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Author's Note: I wrote this unfinished cyberpunk novel in January–February 2001, at age 27, while living in Taiwan and running the game studio Taldren. It was written in the spirit of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and William Gibson's Neuromancer—a near-future thriller set in a world of corporate espionage, cybernetic implants, and underground economies.
What strikes me most, reading it now, is what the novel imagined years before these things existed:
The novel follows Ronan, a Korean-American corporate spy working for Hyundai's Special Information Division, as he arrives in Taipei on a mission to destroy a pirate robotics factory in Laos. Things go sideways at the airport. Only five chapters were completed before life and work intervened. I present it here unfinished, with only light grammar fixes—my voice at 27, preserved.
Taipei International still had rather terse Chinese and English signs declaring the death penalty for drug traffickers. Ronan wondered how many stupid, unconnected gaijin had been executed.
Immigration control is held in a huge hall with marble the same color as other not-fun-white government buildings around the world. Ronan recalled his identity for the stay, Mr. Cheun—a businessman—in software.
The clerk behind the counter had a smear of red lipstick for color, jarring in this white and gray hall.
"Mr. Cheun," the clerk said, "have you been to Taiwan before?"
Recalling quite a few memories, "No I haven't. I'm looking forward to it," Ronan said.
"Just a moment sir."
She tapped away on the keyboard without apparent purpose. She was just stalling to give the cameras time. Ronan avoided looking at the cameras directly but noticed the cameras were being actively operated as opposed to the normal inert state.
"Welcome to Taiwan," she ended the interview.
He walked towards baggage claim.
"This way, please sir," two airport security guards approached Ronan off of the exit corridor. Ronan stalled for time by just ignoring them for a moment and kept walking.
Two firm grips on the shoulder, "This way sir", with just enough pressure from the grips to let Ronan know that these guys are looking forward to him ignoring them again.
"Oh, of course," Ronan replied.
Walking into the interview room Ronan mentally inventoried his past jobs in Taiwan, and tried to recall which laws he broke that would interest the New Republic of China Immigration Corporation—the NRCIC.
"You have been here before Mr. Grabbins or is it Mr. Orange or Mr.?" a new suited security guy said.
"So, you have good retinal cameras. My information was poor, I was told you only used visual." Ronan replied.
"We use the best, we just don't flaunt it."
"Why have I been retained?"
"We are working under contract from a Mainland interest. They want you delivered to Fujin in three days." The suit smiled.
"I do have a business card, net contacts, an agent, and 15 different xphone numbers, tell your Mainland to contact me properly. I am leaving," Ronan stood.
"We cannot allow you to do that. The contract is too high for us to ignore."
Security A and Security B moved towards Ronan. B from the left, A from the right. Suit remained seated.
Ronan sighed and realized he did not give himself enough time to think it through. Being kidnapped and taken to a province in China just was not on the list of Things To Do Today.
A and B had steroid pumped muscles—Ronan felt that when they led him to the room. But FastReflexes was almost certainly out of their budget and Ronan highly doubted that the NRCIC was in the habit of dumping 100 million NT into their beef boys. However, Ronan had FastReflexes.
Ronan watched the suit as Ronan's right palm pushed A's nose back into his skull. A moment later, Ronan used A for added leverage as the left foot snapped at B's solar plexus. A and B were headed for the floor. The suit was now reaching into his jacket.
Speed is life. Ronan dove across the table right hand chasing the suit's hand in the jacket and left hand grabbing his neck.
Ronan's ceramic claws in the left hand punctured the big neck arteries, but he held them close with pressure. Two hands from two different men held the gun, but safely pointed at the floor.
"I just sliced your right-carotid artery. You will faint in 3 seconds when I let go and die shortly after that," Ronan said, "Release the gun and replace my hand and grip your neck as I am doing."
The man complied. He still had one free arm, two legs and a recovering Security B.
"Now I am going to slice your left, you will need to take your free left hand and apply pressure."
