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The Forbidden City
“So – what, I’m always going to be hostage to your feelings?! You’re going to leave me behind all my life, I’m never going to be allowed to do anything, is that it?” Finn was so angry he thought he might burst.
“Yes,” confirmed Grandma.
“No!” said Al, “because Kaparis will soon be caught and you will soon be macro again and we’re all going to live happily ever after.”
“Oh yeah? When exactly – and how about the truth for once. Because you’ve been promising that for a while and all we’ve got so far is a dead mouse!”
Finn stormed back towards the seed tray tower block.
Al sighed. “Finn, stop … Truth is, there is a possibility that we may never be able to bring you guys back to size,” Al said.
A moment stretched in silence. Finn felt weak at the knees. It felt strange having someone speak your worst fear out loud.
“But it’s one possibility out of many,” said Al, leaning into the compound. “I want you to look at me …”
Finn looked up into Al’s clear, crazed, curious eyes.
“Your father used to say ‘we are bound only by the speed of light and our imagination’ and no matter what it takes, I will find a solution and bring you back – so help me Richard Feynman.”fn2
Grandma appeared over Al’s shoulder, eyes filling for all three of them. “Before he could walk or talk your Uncle Al could work a television remote control. He’ll find a way to fix things.”
Al paused. “You are precious to us, see … And we’re never going to put you at risk again.”
Finn bowed his head, resigned. While they loved him he was their prisoner; that’s just the way it was with families.
“And stop behaving as if it’s the end of the world,” insisted Grandma. “This is not an ‘end of the world’ situation – it’s term time.”
When it came time for goodbyes it was all a bit of a rush.
“Happy birthday, kiddo,” said Kelly and scuffed Finn’s hair, offering his great block of a fist to bump – an action that usually deteriorated into a punch to the side of Finn’s head as Kelly pretended to forget how to do it. “Sorry you’re not coming with us.”
“No you’re not,” said Finn, taking the punch.
“True,” Kelly lied. “But someone has to stay at mission control.”
“Think yourself lucky,” said Stubbs. “I don’t travel well at all.”
“We’re supposed to be a team!” said Finn.
“And you’re supposed to be thirteen years old,” said Delta, hugging him. “What matters most is you staying in one piece.”
Finn watched them climb aboard a model train bound for the CFAC exit.
“We’ll be back before you know it!” said Delta.
“I’m not going to think about any of you!” Finn called as they pulled away. “I’ve got Yo-yo, I know he loves me!”
“Yo-yo doesn’t love you,” came Al’s voice from on high, “he’s just the dumbest connection of nerve endings, protein and hair ever thrown together by a random universe.”
Al saluted and winked.
“Text me updates – and Skype as well – and bring me back a kung-fu mantis, not just a green one but something special! And don’t you dare have any fun!” Finn yelled.
“Moi?” grinned Al, all innocent.
“Sir, the Commander is waiting,” called a technician.
Al’s last words were, “Look after Grandma!”
Then Finn watched his uncle disappear.
Up on a monitor he saw him getting hurried across the CFAC to a waiting chopper. Soon they’d all be on an overnight flight to Shanghai. Power was leaking from the building.
At least he and Hudson could spend the rest of his birthday repeatedly blasting their way through successive digital war zones while consuming snack food. It would give him time to process his emotions and the events of the day. There are limits on everything when you’re thirteen years old, he thought … A thought immediately interrupted by—
WHUMP! The sides of the biosphere shook.
“Hey. Birthday greetings,” said Hudson.
Without fail, and despite repeated warnings about vibration, Hudson would chuck down his school bag whenever he came into the lab, sending a minor shockwave through the nano-compound that could shake Finn clean out of bed.
Hudson collapsed into the beanbag next to the compound, fringe flopping over the top of his glasses as he emitted the latest playground gossip. “Guess what? Skeggy’s older sister took him to get a tattoo of a phoenix but his mum found out and stopped it halfway so now it just looks like a chicken with worms coming out of its butt.”
He stopped at the sound of the helicopters overhead.
“Hey, where’s everybody going?”
“Secret mission. Can’t say or I’d have to kill you,” said Finn.
“I thought we were meant to be a team?” said Hudson, indignant.
“Tell me about it,” said Finn.
“We are a team!” said Grandma, catching the end of the exchange as she bustled into the lab, dragging Hudson’s sack of sleepover bedding after her. “We’re the three musketeers! It’s me, you and Hudson!”
