Kaleidocide (28 page)

“The relationship is over,” Korcz said with a slight grin, removing all doubt about his opinion regarding this. When he said it, I noticed Lynn trying to suppress a laugh and found myself smiling at her, since no one could see me.

“Valeri,” Terrey said with a bemused look on his face, “you're as mean as cat's piss.”

“She is still a man,” Korcz said matter-of-factly. “
He
is still a man. No matter what you cut off—”

“Wait,” Tyra said, holding up a hand in her chair. “Since this relationship is bein' ruined before it starts, all my secrets should come out.”

She paused for effect, and it was effective indeed. We were all waiting to hear what she had to say.

“I was only Tyrone for five years. Before that I was Tyra again. I mean before. I didnta have a healthy childhood, ya feel me? Got the idea that becoming a man would solve my problems. It didn't, so I went back to what I was. Long story short: Valeri, I'm all woman, and I'm sure not gonna go through that again.”

I had heard about “double trans” people, and despite Tyra's personal protestation, I had also heard of “triple trans” people. This was more and more common now that the technology for the treatment had evolved so far, and was so readily available. But this was the only time I'd ever met one—at least as far as I knew. We all looked at Korcz to see how this mini-saga would end.

“We may be able to celebrate,” he said finally, much to her delight. And Lynn laughed out loud this time.

“This is all very fascinating,” I said, “but let's get back to the point. You're telling us all this, Stephenson, because you think we should include your dreams in our protection plan. Right?”

“Well, right, I think that would be smart. But I'm not sure it would actually do any good, because they may come true anyway.” A collective sigh rang through the room, but he continued: “Look, I didn't know that she was a woman before, but even with that it all fits. My dreams predicted he would meet a woman who was also a man, or vice versa, or whatever versa.”

“It could easily be coincidence,” I countered, “even the trans-transgender thing. There could be all sorts of reasons why you might have a dream and then it, quote, comes true. What about all the other ones that don't? So let's do this, if it's all right with you, Terrey. Why don't you just tell us, Stephenson, if you happen to find something with your machine that pertains to our situation here, and then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“Well, I already have one,” he said. “And I'm afraid there's an ethical bridge to cross, too—that's why I'm telling you. In the dreams I found with Korcz and Tyra, there is one where she dies from eating something.”

A pall fell over the room, not so much from the idea that Tyra might die—that was already possible. But we all immediately felt the weight of the moral dilemma that Stephenson had referred to: Should we continue on our present course if we knew that she would die?

“Let me see the file,” I said, and Stephenson sent it to me. I watched it on my second screen and found it to be a blurry kaleidoscope of mostly indecipherable images, though there was a ten-second segment where a black woman (darker than Tyra, if I recall correctly) did gag at a table and fall over. But the woman didn't look exactly like Tyra, and the table didn't look like anything in our house.

“Upon review,” I said to the room, “I think we should postpone any action based on this, and consider it further. Stephenson, I appreciate you sharing it and want you to continue to do so, within reason, but we have to stick with what we can see clearly at this point. Is that all right with you, Terrey?”

“It's all right with me,” he said, “but I think we should use any possible advantage, whether we believe in it or not. In fact, my last agenda item for this meeting is something that you might think is even stranger.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I'm gonna suggest that we all participate in a
ban lan
ritual, the kind that General Sun uses to empower his kaleidocide.”

I was stunned, but managed to say, “He doesn't empower it at all; the power comes from money and equipment and people. His religion is just a primitive cult that doesn't really do anything.”

“He thinks it does,” Terrey said. “And if you look at the sheer facts of what has happened over the years, it seems to be working for him.”

“Terrey, you can't honestly think it would help us to pray to some eastern mystical force, or whatever it is?”

“I don't really know, mate. But I know I want to keep you alive, and the rest of us, too. And if it's even a possibility that there is something supernatural going on in Sun's religion, I say we use it ourselves in the hope it might counteract. I've done some of the rituals myself already, and we're all okay so far. So I thought we should all do it, just in case it actually works.”

“Wow,” I said. “I'm
really
gonna have to think about this one. So the answer's no for tonight. It's late, everyone should get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow.”

As it turned out, we were all going to need the rest, because the next day we would find out how deadly the colors yellow and red could be.

 

26

QINGDAO

“China is the
Middle Kingdom
,” Zhang Sun said forcefully to his chief advisors, “not the Peripheral Kingdom.”

That was one of his favorite sayings, and he pulled it out again in this meeting because he felt that Li-Zhan Wei was challenging his authority. Wei was respectful and subtle but challenging nonetheless, and the age-old imperialistic ambitions of Sun's country were an effective tool for solidifying and maintaining his own power over it.

“I am concerned that your government,” Wei said, “which is good and necessary for the prosperity of China, may be put at risk if you step out too far. The Communist party made sure long ago that the citizenry could not be armed with guns, at least not any that were comparable to what the military has. But now the people are armed with an even more powerful weapon—they are armed with the vote. You used that weapon to procure for yourself special powers in the wake of world recession and the Taiwan debacle, but the masses can be fickle.”

Sun looked around at the other faces in the meeting while Wei was talking, to see their reactions. He had to strain his eyes a little because they were not really present, only virtually. The meeting was being held in the back of his limousine, as he traveled from the airport to his next destination. The windows were completely darkened, and the car's projectors simulated a conference table with chairs around it. The holos of his advisors were imported from Beijing and other locations around the country.