Ronan did not wait for acknowledgement; never squander the advantage of initiative. The man complied again.
"Now tell this guy to sit on his hands and face the corner."
"Han, do as he says," the suit said.
Security B's mouth opened and closed by a look from the suit. He shuffled around and sat on his hands.
Ronan surveyed the room. He walked over to B and brushed the back of his neck with a powerful contact sedative. B slumped to the floor.
"Hey!" the suit sounded angry for the first time.
"Relax, it is HaveAComa. He will be out for a week," Ronan considered A, "as for the other one—sorry."
The suit looked towards A.
"Who is the Mainland?" Ronan asked.
The suit seemed to be looking at Ronan for the first time, full of appraisal. The suit actually looked brighter than a NRCIC suit should. Ronan would love to find out more about this guy, but time is against him. While there were no apparent cameras, these guys will be missed.
"I don't know," he said and looked away.
"Look, skip the 'I don't know' and tell me what you do know or I will swipe some Coma on you before I leave and you will lose your grip." Ronan said.
"Transix Corp, Request For Contract #76HT-86TY, opened 8 hours ago on jobs.net—you chase it down."
"The price?" Ronan asked.
"85 million NT."
That was a lot. Most bag-ems and delivers are in the 1 to 10 million range, of course a mega corp's CEO bags for up to 10 billion NT, but CEO—Ronan was not.
Putting that worry aside for the moment, Ronan pulled out a small can of StayFoam and sprayed it over the suit's shoes. StayFoam looks like shaving cream but hardens into cement with the adhesive properties of KrazyGlue in seconds.
"Hey!" the suit said again.
"You're right," Ronan nodded and sprayed a mouthful of StayFoam into the suit's mouth.
He picked up the gun, a good Chinese 9mm clone of a Glock with a GunLink port.
Ronan slung his carryon—a backpack—on a shoulder, dropped the nine in his jacket pocket, and considered how he was going to get out of the airport.
Ronan was shaking as he exited the interview room and started walking towards baggage claim again.
It was his first time really using the FastReflexes. Sure he practiced a lot online with the martial arts simulations and the FastReflexes simulation, but he was not prepared for how wholly alien his body would feel to him. His body moved faster than he thought—or so how it felt to him.
The adrenal glands just were not stopping and neither were the sweat glands. He forgot to check the 9mm to see what version coupling it had. He could not make it out with his fingertips. Frustrated, he looked around, normal looking people everywhere. He risked pulling the 9mm out of his coat pocket for a second to look at the coupling. It was a mark III and he had a PalmSocket V.
Still shaking, Ronan was annoyed at the crappy gun, the security assholes, the airport and his sweaty, shaking body. Ronan was upset about killing the security guy. Killing is not what he does, getting information—difficult to get information—that is what he does. Growing up in Los Angeles's Korea Town, Ronan—Justin Chee—he had some violent experiences, but those were brutal, stupid and young.
Snapping out of self-reflection, Ronan became aware of the airport again. A very long hallway using way more fluorescent light than necessary, ads in Chinese pitched cosmetics, clothes, and the local museum. He passed a couple of generic airport staff.
After about a minute, the flow of people thinned. Ronan noticed the next traveler was about 100 meters ahead, entering the baggage area.
Trotting footsteps, far behind—must be some NRCIC. Looking ahead Ronan made out a few NRCIC trying to be discreet as they tried to position for an intercept in the baggage area. His baggage held some good clothes, but he was going to have to leave his baggage behind.
He struggled not to break out into a dead run for the street across the baggage area.
Looking ahead and to the right was a closed door for maintenance staff. Was it locked? Ronan angled to the left—which was in the direction of his flight's baggage carousel. The NRCIC behind quickened their trotting, while the baggage guys settled into position.
He eyed the door again; chances were that any maintenance door in a public place is locked. And probably made out of tough steel. The door was coming up nicely on his right now, but slamming it at full strength would probably just break some bones.
