“That’s the war we’re being trained for.”
“And?”
“That’s all.”
“‘Obvious,’” said Latimer again. “You’ve never seen a Chinese person in your life, you know nothing about the nature of the war, and yet from a single static image you intuit who they are and how you’re connected to them. You have a gift for observation.”
“Thank you,” she said again.
“The Isolation War,” said Latimer, “is their fault—not theirs alone, by any means, but they’re the ones we’re fighting right now, so it may as well be. If they’d just given us what we wanted, no one would be fighting anyone.”
“What do we want?” asked Heron. The instructors had been very tight-lipped thus far about the nature of the war—about the nature of the entire world, for that matter. She knew the training facility like the back of her hand, but virtually nothing of what lay beyond. If he was in the mood to talk about it, she intended to learn everything she could.
“We want what everybody wants,” said Latimer. “Natural resources. In this case, resources are literally what everybody wants, and there’s not enough to go around. Let’s back up a bit to give you the full context: The most valuable resource in the world is energy, and energy traditionally comes from oil, which traditionally comes from here.” He waved his hand and the people disappeared, replaced by a menu Heron hadn’t seen before. She had just enough time to read the folder names before he chose one and the list disappeared: Australia, Images, Indonesia, Japan, Maps, NADI, Russia, and Theta. He chose “Maps” and selected a world map. It filled the room in gently glowing 3-D.
“Here,” he said, pointing at a yellow patch at the junction of two landmasses. “This is called the Middle East.”
Heron had never seen a world map before and drank in the new information hungrily. “Why is it called the Middle East?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Latimer. “It’s all gone now—one of those little countries attacked another one with a nuclear device and wiped the entire region clean. No people, no buildings, no oil. There’s oil all over the world, really, but the Middle East was like a convenience store; when it closed shop, the world freaked out. Something we needed to survive was gone forever, in the blink of an eye. The next few months was a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos, with every nation scrambling to grab as much of what was left as it possibly could: Russia grabbed Norway, Brazil grabbed Venezuela—none of these names mean anything to you, and you’ll learn the details later, but suffice it to say that the world’s political powers became very suddenly and selfishly concerned with ‘having enough,’ which almost immediately translated to ‘having more than anyone else.’ China was arguably the greediest, and invaded Russia at its earliest opportunity. Once they had that taken care of, they turned their eyes to us.”
Heron studied the map. “Where are we?”
“Here,” said Latimer, stepping forward and gesturing to the Western Hemisphere. “America and Canada had their oil reserves up here, in the north, and plenty of other resources as well, uncomfortably close to China and their new holdings in Russia, which made a landgrab almost inevitable. And we don’t take kindly to grabby strangers.”
The map was faintly labeled, and she saw that the area he was describing was collectively known as North America. She looked down at her uniform, and the patch above the left breast pocket: NADI. “That’s what this stands for, isn’t it? North American . . . Department . . .”
“North American Defense Initiative,” said Latimer. “NADI is a military alliance, formed to keep the Chinese off our lawn.”
“So we’re defending against an invasion?”
“Actually, China is. NADI worked so well as a deterrent that China decided its best course of action was to turtle—tuck its head down, hold on to everything it had, and ride it out. With so much of Russia and Southeast Asia already under their control, they had a wildly disproportionate chunk of the world’s resources, so they didn’t really need to waste any of it trying to get ours. They closed off all foreign trade, all international relations, all everything. They don’t buy our stuff, and most importantly, they don’t sell theirs to us.”
“The Isolation War,” said Heron, putting the pieces together. “They want to stay isolated, but we can’t survive if they do.”
“Like I said,” said Latimer, “you have a gift for observation. Let’s go back to the embassy.” He waved, and the map dissolved instantly into the roomful of Chinese people from before. He waved again and the image leapt into motion, the people moving back and forth, in and out of the edges, talking and smiling and shaking hands. They were speaking Chinese, and Heron was delighted to find that she could understand them perfectly: small talk and random pleasantries, just like she’d learned in class. It gratified her to know that she was actually using the seemingly useless phrases they’d been teaching her for months.
“The short man you pegged as the leader is General Wu Po Shu; pay close attention, because he’s your target.”
Heron thought back to the training she’d been doing: stealth, infiltration, and attack. “You want me to kill him?”
“Not at first,” said Latimer, “though it might eventually come to that. Tell me, Heron, do you know what ‘espionage’ means?”
“Ms. Spinney says it’s about gathering information,” said Heron, “but so far all you’ve taught me to do is sneak in and out of somewhere, so I assume it’s focused on gathering information you’re not supposed to have.”
Latimer laughed. “We’re the US government,” he said. “There is no information we’re not supposed to have. Think of it instead as ‘gathering information from people who don’t want to give it to you.’ In your case, that’s General Wu.”
“So I sneak in and steal his computer,” said Heron, “or his phone.”
“If all goes well, he’ll hand you his computer and ask you to help him hide his secrets on it. This is not an in-and-out mission, Heron; this is long-term. I assume you noticed the physical similarities between you and Wu’s party here?”
“I look Chinese,” said Heron, nodding. “The espionage models are the only ones who do; plus we’re the only ones who speak the language.”
“Not the only ones, but yes, that’s the idea.”
It seemed clear now that she thought of it. “You want me to live with them, and pretend to be one of them, and report back to you on a regular basis about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.”
“Exactly,” said Latimer. He pulled a small card from his pocket and threw it to her; it was an ID card, all written in Chinese, with her picture in the corner. “Your name will be Mei Hao. If you do your job right, we can place you as highly as Wu’s personal staff—we’ll get you in the right place with the right papers and then arrange a job opening with a high-powered rifle. With you on the inside, we’ll know everything we need to know about that part of the war: where the defenses are, how strong they are, where the supply lines run, and so on. With that kind of information, we can arrange something far more valuable than a quick assassination.” He gestured at the holovid, and a class menu popped up. “We’re starting you today on a new course of study: cultural classes, advanced linguistics classes, interrogation, surveillance—the whole super-combo meal. Master this and you’ll be able to blend in like a native and gain the trust of anyone in China.”
“And then kill them,” said Heron.
“If necessary, yes,” said Latimer. “Does that bother you?”
Heron cocked her head, confused. “Should it?”
Latimer smiled. “Absolutely not.”
ZUOQUAN CITY, SHANXI PROVINCE, CHINA
June 9, 2060
Heron hurried down the stairs and out into the courtyard, flashing her general’s retinue colors to anyone who looked like they might try to stop her. The antiair guns were on the roof of Building 2, the highest of the factory buildings, with a clear view of the surrounding skyline. She considered a frontal assault, but discarded the idea almost immediately—she was armed only with a sidearm, and a low-caliber one at that. Besides, her orders were odd enough that she wanted to keep her options as open as possible. A frontal assault, even if she succeeded, could leave her wounded, or worse, outed as an enemy agent. She stepped through the doorway of Building 2, which was still swarming with workers in the twenty-four-hour factory, and walked purposefully past them to the elevator. Seduction was always an option, and she had been engineered with exceptional beauty for that very purpose, but on the roof there would be too many. A four-man crew for each of the four gun emplacements, plus guards. The elevator arrived and she stepped in, half smiling at the challenge. Can I actually do it? Twenty men, give or take. But then again, I don’t have to distract them all at once, do I?