‘This is the hand-to-hand combat area. The products are trained exhaustively in the arts of ninjutsu, escrima, Krav Maga, western boxing, Brazilian jiujitsu, judo, Muay Thai, karate, capoeira, and of course your native Russian systema. We believe in equipping our products with a wide variety of both armed and unarmed fighting skills, you see. Also, the products learn gymnastics and, for a more real-world-applicable style, parkour.’
Hrothgar and Sigurd watched in silence as the little girls and the handful of boys struck blow after blow with mathematical precision and savage speed and power, and perfectly executed a number of holds, throws and locks.
‘Furthermore, as I’m sure you both know, as men who are members of a, how should I say, underground organisation, being an effective fighting machine is just as much about what is in your head as what you can do with your body. The next area we visit will be the mental conditioning area, and this is where the products receive their most intensive training of all. While we push them to the limits of their physical endurance and strength in the gym we’ve just looked at, and on the parkour ground, in here we push them to the limits of their psychological and emotional capabilities. We have isolation chambers where neither light nor sound can enter, water submersion tanks in which they eventually develop the capacity to hold their breath for a minimum passing standard of seven minutes, as well as rooms in which they must endure lengthy periods of both extreme heat and extreme cold. We also condition them against pain by beating them frequently.’
Sigurd and Hrothgar both nodded appreciatively.
‘This is definitely the most efficient operation of this kind that I’ve come across, and I’ll tell you this, I’ve seen a few in my time,’ Sigurd remarked.
‘Perfection is what we strive for, Mr Yolkov,’ Mr Li said proudly. ‘Perhaps in business dealings with other Chinese you may have found perfection to be a distant second to the twin priorities of low cost and high output volume? Not so with us. You see, this company was founded by a collaboration of the German Nazi Forces and the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War. This facility was built under Japanese occupation, under the guidance and design of Nazi scientists and military commanders. The first products they were aiming to manufacture here were intended to be super-soldiers which would enable the Japanese and German coalition to take out key Allied or Chinese leaders and eventually win the war, but when the Allies took the upper hand in 1944 it had become obvious that the products would never be ready in enough time to make any kind of difference. Even so, they continued product development here, more out of a … morbid curiosity.’
‘How did you Chinese come to take control of this facility and the program?’ Hrothgar asked. ‘I would have thought that the Germans and Japanese would have destroyed something like this before handing it over to their enemies.’
Mr Li smiled.
‘Despite pretences of egalitarianism and the chanting of communist rhetoric and slogans, there were many commanders within the People’s Liberation Army who had hungry eyes for anything profit-driven that would serve as lucrative future investments, even during the transition to a completely communist economy. One of the generals of the People’s Liberation Army cut a deal with the overseers of this facility: that he would take over ownership and keep their presence a complete secret from the government, in exchange for the lion’s share of its profits. Of course the Germans and Japanese working here would have been tried in an international court and sentenced to death for war crimes, as most of the initial experimentation was done on prisoners of war and orphans of war, the majority of whom went utterly insane or died gruesome deaths before the program became stabilised and effective. With no way to escape, they had little choice but to stay here, where they were protected by the Chinese general, and they continue to work on the program in secret, honing and perfecting their techniques and processes over the years, while the rest of the world believed that they had died in battle.’
‘That’s quite a story,’ Sigurd remarked. ‘But you’re neither German nor Japanese. So how did you come to own this facility?’
‘The last German scientist who was working on this project died in the early nineteen-nineties, and the last Japanese doctor in the eighties. That general in the People’s Liberation Army who took over the ownership of this facility and protected its secrets, he was my grandfather. Family is very important in our culture, you see, especially when it comes to family and business. I must uphold the standard of excellence that the Germans and Japanese established here in order to honour the memory of my grandfather and his legacy.’
‘You seem to be doing a good job so far,’ Hrothgar commented.
Mr Li bowed slightly to Hrothgar and gave him another plastic smile.
‘Thank you, Mr Goremykin. Now, shall we demonstrate some more of our mental and psychological conditioning techniques for you?’
‘Certainly. Let’s hear about it.’
‘Well, from the time the infants are old enough to have developed sufficient motor coordination to wield tools dexterously, which is usually between the ages of three and five, we put them to work in our local slaughterhouse, which is located outside the nearest village, seventy kilometres away. The slaughterhouse owner is appreciative of the free labour we provide, and he is a powerful man in the village, so he makes sure no questions are asked about our facility.’ Mr Li paused to beam out a self-satisfied smile before continuing. ‘The products are only physically strong enough to kill ducks and chickens at that age, but the point