He noticed a medium group—but a dense group of Japanese tourists passing in front of the NRCIC guy on the right hand side of the baggage area.
His first plan looked great now—Ronan bolted for the main sliding glass doors.
"Halt!" "Freeze!" "Stop!" yelled an assortment of NRCIC guys.
Ronan ran.
People just seemed to get in the way. Ronan knocked them away. A large whoosh—whoosh—whoosh! popped from behind. Ronan had to duck around a particularly large man. As he was passing, Ronan's peripheral vision got the impression that the large man was getting hit with fist-sized objects. The large man sucked in air and crumpled.
The NRCIC man from the left ran forward and leapt for Ronan's legs. He got a loose grip on Ronan's pants and a kick in the face. He let go.
The doors stood open. The sidewalk had a bunch of people on it. Cars parked tightly along the curb, flowing traffic beyond. Ronan made it through the doors.
Whoosh! He did not notice what the beanbag crashed into.
He knocked over another last pedestrian before reaching the curb. He hesitated slightly then jumped up on a taxi's hood and down again into traffic.
Cars, buses and scooters were coming from the left. Ronan, scared, ran straight through traffic. A scooter. Ronan angled for the scooter, set his shoulder and crashed into the rider. Wholly unprepared for the tackle, the rider landed on his back. The scooter traveled lame for just a bit before falling over.
Ronan ran towards it, the traffic from behind closing. Yanked it up by the handlebars, twisted the grip to accelerate and sat down as it passed under him.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Thwack! Thwack! Pain. Ronan lost his grip on the accelerator after a beanbag hit him in the right arm. Another hit his ribs. He saw stars. His left hand clawed for the accelerator and twisted.
The electric Just For You was a slow scooter, and this one was not well maintained. It took about 15 seconds for it to reach its top speed of just 45 KPH. Hunched over and in traffic, Ronan no longer heard any whooshes.
His right arm hung limply as he passed under the airport exit sign. He knew he was hurt—he did not know how bad, but he had felt worse. Ronan just held the grip wide open while hanging by his left hand.
85 million NT and a dead guy—the NRCIC will follow him all over Taiwan. If he could make it to Taipei proper, he could easily lose them in the traffic—Taipei, 15 million people stuffed into a vertically dense city. Scooters are king and traffic laws are quaint notions held in other countries.
Problem was that Taipei was still another 30 minutes away by highway. The NRCIC would dispatch cars and 1-liter BMW super bikes to catch him.
He pulled off at the next exit—he would have to get to Taipei some other way.
He rolled down the off ramp into one of the remaining family-farming communities. Just 40 years ago at the turn of the century Taipei was surrounded by a quilted pattern of farms each with their own central pond as an irrigation reservoir. It was about 7am this January; the sun had turned the overcast a dull gray about an hour ago but it would be several hours yet before the clouds burned off.
Ronan was just idling down a street turning his problems over in his mind—he was looking for something—he just did not know what yet. He felt the pain in his ribs and thought they may be just bruised. But his right arm alarmed him. The NRCIC just worked the airport—although they had a mutual profit agreement with the local police, fire and health department. The Taiwan Republican Defense was thankfully part of the Pacific Rim Prosperity Defense Sphere and was not aligned with the NRCIC.
Ronan pulled to a stop next to a run-down scooter shop and pulled out his xphone. It works anywhere on Earth, and even at the colonies at the Moon and Mars. Of course due to latency you really could only have useful conversations with people on the same world. He was dialing Janine via her XNS name, thought better of it and cleared the number before his phone transmitted the call. In fact he thought about it further and shut the phone off completely. He would have to buy a new xphone from a dealer—he could not trust his phone. Sure, Hyundai paid for a good commercial xphone that put off crappy trackers, but he was not up on the quality of xphone intelligence the NRCIC or the mainland interest used. Janine would have to wait.
He had been putting her on hold for a while now. He had really been crunching hard at Hyundai, taking as many jobs as he could—his group was up for review next month and it was important to him. They had not really spent any time together for about 11 weeks now. He knew she was frustrated with his time away from the apartment. Recently she had been traveling for work and he hoped that occupied her.