Yap! added Yo-yo, bouncing in her wake.
“And Yo-yo. And guess what I’ve got tickets for?” Grandma looked very pleased with herself.
“What?” Finn hardly dared ask.
“Bulb Expo! Tomorrow!”
“Bulb Expo?” said Finn.
“Turns out Commander King is very senior in the Royal Horticultural Society and he’s given me three tickets. We’ll have a marvellous time!”
“Is it a light show?” asked Hudson
“No, silly,” said Grandma, “it’s garden bulbs! Like The X Factor for flowers.”
Garden bulbs? Finn felt something snap inside.
“I am not going to a poxy flower show!” he yelled.
“Nonsense. I can’t just go with Hudson. We can’t be two musketeers, we must be three!”
“Yes you can – he can tell you about his butt worms.”
“Goodness. Have you got worms, Hudson?” asked Grandma.
Hudson looked stricken.
“Not me!” cried Hudson. “Skeggy!”
“Who on earth is ‘Skeggy’?”
Hudson regarded her in terror, knowing he was about to undergo ruthless cross-examination.
Finn was about to storm back to his quarters when suddenly he was struck by a brilliant idea.
“Hold on,” said Finn. “Grandma, where exactly is this flower show?”
“Chelsea.”
He was going to do it …
Because he had learned a lesson after all today – you have to take your chances …
Kaparis received intelligence reports of helicopters heading north from Hook Hall towards Heathrow and the holding of a China Airlines flight.
Tedious, he thought and felt a tingle of irritation.
They must have spotted Baptiste was one of his and decided to act. They would be too late, of course.
Should he bring bot distribution forward? He had the time. He would soon have the numbers.
Or maybe he just needed to create a little distraction?
To muddy the waters and give Allenby a shock he would never forget?
“Prepare a Viper squad,” he ordered Li Jun.
Two and a half hours later, Dr Allenby, Commander King and the thirty-three other members of the Hook Hall detachment were cruising at 35,000 feet in a Boeing 747 bound for Shanghai. The evening meal had been served and the cabin lights had been dimmed.
The flight would take eleven hours and they would move seven hours forward in time. Al was reading The Art of War by the ancient Chinese warrior, Sun Tzu, to get into the right mood. “The General who wins makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought,” he informed anyone who’d listen.
Out of the window the endless night passed, deep with secrets.
DAY TWO 07:00 (LOCAL GMT+8). Cash Till#3, Kung Fu Noodles, The Forbidden City, Shanghai. Nano-Botmass:*25765
SEE VECTOR RUN …
Sparks flew as carbon was fed into spark gaps at one end of the production suite. It was consumed, worked and transformed as it was drawn along an assembly line.
*25766 …
An instruction from an XE.CUTE bot at the head of each suite determined which of the fifty-two types of bot would be replicated.
*25767 …
There were now forty-three production suites fixed like leeches to the electronic innards of the cash till, each a miniature factory, each running at full capacity. Eleven more were partially constructed across cash tills #2 and #3.
*25768 …
Bots crawled and flew through the three cash tills and constantly swapped data and power through long whip-like antennae, bots of every kind and colour, waiting to slot into place to form a new production suite on the crammed motherboards.
*25769 …
Desperate to replicate.
The PRIME XE.CUTE sat at the head of suite #1. Like every other XE.CUTE in the botmass it passed on the photonic light of life as each new bot emerged. With a quantum kiss.
It was endless.
*25770 …
*25771 …
*25772 …
*25773 …
*25774 …
DAY TWO 17:43 (Local GMT+8). Shanghai, China.
The late afternoon sun threw itself off the glass cliff face of a hundred skyscrapers and a twenty-first century metropolis spread out before them like a cloth of gold.
Shanghai. The Pearl of the Orient. The largest city on earth.
Gold, King noted, because sunlight was filtering through a haze of airborne pollutants, through a haze of energy and effort. A city of a thousand cranes, of a million cars, millions more bicycles and countless busy people – yeast in the global economic dough.
The Hook Hall team were transferring from Pudong International Airport into the city aboard twin Z-15 PLA helicopters. From parks and green spaces, tethered dragons curved up towards them, extraordinary stacks of multi-coloured box kites, part of an annual festival. Looking south the team saw the Forbidden City industrial complex laid out before them, a crazy dartboard of radial roads and white-walled factories.
