SF Airstation
San Francisco Terminal Shanty, 2062
The vermilion Chinese banners fluttered in the stiff breeze as a mass of humanity poured in and out of the terminal doors. All at once, a dozen coolies surrounded Jake Hill. They jockeyed against each other to offer their services. "Hello mister! Carry luggage for you?" Jake brushed away the outstretched hands as he struggled with his bags. "No thank you! I carry myself!" he announced loudly to the porters.
No wonder they call this place the Old Walled City, Jake Hill thought to himself as he stepped inside. The hot stifling air was filled with indefinable scents and the unsettling odors of overflowing drain pipes and food-stalls offering everything from stinky tofu to pigs' feet and vinegary plates of beef chow fun.
This part of the airstation had that feeling of the Old Walled City of Kowloon, back in the days when Xiang Gang was still Hong Kong, before the British handed the territory over to the Maotsetungians.
All American school kids knew the story. Ever since New Nippon invaded North China, hundreds of thousands of Chinese had fled to America in the Great Exodus of '59. They were granted temporary refugee status under President Collins' Emergency Act of '60. Now twenty or thirty thousand of them were squatting in the hallways, concourses and lounges of the SF Airstation until it had grown to resemble a feudal Chinese city. San Francisco's Chinese-American Mayor Henry Wu had to persuade the city planners and commissioners to declare the south terminal a 'Free China Zone'
Little by little, the organism spawned deviant off-shoots of itself, building on the overloaded infrastructure in much the same way that a coral reef shores itself up in toxic waters. A maze of passageways and dimly lit upper levels were erected on layers of ramps that spun off in multiple directions.
The hubbub was deafening. In one corner of the departures lounge, a Chinese wedding procession was underway with the bride being carried in a sedan chair. Musicians blasted gongs and beat at drums while little boys tossed deafening firecrackers onto the floor.
A Chinese funeral vied for the attention of the ancestors on the opposite end of the concourse. An Italian brass band from North Beach drowned out the chorus of hired mourners who followed behind in white hooded robes. It was a gloomy fugue of celebration and lamentation.
Jake Hill stood there for a moment trying to gain his bearings. He wasn't sure which direction to take in order to reach to the Manila Clipper check-in counter.
A wily Asian child in a knit cap, tank-top, drawstring pants, and dirty bare feet grasped him by the elbow. "Need a guide? Ten coppers, I take you where you wan' go. Whatchyou wan'? Korean Air, Kwantas, Formosa Airlines, Ho Chi Minh Shuttle, United?"
Jake Hill set his bag down on the floor and eyed the strange creature that was an amalgam of rejected Asian strains. Was it a boy or a girl? Did this child have parents slaving somewhere in this sweatshop of an aerodrome, or was the kid an orphan living off the indifferent charity of a devalued Tao?
"What's your name?" Jake asked the waif.
"Ginseng," the kid replied. "Ginseng Rose."
"How old are you, Ginseng?"
"I not sure. Maybe seven, maybe 'leven?" the little girl grinned as she revealed a mouth buzzing with fiberoptic braces. That was Hainan Island work, Jake Hill thought to himself. The urchin was wired to Beijing Disney Opera in her head. Fix-your-teeth-'toons leaped from her gums and raced around her retainers. Either business was good, or someone was subsidizing the mouthworks.
She picked up his bags and began to walk down the corridor with a confident stride. "I know where you go," she said. "You go Manila."
"How did you know that?" Jake inquired as he tried to keep up with her. Ginseng Rose giggled and swiftly turned the corner into a narrow bustling passageway. She set the bags down and waved a hand for him to follow.
"Hey, slow down!!!" Jake called out when she turned suddenly into an even more congested alley. She was leading him deeper into the Old Walled City.
A pair of wizened Chinese dowagers dressed in black pajamas sat on low bamboo stools smoking pipes. They eyed Jake suspiciously and spat on the floor as he rushed past them after the girl.