The muscles in his thighs suddenly jerked and writhed painfully, he grasped his thighs and squeezed. Then the back muscles jumped around too. Ronan let out a silent groan, slid off of the scooter and leaned against the wall of the repair shop. They told him that the body took a while to accept the FastReflexes—they said there could be pain. These spasms were worse than the ones on the plane.
Ronan rested for about a half an hour, then continued to ride down the road.
"A-ha, that's what I need," Ronan said to himself as he read the characters for a Chinese Medicine Shop. They would be looking for him at the regular clinics and hospitals—this is where he would go.
"Li ho," the old man greeted Ronan in Taiwanese.
"Uh, hello," Ronan replied in Mandarin.
"Yes, yes, hello—what can I do for you? Your arm?"
Ronan did not answer at first. Instead he looked around a bit at all of the hundreds of apothecary jars the old man stocked. Large jars at the bottom, tiny vials at eye level, all sorts at different levels. The writing on the jars was written with impeccable calligraphy. Ronan looked again at the old man. The old man gestured for Ronan to sit at a large and comfortable stool next to the counter.
"What do you do, Mr.?" the old man asked.
Ronan recalled who he was, "Cheun. I trade software. What is your name sir?"
"Lin."
Lin helped Ronan out of his jacket. He ignored the obvious bulk of the gun in the pocket. It was a green and black business suit made out of synthetic fibers that not only allowed his skin to breathe but also detected the salinity of the sweat and heart rate of the user to determine how wide the pores should be. The colors were programmable too, in case of an emergency it could be directed to be solid orange, or if the occasion warranted, solid black. Despite the advanced fabric's breathing abilities Ronan's arm glistened with sweat. Lin spread Ronan's injured right arm out on the counter, palm up. He traced a line from the shoulder to the palm, fingertips coming to rest on the GunLink.
"FastReflexes and a GunLink," Lin peered closer, "PalmSocket V." Lin announced.
"This time, tell me who you are Mr. Cheun and tell me what you do." Lin said.
Ronan looked back at Lin. He no longer seemed that old, maybe late 40s. He was good at taking in a face and cataloging a person at a glance, Lin frustrated him. He noticed for the first time a faint vertical tattoo in green characters running down the right side of Lin's neck from the ear to below the collar. He could not recognize the characters; they were old ones, no longer in common use. Ronan felt calm about the old man, he was tempted to tell him about his work with Hyundai Group.
"I am known as Ronan. I work in information recovery for a large corporation," Ronan said.
"What part of California are you from?" Lin guessed in English.
"Los Angeles—Old Korea Town," Ronan replied in English.
"So you are Korean, from Old Korea Town," Lin paused while looking at Ronan's GunLink, "you must work for Hyundai Group—Special Information Division."
Ronan was surprised, not because Lin guessed whom he worked for, but for how easily he gave the answer to Lin. He frowned while looking at Lin.
"Yes." Ronan replied.
Lin looked at him again and snorted. He turned his back and started collecting bits of material out of his jars. Ronan felt some warmth as he realized that Lin just dismissed him. He was clearly going to help him with his arm, but Ronan clearly got the impression Lin felt superior to him. To make it worse Ronan felt he agreed. He just waited while Lin boiled some water and mixed in his herbs.
"Drink this tea," Lin said.
Ronan lifted the tea weakly to his mouth, his ribs felt badly bruised and it made it tender to lift something. He switched the tea to his other hand. The tea was green. It smelled spicy and good. Ronan was prepared for it to taste bitter as he imagined it would have to be—his grandmother's medicine tasted bitter. Instead as he drank it warmth spread through his body. His arm and ribs felt especially better.
"Your ribs too," Lin said, "Here lift your arm up and let me hear you breathe."
Ronan lifted his right arm—it felt stronger. Lin pressed his ear to Ronan's ribcage as Ronan sucked in some air.
