The Imago Sequence and Other Stories (7 page)

Holy Christ, somebody had an abortion in here!
The plastic basin of a sink was splattered with black ooze; and not a little. He'd observed pro anglers fishing for sharks off the Barrier Reef, knew exactly what a bucket of chum looked like, and this was close, except for what might've been a hank of hair, maybe a whole scalp. He stepped back and almost tore the door off its hinges in his haste to escape.

"Whoa, Nelly!" Ted K. the salesman from Cleveland said as Royce collided with him. Royce gaped, at a loss as to where the man had come from so suddenly. Hadn't he left the guy dead drunk and sound asleep no more than two minutes ago? Ted K.'s doughy features were lumped in approximation of genial alarm as he clasped Royce's elbow to steady them before they stumbled over the stewardess who was only a few steps up the aisle giving someone a pillow.

"Hey, guy," Ted K. said, and his hands were all over Royce, which compounded his anxiety—he hated being touched unbidden, and especially by a stranger, a neurosis doubtless rooted in some childhood trauma. He'd even occasionally rebuked his lovers for putting their hands on him when he didn't expect it. The plump man smelled overripe as fruit fermenting in a dark, humid place. "Where's the fire?" his fellow passenger was saying, sounding concerned, yet half smiling. Maybe he was enjoying this.

"Sorry, sorry." Royce was repulsed by the man's marshmallow flesh against his, but he'd almost bowled the guy over hadn't he? Good lord, what if an air marshal popped out of his seat and slapped cuffs on him for making a scene aboard a plane? He suffered Ted K.'s groping and just repeated his apology until the stewardess turned around and asked if everything was all right. He pointed at the open restroom and assured her that in fact nothing was all right and she'd better have a look. The attendant's expression changed into the mask people in the service industry put on when confronted with the irrational and unpredictable passions of the public. Her mask said,
I've lost most of my English and must confer with my colleagues
.

Royce recognized that look and closed his mouth. He gave her a fake smile and gently extricated himself from Ted K. and returned to his seat without a backward glance, his heart thumping in his throat. Presently, the stewardess appeared at his side and asked if he wanted another drink. He laughed at the preposterous notion; the last possible thing on Earth he needed was another drop. On the heels of this, he realized he sounded borderline shrill, hysterical. He made conciliatory noises, thank you, but no thank you. As she began to retreat, he risked asking about the problem with the toilet. Her mechanical smile told him she thought
he
might be responsible for the mess. "Plumbing. No need to worry. All fixed. Okay?"

Plumbing. They jettison shit at cruising altitude, you know. It freezes into a block and plummets to earth. Or is that a myth? Blue ice? God, I remember something about blue ice
. Strange to think of such an inane urban legend.
Was that a piece of skull I saw? A chunk of jawbone?
Royce started feeling cold and stopped thinking about the weird thing that had occurred in the bathroom. He preoccupied himself with football. He was a season ticket holder in Seattle despite the fact he seldom went, mostly passed his tickets to friends and associates. Nobody played football in Hong Kong. What did they play there? He had no idea whatsoever.

The plane was in its final descent when he realized Ted K. had never returned. Royce couldn't blame him, not after the whole incident. Regardless, the plane was filled to capacity and he briefly wondered where the guy had found another seat. Then the jet banked and the lights of the city were spread before him.

A large, impassive Chinese man in a black suit met him at the airport. Mr. Jen's face was crumpled and scarred as a piece of old, battered tin. He held a sign that read mr. hawthorne. The man wasn't tall, but as he carried the luggage Royce stared at his impressively broad shoulders and thought someone could probably project a film on his back. Mr. Jen put Royce in the backseat of a new Lexus and drove him directly to the offices of Coltech Ltd.

The office was an austere marble plaza of interlinked cubicles lighted by cozy lamps with woven shades. The grand Coltech seal, a lion rampant before crossed lightning bolts, loomed over all. Scores of stolid, crisply dressed employees conducted business with quiet determination; even the clattering keyboards and buzzing phones seemed muted in that cathedral vault. After checking with security he eventually located the right receptionist and waited while she unlocked a cabinet.

"Fruit basket?" He said.

