Citizen One (31 page)

And in the darkness of a place that he didn’t know, Piao waking, the torture within him. The ‘Electric Ant’s’ crawl across him. Screaming with the victim; into a perfumed night, until sleep claimed him once more.

*

Cold the early hours of the morning. Colder than Piao had known for a long time. A sleeping bag with a half-full sack of rice flour as a pillow. Only the distant ovens, with their whispers of hot breath, keeping him from freezing.

Finally rising, dream’s residue still in the corners of his eyes, still haunting his memory. Taking a crisp report from the cardboard box of his belongings. A report printed from the CD-Rom that the Wizard had handed to him before.

Moving through the rear door of the bakery and onto the pier. A mooncake in his other hand. The sun struggling to rise through cracked windows, to a sky still regretting that night had slipped its mooring. Sitting on the pier’s very edge with the unzipped sleeping bag wrapped around him. The smells: shit and mooncakes. The sounds: water lazed lappings and distant traffic. An aged tug groaning its heavy laden tanker into a deep water berth down river. Against the backdrop of the sable chiselled river, the shock of the report’s pristine papered whiteness.

PEKING UNIVERSITY … Central Offices

Medical report –
No. 634437893

Student Name –
Zhong Qi

Page one and two, general details. Family blood line, family medical details, record of inoculations. Childhood, details of height, weight progression, illnesses. Only on page three, references to his birth deformity. Cleft palate, harelip. Page four, detailed hospital notes from his birth to the present. As the years progressed, the notes becoming more frequent, more alarming.

‘The patient is suffering from a form of Sleep Apnea. An Apnea index in excess of 100 events an hour has been recorded, and it is strongly recommended that the child be monitored throughout the entire night. The child must be considered to be at severe risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Oxygen in the bloodstream has fallen to critical levels due to prolonged periods of not breathing during sleeping hours. Pulse oximetry has shown readings at these times of only 55% oxygen saturation. This has led to irregular heartbeats and heart failure. On four occasions to date, the child has needed to be manually resuscitated.’

A letter from the People’s Number 1 Hospital, after years of study, medicines, countless doctor’s appointments and specialist consultations.

‘A diagnosis of Sleep Apnea has been arrived at. Whether this is central or obstructive Sleep Apnea remains a mystery. However
,
corrective surgery must be seen as the best way forward. Uvuolpalatopharyngoplasty is suggested. Excess tissue will be removed from the back of the throat. Tonsils and adenoids will also be removed.’

The operation, a failure, more extreme surgery considered.

‘The patient, a healthy young comrade in every other regard, continues to suffer in excess of 100 events every hour, which must be considered to be an extreme form of Apnea. This is causing major desaturations, and cardiac arrhythmias. Surgery to both nose and throat must be regarded to have failed. It is now suggested, with reluctance, that a more extreme surgical procedure be considered to counter this life threatening problem.’

Diagrams of what the surgeon’s hands would perform.

‘Anxiety of family members and hospital staff personnel, and threat to the patient’s life, can be eliminated through a tracheostomy. A tube, temporary at first, to be inserted through an opening in the trachea. It is recommended that the tube be closed, plugged, during waking hours, and only open during sleep so that air bypasses the throat and flows directly into the lungs.’

A letter from the specialist, two months later, in response to one from Qi’s father, the Senior Colonel.

‘Comrade, I regret your decision to veto the proposed surgical procedure planned for your son, Zhong. I understand your concerns, but feel that it is my duty to stress, in the strongest terms possible, the risk to him in not allowing this surgery. He has severe Sleep Apnea. This is not a condition that will correct itself. Indeed, Comrade Senior Colonel Qi, the risk to him might well increase with age. I must
emphasise that his is the most critical case that I and my colleagues have ever recorded.’

A distant moan from a tug struggling against the turn of the tide. A mournful sound as that of a father for a desperately ill son. Piao pulling the sleeping bag around himself. Last words read. A shiver running through him.

‘The patient, your son, must be considered to be at such risk that if he sleeps for two hours or more un-monitored, death will surely follow. I pray to the ancestors, Comrade Senior Colonel, that you have made the correct decision.’