Peddlers were hawking fruits, nuts, and vegetables from baskets that they carried on poles across their shoulders. Lines of laundry hung from rows of overhead apartments that stood on stilts. Tinny sounding Cantopop tunes played from speakers in the windows. A small fish-market at the corner was selling groupers, eels, clams, and sharks' fins on beds of shaved ice that glistened under naked lightbulbs.
Jake Hill almost collided into a vendor who was ladling some stir-fried noodles from a wok for some customers. "Mawn chaw chaw!" the noodle-seller exclaimed at him angrily in Cantonese.
"Ha ha!" Ginseng Rose taunted Jake from ten paces ahead. "He call you sleepwalker!"
"Shit!" Jake swore under his breath. Just when he thought the girl had given him the slip with his luggage, he caught up with her. She paused at a doorway to a small kiosk and stood there waiting for him. Where was the scamp leading him?
Ginseng Rose ushered Jake into a tiny barbershop with a single stool. It was occupied by a tall Chinese man who had a smock tied around his neck. He was being shaved by a Chinese barber who looked like a gaunt Buddha with a straight razor in his hand.
Then Jake felt a shiver run down his spine. A pair of cold eyes were studying him carefully in the mirror. They were the coldest, hardest eyes that he had ever seen.
They belonged to the man on the stool. He was in his thirties, had an angular face and a pair of thin cruel-looking lips. A long crescent-shaped scar ran from his left ear down to his jaw.
What was most chilling about the scene was that the barber shaving him had a gun pointed at his temple.
The man behind the gun was a young Chinese, in his early twenties, who was dressed in an expensive gray silk sharkskin suit. He twirled a toothpick in his mouth expertly, with an arrogant yet calculating air. He held his revolver in his other hand almost as if it were an afterthought.
The man on the chair wiped the white lather off his face with a towel and swiveled around to face Jake. The barber carefully placed his razor on the counter where he kept his lotions and stepped back.
The gunman slipped his piece into his waistband, buttoned his jacket, and positioned himself beside the man on the chair, making sure to keep both of his hands folded in front of him.
His boss removed his smock, handed it to the barber, and rose from the chair. He wore a dark blue silk robe and had a pair of hand-tooled black leather shoes on his feet. His head was shaved close to his skull and his scalp had a delicate sheen the color of eggplant. There was an amused expression in his black eyes as he gave Jake an exaggerated bow.
Nodding at the razor, he caressed his scar with his long thin fingers and let out a soft laugh. "You can never be too sure who your barber is working for. I learned that lesson from a sad experience in the past. You can never be too trusting, can you, Mr. Hill?"
Jake Hill raised an eyebrow, then glanced at Ginseng Rose. "I didn't think she brought me over here to get a haircut." He turned to the lanky Chinese. "Say, how did you know my name?"
"There's little that we don't know." The Chinese let out another tinkling laugh. "Come here, girl," he addressed the child. "Yes, master," Ginseng Rose approached the robed man.
He pulled a Generalissimo Fong bank note from a slim billfold in his sleeve and handed it to her. It was warlord money from North China, worthless in America but still accepted as currency here in New Kowloon Tong. "You have done as I asked," he told the girl. "Now you may go."
Ginseng Rose hesitated a moment then smiled at Hill. "Have a nice trip to Manila, mister."
"Hold on," Jake called to her. "How did you pick me out from the crowd?"
The little girl smiled again and nodded at the tall Chinese. "Uncle Wen tell me. Uncle Wen know everything."
"So that's how it is," Jake said as he pulled one of his djarums out of his cigarette case and lit it. He blew out a wreath of smoke, then addressed Wen. "Do you mind telling me what this is all about?"
He glanced at his watch. "I've got an airship to catch."
"Don't worry, Mr. Hill," Wen replied with a flourish of his long sleeves. "The plane won't leave without you. We still have time for a cup of tea. I would greatly appreciate a few words with you in private."
He rattled off some staccato phrases in Mandarin to his young lieutenant. The bodyguard bowed and took hold of Jake Hill's luggage.
"Your passport, please," he said to Jake with a fluent harshness that unnerved the American. Then he added, "Do you prefer an outside cabin?"
Jake frowned. "What are you talking about? I'm not giving you my passport."
