The next part of the story was fairly well known. Steven Semyonov founded SearchIgnition with a lawyer and an accountant whom he’d never met, and with whom he shared as little as he could. Neither had an interest in technology. His search programs, his algorithms, his indexes were all held in the “black box” of his own programs. He started the SearchIgnition Corporation in a basement filled with a hundred-odd old machines, bought for scrap, loaded with his own software. He hooked them together and made them act as a single computer. Soon he had thousands of machines in a warehouse, again acting as a single computer. He’d built the world’s dominant search engine for virtually nothing. The rest was history.
Stone lay back too, like Carslake, looking at the ceiling in the bedroom, watching the moths flutter round and round the bulb.
‘I think I’ve figured it out,’ said Stone finally.
‘Figured what out?’ asked Carslake.
‘The Machine,’ said Stone. ‘What it is, what makes it so powerful, and why so few people know about it. I think I’ve figured it. If I’m right, the whole world will want a piece of it and Oyang was right. Twenty-five billion was a small price to pay.’
Chapter 62 — 5:06pm 13 April — Balong Polo Resort and Country Club, Zhejiang Province, China
Seventeen hours by Stone’s cracked digital watch in that one bedroom in the villa. They had been given neither food nor water. This was, of course, a good thing. It meant that whoever was holding them had meant to bring them out sooner. And still meant to bring them out. Carslake added that the lack of food or water meant that neither of them had to use the toilet, and that was a good thing for him.
In the end, something else good happened. The door swung open and two Chinese men came back in with AK 47s. Carslake looked at the weapons wistfully. As if he would have a clue what to do with one. Carslake and Stone were led out together. Out of the villa and into the daylight, into the warm, humid fresh air, and across the decking. Now they were in some kind of tent, which must have been constructed there while they'd been locked away. There were noises and voices and the hum of machinery, and it was air conditioned. They came to a plastic curtain of thick plastic — so thick that it was impossible to see through it clearly.
A figure appeared behind the plastic sheet, a tall figure in a white suit. Even the face was covered with white.
Virginia’s voice came through the plastic curtain. Her hair must be covered, and her face also with a mask of some sort.
‘I’m sorry we had to keep you in the dark,’ she said. ‘But you’ll need to wait a while yet.’
‘Yeah. Like, literally,’ said Carslake drily. ‘But don’t worry, the room was peaceful. What happened? So busy you forgot about us?’
‘Come on, Carslake,’ said Stone. ‘As if she could forget those legs. And that ass of yours.’
‘None of this is remotely funny,’ she said, developing that weary tone once more. It was light years from her TV voice. ‘It’s been a disaster. Like I told him it would be. We sat Steven outside because that’s what he wanted. To sit out in the open air, just for a few hours. We blasted the hell out of the whole island to get rid of the bugs — but it was a stupid idea. He has half a dozen bites and nearly died twice from the reactions. Steven was already suffering. He’s got open sores and wounds all over by now and they just attracted the insects. You can imagine the pain.’
‘We heard,’ said Carslake.
‘And he’s covered with god-knows-what bacteria. We have to wash him with distilled water. Sterile.’ She sounded worn out beneath that naturally bright voice. ‘You heard what kind of a night we had. A medical crew came by helicopter and we created a mobile cleanroom for him on the island. We cleaned him and gave him the interferon straight into his bloodstream. It worked, but it took too long. We should have left on the first helicopter.’
‘So what now?’
‘Steven’s adamant,’ she said. ‘He’s over-ruled me. You two can go. He doesn’t care anymore who knows what.’
‘Neither do you, Virginia. Right?’ said Stone. ‘Whatever stories we put out will be trashed by you in the mainstream media anyhow.’
She didn’t deny it. Stone had to love this girl. She’d planned it all out before she let them out of that room. ‘You can go wherever you want,’ she said. ‘Steven asks only that you leave the country and not return. He’ll summon his private jet to Ningbo, which is near here, and tell the pilot to take you where you wish to go. London. LA. Tokyo.’
Stone couldn’t possibly trust this. And in any case, there was the matter of the Machine to think of. He wasn't going to give it up at this stage.
‘Is it you or Semyonov who’s given up on getting the Machine, Virginia?’ said Stone. ‘We know more than you think,’ he said. ‘I know about The Machine. I know what it is, and I know what happened with Semyonov and SearchIgnition, and why he ran away to China. I know where all this new technology is pouring out from. You won’t be able to keep that quiet. Especially when they go back to that crater in Sichuan, and it all starts again. You can’t keep that kind of thing quiet. Every government and corporation in the world will want a piece of it.’
Bravado from Stone. It sometimes works. But a silent stand off is more difficult than you’d think when you can’t see the person you’re talking to. A person naturally fills the silence in conversation by speaking, and Stone was adept at using silence to make people say more than they should. But he couldn’t see her. She could be smiling derisively. Or just rolling her eyes in exasperation. Maybe there was no “Machine”, maybe everything was just as it seemed, just as she’d said. A mess, a big disaster. A dying billionaire and his childhood sweetheart had been playing silly games, and now she was behind a plastic sheet, dressed up like a space alien to confuse him. Stone forced himself to say nothing till she responded.
‘Does Carslake know too?’ she said, warily.
‘Sure,’ said Stone. Even lying isn’t easy when she can’t see you. No facial tells or body language to reinforce. He was feigning eye contact with her. Pointless. Mercifully, Carslake didn’t contradict him.
‘You’d better come and talk to Steven,’ she said, finally. 'I guess it's his decision.'
— oO0Oo-
Stone had to take it slowly for hygiene reasons. He was inside a large plastic tent, placed on the decking of the villa, two hundred metres from the beach at Balong. Stone went through two sets of translucent white plastic doors, stripped completely and showered. He was told to clean himself all over with anti-bacterial wash. He emerged in white cotton medical pajamas. Virginia was wearing the same, her hair tied up in a plastic cap, with a white mask over her face.
Another two sets of plastic tent doors and Stone realised he was in the presence once more of The Man. A white beached whale, pained and bleeding. Semyonov’s pale bulk was lying pitifully on its side on a gurney, three or four metres away, blurred behind yet another plastic sheet in a “cleanroom”, resembling an oxygen tent, to keep the air sterile. It was quiet save for the hum of the air conditioning plant. Stone sat down. He could feel Semyonov’s tortured red eyes burning into him through the sheeting.
‘It’s not as bad as it looks, Stone,’ said Semyonov. His voice was still strong and intelligent in between asthmatic gasps. Virginia was biting her knuckle again, weeping silently.
‘We’re coming with you,’ said Stone, after a delay. ‘The Death Hole, the crater in Sichuan. You know the place. That’s where you’re going. And since you offer, that is where we choose to go.’
‘We?’ asked Semyonov meaningfully. ‘Does that mean Carslake too?
‘Virginia’s idea. She seems to think two pairs of hands will be better than one for this little job.’ said Stone.