"Sounds good. No fluid in your lungs."
Ronan remembered the NRCIC and became anxious to leave.
"What do I owe you Mr. Lin?"
"50,000 NT."
"I need to get a clean cashcard, the NRCIC scanned me at the airport and I don't want them to come here. If you tell me an account I will transfer 1,000 MPM to you." Ronan was offering about a 200% premium on the going rate between MyPrivateMoney and the NT.
Lin looked at Ronan and smiled an approval. He fetched a card out of a drawer and handed it to Ronan to read.
"Oh and do you have a net connection? I do not want to use my xphone."
"This way," Lin led him into the back of the shop.
Ronan weaved his way behind the old man between precariously towering boxes of junk until it widened into a small courtyard. The courtyard had greenhouse windows above and a small koi pond in the center. There were doors leading off into several rooms. The place was certainly larger on the inside than it looked from the street. Ronan glanced over the bonsai and noticed the floor and benches were all done in fine marble. Lin opened the door to an office. Well decorated but very plain.
Ronan sat down in front of the flat panel display and summoned his net agent. He clicked a few commands and then typed in the account number. A few more clicks and the money was transferred to the account Lin provided.
Lin then led him back to the shop.
"Those FastReflexes are bad for you. It makes your heart race abnormally and your adrenal glands are always confused. Get rid of them," that was Lin's final advice and he turned towards his jars again.
Ronan picked up his jacket and gingerly put it on. His arm and ribs were still hurting but he was going to be well soon. He looked back at Lin and his jars, and then walked out the front door.
The sun was brighter now and people were going about their business. A small family fast food shop had its grill going about a half a block away. Ronan decided he could spare some time for food.
He ordered a fried egg and tuna sandwich on egg bread and a milk tea. He sat in the back of the shop and picked some worn comics to flip through while he waited for his food. His number was called and he went to get his red plastic basket of breakfast. Three youths pulled up on blue scooters wearing matching blue jackets. Ronan kept an eye on them as he regained his chair. He munched on his sandwich while watching the youths. They ordered some food too and started to talk about doing her, doing it, running there, hitting that and popping them. They were apparently the big fish of the pond here that this farming village used. They looked down the street a few times pausing their bravado. Ronan dipped his sandwich into some salty ketchup as he realized they were going to hit Mr. Lin's shop. Ronan dipped his sandwich a few more times then finished it off. He sat back in his chair and watched the youths.
Two of them appeared to have a gun as they kept reaching into their pockets to reassure themselves it was still there. The third youth, younger than the other two, was just big. Ronan himself pulled the magazine out of his 9mm and looked at the slot along the magazine to count the bullets and decided that it was full at 15 rounds. He pushed the magazine back into the gun.
The youths gathered up their blue scooters and took off down the street. Ronan stood, wiped some ketchup off of his mouth, and left some money on the table. He walked out of the shop, glanced down the street, crossed to the other side and followed the punks. Lin clearly did not approve of him, and he certainly had enough of his own problems, but he found himself loyal to the old man and wanted to be sure he was safe.
Tao used his skinny hands to signal to Ago and Shoan where to park their scooters. He was taking big story back at the coffee shop to Ago and Shoan, but this was his first real job. Tao was the latest recruit in the sprawling league of petty gangsters known as the Taiwanese Agriculture Union. At the top of the Union was a Mr. Ho. Tao did not know anything about Mr. Ho, but he was sure he had a cool car, pretty women and did not have a worry in the world. Tao now worked for Mr. Shui who was the boss for the area of Tao Yuan near the airport. The neighborhoods out here looked like a quilted pattern from the sky. Tao had just been granted 20 ponds as his area to collect fees for the advancement of the Taiwanese Agriculture Union. Things had been going well for Tao for the past half a year, collecting fees, hanging out at the Golden Koi Bar drinking beer with Ago and Shoan, and occasionally impressing a high school girl with a craving for a bad boy. Shoan was into clothes, always the latest fashion, but he was always eager to get physical. In the last six weeks an increasing number of his patrons were late on their fees. Actually, they were refusing to pay, but Tao had been reporting to Mr. Shui that they were just late and to give them time. Tao did not follow this up with a plan in case they did not start paying. Mr. Shui however, had more experience in the business and spotted the problem right away. He told Tao to shake down one of the deadbeats, knock his place about and in general make some noise. They will start paying soon enough he declared. Thus, Tao found himself here this morning organizing Ago and Shoan to beat up Dr. Lin. Tao felt there was no need to rush into this business, so he decided to start with an easy, old medicine man.
