Chapter 23: Dian Mu overflies her kingdom
Dian Mu had been pleased with the exchange with Zau. He had brought her a noble present indeed, a strategic seed of knowledge which she had already planted in the right engineering and development subsidiary of a subsidiary, one associated with China’s top universities. She’d also given it to her dancing partner, asking him to start thinking of it, of improvements, refinements and errors to be corrected. A steady stream of insights was coming from both patches of fertile soil, and she judiciously cross-pollinated them while keeping them unaware of one another.
Of course, it would have been easy for her to gain the ITER specifications herself, but allowing others to think that had created an obligation in her was a very easy way for her to manipulate them to her ends. Zau, twisted old dragon that he was, could not match the cunning that millennia as lightning had given her, factions striving to control her, tame her, subsume her, constrain her. She had treated with emperors and gods. Zau was only moderately challenging.
And he had asked of her exactly what she had expected him to ask, offered the blandishments, enticements and rewards that she had expected, raised the fears and specters of loss she had anticipated. Perhaps she was too egotistical, but when a saturnine creature such as Zau was so easy to predict, perhaps she was permitted ego.
And she had so enjoyed teasing his marksman. That one would be such fun in the future.
But now, a different form of enjoyment. Once again in her Roadster, once again on the way to the airport, but time to fly west, not east. Once again waved through to the runway, waving her car away into the hangar and up into the air into her tiny electric dart, one which never needed charging, something that would have perplexed its manufacturers if they ever found out.
And so off the ground, carving left sharply away from the rising sun. She had leagues to cover and wanted daylight.
In this case, a little fudging of her flight plan and the traffic control systems was required, to convince them she was flying andante, not allegro, her plane’s abilities with her in the pilot’s seat vastly exceeding its specifications. She tore through the air at a rate beyond the plane’s supposed top air speed, effortlessly gathering power from the air, the clouds, the lines of qi crossing the land below her. Flight was something she loved having as a new power, an extension of her divine abilities, granted by the minds of the humans she had ascended from.
But no loops, no barrel rolls, no coffin corner gambles this time, or at least, not many. In hours she was a thousand kilometers to the west and north, arrowing over interior plains and ridges. Below, she saw the great wind farms arising, harvesters of the wind pushing more power into the grid. She saw the shocking brightness of sun off of massive solar arrays, both photovoltaic and thermal, turning sunshine directly into even more electricity. She saw the huge lines of transmission, interlocking China in a web of power. Her power. A testament to her abilities and visions. To do with as she would.
She had prospered greatly with the light bulbs, electrical components and technicians that she had brought back from the United States, forming several companies which grew out of the shadows to throw back shadows across the major cities of China, then Asia. The madness under Mao had set her back, but she had treated with him as well, sly villager uncouthly haggling with a goddess. But she had been a sly villager once as well, and could be uncouth as necessary to gain her ends. And so, variants of the ancient treaties were extended, an irreligious and dogmatic nation remaining bound to the world of spirits, able to call upon each other in times of need.
She skirted Chongqing, shifted course north, tracing more emerging transmission lines, fields of solar panels, growing dandelions of 200 meter tall turbines. In Shanxi she dropped out of the sky, landed on a tiny field, ate noodles and stretched as the locals stared, then back into her plane and shrieked back into the sky.
She traced more evolving scaffolding to the east, back toward the ocean, sank back to ground finally in Beijing. It was late afternoon, she’d made good time, inspected what she needed to see with her own eyes, assessed what she could not trust solely to the eyes of others. Distance was often the enemy of truth, and she had had many courtiers over the years who tried to tell her what they thought she wanted to hear, rather than what she needed to know.
No so, not this time. Reports, both verbal, written and in the computer systems closest to the work were accurate. Her plan was unfolding.
Striding from the plane, her local crew already running toward it, outpaced by her local Roadster even now braking to a halt beside her, she let loose a minor pulse, changing the polarity of her skin, hair, garb. The dust of the day sprang away from her, carried off on the breeze, and she slid into the driver’s seat of her tiny car.