She ignored the remark, muttering to herself as she rummaged through various folders. "Ah, there we go. Here is your Octopus card, Mr. Hawthorne. And the keys to your apartment." The secretary appeared to be North American, although she wore her beehive hair and heavy eye shadow and a bright yellow space-age dress in the popular retro fashion of young, cosmopolitan Asian women. She handed him an envelope containing a plastic card and three keys on a ring. She seemed impressed with his expensive suit, the Sicilian darkness of his tan. Her eyes flickered slightly. "Unfortunately, the apartment won't be ready until Sunday. Mr. James extends his apologies. However, he took the liberty of reserving a room for you at the Hyatt."

"An Octopus card?" Royce said, bemused. He eyed the Möbius strip configured to form a sideways eight.

"'Eight place pass' from the Cantonese. A smart card, sir. For the train and the bus service. I buy cigarettes with mine." She covered her mouth when she laughed.

"Ah." He slipped card and keys into his jacket pocket.

"Mr. Jen will drive you to the hotel, if you're ready. Oh, you have a three o' clock tomorrow with Mr. James and Mr. Shea at the Demeter Lounge."

"I see. Where—"

"Mr. Jen will get you there," she said with a dismissive smile. "Welcome aboard, sir."

The home office laid out the scenario when they originally brought him in. Coltech, a subsidiary of his employers at BelCorp, manufactured various technologies, including nuclear hydraulics systems and satellite components. They'd recently lost three territorial overseas managers to another firm; a much bigger fish on the international scene, and the deserting managers took most of their staff with them. Rumors surfaced regarding industrial sabotage, the sale of trade data, and an alleged network of moles piping corporate secrets directly to Asian competitors. Coltech got panicky and pulled a bunch of key personnel from domestic projects and sent them to China and Taiwan in a frantic attempt to secure operations.

The company drafted Royce to investigate two minor production facilities in Hong Kong—these factories were among the few that hadn't relocated to Mainland China. Circuit boards and electronic actuators were assembled at one plant; hydraulic sleeves and rotary process valves at the other. His cover as a quality assurance consultant afforded him access to personnel files, factory records, and juicy trade documents.

Martin Reardon James and Miguel Shea, president and vice president of local operations respectively, explained the specifics in painful detail upon his arrival. Shea, in his role as major-domo did most of the talking during that introductory meeting in the luxurious confines of an upscale restaurant with a view down the western slopes and their towers of blue glass, all the way to the China Sea. He referred to the enterprise as a snipe hunt. "But, hell, whatever makes the boys in Georgia happy . . ."

Royce understood he'd be flying solo on this one. Atlanta had warned him about these two and they proved to be exactly what he'd envisioned. The officers—hefty, florid men—relished the perks of scotch, women and leisurely afternoons on the golf course to the exclusion of all else and were most interested in maintaining the status quo.

"Shrink is to be expected," Shea said, lighting a cigar and taking a few moments to get it properly smoldering. "No damned way we've got enough fingers to plug the holes in the dike. Pick your battles, kid. Have a drink. There'll always be something for someone to steal."

Royce waited long enough to be polite, then showed them a headshot of a blond, tan man in his thirties. "This is the individual I'm looking at."

"You're here to look at a bunch of people," Mr. James said. He was a thick, older man stuffed into a hand-tailored suit. His shrewd, bloody eyes were drowsy in an illusion of complacency, of boredom.

Royce knew a shark when he met one and felt sorry for the poor bastards with the misfortune to fall under the man's tender mercies. "I am. But this one . . .Atlanta likes him for some of your breaches. He may be the
architect
, in fact."

"Who's that?" Mr. James said. He took the photograph and stared at it.

"Brendan Coyne," Mr. Shea said. Despite his debauched good-old-boy shtick, Royce figured he was the kind of guy who knew everything about everyone in the immediate company. Probably the kind of guy to have names for the rats.

"What's his department?" Mr. James said. He downed a huge gulp of whiskey and looked at his watch.

"Consultant, communications."

"Oh, yeah? Any good?"

"He's good. What do you think? You hired him."

"I don't hire schmucks, do I?"

"No, indeed not," Mr. Shea said.

"Neither does Atlanta," Royce said with a dry smile. "As I said, I'll be looking at Coyne. Among other people."

"We hope you'll keep us informed of developments."

"I report to Atlanta. Orders."