"Please do, Mr. Hill," the tall Chinese entreated him. "This is our own-shall we say-'special VIP check-in' for the Manila Clipper? If you'll follow me this way--"
The Chinese barber opened a door at the back of the shop, revealing a small tidy room with comfortable leather armchairs, a Ming dynasty-style table with a jade-green top, and a pot of tea on a brazier with teacups ready. There were some in-flight magazines on the rack. They buzzed with virgin REMs that offered dream vacations to the Andaman Islands and the Celebes. An antique Chinese mirror stood against the wall, covered with a dark green brocade mantle.
"I'm sure you're not a New Nippon sympathizer, Mr. Hill," Wen gestured to Jake to enter the waiting room. "Despite your antecedents."
"My antecedents?" Jake bristled. "What antecedents? Listen, I don't know who you are or what you're talking about. As far as I'm concerned, this conversation is over. I'll be on my way now."
"Please, I sincerely apologize if I have offended you." Wen attempted to placate Jake. "Don't leave yet."
Jake noticed that his luggage had already disappeared from the barbershop. Shit. He turned to Wen with a look of resignation. "Obviously, there's been a case of mistaken identity here. If you'll help me get my luggage back, I'd be happy to compensate you. I'm not a collector of bric-a-brac, but I'm willing to buy one of these curios. How about that teapot? Would that square things?"
Wen gave Jake a crafty smile. "You may find that we have some things in common if you'll just take a moment to listen to a friendly proposition."
Jake Hill felt that he had no choice but to hear out this lunatic. He shrugged, then followed him into the back room. He had an uneasy feeling that his flight was not going to be an uneventful one.
"Please make yourself comfortable, Mr. Hill," Wen said as he smoothed the folds of his robe and sat down on one of the plush leather chairs. He removed the tea caddy from the pot and poured Jake some tea in a small ceramic cup.
As he sat down, Jake noticed a small row of vidmonitors mounted on the far side of the wall. The screens displayed different sectors of the Walled City, interiors of gambling dens where mah jong games were in progress, as well as the departure gates for all the Asian airlines.
Jake recognized the native costumes of the Manila Clipper crew on one of the screens. The stewardesses wore their traditional Filipino baro't sarongs wrapped around their slim hips. The stewards looked handsome and elegant in their embroidered white barong Tagalog shirts that hung below their waists.
A crowd had gathered at the Clipper departure gate, when a middle-aged Filipina in a cream-colored suit and a plumed hat swept up regally to the Frrst Class Mabuhay check-in. A small dark complexioned man with a bullet-head and a powerfully built body accompanied her. He carried her valise.
"Your luggage is being loaded on board as we speak," Wen assured Jake. "By the way, that's Dona Emilia," he nodded at the imposing figure of the woman. She was being escorted aboard the Clipper ahead of the other passengers.
"Dona Emilia? Who cares?" Jake was beginning to lose his patience with his host. "Tell me the name of that stewardess, the one with the long black hair."
Wen chuckled as he sipped his tea. "Dona Emilia's husband is Santiago Moro . . . the Santiago Moro. Surely, you have heard of the Minister of the Interior for the Philippines? Many are the patriots in the dungeons of Fort Santiago who are indebted to Moro for his hospitality. Not to mention the 'desaparecidas' whose numbers are anyone's guess. There are quite a few of them in the Philippines these days."
Wen took another sip of tea and went on. "Dona Emilia is travelling with Jako Benitez. He is her personal faith healer and body-guard." He added cynically. "And, some would venture to say, something more than that."
Jake Hill frowned. "That's very interesting and I can see that you're well informed. I didn't quite catch your full name."
"My apologies, Mr. Hill, for not having introduced myself earlier. And for having arranged such a last minute invitation for you to meet me . . . My name is Wen Pu-Fei."
"I wasn't aware I had accepted an invitation from you, Mr. Wen," Jake frowned again. "It's more like your little agent hijacked my luggage and brought me to this place. Of course, I was taken in by her . . . There are so many of these derelict children around. One forgets that not all of them are as innocent as they appear."
