Sputtering, de Bris accidently spits on his screen. “Sorry.” He rubs away the spittle with his sleeve. “I’m sure these corporate gods will get off. Hell, they’ll probably fine the victims. Already affiliated companies are threatening to relocate their operations abroad and take their technology with them, if there’s a guilty verdict. The government is divided on whether to prosecute.”
“Corps rule. I can imagine the electronic town hall is overloading its circuits with constituents’ calls to Congress.”
“Mostly in favor of dropping the charges. I mean, fuck! Unemployment is at twenty-five percent. No one wants to see corps pack up and leave. America doesn’t need the vote anymore, now that we live in a corpocracy.”
De Bris falls silent, as if everything that needs to be said has been said.
True says, “Let’s get back to the plastic. Have you come across anything like it before?”
“In a murder victim?”
“Anytime. Read anything about it? See it? Experience it?”
“No, not unless—wait—yeah. There’s a new microcamera used for diagnostic medical tests. Shoot it into a patient and you get clear pictures of arteries, veins, organs. Kind of like Fantastic Voyage.”
“And these cameras are made from plastic?”
“Yes. They disintegrate after 24 hours or so.”
“Do a lot of companies manufacture this camera?”
“Only one, far as I know. A Japanese firm. I can’t recall the name.”
True starts. “Can you find out?”
“Hold on a sec.”
True watches de Bris type in commands on his console. The taxi slows, squeezing into traffic, then is cut off by a city bus spewing grapplers. The taxi rams into a bicycle rickshaw, running it onto the sidewalk. But then they’re stuck in traffic. The driver punches the horn, yelling along with it. Like a sing-along, True thinks. As the car idles, True watches an auto-sprayer painting road lines. Another UN development project: more traffic symbols to be ignored. A dead body lies on the road and the robotic sprayer engulfs it, then flattens it into a pancake with a yellow line bisecting it. No other cars are coming on that side of the street to mush it down, although True doesn’t know why.
“Hmmm. I was wrong,” de Bris says. “It’s an American company: MedTekton. Based here in New York.”
True snaps back to attention. “Not one of the corps on trial?”
“No. Nice try.”
“Anything else I should know?”
De Bris reflects a moment. “No, except that by the look of it, this missile could have been fired by any number of hostile groups in—what’s that capital city again?”
“Nerula.”
“Nerula. There are so many damn countries I can’t keep track. Fifty years ago, there were 180. Today, more than 250. Where is Luzonia anyway?”
“Next to Malayanalaya.”
“And where the hell is that?”
“Next to Luzonia. They’re both young Southeast Asian republics.” True’s trying to be helpful.
“Well, be careful. I don’t relish analyzing your skin cells, DNA, and blood with my lab’s computerscope.”
The taxi yodels through the tunnel hugging the shanty’s edge. True sees his building. “Thanks for the help, de Bris. I’m home now.”
“But not home free.”
The sky bursts with ash-colored droplets falling hard as pigeon shit, staining windows. True pays the driver and steps out. His intuition is telling him something is up. Even though MedTekton isn’t a Japanese company, Edo is still emerging as a major theme. Is there some connection he’s missing? Blinking from the falling gobs, he watches the taxi soak into the distance, sees it stop at a long line of vehicles cramped this side of the tunnel. A traffic jam, maybe an accident. Since the tunnels are the only safe vehicular route through the shanties, odds are most of the drivers will wait.
True doesn’t feel like home yet. He’s frustrated by his slow thought process, feels like sponging up the city through the rain, searching for inspiration. He’s a shadow of what he was. Like a physicist who burns out at twenty, an athlete at thirty, a fighter who’s gone too many rounds, a pitcher who’s thrown too many pitches, he’s a journalist who’s raked too much muck.
“Don’t make moves or I shoot.” A voice True recognizes in an instant.
True turns to face Bong Bong and Pidge, armed to the gums. He looks around for help or witnesses, but even in nice weather, True’s is a neighborhood with few people out and about. “Saw you on TV, Bong Bong.”
