Daylight on Iron Mountain (27 page)

Leaning forward, he spat in Fan Chang’s face.

The old man groaned, but made no attempt to wipe the spittle from his face.

‘You forget who you are,’ Tsao Ch’un went on. ‘You forget—’

Overwhelmed by emotion, Tsao Ch’un’s voice caught in his throat. He had just noticed what kind of robe Fan Chang was wearing.

‘Is this some subtle insult, Fan Chang?
Butterflies
?’

Fan knew he hated butterflies. Butterflies and all other insects.

Tsao Ch’un turned, looking to his colonel, his anger turned cold.

‘Colonel Feng… strip him, down to his loincloth, then bind him hand and foot.’

Fan Chang looked up, a naked fear now in his eyes. ‘But my Lord…’

A great shudder went through Tsao Ch’un. ‘You are no longer my advisor, Fan Chang. I take back what I gave you. You are nothing now.’

And, with a gesture of finality, he turned his back on him.

There was a murmur of protest from Fan’s servants, but it was to no avail. Colonel Feng and his men hauled Fan Chang to his feet and, ripping his clothes from him, began to bind him.

‘Master!’ Fan Chang cried out plaintively. ‘Listen to me, Master,
please
…’

Feng slapped him hard. ‘Not another word!’

The old man groaned, his voice tearful suddenly. ‘But Master…’

Feng slapped him again, and then a third time, the last blow forcing the old man to his knees once more.

Fan Chang was crying now. ‘Master… forgive me…’

But Tsao Ch’un was unforgiving. ‘Burn it,’ he said, gesturing towards the palace. ‘Burn it all… and him with it…’

C
hi Lin Lin had come back half an hour ago, to tell Jake about the postponement. It was Advocate Yang’s view that Judge Wei and the Changs were still trying to come to some agreement, not so much about the case, but about how much Wei was going to be paid to put his name to the decision. It was likely that he’d thought about it overnight and realized just how much the Changs stood to make if he gave them this. If so, it might be some while before they were summoned back to the courtroom. Some while before they calculated what Wei’s share would be. It was all so cynically corrupt.

In the meantime, Jake was to remain here, in this awful rented room. One of thousands, as he’d discovered. Some, Chi had told him, had been here years, their fortunes dwindling in the same measure as their chances of success.

It was fucking Dickensian.

Jake looked about him at the room, dismayed. For the money he had paid he had expected, if not luxury, then at least something comfortable. But this… It was so cheap, so tawdry, it could have easily been below the Net. Or some old world dosshouse.

The mattress was so thin and unyielding, it was like lying on a sheet of solid wood. There wasn’t the slightest give in it, and as for the sheets, they were coarse and rough. Jake suspected they were made of plastic meant to feel like cloth. Because that was the way of this world. Everything was made
of plastic, and everything was manufactured to seem like something else.

The screen was blank. He reached out and touched it.

Nothing. It flickered, but didn’t come on. Jake touched it again, prodding it this time, letting some of the resentment he felt come out in the gesture. This time, slowly and swimmingly, it came alive.

News. Anodyne and reassuring, and, as he’d come to know, invariably untrue. A fake mirror on their fake world. Not a word unscripted. Not a word permitted to become utterance until it had been through a panel of Ministry censors.

Suddenly there was a view of hills and trees and…

Jake sat back a little, trying to take in what he was seeing.

Where the hell is this? England?

No, not England. It was China. Somewhere in Sichuan, yet so like the northern English countryside that Jake found his heart pounding.

For a moment longer it was there, filling the screen. Then it returned to the newscaster, a middle-aged Han, perfectly attired in a long blue one-piece
pau
and reading from his papers. Smiling tightly, insincerely, out at the watching billions.

Cumberland
. That
was what it was like. Fucking Cumberland.

Not that it had
been
Cumberland, even then. Cumberland had ceased to be a geographic region a good fifty years before
he
found himself washed up there.

Jake sat back against the wall and closed his eyes. The countryside surrounding Cockermouth, that’s what it reminded him of. And Hinton’s Academy, their youth training school, there in the northern wilds.

He hadn’t thought of it in years.

Rough skies, and cloud and rain. And running in the mud, tired beyond belief, but keeping going whilst voices yelled encouragement, because to give up would be to fail.

Oh yes, he remembered it all too clearly.

Remembered the thickness of the walls, the old buildings built like blockhouses against the winter weather, and that strange feeling of living on the frontier. Everything about it so elemental. Fourteen he’d been when he first went there. Fourteen and fragile. Not exactly a loner, just locked in; the shell he’d made for himself making it hard to socialize. And they understood that somehow. Coaxed him out of himself, bit by bit.

Church and hymns and readings from the big bible on the lectern. And
the cloaks they’d worn: black for the boys, mauve for the masters.

Another world, even then. The hardships and the slow education in self-reliance. Learning to stand on his own two feet. Only one’s own two feet weren’t anything like enough, not when the world underwent such changes. Such seismic shifts.

Maybe. But what I learned there certainly helped. There’s no questioning that. Those years in Corfe… what else was it I drew upon but that? That education in self-reliance. If I’d not had that…

Eyes closed, he could still see his friends from those times. Edward with his soft blond hair and boyish charm. Chas with his effervescent good humour and his ability to turn the worst situation into a challenge to be overcome. And Will. Perhaps the best of the lot, never fazed, never troubled, dark-haired and handsome, a leader of men.

What had happened to them all? Had they too been on Tsao Ch’un’s list? And were they dead now, their fine bones rotting in the earth?

He hoped not.

It was there, in the Academy, that he had first experienced it: the datscape, or CDL – ‘comprehensive data landscape’ – as it was formally known. There that he’d first known the high that was total data immersion.