Mr. Shea scowled and waited to see if Royce was resolved on that point. "I see. Maybe you could, uh, do us a courtesy now and again."

"Courtesy, Mr. Shea?"
Are you really thinking about bribing me?
A small part of Royce hoped they were shady enough to grease his palm for such harmless information. He considered himself a clean operator by industry standards; he pushed the boundaries without actually stepping over the line. A tiny bit of graft for harmless favors was simply a perk of the trade. He wasn't being paid to investigate Shea or James, although they could hardly feel secure about precisely what Atlanta knew regarding their laundry list of petty indiscretions on the company dime. Nervous executives with deep pockets had done much to pay off his college loans and his mother's tenure at the retirement home and potentially catastrophic hospital stay. Less nobly, such paranoid largess had also subsidized his vintage Mustang, a powerboat and a beachfront condo in Florida. "Absolutely, I'll pass along anything I'm able. We sure do appreciate your cooperation regarding this unpleasant matter."

"Anything we can do to help," Mr. Shea said. "But I gotta say, Hawthorne. It sure feels like Atlanta doesn't trust us."

"Do they trust anyone?" Royce said. The tension exhausted him. He ordered another vodka, knowing full well he was at the top of a long downhill slide.

Mr. James grunted at the photograph. "Isn't he pretty. I never liked pretty boys. Can't trust some asshole who spends that much time on his hair."

The next day, Shea took him into a wasteland of industrial ruins and gave him a tour of the only working factories within a mile. These were a pair of massive, rusting boxes connected by numerous catwalks, outbuildings and trailers. The vice president introduced Royce around and showed him his office, which was little more than a janitor's closet tucked into the heart of the structure where they manufactured the hydraulic sleeves. The hallways were slotted in a maze of grillwork and pipes with oversized spigots and valve switches painted in bright reds and yellows.

Royce couldn't have imagined a more monotonous, soul-killing assignment. Techs in hardhats, white coats and protective earphones rushed helter-skelter; workers were basically chained at the soldering tables and assembly lines. The laborers toiled sixteen-hour shifts in heat and noise, suffering these conditions for a menial wage; they received few breaks and were subjected to verbal and physical abuse from native overseers Royce knew would shock the hell out of working stiffs in Detroit. He had to admit, the Chinese were the perfect workforce. They slaved away as if the Devil himself were standing over their shoulders.

When not pretending to perform as a Coltech functionary, Royce was ensconced in the Lord Raleigh Arms, a housing project on the outskirts of the moribund industrial district. Lord Raleigh Arms, or the LRA as its inhabitants referred to it in casual conversation, was an exclusive compound reserved for employees of several affiliated companies; the executives, researchers and engineers who made things tick. The area proved quite pleasant, defying his expectations. Ministry officials desired a good face on things; they installed an arboretum and a couple parks to screen the quarter from defunct factories and warehouses and miles of tract slums.

The compound consisted of concrete and glass wings configured as a rectangle with a hollow center. There were guards at the gates, closed-circuit monitors, and regular patrols by the municipal police. Corporations paid for the private security forces. Terrorist threats weren't entirely uncommon, nor plain old kidnapping plots. Some employees had drawn indefinite postings and brought families—protection details were a basic necessity. The bulk of Royce's neighbors were Americans, Brits and Germans. He retained Mr. Jen to chauffeur him through seedier parts of the city; should he require special services, his company's hosts delegated a native to attend his needs.

His apartment was an economy model: a bedroom/living room combination, a pocket bath and closet-sized kitchen, all done in monochrome green and yellow. Fortunately, he traveled light, because the closets were tiny and there wasn't much room to hide anything particularly sensitive. This was why as a first order of business he purchased a small fire safe to secure hard-copy documents and other important items he couldn't encrypt on his computers.

Every piece of futuristic, plasticized furniture, every stainless steel appliance, radiated an aura of sterile, passionless utility. The terrace overlooked a quadrangle occupied by a swimming pool. The tile deck was decorated with plastic lawn chairs, folding tables, and umbrellas. Even during the rainy season, it attracted gobs of raucous kids. Come warmer weather, a score of elderly denizens slithered out of hiding like worms after a storm. Many of them wore dust masks common in China and Japan because the smog was so bloody awful. They congregated under the umbrellas and smoked generic cigarettes and bitched about the weather, the pollution and the kids.