Tao went in first with Shoan next and the big Ago bringing up the rear. Lin was arranging his jars and taking notes on a ledger.
"Dr. Lin, time is up. I can no longer be patient with you. I must collect the fees or there will be a disruption to the Union's business. Pay 200,000 for last month, 200,000 for this month and an 80,000 late fee," Tao said.
"Young Tao, is it?" Lin said, "I told you last time, I am not a farmer. I have no need for the union. It is just a bribe for protection and I can protect myself."
Ago and Shoan walked around the store looking at the jars, getting into position.
"Lin. I am not bargaining with you. If you do not pay I will have to break your jars, hurt you, and throw you out in the street as an example," Tao responded.
Lin reached below his desk and brought out a shiny cylinder of metal that made a nice grip and set it on the counter with his fingers still wrapped around it.
Tao nodded to Shoan. Shoan reached out to the nearest jar and pulled it from the shelf. It fell to the hardwood floor, crashed open, and spilt its yellow powder. Lin pressed a small button on the cylinder; this triggered strong springs that shot out the two ends of the staff to create a steel quarterstaff, now gracefully arcing towards Shoan's head.
Shoan watched in surprise as Lin's weapon expanded. Too late, he reached for his gun, only to get a solid crack on the head that split his skull. Ago was surprised too and began to watch. Tao brought out his pistol and fired at Lin. It missed and hit a jar, splattering a purple fluid on Lin's clothes. Lin ducked below the counter.
Tao was walking past the counter when he noticed too late a flash of metal at shin level. Lin used all of the space behind the counter to swing a great arc at Tao's shins. The large fibula bones in Tao's legs broke as Lin followed through with his stroke. Tao's legs folded wrongly, and he crumpled to the floor. Tao pulled his trigger twice as he went to the floor, striking Lin once in the shoulder and once in the lower back.
Ago sprung into action finally and strode forward to reach the back of the counter. He reached down and grabbed Lin by the wounded shoulder and made him stand. One of Ago's fingers found their grip in the shoulder bullet hole.
Ago pulled back with his free hand to smash Lin's face, as his fist closed on Lin, a gunshot cracked the morning and a bullet entered Ago's arm at the elbow and traveled inside the length of his arm shattering bone and tearing muscle before the bullet ricocheted off of the hand bones and harmlessly bounced off of a jar of crushed ginseng. Ago let go of Lin.
Ronan paused to understand what was going on. Ago spent his time productively stumbling over Tao's brutally broken legs. Tao in the meantime had recovered a bit and fired at Ronan before rolling in agony due to Ago's stomping on his broken legs. Ronan was hit high in the inside of his left thigh. Ronan rapidly gained an understanding of the situation and fired once at Tao, once at Ago, and once more at Ago. Ronan then walked carefully over to Shoan, he kept his gun pointed at Shoan, but Shoan was no threat to anyone.
"Dr. Lin, are you okay?" Ronan asked.
"I have been shot twice. Wait." Lin said.
Lin sat up and started to assess his body. Tao then groaned as he started to lift his chest off of the floor. Lin reached for Ronan's gun and fired once, breaking Tao's head into a large piece connected to the body and two fleshy fragments against the wall.
"A waste," Lin declared.
Ronan supported his weight as he made his way over to the pile of bodies behind the counter—avoiding the Tao of mess. Grasping his thigh he slumped down alongside the counter where he could get a look at Lin's back.