Bo Zhang, who had welcomed them with a faultless snap of a salute, explained that at the centre of the Forbidden City, where security was tightest, were the government and military research institutes and cutting-edge companies such as Qin Research.
“We will establish ourselves at our headquarters and then go to the city,” Bo Zhang explained, and the helicopters banked to fly into the heart of Shanghai.
“Wow …” said Al.
It was clear the Chinese were going to look after them.
The spanking new Siam Towers Hotel was a bejewelled stalagmite: ninety-nine stories of luxury (including a helipad). The top three floors of the hotel had been turned over to the G&T, including the five-star Roof of the World restaurant, which had been transformed into an operational centre that was already up and running. Feeds to world leaders connected on one screen array. On another live CCTV and intelligence feeds from across the city were at their disposal. A huge central table had been set up for the most important players.
There was more to come as they were shown their rooms.
Commander King hated hotel rooms, thought them vulgar, and relied on handmade silk pyjamas for a sense of quality and comfort whenever he was travelling, but even they seemed cheap in the suite he’d been assigned.
Al loved hotel rooms. The minibar, gadgets and gizmos, the complimentary snacks and toiletries. His suite on the ninety-eighth floor did not disappoint. It was fitted out for the super-rich, with three dazzling rooms that boasted an interconnecting tropical fish tank – who could live without one? – and a bed the size of a tax haven from which he could look down on the Shanghai Bund riverfront. The cityscape that bloomed beyond looked like something out of a comic book. It looked like the future.
He must tell Finn. He took a picture, adding:
View from the top – Shanghai. Wish you were here, kiddo.
Then he focused on a little food van parked on a street corner, below. There was a queue. What was it selling? Dim sum? Ice cream?
Whatever it was, Al thought, I’m going to get me some.
A minute later, seized by the moment, he was travelling down the rapid elevator.
DAY TWO 18:16 (Local GMT+8). Song Island, Taiwan (disputed).
Activity increased on Song Island, and not just among the birds battling for nesting space on its craggy outcrops.
“Move fast,” snapped Kaparis.
“Vipers One, Two and Three in position,” reported Li Jun from her bank of screens.
Each Tyro in the field had a direct camera and data feed relaying information back to Song Island.
“Target approaching – hot hot hot,” reported another voice.
“Viper Four, you have visual?”
“Visual,” confirmed Viper Four.
The screen array above Kaparis became a clash of city images as his team closed in.
“Vipers One, Two and Three?” asked Li Jun.
“Visual …” “Visual …” “Check – visual …” came the response.
Kaparis could see the operation coming together, could see his quarry, could see his squad drawn up and ready to strike.
His pulse rose. Microprocessors instructed his iron lung to increase respiration.
“Command?” prompted Li Jun.
“Commence Viper,” ordered Kaparis.
He watched as the Tyros moved as one.
DAY TWO 10:16 (GMT+1). London, UK.
The number 11 bus made its way down the King’s Road, Chelsea, heading towards the Bulb Expo, and up on the top deck Finn was happy, looking out of the window and remembering all the times he was brought up to London as a treat by his mum – to go to the zoo, see a show, or visit Al.
They had taken the bus on Grandma’s insistence and Finn was perched in Grandma’s nDen, an adapted brooch pinned to her coat. He would transfer to an even smaller nDen on Hudson’s baseball jacket (disguised as a button badge that read ‘Be alert – your country needs lerts’) later.
As the bus stopped Hudson rose, nervous. He was not good at breaking rules. He lumped down the stairs of the bus, carrying Grandma’s wicker basket. Three undercover Security Service Officers – ‘Suits’ – followed. The boys’ secret plan was to escort Grandma into the show for the bare minimum of time before being “free to do their own thing” and visit the museums for a couple of hours, or as free as one could be with the Suits hovering. But little did Grandma or the Suits know that hidden in the mouthpiece of Hudson’s asthma inhaler was the X1 nCraft – the Ugly Bug …
They’d bagged it the night before just after lights out. Finn had said, “Hudson. Don’t go to sleep yet. I’ve got an idea for tomorrow.”
“Is it about flowers?” said Hudson.
“No. Ever stolen a car?”
Later, after much debate and reassurance, Finn had directed Hudson to crawl below CCTV range in order to slip into Lab Three where they’d nabbed the Bug. They would both be in terrible trouble if they got caught but, as long as Hudson held his nerve and avoided a major asthma attack, they wouldn’t get caught.
