Authors: Gary Gibson
Half an hour later they arrived at a private airfield on the outskirts of the city. A snub-nosed passenger VTOL aircraft stood on the wide strip of tarmac, its stubby wings rotated so that the
engines pointed at the ground. Candice guided Kendrick on board and took the seat opposite him.
The opulence of the aircraft’s decor seemed almost shocking: Kendrick’s scuffed leather shoes rested on luxurious thick carpet. An antique-looking table nestled between two
comfortable couches that faced each other. He had barely sat down before he heard the whine of engines powering up somewhere beneath his feet.
“Shouldn’t we have gone through Customs or something?” he asked. But the only building he’d noticed on their arrival had been a small comms tower.
Candice smiled. “That’s nothing you need to worry about. These are minor details, and there’s always the danger of random security checks raising problems related to your
bodily augmentations.” She smiled. “I’m sure you yourself appreciate the importance of being able to move around relatively incognito.”
Kendrick nodded, and sighed. He couldn’t turn back now. The sound of the engine had built up from a faint rumble to a steady, escalating roar. A few minutes later he saw the sun flash
outside a window; they were now airborne, and he could see wisps of cloud through the glass near his shoulder.
Once the plane had levelled off, Candice unbuckled and stood up. “I’m sure you’d like some privacy,” she said. “I have some work to attend to before our
arrival.”
“Where are you going?” Kendrick asked, puzzled.
“There’s a working office next door. If there’s anything you need, just let me know.”
Candice left through a door which clicked shut behind her. Kendrick was now alone. He wondered if the VTOL might perhaps be more than just a mode of transport: it was comfortable enough to
double as somebody’s home. He imagined Smeby and Candice jetting constantly across the world at Draeger’s bidding.
He soon found that the gridscreen responded to his vocal commands, so at least boredom wouldn’t become a problem during the flight.
After stumbling across Malky’s corpse, Kendrick had spent several hours browsing through the Grid, digging up public archives relating to both Draeger and the Wilber Trials. What he found
dragged up unpleasant memories.
Draeger had been born in England in the third decade of the twenty-first century and had established himself early as a scientific prodigy. He had already earned his Nobel Prize for physics by
the time he was twenty-one. His lifelong interest had been artificial intelligence, and this led to pioneering work with “distributed machine intelligence” – networks of tiny
independent machines that worked together in colonies, highly adaptive, self-learning.
Then came the public crack-up when Draeger hit thirty, entailing a few years of psychiatric evaluation and treatment. That had been many people’s first point of contact with the name Max
Draeger.
Kendrick had gone on to scan through the more recent decades to remind himself exactly who he was dealing with. Draeger believed that the rules that allowed the universe to operate could be
whittled down to a few simple lines of computer code. Certain of his theories had an almost religious quality to them.
None of this might have mattered too much had it not been that Draeger seemed to be almost equally skilled at making himself rich. The approaches to information processing that he had developed
had revolutionized computing over the last half-century, and Draeger had since accumulated untold billions. Kendrick’s researches reminded him how much more famous Draeger was now as a
successful investor, entrepreneur and one of the richest men alive than for his earlier scientific achievements.
But then, inevitably, he came to Draeger’s involvement with the Wilber administration. Of course, it would be difficult to find a Labrat who didn’t have some degree of knowledge on
this subject.
There was no direct proof that Draeger or any of his subsidiary companies had taken any part in helping Wilber develop his super-soldier research programme, or that Draeger himself had had any
knowledge of what was going on. The suspicion nevertheless remained, bolstered by rumours of an enormous cover-up. The mere suggestion of involvement in Wilber’s atrocities had been enough to
turn much of the mainstream scientific community against Draeger.
Now – and not without a sense of foreboding – Kendrick was finally on his way to meet him.
19 October 2096
Angkor Wat
Several hours later they arrived. Kendrick was now peering down on great swathes of greenery that filled the horizon. Early during the flight, the plane had boosted high
into the upper atmosphere, until the sky darkened and the world below became a distant chiaroscuro of greens, with the occasional blue when they passed over a wide expanse of sea or ocean.
