The Machine

week under anti-terrorism legislation, but they’d had to release him because he’d broken no law. The story was picked up by mainstream media, and NotFutile.com took off from there.

In the early days, Stone was constantly under surveillance. He spent a year or so living out of one bag, alighting in one country after another. But then the bizarre offer of a professorship at West Fleet University had come along.

“Ethan Stone — Professor of Peace Studies.” He had to laugh. He wasn’t professor material, and he didn’t make much of a study of peace. More a personal war against the arms industry. Stone joked once that Professor of Sick and Unusual Weapons Systems would have been a better title, and that was the title Jayne stuck on his office door last Christmas. It made her laugh anyway, and since the Vice Chancellor thought it “sent out the wrong message”, Stone had kept the laminated sign on his office door for the whole year.

The phone rang again.

‘George wants you as soon as possible, Stone. You’d better get your arse up here.’

‘Since you ask so nicely.’ Stone answered, ‘And can I just say I’ve always appreciated your professional manner?’

‘Just get up here!’ she laughed.

He hung up, but had no intention of leaving the room. He walked over and gazed out of the window again. He liked Jayne — she was fun, flirtatious. Much more his type than the hero-worshipping students who followed him around.

If Stone had ever had doubts why University Vice Chancellor George had impulsively hired him as the first Professor of Peace Studies at West Fleet, they didn’t last long. Stone’s NotFutile.com web site and his reputation had given West Fleet the image of being cool and radical. He’d attracted hordes of students. The whole university gained a higher profile. Journalists and camera crews were suddenly regular visitors. ‘Good for business!’ as Watts always said, sounding like a marketing man. Which was what he was, mostly. Not his fault.

Stone remembered the words of one cringe-making reporter:

‘No straggly beards and sandals here,’ she said. ‘Peace activist Ethan Stone combines Zen-like commitment to his research work with the looks of Keanu Reeves.’ Keanu Reeves? It took him months to live that one down.

But it was true that the unconventional new Professor had given the university an image of being modern, progressive, ground-breaking. Stone himself had gained a kind of rock star persona. The girls at the student newspaper made him look cultish and cool, and always printed pictures of him. They said he had managed to make the non-violence movement sexy. Which was an achievement in itself, considering Stone was an eco- ultra, and took a hard-line stance against consumerism. He took his salary in cash, refused a bank account, lived in one room like a student. They said he was a believer, a man without hypocrisy.

And they were right. Nothing “eccentric” in that as far as he was concerned. Stone hated the publicity nonetheless.

There was a scuffling noise outside the office door and Vice Chancellor Watts burst in, red-faced, just as Stone’s phone rang again with a call from Jayne.

‘With you in a second, George,’ said Stone glancing down at the screen in front of him.

‘I need to speak to you, Stone,’ he said, flustered.

‘You don’t say,’ said Stone without looking up. Whatever George Watts wanted to say would have to wait. ‘As it happens, I need to speak to you too,’ he said. ‘I’ve just discovered something. I received a particularly nasty video through the NotFutile.com site,’ said Stone. Watts was looking mystified. ‘Illegal weapons testing in Afghanistan.’ Stone didn’t elaborate. Watts would probably have thrown up if he’d seen that film-clip. ‘But it’s more interesting than I thought. If interesting’s the right word.’ Interesting was definitely not the right word.

Watts looked nonplussed at being talked at by Stone, but Stone continued. ‘You see it seems the mercenaries, Special Circumstances, have been testing a weapon out there in Afghanistan, and sent the details to NotFutile.com to gain publicity. That’s bad enough,’ said Stone. Watts was still looking wary and confused. ‘But they made a mistake. The manufacturer of the weapon put a name plate on it. Only the mercenaries didn’t think to remove it, because they couldn’t read it.’

‘What do you mean they couldn’t read it?’ said Watts.

Stone’s eyes were cool, but behind them his mind was fixed on the image of Hooper, shot in cold blood by the mercenary. Stone was by nature dispassionate. He had a reputation for it, and it had made him a cool killer himself in his time. Yet he was seething with anger after what he’d seen — a cold hard anger. Stone's jaw was fixed with gritted teeth as silently turned the computer screen to show Watts the frozen image of Ekstrom’s dish-shaped weapon. He stared at Watts, his eyes like chips of grey ice, unblinking. It always made Watts nervous when Stone did that. Watts went red in the face and played with his cuffs.

‘There was a manufacturer’s nameplate on that weapon, George,’ said Stone pointing at the screen with a pencil. ‘New Machine Technologies, Shanghai, China. The mercenaries didn’t notice, because it was written in Chinese, but it’s clear as day. I did a year of Chinese at Cambridge, remember?’

‘Before you dropped out, Stone,’ said Watts, tartly, but still playing with his cuffs. ‘But I don’t see where that gets us.’

‘I did an online search for this firm, George,’ said Stone. ‘New Machine Technologies is a Chinese company. It appears to be a subsidiary of ShinComm Corporation, also of Shanghai, although the ownership structure is a bit vague.’

‘ShinComm are huge,’ said Watts, trying to look knowledgeable. ‘They make smartphones, laptops that kind of thing. Mostly for the Western market.’

‘Sure. But I haven’t finished yet,’ said Stone, still pointing at the screen. ‘Take a look at this. This is a Youtube video clip which came up when I searched on New Machine Technologies.’ Stone began to play the clip on the screen while George Watts watched.

The Youtube clip showed a press conference with the search technology billionaire, Steven Semyonov. The video began as the camera alighted on a rookie reporter for GNN — Global News Network. An attractive young Japanese woman with the name Junko Terashima on her lapel badge. She looked nervous, almost guilty, like one of the quiet girls at school who'd landed herself in front of the principal. The camera flashed back to Semyonov’s face. He smiled like an all-knowing Buddha as she asked the question. Stone had watched this part maybe thirty times already.

‘Junko Terashima, GNN, Washington DC…’ the young reporter began, voice quavering. The whole room looked at her. Her face had a sheen of nervous perspiration as she read from a card.

‘Mr Semyonov, can you confirm you’ve taken a major shareholding in ShinComm and New Machine Technology Company, of Shanghai, China?’

The video flipped to a close-up of Semyonov. There was no reaction in Semyonov’s white face. The penetrating eyes betrayed nothing.

‘I have a great many investments, Junko,’ he said casually. ‘Your point?’

She cleared her throat again as if steeling herself, then read on. ‘As a major shareholder, Mr Semyonov, you must be aware that experimental weapons manufactured by ShinComm have killed hundreds of innocent civilians. How do you feel about that?’

Stone stared the close-up of Semyonov’s smooth face. It was the half smile that hooked him. A smile with the mouth and not the eyes, and it lasted a split-second too long. There was a hairline crack in his impenetrable intelligence.

‘You are mistaken, Miss Terashima,’ Semyonov said simply, but deliberately, and moved on to the next questioner. As the video clip finished, Terashima was being bundled out as a troublemaker.

Watts looked more uneasy than ever. ‘I don’t see the point,’ he said. But Watts saw the point very well. Semyonov was a very powerful man — intelligent, rich. Most of all he was popular. ‘I don’t know what you’re