Today she must treat not with an emperor or dragon or somewhat mad Chairman, but with a local Robin Hood, a kingpin of a particular inverse crime, an enemy of her enemies, or at least one who could be made to be so. And an old friend.
Ida’s burgundy sedan arrived at parking lot of the Courtyard Restaurant just as Dian Mu’s Tesla pulled to a stop in front of the valet. She slid out, waved her car away and waited as Ida’s driver rounded her car, held her door open, handed her out, fussed until waved away. They embraced, tiny Han sprite and towering, glacial blonde, then walked into the restaurant, arm in arm, chattering happily of what they’d been up to since last seeing one another.
They had been coming to incarnations of this restaurant for twenty years, since Dian Mu had first discovered the financial analyst responsible for several interesting plays once markets re-opened in China. Ida liked to stay close to a certain type of power in order to make power plays of her own on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, holding open doors with her long and toned arms in order to let her mind wander freely through them.
Currently, the restaurant was still under Brian McKenna’s control, but his earlier and wilder explorations of molecular gastronomy had stabilized into a delightful menu, one which thankfully excluded the gardening implements salads had previously required.
And now, they sat overlooking the moat, sepia tinted rocks of the moat walls limned with reflected light, considering the menu, sipping Cosmopolitans.
“Ribs in mango foam, do you think?”
“Can’t. On a diet, again. Too many necessary dinners last month.”
“Ah. Sprat in shrimp emulsion then?”
“Yes, I think so.”
A pause, their orders taken, their drinks refreshed.
“You are beginning to raise my ire, Dian Mu.”
“Oh, how so?”
“You haven’t aged an hour since we met. If anything, you seem younger, more vibrant and alive. Completely au courant.”
“It’s not in my nature to age. Besides, don’t be a crybaby, look at you, a blonde goddess, preserved in amber. You would make Catherine Deneuve weep.”
“Ah, but what effort it takes me. More, every year. You though, flew up here today and look as if you’d just stepped out of a rejuvenating bath of baby’s blood. Admit it, you’re one of those Han vampires, the ones that hop everywhere.”
They laughed, the refrain familiar, comfortable and honest. Up to a point. They were friends, had been intimates, but Ida did not know what Dian Mu was. Looking closer, Dian Mu could see the incipient crow’s feet at the corners of Ida’s eye, saw the hint of sagging in her upper arms. A chill rolled over her. Soon, she would have to leave Ida behind in her race into the future as well, Ida who had seemed as impervious to time as she.
The corner of her mouth twitched, she shook her head slightly. The food arrived, thankfully.
The sparsely plated dishes were, as always, a profound joy to the senses. The earthenware was perfect, the aesthetic of formed food against it sublime, the colours a delight to the eye. The nose too was treated, subtle hints of the sea and cardamom rising from the plates. The ear was not left alone, as the emulsion’s bubbles were fizzing like champagne. And the feel and taste in the mouth, exquisite, tiny shocks of lemon encapsulated in the foam releasing unexpectedly.
Nothing was static. Not Ida’s age, not this inventive new food she enjoyed so much. And so, neither could she be static, but must keep moving into the future.
And so, to business. She outlined the broad strokes of what was occurring, what was going to occur, the issues likely to arise and where her analysis suggested shorting vs going long. Ida thought, caught up with the magnitude, the audacity, started making suggestions of her own. They were swept up, invested, giggling with the exuberance of their shared minds, vision and sheer aptitude for risk.
The night wound down, they tasted the desserts, sipped tawny port.
They reversed their walk to their cars, arm in arm again, feeling as they had again two decades ago. And Dian Mu thought, why not one last time? Perhaps I’ll even pull a trick or two out of my hat for her to remember me by.
Dian Mu’s Tesla, sedately for once, followed the sedan through the night.