Walking back into the bakery, the Senior Investigator, exhaustion, a heavy yoke upon him. Pulling his bed against the oven wall, zipping the sleeping bag around himself. An hour’s sleep might drive the chill of the night from him, still harboured in the marrow of his bones. An hour’s sleep might drive the sound of a still remembered scream from his inner ear.

An hour’s sleep, but it would not still the alarm that he remembered shrieking from the large watch permanently strapped to the
tai zi
, Zhong Qi’s wrist. Every two hours, its voice calling …

‘Awaken Comrade, your life waits – awaken, or it will pass you by.’

*

“What do you think, Boss?”

Half a dozen wrenches of the key to resuscitate the Liberation truck into half-life. Pulling out of the depot of the Happy Smile Bakery amidst a pall of silver-grey smoke. A half-cousin of the Big Man heaving the gate open. A smile of broken teeth that would make any dentist weep. Traffic horn blaring as the truck forced itself into Longhualu, skirting the pagoda and shaving the swerve of the Huangpu.

“Thought we could do with a little anonymity, Boss.”

“And this is anonymous, a truck with ‘The Happy Smile Bakery’ scrawled across its sides? Anonymous is a battered Shanghai Sedan which we already had. It might have been better just changing the Sedan’s plates.”

Moving onto the junction with Zhongshannanlu and Ruijinglu, travelling north. Braking, accelerating, clutch slipping, a yelp of gears not meshing, the Liberation truck jolting violently. Wrestling with the stick, the Big Man. Pumping the gas. The sound of wooden trays jostling for position in the back. Piao lighting a Panda Brand, staring over his shoulder into the gloom of the Liberation truck’s interior.

“What is in all the pallets and trays in the rear?”

“Cakes, of course.”

“Cakes?”

The Big Man stretching behind him, pushing the cotton sheeting aside and reaching into one of the wooden trays.

“Fucking mooncakes. Best in the old French Concession. The cousins make 15,000 a night.”

“Yes, I did notice.”

Tossing one onto the Senior Investigator’s lap. Biting into another. A hole in the moon.

“But what are they doing in the back of a truck that we are using as our only transport?”

A bite across Clavius, another bite transecting Copernicus.

“That’s the deal, Boss. We get the truck for the job. My half-cousin gets his cakes delivered. Everybody fucking wins.”

Piao nibbling around the moon.

“Yes, everybody wins.”

Watching the traffic scrape into Shimenlu. Through gaps in the metal river, glimpses of the People’s Square. Soldiers in precise marches readying themselves for the Festival of the People’s Army of Liberation. Waves of olive green, breaking on a stone shore.

“Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one.”

*

Cobblestones, web ripped shadows, buildings frayed with age and neglect, as if this desolate part of the city was no longer possessed of life and was fading away by the second. Along with it, its history and those who had sweated it into existence.

Neon tainting mist up ahead. A fluorescent sign buzzing with the fury of a wasp imprisoned in a bottle.

“This is it.”

SPARKICE.

Parking out of view on a wharf dock cracked by ten thousand cargo loads. In mist, lighting cigarettes, Yaobang pushing open the scraped and dented doors, and the music’s blunted decibels, hitting them mid-chest and seeming to reverberate through their bodies. Aware only of the raw rock music, of black leather, lank hair over the eyes of rows of emaciated youthful bodies in sway to indecipherable lyrics, strapped to a machine riff.

Two doormen slumped bored in China Brand smoke. The Big Man discreetly flashing his badge. As ever the usual effect, their posture straightening. Riding at depth in their eyes a fear, un-named, but always just a knock on the door or a tap on the shoulder away.

“Relax, it’s not fucking official.”

A hand up, calming them.

“We are here to see, to see …”

A name scrawled in biro on the back of the hand.

“Comrade Cypherpunk.”

“Yes, we are here to see Cypherpunk.”

Feeling stupid. The next words, even more stupid, as if whispering the dialogue from a cheap, well thumbed and trashy detective paperback.

“Tell him that the Wizard sent us.”

Following the doorman, a lumbering walk into the darkness. Opening up, the vast space of the internet café. A thousand personal computers flooding the cigarette-indented floor of the aisle with multi-hued weaves. A thousand monitors exploding primaries colours. Shifting chameleon fingers over a thousand keyboard keys. Heads bowed in homage at the altar of the web.