But, beyond the curve of the aircraft’s wing, he could now see only jungle, with mountains on the horizon lost in a blue haze. Below, a river cut its way through densely clustered trees,
with no visible signs anywhere of human habitation.
The notion that he had been kidnapped, that he was not being taken to see Draeger at all and had in fact been severely duped, made Kendrick’s stomach knot momentarily before good sense
prevailed. Kidnappers, after all, didn’t treat their victims to long-distance luxury flights with an excellent menu.
“The Mekong,” said Candice, appearing for the first time since their departure.
Kendrick turned away from the window. “I’m sorry?”
“The river. We’re just passing over the confluence of the Mekong and Tonlé Sap rivers. We passed Phnom Penh a little while ago.”
Kendrick nodded and glanced back out the window. He caught a glimpse of a village far beneath, gone again in an instant. A tiny nub of human life on the shore of the river below.
A lot of Asia had been badly affected by the Indian and Chinese nuclear wars, but looking down on that rich and verdant jungle it was hard to believe that quite so many countries had come to the
edge of economic and environmental collapse in the general aftermath. Kendrick couldn’t remember if Cambodia itself had become directly involved in any of the conflicts, but other countries,
regardless of whether or not they were active participants, had still had to suffer the consequences.
It was like finding himself on an alien planet.
The VTOL dropped onto a landing platform erected somewhere above the treetops. At first, peering out from inside the plane, he thought they were over a city but one covered in jungle. When
Kendrick disembarked, following Candice, the heat enveloped him like the breath of a furnace, leaving him temporarily disorientated. Massive shapes loomed above the jungle canopy for miles around;
the landing platform itself appeared to be constructed on top of some enormous ancient temple that looked like it had been lost for millennia.
Which, as it turned out, was exactly the case.
“Where the hell are we?” Kendrick muttered as Candice guided him down a metal staircase that provided a vertiginous view right down through the jungle canopy below their feet. He
studied the stone wall beside them as they descended. It was covered in inscriptions and carvings whose age he couldn’t imagine.
Smeby was waiting for them on a lower-level platform that clanged under their feet. “Welcome to Angkor Wat, Mr Gallmon,” he began.
To his consternation, Kendrick found that he was literally speechless. Smeby smiled on seeing this. “The entire complex was built in the twelfth century as a mausoleum and temple for King
Suryavarman the Second. It was only rediscovered by French explorers in the nineteenth century and was renovated over the following decades. Mr Draeger has invested greatly in the refurbishment of
the temples here.”
“I thought you were still in Scotland,” Kendrick replied. The man must have flown back here shortly after their meeting. Smeby only smiled and gestured to them to follow.
They were below the level of the forest canopy now. Large sections of the complex had been roofed over in recent years. Enormous towers rose like granite lotuses through and above the upper
foliage. Closer to the ground were low-roofed buildings – with the same colouring as the jungle – that seemed to have been designed to blend harmoniously with their surroundings.
A car was waiting for them at the bottom of the tower. The grass in the clearings between the trees had been carefully mown, and there were narrow paths laid out that connected the temple
buildings and other, more recent structures. The whole place had the air of a massive enterprise. Kendrick could see dozens of people all around them, some working behind windows, some eating in an
open-air cafeteria, others standing around chatting in the open air, all somehow contriving to look busy, creative, intelligent. It reminded him of a university campus more than anything else.
The car wasn’t really much more than a glorified golf cart. Smeby muttered a few words to Candice who stayed behind as they puttered quietly along between the various temples. They drove
by a huge stone hand covered in grass and moss, easily twice the size of the vehicle that Kendrick was sitting in.
Other vague shapes, carved faces and statues could be seen almost hidden in the dense green beyond the buildings. At one point Kendrick saw a group of Buddhist monks, shaven-headed and wearing
orange robes, seated in what appeared to be an outdoor class. Now he dimly recalled that Angkor Wat was a Buddhist holy site, and he wondered what the modern Buddhists of Cambodia made of
Draeger’s apparent appropriation of this entire complex.