"It looks ugly," Ronan said.
"Bullet holes are rarely thought of as pretty," Lin paused as he concentrated on feeling the hole in his lower back, "Huh. It went straight down into my right buttock—safe enough. Ronan, bring me that mirror hanging on the front door so I can look at my shoulder."
Ronan went to retrieve the I-Ching stylized hexagonal mirror from the door. It was a slow trip, but not so painful. It seemed more like a terrible dog bite in the fleshy part of your thigh than a bullet wound. He handed the mirror to Lin.
"Ah-hah. Ouch. Hrms," Lin probed himself, "I will live fine. You?"
"Yes, it is just a dog bite."
"Let us patch each other up. Together let's go to my workshop table in the back."
Lin and Ronan supported each other and walked to one of the rooms off of the courtyard Lin had in the back. He had a huge butcher block table that he apparently used to pot plants, do woodworking and remove bullets from himself and friends. Lin showed him how to remove the two small slugs, and dress them with more of his aromatic Chinese herbal medicine and some bandages. Ronan learned that Lin had thousands of jars, some with dates reaching back to the turn of the century, some from around World War II and a very few earlier than that. Lin also had an impeccable economy of movement, his hands, legs, and mind were a kinetic haiku that wasted no movement. Ronan wondered where Lin learned medicine and where he learned how to move.
"Dr. Lin, you move very carefully, or rather smoothly—and the green tattoo—green planet?" Ronan wondered out loud.
Lin paused, hiding his pleasure in Ronan's appreciation, "I am trained in zhong yao from an unbroken line of healers going back to the early days of the Ming," Lin responded.
"I know how these gangs work, they are the same all over. They will come again to collect," Ronan said.
"Yes. But now that we have killed three of their newest recruits they will think twice before attacking my medicine shop."
"No, you are wrong. They will have to come back and kill you now. They cannot let the rest of the farmers and others in the county think they can stand up and shrug them off. No, this is a very serious problem for them—our act of defiance will be seen as a kind of rebellion against the elder brothers. It doesn't matter if it is Beijing, Taipei or Korea Town; it works the same. Who is the local boss?"
"The last time they came in they said they worked for a Mr. Ho."
"Well. Mr. Ho will wait about a day before he wonders where the boys of this neighborhood are, and where his take is. His first thought will be that they got drunk and spent the money on girls as a kind of celebration, and are then hiding out trying to shake down someone else for the money they spent. He will give them another day; then Ho will contact his family and friends and make it urgent that he reports. Faster than the police, inside of a week Ho will know that I came into your shop, that one got his skull cracked first, this one went down with the funny legs second and then the big one finished them off. You will need to set up shop someplace else."
Lin looked at Ronan appraising him, looking as if he would say more; then turned away. Ronan stood up and started thinking about his own job to perform. Hyundai sent him here to track down who was pirating both the software and hardware of the automated tunneling robots that Hyundai was the world leader in. He had already done much of the legwork back in LA posing as a buyer for Texas Tunnel, a sub-contractor for a minor division of the TerraEnergy Corp.
Taiwan is the best place to make a deal for copied and pirated stuff. Piracy happens all over the world, from ever-dark factories in Night City below Paris, to Latin America to the Russian free states. But it is Taiwan where the market value is set, this is where orders are placed and orders are filled. Taiwan is hub to the cheap labor in Indonesia, South East Asia and until the last decade, China. With China's white-hot economy of the last ten years it can no longer be counted on as a cheap labor market. However, there is a lot of momentum stored in history: Hong Kong is still the world's financial capital, Los Angeles the space port and media, Paris the capital of Europe—even more so after The Storm of 2016 that wiped London of its people and finance, and so on. Taiwan has piracy.