Bong Bong steps closer. “How you think of me?”
“Good presence, but your grammar needs work.”
“But no presents for you, American.” Bong Bong shakes water from his cap. Even in the dim light cast by his building True can see new splotches. Bong Bong will have to go in for more melanoma treatments. “Why you break your words?”
“I paid you what your information was worth.”
“I give good informations. I give you good informations and you break your words.”
A Wagnerian symphony of horns. Drivers impatient with the traffic. “What’s with the traffic backed up from the tunnel?”
Bong Bong spits. “Big garbage truck and not-so-big tunnel. It’s stuck. No one knows how to fix. Ha ha. Ha ha.”
“To fix. Ha ha. Ha ha,” Pidge echoes.
The driver was probably afraid to drive the road to the incinerator because shanty dwellers are notorious for stripping trucks; and since he’s paid by the metric ton of imported garbage, he chose the tunnel. Bad move. Before True can react, Bong Bong laces into him with his pistol’s slab-side. Shock. True falls, touches his cheek to feel for blood, but there isn’t any. He knows it’ll hurt later, though.
Bong Bong standing over True. “You break your words and I break you.” The rain stings True’s eyes. A boot drives oxygen from his lungs. True rolls around, feeling ridiculous and hurt at the same time. “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” Bong Bong says, taking aim.
True reacts to the tempest with calm. What would it like to be dead, to not have to deal with life’s vicissitudes and the accompanying pain, to breathe just one last breath? Death to love, to fear, to pain.
“Bong Bong,” True hears himself say, “if you kill me, you’ll never get the money.”
“This is not about money, Mr. American.”
“Someone’s hired you to kill me? Who?”
Bong Bong steadies his aim with his other hand. “Such informations is not peritent to you.”
“Pertinent, Bong Bong, pertinent.”
“OK OK OK. Pertinent.” Bong Bong itches his nose with the butt of his gun. “I mispoke.”
“You know, you kill me, and this place will be crawling with journos. Is that what you want—what your government wants? It’s bad PR. Plus it’ll draw attention to you and to those who hired you to snuff me.”
“Tsk tsk. Not good enough.”
“But look, Bong Bong, I’ve taped and transmitted this whole conversation. If I disappear, this video will implicate you.” True holds up his wrist-top, a sapphire glinting light into the mist.
He screeches. “You lie!”
“Look!”
There’s silence, the sole sound is rain skittering on pavement. Peaceful. In the hurricane’s eye. Then Bong Bong kicks True, the dull thud inside his head undoubtedly less impressive than the satisfying smack Bong Bong hears. True weighs kicking Bong Bong’s legs out from under him, taking his gun away, firing on Pidge before he can react. But he’s braver in his fantasies than in reality. Bong Bong clutches a hunk of True’s hair, jerks his head back. Wet plastic rubs raw ear.
“You’re lucky, American. Today. But not so lucky I think.” Bong Bong falls on his knee, cracking into True’s ribs, punches madly in a windmill motion. Pidge then hands Bong Bong a taser and he jolts True with it, sending him into spasmodic fits, zapping his organs, noogie-ing his bones. He pants into True’s wrist-top: “I mistook this American for other criminals. Yes, I mistook. I am s
orry to American government. Please excuse.”
The weight from True’s back is lifted; he watches Bong Bong and Pidge skulk off. “Bong Bong!”
“Goodnight, John Boy.”
Pidge’s hee-hees mix with traffic noises. A siren.
True lies there, the rain dripping into his eyes, nose, mouth. The big difference between real and make-believe? The pain. He calls, “You want to know how to get the truck out of the tunnel?”
It takes time for the message to travel to Bong Bong and for Bong Bong’s to get back.
“OK. You tell.”
“Let the air out.”
“What?”
“Let the air out of the tires. The truck will sink lower and you can tow it through.”
Bong Bong looks at True with a big McBuffalo Burger grin. “Good idea. But you are only lucky today, American. Tomorrow or tomorrow’s tomorrow, dead men tell no tells.”
Bong Bong is right. True is lucky. He looks at his wrist-top, which is and was off the entire beating.