"That child is indeed special," Wen acknowledged as he blew on his cup of tea. "She is blessed with many talents."
"Is that right?" Jake had no desire to prolong this conversation although he had to admit that his curiosity had been piqued. "So what's on your mind, Mr. Wen? What do you want from me? And what is it that you do exactly? You're not an official representative of the airline, I take it?"
At this remark, Wen laughed again, this time with a sinister undertone.
"I have many different interests in the Far East, Mr. Hill. Some of my interests are commercial, while some are, well, admittedly anti-establishment. No, please don't be alarmed," he raised his hand to reassure Jake. "We are considered anti-establishment, but only by those who are ardent supporters of New Nippon's East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. That's an important distinction."
Jake picked up his teacup with both hands and studied the leaves above the swirling design at the bottom. He didn't like any of the omens he saw there. "You're with the Asian Resistance?" he said quietly. "Is that what you mean?"
"That's a rather generic name, a bit colorless even," Wen shrugged. "In Nipponese Malaya, we are called the 'Flaming Jacarandas.' In China, we're known as the 'Pine Branch That Will Not Bend.' In New Nippon, we are called-"
"Mr. Wen," Jake interrupted him. "Let's get to the point. I'm no fan of New Nippon's military machine or any of its puppet regimes. But I fail to see what any of this has to do with me. The fact is that I'm not political. I never have been. I don't belong to any groups or organizations. And I'm not about to start now. So if you're looking to recruit me, then I'm afraid that you're wasting your time."
"Please, Mr. Hill." Wen raised his hand with a sudden expressiveness that silenced the American.
Wen adjusted the voluminous sleeves on his silk robe before he continued. "You are travelling to Tokio," he declared finally. "A man of your background and distinction . . . of your special talents"
Was that a smirk on his face? Jake wondered.
"Indeed, as an honored guest of the Propamedia Ministry, you will receive one of New Nippon's most prestigious literary prizes."
"So?" Jake shrugged. "There's no accounting for taste, is there?"
Wen placed his cup down in front of him. "You are in a unique position to make a vital difference while you are there. That is why we wish to extend you any assistance that we can provide you-"
"Look," Jake cut him off. "I don't know what you're asking me to do, and frankly I don't want to know. You've just made the point that I've been trying to make. As you say, I am travelling to Tokio as a guest of the government. Which no doubt means that I will have extremely limited freedom of movement, and will be under constant surveillance wherever I go."
Wen looked at Hill with hooded eyes that were calculating and dark. "You think you have freedom of movement right now?"
"You mean in this country?"
"No, Mr. Hill. I don't mean in this country. I mean where you are . . . Right here. Right now."
Wen leaned over and lightly tapped the Jake on his hara, his abdomen that was his energy center. Jake felt his chest heave as cold electricity began to spread through his arms and legs. Suddenly, he felt dizzy and unable to speak.
That bastard Wen had obviously laid some sort of an energy tap on his life force meridians. He'd just have to fight it . . . Jake Hill struggled to regain his center. But it was no use. His neural circuits had been blown.
Wen touched Jake Hill again. The sensations of heaviness and disorientation quickly lifted and Jake began to gulp for air like a fish on the chopping block.
"I thought so," Wen remarked smugly. "You're much further along than any of us thought. You should drink some more tea, Mr. Hill. That ought to revive you."
Jake shook his head and went into an automatic breathing algorithm. Wen watched his efforts with wry amusement.
"American qigong?" Wen inquired. "May I suggest that you press one finger firmly on your 'huiyin' cavity while your abdomen is moving in and out. You will receive quicker benefits that way. Your sense of alignment is a bit off."
"Son of a bitch," Jake glared at Wen angrily. "You're messing with me."
"You're not well," Wen informed him calmly. "Let me venture to say this much: Neither of you is well. And one of you will be dead soon. But I think that you know this already."
The blood drained out of Jake Hill's face. "What did you just say?"
"You may not think highly of me, Mr. Hill. Indeed, why should you? I'm a terrorist and a businessman. But I am also--and it may surprise you to hear this--a practitioner of White Crane Shaolin qigong energy healing. Terrorism and healing are not mutually exclusive, as it is widely believed. One can be a subtle enhancement of the other. And I tell you once again, you will never survive your trip in the condition you are in right now."