Spray can graffiti set into the rear wall in fluorescent shrieking hues, the star of the People’s Republic in crude bite and hard-edged paint runs, now yellowed by nicotine. At its very centre, as if blight had affected this bloom, a black door. The doorman knocking twice. A splinter of yellow light. Holding a hard hand up, the doorman.

“Wait.”

Slipping through the gap. The door closing. A muffled conversation. Two, three minutes, the door opening.

“He is expecting you.”

The door pushed open. Piao, the Big Man, breaching a bank of smoke. Across the stained floor, trailing wires, piles of books, dissected electronic equipment, spilt floppy discs and CDs. The door closed.

Behind a large monitor, smoke was rising in a constant plume which wormed its way across the discoloured ceiling tiles.

“A friend of the Wizard is a friend of mine.”

Smells of the human animal encased in a fine silk suit.

“I was nervous about dealing with PSB, but the Wizard has assured me that you are, how should I put this …”

Talking in English. Clever. If picked up on a wire tap, so much more difficult to transcribe, and so much more time consuming.

“Tame.”

‘Tame’. Perhaps the most insulting word that Piao had ever heard used to describe him. Almost as bad in its mediocrity as ‘nice’.

‘You are tame, aren’t you?’

English, answering back in English. The language of kings, Coward, Shakespeare, the Beatles. Any excuse the Senior Investigator using it, as most Chinese.

“Some would not agree, Comrade. In fact, many would not agree. Including myself.”

Across the hacker’s face, uncertainty. Oxygen to an investigator.

“You are Comrade Cypherpunk? You are not what I expected.”

Soft fingers on the computer mouse, clicking out of a program. A victim’s computer stripped to the bone. A corporate server sliced and diced.

“I take that as a compliment. To surprise an officer in the PSB is not a regular occurrence. My life, it has schizophrenic qualities to it. By day an eminent university professor of mathematics, by night, ‘
voila
’, Cypherpunk. A mutually and financially beneficial relationship with the owner of this fine establishment. Hacking, it supplements a poor professor of mathematics’ pay. Without it I would be smoking China Brands like you, Senior Investigator.”

Blowing foreign cigarette smoke in Piao’s direction.

“So, you’ve come about the file. The encryption?”

“The Wizard felt that it would be impossible to break a, a …”

“A 40-bit encryption? Not for me, Investigator. Every encryption is breakable, although they would like to make you think that they are not. An encryption is just an envelope of data that only people with a key can close and open. And a key, in its simplest form, is just a string of ones and zeroes randomly generated by a computer. I was one of the first to break one in the late nineties. RSA Data Security Incorporated put out a challenge to break a 40-bit encryption product.”

Beside the computer a bowl of brightly coloured sweets. His fingers, with great delicacy, picking from it. Yaobang, picking one up, examining it in detail. Pills? Narcotics? The hacker smiling with rainbow teeth.

“Smarties. English confectionery. A hacker friend sends me some boxes every month. Good, and I am pleased to say, legal.”

Licking his fingertips. Red. Yellow. Green. Static traffic lights.

“Anyway, the 40-bit encryption provided to me by the Wizard, it took me three hours.”

Moving closer, the Senior Investigator.

“You have done it? You have unlocked the file?”

“Of course. This conclusion was never in doubt.”

His fingers across the keyboard. Data slowing. Pausing. Stopping.

MINISTRY OF SECURITY

473309169972

Carefully hunting through a topple of floppy discs next to the computer. Precise writing on perfectly placed labels.

“The advantage of having a mutually symbiotic relationship with a business man who owns a thousand computer Internet Cafés.”

Clicking the floppy disk into place in its drive. A whir of activity.

“It took 250 powerful workstations trying 100 billion possible keys each hour to break this encryption.”

PASSWORD ACCEPTED

Removing the floppy disc.

Yaobang helping himself to a Smartie. Gingerly licking it. Smiling. Throwing it into his mouth. Helping himself to a fistful of rainbow colours. The professor, a sideways glance.

“Not the red Smarties, Investigator. The red ones are my favourite.”