Ronan had an appointment to meet with the guy that would sell him 100,000 tunnelers, 70,000 ants, 50,000 munchers, and 2,000 repairmen. The tunnelers break up the earth and stone, the ants carry it back to the munchers, the munchers in turn perform a battery of physical and chemical processes to separate the earth into different materials, and the repairmen have a crude set of repair functions that have a surprisingly strong impact on the durability of the rest of the crew. They all vary in size, but they range from about the size of your fist to the size of a loaf of bread. The construction of these creatures is surprisingly complicated and they are very costly; they are shipped all over the world from Hyundai's manufacturing centers in northern Korea and—Taiwan of course. Hyundai does have a factory on a near-Earth asteroid to create tunnelers, for it is still cheaper to create what you need in space than to ship it up from Earth—as long as it isn't information, medicine, or skilled humans.
The meeting would take place 45 stories above the twin rivers of Taipei tomorrow evening at the Plum and Orange—a Chinese restaurant with a 360 degree view of the city. Ronan remembered taking Janine there when they first announced their engagement. A few dozen of their friends flew in and they had a great party up there. A great party—Ronan smiled to himself thinking of the contortions that Gumby performed and the enormous quantity of salt that Ray ate just on a dare. Ronan was just a junior courier guy for Hyundai then—he had a lot more free time—not a lot of money—but then he did not used to need a lot of money.
Ronan had read internal Hyundai reports that the tunnelers made in Laos were even more efficient than the Hyundai tunnelers with a tunneling rate of up to 1,500 cc's per hour per tunneler. Tunnelers were huge business; no matter where you were—Earth, Mars, Moon or an asteroid—everyone needed tunnels to create cabling conduits, chew out apartments, bore out sewers and connect people with subways. Every few years people come up with huge advances in tunneling technology only to have the world's appetite for tunnels consume these advances. Hyundai had been the world leader for over 40 years, but now Accounting estimated as much as 30% of the tunnelers bearing Hyundai's mark were pirated. The company ignored it for as long as it could, but 30% is too much, in fact it was too much when it was at 15% four years ago. Four years ago is the oldest timestamp on any of the files associated with this current project—Reclaim Tunnel. For the past four years the company had made plans, calculated its probabilities, contracted out software, and put people in place. In just 10 days' time, Ronan would inspect the replication plant located in Laos. While he was there he was supposed to upload a new version of the tunneler control software—a special brew from some Indian coders. This version is programmed to turn the tunnelers on at local midnight 13 days from now and consider the factory itself to be a tunnel to be made. During the night a squad recruited from the Tamil Tigers would descend on the managers of the Laotian factory—destroying that brain trust. Meanwhile, the Darn Good Privacy Data Havens would be paid off to destroy the backups of the pirated software in the Laotian accounts. Ronan did not trust the DGP to wipe the data; if anything, DGP would then realize it has value to someone and take it out of the Laotian account but then try to resell it to someone else. No doubt, Hyundai had thought of that as well, but Ronan would not have any idea how Hyundai planned to deal with DGP.
During the trip, Ronan would get extra points if he could determine for sure that Mitsui was not behind the Laotians. That was just extra points, though; with the destruction of that much inventory and that factory's production, Hyundai would be able to not just hold its prices for Q2 and Q3, but raise them. The Special Information Division would get a royalty of 35% of the profit in tunnelers for the eight quarters following the destruction of the factory. If everyone executed properly, the SID should shine well ahead of its anticipated ROI on the project, and Ronan's Group in particular would be secure for at least another year. If they failed however, the costs of the operation, and the loss of tunneler profit would combine to make for a big restructure at Hyundai—Hyundai would have to find more revenue outside of the tunnelers. This would mean the loss of not only a lot of jobs in the Hyundai Tunneler division, but also some heads in the SID would have to fall and Ronan's would be the first as a field contractor. These projects were never a sure thing, far from it, there were so many variables and so many random events they could not be a sure thing. Yet the corporate office always depended on it being a sure thing.
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Published: January 24, 2001 6:00 AM
Last updated: March 9, 2026 7:42 AM
Post ID: af5810cf-b9e0-4504-bc22-60df76028cac