CHAPTER 7
After soaking in the shower, swabbing his body with antiseptic and bruise relief gel, focusing ultrasound repair waves on his organs, and injecting liquid bone into his fractured ribs, True’s feeling better. But when his medkit, factory-synched with his DNA (to discourage piracy), malfunctioned, he had to spend a torturous hour telelinked with global tech support.
He strips off his clothes and hangs them to air, thanking technology for producing clothes that never need washing or ironing. Really, he can’t imagine how people did it in the past—they must have spent half their time in laundromats, mesmerized by spinning shirts and towels, sniffing soap and softener fumes. But True’s clothes are paved with chemicals that repel dirt, stains, and odor. A few minutes of airing and the clothes are factory fresh.
True sits at his computer, elbows leaning on his desk. He knows he’s safe only until Bong Bong risks murder, or subcontracts the job to another hired gun. Either way, True may not be long for this earth. He lifts his eyes to the screen, types in commands for information on MedTekton. As he waits to funnel onto the infonet, True bites into a lemon and his mouth is flooded by tartness. For the first time in ages, his tastebuds are not merely an afterthought. He wonders if in some way Aslam’s murder has resurrected him, given him a purpose—something in short supply in Luzonia.
On screen, True reads the computer’s summary: MedTekton, a New York-based medical technology company, is a small company dealing with high technology in the medical marketplace. True plugs in the command for more specific information and enters the word phaseplast. The computer displays: 100% degradable plastic and circuits. Within hours, the material in this camera—which is capable of producing sharp images from the interiors of veins, arteries and organs—dissolves, then is flushed from the body along with liquid waste.
All those data banks, with all those trillions of bytes of information, and this is the sum on phaseplast?
He types: Who invented phaseplast?
Phaseplast was patented by MedTekton. No credit given to a single inventor.
True searches for past stories on phaseplast but the only two he finds are inadequate: one announced Food and Drug Administration approval, the other from a medical trade TV journal, which discussed the merits of internal camera work. Since the company doesn’t cultivate the media, blitzing on-line dailies, zines, and TV news ops with press releases and freebies, the media doesn’t bother to publicize the company. When True cross-references phaseplast for military uses, zippo. Requests a chemical breakdown. Still comes up empty. It’s secreted away. The Environmental Protection Agency has authorized unconditional approval based on the company’s confidential medical tests, which indicate the material to be nontoxic and fully degradable.
True queries: Could there be military uses for phaseplast?
Affirmative.
Types: List possible uses.
The response: Specify.
True bites into the lemon, puckers his lips. Wide awake now. Can phaseplast be used as missile casing?
Affirmative.
Could such a missile have a range of twenty miles?
Insufficient information.
What causes plastic to dissolve?
Insufficient information.
Can certain biological chemicals dissolve phaseplast?
Affirmative. Phaseplast dissolves inside the human body.
Can TNT cause phaseplast to disintegrate without a trace?
The computer weighs all chemical data on phaseplast, its behavior in the human body, and after taking a moment to correlate and calculate, responds: Affirmative.
Access file on Aslam Q. Aziz. Compare video data of Aziz’s death with data on phaseplast.
Accessed.
Can this missile’s shell be constructed from phaseplast?
Affirmative.
Check all data banks. Are there any other materials exhibiting similar properties that could be used for missile skin?
The computer stays silent. True pops the last of the lemon, skin and all, into his mouth, silently rejoicing in the citrus burst.
Negative.
True’s famished now. In the fridge, limp lettuce hangs over airplane scotch bottles, along with some eggs that were here when True moved in, olives, month-old bread, and more lemons. He picks at the olives and bread, is surprised by the salty, smoky olive flavor. Later, he promises himself, he’ll stock up on candy and fruit, maybe pick up some fish; not the local mercury-laced fish, but trout or tuna flown in from America, raised on organic fish farms. It’ll be expensive but worth it, if it ends up his last meal.