Yes, and it was there that he’d discovered just how good he was. How natural it felt, being inside that world of coded information. How his nerve-endings had sung in those early days.

A world of boys and bicycles, beef and beer.

‘These are words beginning with a b…’

Jake opened his eyes, remembering. Wondering how it was possible he could have forgotten. Only that was the way of this brave new world of theirs. It was all one long process of forgetting.

Particularly the songs. Because songs were so evocative, weren’t they? So
precise
in locating old memories.

Like that night in the Red Lion, in the high street of Carlisle Enclave. The night of his eighteenth birthday. He had been there with Will and Ed and Chas. The first time he’d got drunk. And the songs. He could still see the old jukebox in the corner. Still see the list of songs – perhaps the best selection of songs he’d ever come across, hand-picked by the landlord… what was his name now? Joe Turnbull, that was it!

Jake sat forward, surprised by how vividly it all came back. How perfectly
it had been preserved, there beneath the wall-like layers of forgetting.

Elephant Talk. That was that song. Robert Fripp and King Crimson.

It made him wonder if a single copy of the song remained anywhere in the world, or whether it was only in his head now. One of those many things that would die when he died. Like in the Borges story.

He couldn’t recall now who had mentioned that to him. Someone had, only…

Jake stood up, looking about him. There was only a small gap between the bed and the wall. Barely enough room to turn. No. He’d go mad with claustrophobia if he didn’t get out of there for a while.

Besides, he ought to phone Mary. Let her know what was happening.

The thought brought back the conversation she’d told him about, with Peter, the previous evening. He was sure Peter was keeping something back. He had news; something he was dying to tell them, but couldn’t. Which was fine, because it made it easier to keep all this from Peter.

Gods, I hope we prevail
, he thought, pulling on his cloak, then reaching out to unlock the door and patting his pocket as he did, to make sure he had the room key.
Because if we don’t, we’re fucked.

Jake had a quiet beer in a nearby bar, then, feeling restless, decided he’d visit Advocate Yang.

Yang Hong Yu’s offices, he knew, weren’t far away. Not that he’d ever visited them – they had done their business face to face on screen – but he had Yang’s card. With a little help getting directions, he found himself standing at Yang’s door half an hour later.

Stepping out of the lift, looking about him at the state of things, his heart had sunk. This was downlevel with a capital D. As he made his way along the corridor, beggars assailed him, pestering him until he’d been forced to yell at them to leave him be. And that was only part of it. The stale smell, the tattered look of everything. It felt like a place where people had given up all hope.

And here, amidst it all, was Yang’s.

Jake reached out and knocked on the plain plastic panel of the door. There was movement inside, and then the door opened a crack.

‘Yes?’

It was a woman, Jake realized. An elderly-looking Han. Yang’s wife, possibly. She looked old enough.

‘Forgive me, but I’ve come to see Advocate Yang. I am his client,
Shih
Reed. I…’

‘Oh,
Shih
Reed…’ Yang said, pushing the woman aside and stepping outside into the corridor, pulling the door closed behind him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would have met you.’

Jake looked past Yang at the door. In that brief moment when he had squeezed through, Jake had seen past him.

‘Is something wrong, Yang Hong Yu? Are you… in trouble?’

Conflicting emotions crossed Yang’s face and then he sighed, deflating a little. ‘It is… what do you call it?… an occupational hazard. Take on the big boys and you court trouble, neh?’

‘Trouble?’

Again there was a moment’s conflict in the old man’s face. Then, sighing again, he opened the door, gesturing to Jake to step inside.

Where there was chaos, papers strewn everywhere, files torn and defaced. And over everything, the smell of shit. Of human excrement.

‘
Aiya!
’ Jake said, shocked by what he saw. ‘Who did this? Do you know?’

‘The local
tong
… Triads, you know? Probably hired by the Changs, though who is to know, neh?’ Yang, looking about himself at the mess, seemed close to tears. ‘I have had this before… several times… but not for years. I thought…’

Only he didn’t say what he thought. Instead, he shrugged. A shrug expressive of lost hope.

Poverty and distress
, Jake thought.
Signs of an honest man
.

And poor Yang Hong Yu was paying the price for his honesty.

Jake looked down. ‘Do you think I should accept their offer, Advocate Yang?

Yang shook his head. ‘No,
Shih
Reed. This makes no difference. If anything, this hardens my resolve. Such men…’ There was a sudden bitterness in Yang’s face. ‘Such men shame us all. But the sage does not bow before adversity. And neither does Yang Hong Yu. I am still your Advocate,
Shih
Reed, and I advise that you reject their offer firmly.’

‘Reject it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Whatever it is?’

‘Whatever it is.’ Yang looked suddenly stern, determined. ‘This is a matter of principle, now. Of honour. To even think of backing down…’

Yang Hong Yu bristled with anger, then looking to Jake again, he smiled. ‘You go back to your room,
Shih
Reed, while we tidy up here. I will send Chi Lin Lin to let you know when the case begins again. For it will begin, have no doubt. These scum… they can shit on us all they like, but we will have them in the end. See if we don’t!’

Sitting back in the bar, Jake couldn’t find it in himself to be so positive, so certain of the end result. It looked to him, rather, as if their chances of prevailing were diminishing by the hour; that there was little the Changs wouldn’t do to prevent a decision from going against them in this matter.

No, they intended to set a precedent. To win the war with a single, decisive battle. To nip things in the bud, as the old-fashioned saying went. And they would be as ruthless as they had to be to get that result.

‘You want another drink?’ the barman asked, seeing that Jake’s glass was empty. ‘A Dragon Cloud?’

It was piss water. Nothing like a proper beer. But there was no choice in matters like that these days. Real ale, like real music, had been done away with.