"Like hell I won't-" Jake attempted to get to his feet. He slumped back in his chair feebly. "What did you mean when you said that one of us is dying?" he asked Wen in a weak voice.
How did this man know what was raging inside him? Not even Inga knew the full extent of the death that was growing inside him. He was hardly aware of it himself. His flashes of insight--could you call those gruesome imaginings of murder 'insight'?--came and went like veiled threats against himself.
Here, let me show you, Mr. Hill," Wen said with sudden concern in his voice. "I promise I won't harm you. It's not in my interest to do so. You may have thought that I was tampering with your guardian qi energy, but I was merely testing the voltage of your 'shen.' Your soul. It is in the process of splitting. Like an atom. But as I told you, I think you are already aware of that fact."
Wen took Jake Hill by his arm and helped him up. Still wobbling on his feet, Jake allowed himself to be guided to the old Chinese mirror that stood against one wall of the tiny room.
"This is a qigong mirror, Mr. Hill," Wen explained. "A very old but reliable Chinese diagnostic tool dating back to the sixth century. A Liang dynasty equivalent of an MRI, you might say."
Dramatically, Wen dropped the mirror's brocade covering to the floor. In his weakened state, Jake hardly paid attention to the writhing gilt dragons that raced up and down the sides of the heavy rosewood frame.
Instead, he was riveted by the vision he saw reflected in the marble-veined glass. It was truly grotesque.
"This confirms my initial diagnosis," Wen said in a deliberately cool tone.
Jake's exterior was calm, but he could see through it to the terror wriggling underneath. He saw the fields of buckled pavement in the Z-Zone. He saw the Jigoku Butohs laughing at him as they danced in spastic Butoh movements on their warped stage under a destroyed freeway: Necroangel, Hazeltot, Vim, Calabash, Brain-jin, and that blank Butoh which began to assume a physical shape . . . .
With horror, Jake recognized the chalk-white naked body, the shaved head, and the leering grimace on the creature's face. Blood-red lips that were curled to reveal blackened teeth. It was the shadow Butoh, the body within his own body! The shen within his own shen! Reflected on this mirror!
Jake shivered. The figure was moving! The Butoh raised his head and clawed his outstretched fingers against the inside of Jake's skin as though it was trapped behind a plate-glass window.
Wen Pu-Fei cut through Jake Hill's nightmare reverie. His voice assumed the calm manner of a clinician. "Your shens--your primary spirits and consciousness--are irrevocably linked and cannot be cut. But here, you see, if you read the lifeline on this umbilical cord from the twelve hells-there is a rupture. He moves within you, yet he is still far, far away. He awaits your arrival. But when you do merge, one of you must die."
Wen bowed his head solemnly. "I cannot advise either of you which one it should be. But you, Mr. Hill--if you will but listen to me . . . If you will only consider my offer of help, then I may be able to help you persuade HIM that it is in HIS best interest to make the ultimate sacrifice in your favor. We are banking on YOU, Mr. Hill."
As Jake trembled in front of the Chinese qigong mirror, he could barely make sense of Wen's words. "Listen to me, Mr. Hill--listen!--if nothing else, heed my warning. Watch out for Madame Moro and her dog of a faith healer! It is no coincidence that they are on this flight with you. Beware of her 'manghihilot' and his evil powers."
Suddenly, Jake Hill snapped out of his hallucinations. What the hell was he doing admiring himself in front of a shop mirror? Someone had just run off with his luggage! Shit, I don't know what happened in the Z-Zone! he thought to himself in confusion. But whatever it was, it would make a great "Tao" Smith REM adventure tale when he got back from Tokio.
Christ! Jake glanced at his watch. He had to get to the departure dock fast! He turned to Wen Pu-Fei. "Do I owe you anything for the suit? Did I just order a suit? No, of course I didn't. Well, thanks for everything. Take care of yourself. Goodbye!" He dashed out of the barbershop.