For once Finn was going to be selfish. For once he was going to be free – even if just for an hour. They would find a way for him to board the Bug unseen and, while Hudson made his way around the Science Museum, Finn would fly around London – looping the Albert Hall, racing around Hyde Park and even dive-bombing the Changing of The Guard …
VROOOOOOM!
The moment Hudson and Grandma stepped off the bus Finn heard the screams of over-revved moped engines. In the microsecond blur before the first Vespa hit the curb and knocked Hudson flying, Finn saw all three Suits reach for their guns.
“Grandma!” Finn yelled, but before she could react everything went red, white and blue – SLAM – she hit the pavement and all Finn could hear was screaming, all he could see were shoes and smoke and tyres …
Vespas circled, engines buzzed, gushing out coloured smoke like the Red Arrows – one red, one white, one blue. Each moped was driven by a Tyro, each with a passenger, infrared visors giving them clear vision through the fog.
Kaparis caught sight of Hudson unconscious in the gutter. He could hardly believe it. His pulse leapt, his mouth watered … Drake. Why else would the Allenby woman be dragging the idiot Hudson around London except as a companion? He felt something bloom through his consciousness: Fate. He could almost smell the boy.
“Take her down fast! Get her into the container!”
Tzzzzzooft. Tzzzzzooft.
Silenced bullets spat from sidearms. Down went two of the Suits.
The third stood over Grandma to protect them, yelling into his radio. People on the street were scattering or screaming.
The three Vespa passengers dismounted. One aimed at the last Suit and shot out his knee. The Suit collapsed in agony but returned fire, felling one of the attackers.
Two remained. As they flipped up their visors Finn saw them. Identical twin girls, Thai, but with albino-white skin, flat eyes and fixed grins. One had a scar across her face, the other had chrome spikes sticking through pierced ears and lower lip.
“WHAT on EARTH do you think you are doing?” Grandma thundered at them from the ground.
For a moment they seemed surprised. Then, still grinning, they kicked themselves into the air to assault her.
With a sling-shot of her handbag – WHUMP – Grandma caught Scar in the solar plexis and sprang up. A snap pirouette (learned in the Miss Ellis Ballet School circa 1958) avoided Spike’s incoming fist and was followed up by a D’artagnon-like swipe of the umbrella – DOINK – across her throat.
There was a moment of relative calm as the twin attackers reeled at Grandma’s feet.
“Woah,” said Finn.
But then –
“Go Viper Four!”
Just behind the bus a street sweeper detached himself from his cart and ran towards Grandma, swinging his broom like a majorette, clipping Grandma’s ankles and sending her back to the pavement (she never expected such a thing from a local council employee). Spike and Scar seized her and sprayed something in her face.
“NO!” Finn cried as all three began to manhandle her into the street sweeper’s cart.
He kicked open the nDen and was immediately hit by a sweet chemical smell … then everything slowed down and went black.
Nobody noticed the street sweeper and his cart emerge from the smoke. His passage south was uninterrupted. When he reached the river he pushed the cart to the end of a jetty and transferred it to a waiting speedboat.
Moments later the boat was cutting through the grey-brown water of the Thames.
DAY TWO 18:38 (Local GMT+8), Roof of the World, Shanghai.
Al headed back up in the elevator surrounded by a team of Chinese State Security Officers who had appeared in alarm while he queued at the ice-cream van.
On the top floor King and Bo Zhang waited for him to arrive. King had been alerted to the misdemeanour – “Allenby has left the building! Without an escort!” – and had agreed to talk to him about his conduct. Eccentricity might be seen as a marker of genius (or just an annoying trait) in Britain, but in China it bore no such association.
Then an emergency call came in and King had to step back and pick up a phone.
The elevator doors slid open and Al stepped out.
“Doctor! I insist we follow security protocols!” said Bo Zhang in polished distress.
“Take a chill pill, or at least get yourself one of these,” said Al, indicating the ice-cream cone. “If we’re going to work together, you have to understand my only rule is – ‘there are no rules’. Frees up the mind, y’know? Helps to think.” Al gestured expansively.
“Your working methods are your own. I am responsible for your personal safety!” snapped Bo Zhang.
From his phone, Commander King cut across them both.
“Gentlemen –” he looked grave – “we have a problem.”
DAY TWO 23:59 (Local GMT+8). Kung Fu Noodles, The Forbidden City, Shanghai. Nano-Botmass:*249994
*249995 …
*249996 …
*249997 …
*249998 …