He’s under no delusions. Even though there’s a good chance he’s found the composition of the shell casing, it’s taken too long and too much effort. Why didn’t he discover it earlier? He pulls up the keyboard conversation he held with his computer after Aslam’s murder, and after scrolling it, realizes he asked the wrong questions. His reporting skills are shit. True rubs his forehead, feels a sandpapery gash over his eye—an injury he forgot to fix. He feels like shit, too.
Wrist-top peeps. De Bris calling.
“Hello, True.” True sees his friend’s eyes widen. “What happened to your face? You look like hell.”
“Somebody didn’t like what I reported.”
“If you’re covering the theater, you might consider giving more favorable reviews. You look awful.”
“Why don’t you alter your image through the telelink? That way no one will know you’ve been beaten up.”
“Why should I?”
De Bris is flummoxed. “I don’t know. Just a habit, I guess. Look. I’ve some information for you.”
“I’d say shoot, but given where I live, just tell me.”
“Right after we got off the phone, I was performing an autopsy on a guy who died on the operating table.”
“So?”
De Bris plunks himself in the forehead with his palm, as if True’s brain is denser than rush-hour traffic. “You used to be a lot sharper.”
“Spare me the critique.”
“Okay, okay. These days, it’s standard OR procedure to use microcameras, so I was actually able to pull one out before it could dissolve.”
True’s interest is piqued.
“And sure enough,” de Bris continues, “it was beginning to degrade, but I extracted enough to run some tests. It’s some pretty amazing stuff, True. Durable as all hell. I mean, you couldn’t crush it with a twenty-ton reactor or melt it with a supernova. Fuck. Even a nuclear explosion might not do it. But like Sampson being vulnerable to scissors, phaseplast has an Achilles’ heel.”
“Historical figures, mixed metaphors, what’s next?”
De Bris ignores him. “I analyzed the molecular structure. Know what I found?”
“That TNT dissolves phaseplast?”
“No, uh, well, yeah. That, and certain elements in blood. How did you know?”
“Educated guess. I’m pretty sure the
shell of that missile was phaseplast. Nothing else fits.”
“I agree.”
“This helps narrow the search. But I’d imagine there’s a lot of this stuff lying around.”
“No. I called MedTekton. Turns out an old medical school friend of mine works for them. She told me some stuff, strictly confidential, so it’s on background. Okay?”
“Go ahead.”
“This company’s jonesing for secrecy, keeps tracks of every device it sends out. Employees sign secrecy oaths. Hospitals failing to keep track of every single microcamera are cut off. Can’t get them. Since insurance companies demand they be used, and MedTekton is the sole manufacturer, they get away with it. As far as she knows, the company’s lost track of maybe ten of these cameras in five years.”
“Not enough to construct a missile shell with.”
“Right.”
“Is it possible someone reverse-engineered one of them, figured out how to make phaseplast that way?”
“Nope.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“Whoever designed this stuff attached an extra molecule to it. Makes analysis impossible. As soon as I started to reverse-engineer, the molecule ran wild and the plastic disintegrated.”
“I take it there’s no more phaseplast.”
“All gone.”
“That means MedTekton must be supplying phaseplast directly to some weapons manufacturer. But to whom?”
De Bris blows his nose. “Damn allergies. Did you know that all those genetically altered fruits and vegetables they’ve cultivated have spawned whole new viruses and microbes? Everybody I know is sick. The government says its tests don’t show any correlation. Bureaucratic fuckers!” He sniffles. “I’ve got to go. I’ve already done enough work for you for one day.”
True’s absorbed in thought. There’s only one way to find out where phaseplast is ending up, and that means tripping through Cyberia. There are many risks, none more so than tipping off MedTekton. Why is he subjecting himself to this? It’s suicide, and there are waves of ways of accomplishing that. Heroes—the ultimate sacrificials; unrequited lovers, loners too, passing notes soaked in self-pity; the condemned, their free will eradicated by illness or internal strife, who orchestrate their own destruction. True’s moons are aligned with theirs. When he admitted to Aslam he wasn’t the person he once was, it was the last time, perhaps, he was honest with himself.