Chapter 46: Kaa’s smug tale of shame
Joyla stepped from the taxi, looked over the blue waters of the bay, the marina full of pleasure craft white and sparkling in the sun, the green and rolling island hills, then crossed the street to Luca, the smell of garlic sautéing in olive oil wafting to her.
Kaa was there, at the same table, organza fluttering above him. He had a two-thirds full bottle of grappa, two narrow glasses, an iPad he was reading from, a half-full glass of water.
She walked up, waited. He blinked, looked up, smiled a broad and deeply relaxed smile, stood, lifted her from her feet and whirled her around, her feet pulled out from her twirling form, almost hitting a bemused diner at another table. He put her down in front of her chair, poured grappa for both of them, clinked, shouted “Auguri!” and insisted she drink, filled their glasses again.
“Stop. Is this getting drunk before the end of times, or celebrating the lack of end of times?”
He laughed, spun the tablet around to face her, sat back smiling. She saw a picture, three men of Han extraction, very formally dressed, one gwai lo dark haired and less formal. Read the headline.
“Wait. What?”
“A new Great Leap. A new Chairman of China.”
“Great leap into what this time? More famine?”
“No. Electricity from wind and sun. And electric cars.”
“What?”
“Dian Mu set us all up. She’s been playing Zau, played me.”
“But what about the mirrors and the coal plants?”
“A show for Zau. And for others, I suppose. The coal plant died, but nothing happened. She’d had new wind farms, solar farms, transmission built and the coal plant didn’t matter. A third of China’s coal went offline last night. Did the lights flicker?”
“No. Wait. A third? That’s a lot!”
“Yes. Turns out she’s a major shareholder in the biggest utility company in Asia, had it build out massive generation over the past few months on an accelerated schedule. She’s got something on HSBC, had them finance the entire thing.”
“And a new Chairman of China?”
“Yeah, that guy in the middle. He was First Vice-Chairman or something until this week. Now he’s the one in charge. He’s been orchestrating the politics and land permits behind the scenes. Dian Mu’s got some sort of treaty with the Middle Kingdom, has been grooming him for decades. He announced that China’s coal plants would be shuttered in two years, most of the gas plants shuttered in five.”
“China isn’t going to be the worst climate change villain on the planet any more?”
“Nope. And it’s just the start. This is happening in different ways in adjoining countries as well. Tomorrow, the world I guess.”
“So what’s the gwai lo got to do with this?”
“Tesla. He’s the guy behind Tesla. Dian Mu had him building electric cars and batteries in gigafactories around Asia, secretly until yesterday. The other announcement: no more gas or diesel cars or trucks in five years. All banned, replaced with cheap electrics that drive themselves most of the time. Oh yeah, something about batteries for the grid displacing gas too.”
“So Dian Mu was never going to destroy the grid?”
“No, never. Apparently as humanity has electrified and computerized, she’s just become more and more powerful, more and more a goddess. And she’s got a new friend in there. She loves the grid, wants more of it.”
“New friend.”
“Something that ascended into some sort of god of the internet. It’s really unclear to me whether that’s an AI or an uploaded brain or a real god, but it really doesn’t matter.”
“I guess not.”
The tablet between them cleared, beeped. Words appeared.
DM: Look up
They did, saw a tiny plane crossing the water of the bay in front of them, then curve up into a vertical climb before inverting and barrel rolling, ripping the air apart in half a dozen ways. They watched the display of acrobatics along with the rest of the patrons, open mouthed. The plane leveled out, wagged its wings, shot off in the direction of Guangzhou.
The tablet beeped again.
DM: Tomorrow night, seven, my Guangzhou place. You know the way. Bring food. I understand you cook.
Joyla looked at Kaa. His face was both deeply smug and deeply abashed.
“Wait, weren’t you seducing her?”
“It turns out that no, she was seducing me. My fame preceded me via a mutual friend in Beijing, someone I ran across years ago. She decided to see how I would approach her.”
Joyla’s laughter pealed off the walls of the restaurant patio, startling the birds in the trees into flight.
“So all of that effort and she was actually drawing you into her web? That’s priceless!”
“Yes. I’m kind of embarrassed to say this, but I was a sweetener she’d added for herself to celebrate.”
“But you were only here because of me.”
“Yes. She’s behind Opera Hong Kong. It was her, not Zau that pulled you in, I guess. Oh, she has a message for you by the way.”
“It better not be that my artistic design sucked.”
“No, she really did love what you’d done with that. It’s about Rex. She’d intended to take him as a plaything for a while, but you and he connected. Apparently it’s the only thing out of this entire mess that didn’t go exactly her way. But you and Rex don’t have to worry about her.”
“Wait. I pulled a man before a goddess did?”
“Two, arguably.”
“That makes me feel better. So, if I’ve got this right, we’ve been terrified, plotting, skulking, scheming, wracking our brains and living like there’s no tomorrow because a goddess wanted to shag you?”
Kaa looked abashed again.
“She suspects I’m an ascended god as well, a god of seduction. It will be a few hundred years before she’s sure though. Apparently gods are like cults; they have to last a long time before they are more than megalomaniacs scamming followers.”
“Hmmm.”
“What.”
“Zau isn’t going to be happy, is he.”
“No. But that’s a problem for another day. Today, more grappa. And some food.”
The sun set upon them as the two old friends ate and drank, talked and laughed, perhaps a little hysterically, perhaps a little frenetically, but still sincerely and deeply and warmly. All had, somehow, turned out right with their world.