“We talked a lot about the rights of the people,” Wei continued, “and how they had a right to be protected from outside aggressors and overpopulation within. But now that they have been made more secure by our military buildup, and the economy has been improved by state-sponsored birth control and euthanasia, they don't have the same fears they had before. So they start to turn their ears to the latest fashions in cultural and political ideology, some of which are directly contrary to what they wanted previously. There is still much talk of rights, but with the western religions becoming more prevalent, we are hearing more about the right to have a larger family, or the right to keep their aging parents in the home with them. And we have agitators like Gao Dao suggesting that money should be taken from the military budget to support practices like that.”

“Do you have to mention that name, Li?” Sun said, only half joking, because other than Michael Ares, this up-and-coming leader from the People's Party was the man he would most like to kill. But he couldn't do so at this time because his hold on power wasn't yet strong enough to survive the kind of martyr Gao Dao would become.

“We
must
mention him,” Wei answered. “He is young, articulate, attractive, and some dare say that he is a term or less away from being electable. Which brings me to the specific concern I have right now. Dao has also been agitating, though at a more private level, about the vast amounts of money that have been directed to your special military technology project. He knows that it would not be feasible to produce or use on a broad scale because of the cost involved, so he is pointing to it as an example of you spending the people's money for something that will never benefit them. There are also rumblings from him and other pacifistic factions that the project does not contribute to national defense, but is only useful for assassinations.”

Sun had always liked Li-Zhan Wei—the man had been loyal to him and his principles. And he especially liked Wei's name, which could mean “stand and fight” or “instigate war.” But as far as Sun was concerned, this faithful advisor was the one who was overstepping his bounds. The pet project Wei spoke of was one that could possibly make his revenge upon Michael Ares infinitely sweeter, if it worked out the way he hoped. And the truth was that he did plan to use it to eliminate others, even in his own country, who might incur his wrath. But that was not something that should be discussed in a meeting like this.

“I appreciate your concern,” Sun said, and the man seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “But this is the second time you have raised it, and the first time should have been sufficient. If I wanted to change anything as a result of what you were saying, I would have done it after the first time. So if you do this again, I will have to conclude that you require some further education about the interaction within authority structures, and I will send you to one of our correctional facilities in Siberia.”

He intentionally did not say whether Wei would be sent there as a person in authority or as a prisoner, but both were very undesirable positions in that endless frozen tundra. This had been an effective threat for many years in the former Soviet Union, and Sun was glad to revive it now that China had procured much of Siberia for the purpose of drilling for oil there.

“Does anyone else have any concerns?” Sun asked, and of course there were none, which was a good thing because his limousine had arrived at its destination, and the meeting was now over.

“H
ē
i sè … hóng sè … bì … bái … huáng,”
he whispered to himself as he exited the back of the big black car and walked toward the church building.
“Jìn … ji
ǒ
ng … zh
ǎ
n … lún … r
ǎ
ng.”

As with the first ritual at the Temple of Azure Clouds near Beijing, Sun was experiencing a feeling of euphoria even without drugs, because this setting was so perfect for his purposes. As was the timing of what was about to happen in the Napa Valley of California.

He stopped in the courtyard to study the Protestant Church of Jiangsu Road, thinking how worthwhile it was to travel over four hundred miles from Beijing, as he had done several times before. The church had an interesting history, having been built in 1910 by the occupying Germans to match an identical twin building in Germany, which was destroyed in World War II. But its history was not what attracted General Sun to the church—it was its colors. The walls were dark yellow stone, the roof was burgundy red tiles, and the bell tower and windows were a deep green. The darker shades of the colors had no doubt been chosen by the architects to give them harmony with one another, but this also made them more harmonious with Sun's
xing lu cai se.
And even the name of the city where it was located had a color in its name—Qingdao meant “green island.”

Sun recited the names of the elements and colors again as he resumed his walk to the front of the church, knowing that his people had made sure that the door was unlocked and the building empty. He entered the sanctuary, found a place in the center of it to stand, and now took in the colors on the inside of the church. In addition to yellow brick on the walls and the green of the stained glass windows, the floor was covered with dark red ceramic tile, and the altar and raised platform with carved gray marble. Gray was not a color he was invoking in this
xing lu cai se,
nor was the brown of the large wooden cross hanging above the altar. That was one reason why he stood in the center of the room, rather than at the front near the altar. And if he was honest, he would have to admit that the Christian iconography made him uncomfortable—a reaction he didn't have toward Buddhism or the other Eastern religions that were incorporated into the
ban lan jiao.

But on this trip, his uneasiness was offset by the fact that a location like this was another coincidence that pointed to his inevitable victory. The wife of Saul Rabin, founder of BASS, had been a devotee of Christianity, and her husband had followed her to some degree at least. Sun didn't know whether Michael Ares shared those beliefs or not, but he did know that Michael's wife had been raised in the orphanage started by Mrs. Rabin. Yet he still stood in the middle of the room, rather than at the altar, because though he appreciated the harmonic convergence of all these dynamics, he doubted that the Christian God would be of much assistance to him in this situation. On the other hand, Sun imagined that the
ban lan
spirits would enjoy demonstrating their superiority in a place that symbolized the presence of a competing deity.

“H
ē
i sè … hóng sè … bì … bái … huáng,”
Sun said again, out loud this time, as he slipped on the net glasses in which he would witness the assassination.
“Jìn … ji
ǒ
ng … zh
ǎ
n … lún … r
ǎ
ng.”