Soon they came to something even more spectacular. Ahead of them rose a wide and ancient staircase, guarded by four crouching stone lions. They dismounted from the car and Smeby led Kendrick
upwards. More people – many with American accents – passed them on the steps, while a group of students sat nearby, consulting eepsheets and writing on electronic tablets.
To Kendrick they were like ghosts, reminders of an America long past and now haunting the alleyways of a dead city in the middle of a jungle. It was bewildering and strangely frightening.
At the top of the steps they came to an incongruous-looking row of elevator doors. Smeby and Kendrick stepped into one and it began to descend rapidly.
“I get the impression there’s a lot here that’s not necessarily on show,” Kendrick commented.
“What gives you that idea?” said Smeby.
“Well, the fact that we’re going down, and not up, for a start.”
Smeby nodded, conceding the point. “There are sometimes problems due to the humidity and temperature. A lot of sensitive research goes on here that needs to be carried out in carefully
regulated conditions. That’s easier and more cost-effective if you’re below the surface.”
There was a soft chime and the elevator door slid open. They passed along spacious pastel-coloured corridors that widened at intervals to encompass open-plan offices, with desks and curved
conference couches scattered in a carefully random manner. Not a university, then, Kendrick decided; more like the century-old classic model of a software company. A moving walkway, like the kind
normally found in an airport, ran along one wall. Kendrick followed Smeby onto it.
The sheer immensity of Draeger’s headquarters was overwhelming, and now that they were out of the midday heat Kendrick found he was grateful for the air-conditioned breeze flowing over his
skin. Another ten minutes passed before they arrived at yet another bank of elevators. This time they rode upwards.
This elevator was glass-walled. Once above the underground area of the complex they were soon rising past the treetops.
Kendrick glanced downwards to see the path leading to the great stone steps that they had climbed minutes earlier. At that point he’d caught a glimpse of a tall glass-sided building rising
way above – though mostly hidden among – the ruins of this lost city in the jungle. Clearly, he was now inside it.
Finally Smeby ushered him into a room so large that it took Kendrick a second to register that it was a single office. An enormous granite mural took up the entirety of one wall. It was covered
with carvings of intricate-looking Asian deities, the images telling stories that had lain hidden for centuries.
Compared with the rest of the complex’s interior, air-conditioned though it was, Draeger’s office was cool to the point of chilliness. A huge desk faced the door they had entered by,
half a dozen seats arranged round it. Beyond it Kendrick noticed several low leather couches set close to the windows that gave a panoramic view across the Cambodian jungle.
He recognized instantly the man standing by the desk. Max Draeger was wearing slate-grey dress trousers and an open-necked salmon-coloured shirt. His face was very familiar from newspapers,
eepsheets and grid docs, but particularly from the trial documents that Kendrick had once been so well acquainted with.
“Thank you, Marlin. That will be all.” Draeger’s voice carried so easily across the big room that Kendrick wondered if the acoustics had been optimized in some subtle way.
Smeby nodded briefly and retreated back into the elevator. Kendrick wondered if it was his imagination but it seemed as though Smeby looked rather relieved to be going.
“Mr Gallmon.” Draeger stepped towards him. When Kendrick fought back his own reticence and took the man’s hand an awkward silence followed.
“You look like the heat’s got the better of you,” said Draeger eventually with a practised smile. “I have some freshly squeezed juice here.”
“Thanks, but no.”
Kendrick nevertheless followed Draeger over to a chilled drinks cabinet that stood alongside the vast mural where gods warred across the wall of Draeger’s office.
For a moment Kendrick paused to study the figures that lurched and capered there. Then he turned to Draeger. “They don’t mind you taking over this . . . place?”
“Angkor Wat? No, we’re helping to preserve it – the surrounding area as well. Strictly speaking, this is Angkor Thom. It’s a little way from the main complex. My
colleague Marlin brought you here by the passages that link them.”