quickly, with some alarm, Nicholas pried open the stiff digits in order to get a look at the palm. He had seen these same symptoms before on someone lying along Vung Tau, the beachfront southeast of Saigon. Peering at Watanabe’s palm, he found what he was looking for: a tiny puncture wound, dark blue around its edges.

Nicholas remembered the oddly clawed hand on the snorkler who had washed up on that beach in Vung Tau. The man, already dead, created not a ripple of notice.

He had asked a local fisherman what had happened and he was told that the unfortunate man had been lanced by a Banh Tom. The innocuous-sounding ‘prawn pancake’ was, in fact, a dangerously poisonous stingray, indigenous to the Andaman and South China Seas, whose skin was striped like a tiger prawn’s – or the ocean bottom where it lay flat as a pancake and camouflaged, waiting to paralyze and kill its prey.

Perhaps the snorkler had reached out for a particularly beautiful shell lying on the ocean floor. Whatever, he’d had the singularly bad joss to touch a Banh Tom and had been stung on the hand. ‘See here’ – the fisherman had pointed at the palm of the snorkler’s hand – ‘the blue spot shows the poison.’

Kappa Watanabe had been poisoned by the venom of a Banh Tom through a tiny needle that had punctured his palm. Why? Nicholas used a nail to strip open the skin at the wound site, bent over it, and began to suck out as much of the venom as he could, spitting the stuff onto the floor. Then he stripped off his bow tie, used it as a tourniquet around Watanabe’s wrist. Had he done enough to save the man’s life? There was only one way to tell for sure.