Chapter 35 — 3:56am 3 April — Shanghai, China
Stone was woken by an odd sensation under the bed sheet. A light fluttering. A breeze from an open window? No. There was no breeze.
Instinct told him to lie perfectly still.
It stopped again. No fluttering. Then there was a barely-audible click somewhere by his knee. Was he hearing things? He lay motionless in the darkness.
There it was again, the fluttering. Definitely beneath the bed sheet. It stopped again. Stone felt something on his thigh. Then another click, soft, metallic like before. His subconscious already knew, well before he was awake. The image of the colourful metal bug which Zhang had shown him, stole across his mind. The fine shell in poisonous yellow, black and red, seven centimeters long. The spiked, black mandibles like miniature antlers. And the two stainless steel injector needles, which must now be millimeters from his thigh.
The creature was light and noiseless. It was moving, feeling its way — a tickling sensation moving up the inside of his left thigh towards his groin. Were its sensors seeking the heat of his body? Or following his pulse? Or the scent of his sweat?
His mind raced ahead. If it worked by smell, and it had found him, it must know it was near its target. Almost certainly it would attack if he tried to grab or brush it off. It would latch onto his hand with the spiked mandibles, shoot in venom through the needles.
It reached the top of his thigh and stopped. Possibly confused by the hair. Was it detecting his pulse, seeking blood below the skin? It had stopped above the femoral artery in his groin. Stone made his breathing shallow to reduce his pulse strength. He willed his skin to be cold and inert. Not an easy thing in sweltering Shanghai.
The sharp mandibles grazed the hair of his groin. Where were the bug’s sensors housed? In the feet? The bug’s feet were warm and slightly tacky, six insect feet sticking lightly to his body hair as it moved, like lightly drumming fingers. It must have detected the bogus deodorant he had sprayed under his arms. It could have chemical sensors in those mandibles, seeking his under-arms. If he hadn’t been covered by the sheet he would be dead by now.
It stuck for an eternity near his groin. How long could Stone lie perfectly still like this?
The six feet moved off again. The tiny rhythmic crawling reached his abdomen, fluttering past his navel. Stone stilled his breathing again so as not to move his diaphragm. He held his stomach flat and hard. Maybe it had sensed his heart from the pulsing of the blood. It had felt the deep pulse from within his femoral artery, now it was following it, seeking the heart. Was it possible in that dark little world, that the device carried a knowledge of human anatomy? Stone knew that it was. It would be a trivial thing next to all the other programming which went into this thing. Even now those padded feet were feeling their way to the pulsing aorta and his heart. If it stopped near his heart he would have to make a grab for it. No other way.
The creature wandered diagonally across his chest, stopping for a few seconds to graze his nipple, as if to smell it with the mandibles. Was it confused? It could have jabbed in its death venom by now. He held his nerve.
Much good it did him. The bug was still on his chest, confused by the aerosol scent under his arms, to either side of it. It didn’t know which way to go. It backtracked slower than ever over to the left side of his chest and if it stayed there…
He had only one idea. He had to try it now. The was no time…
Stone threw back the sheet. The click. The shell flipped open and the gossamer wings sprang out momentarily, hovering. Stone’s body jackknifed. He caught the bug in the sheet and threw it to the floor, looking around for something to kill it with. Stone heard the door to the apartment slam.
Pulling on his jeans and boots, he stamped hard onto the fluttering device beneath the sheet, felt it crack open beneath his heel, then flipped on the light and scanned the place for more insects as he made for the door.
Stone slipped out of the apartment door and down the corridor and looked up. The elevator was descending past the fourth floor. Stone took the stairway, leaping down a flight at a time.
He’d missed the elevator by a few seconds. Darted outside, looking left and right. A figure walking away, fifty metres from him. Stone began to jog. The man glanced round and broke into a run, making for the shadows underneath the elevated highway again. He was fast, this guy, but Stone was faster. He was gaining. He could have him by the time they went under the highway — possibly sooner.
Stone closed to within twenty metres of him, then dropped his pace. Using his fitness. He would keep the guy an even twenty metres in front and run him until he was exhausted. When the fellow turned to fight, Stone would have him retching from exhaustion.
Stone ran on bare-chested through the hot night air of Shanghai. There was no traffic. They ran back across a dual track road, then into side streets. The man was turning, doubling back, trying to lose him. But Stone was too close for that. This guy was not getting away.
Onto the riverfront, the Bund. Again the man turned back. It was that or jump in the river. Stone followed into a side street. A dead end. This was it. There’d be a weapon, of course. Stone would have to strike fast and hard.
The fellow jogged to a stop and turned. Exhausted, feeling for the knife in his back pocket. Stone kept momentum. His foot landed a high, flying kick in the man’s chest, thumping him to the ground. Stone grabbed the knife. Then took him by the collar. Not much of a hit man, this guy. But then all he’d done was to bribe the superintendent into giving him a key and shove the robot bug inside.
Stone shouted questions at him in his crude Chinese, but got nothing. ‘
Something stepped between them, shoved Stone backwards. Then fetched the gasping man a wide, swinging blow with the back of the hand. There was a torrent of words in violent Chinese, like a ten second interrogation. The voice was Ying Ning’s. The guy didn’t answer. He looked suddenly furious and threw a fist at her. Not so exhausted that he wanted to take this from a woman. Only to be kicked hard between his legs and take another contemptuous blow from the back of her hand.
Stone stood back to enjoy the show. Incensed at being struck by a woman, the guy lashed out again. Again, his blows were parried and his feet taken from under him by a very neat martial art move, so fast Stone could barely see it in the dark. Ying Ning was hot-shit at Kung Fu or whatever she was using. She stood over the man and spat hard in his face.
Perhaps the spitting and the back-handed slaps were part of her own brand of martial art. The art of Ying Ning. It was effective, anyway, Stone would give her that.
Ying Ning fired more questions at the man, but got no answers. After a minute or so she stood back, hand on jutting hip and spat copiously at the man’s face once more. Suddenly like the whore in the Snake Market again. She lit a cigarette and turned round to Stone.
