Embedded Files
Durand’s mind snapped back into focus as he felt hands rummaging over him.
Then somebody turned him over.
“Hey!” Durand shouted, as he got to his feet and grabbed at a thin, old
Chinese man. “What the hell are you doing?” His voice sounded less hoarse
now. Deeper.
The elderly man backed away. Durand saw the man clearly in the moonlight.
Not an old man—just an emaciated guy in his thirties in a threadbare
sleeveless vest and shorts. Tattoos of molecular diagrams covered his sinewy
arms.
A synth addict.
Durand, wide-awake now, watched the man back away in fear, and in that
moment it all came back to him. He examined his own thick-fingered hands and
beefy forearms.
He was another person. Still.
He glanced up at the thin sliver of moon—a dozen degrees higher into the
sky than when he’d come ashore. He’d been out cold for at least an hour.
Looking past the retreating junkie in the semidarkness, Durand could see
more figures moving along the base of a seawall, along the coastline.
He turned around and realized he was near an industrial road traversed by
autonomous semitrucks leaving automated container yards. Facing back toward
the junkies again, he could see in the moonlight where the beach ended a few
hundred meters beyond. It wasn’t apparent where the junkies were heading,
except maybe to drown themselves in the Johor Strait.
Durand ducked down as a police drone roared past not far away. He saw that
it was heading toward the police aviation facility just off the coast. Gazing back
at the skyscrapers of Singapore, he could see more police drones in the sky—
their searchlights stabbing down. The search for him wasn’t over yet.
He started carefully stepping across the rocky, trash-strewn beach in his bare
feet, following the junkies. As he proceeded, Durand saw a circular opening in
the seawall ahead. He noticed the Chinese junkie glance back at him with
the seawall ahead. He noticed the Chinese junkie glance back at him with
concern before disappearing into the opening.
Durand continued toward what soon resolved to a drainage tunnel—capped
at its end by a series of galvanized steel bars, bent to permit people to squeeze
through.
Around the edge of the opening, Durand could see broken motion sensors
and proximity lights. The entire area had been wired for security at some point,
but apparently that was just on paper now. He made a mental note to pass this
intel along to the Singapore Police Force.
As he peered into the darkness, Durand could see soft light in the tunnel
ahead. He could also hear music thumping.
Music?
He moved cautiously forward and felt plastic crunching underfoot. Kneeling
down, Durand could see bubble paks strewn across the sand in the moonlight.
Drug printing.
It made sense. He’d always wondered where in the hell on the island this
happened. Drug smuggling was a thing of the past in most countries now—not
because of any great advances in drug treatment or human nature but because of
synthetic biology. Just as algae, yeast, and bacteria were being custom designed
to grow food, chemicals, and products—so, too, were they being harnessed to
synthesize narcotics.
No need to store or ship large quantities of drugs. No need to smuggle.
Synthetic opioids a hundred times more powerful and pure than organic heroin
could be synthesized from a surprising list of mundane, common-use
ingredients. All you needed was the right genetically designed organism—one
that consumed sugar or iodine or any number of substances to produce a pure
molecular narcotic. Nearly impossible to stop. Nearly impossible to police. Also
far more deadly.
And that’s where the drug printers came in.
Durand entered the tunnel and began moving toward a distant light. He
stepped carefully to avoid cutting his feet on glass or rocks, crunching across
trash. He passed alcoves where rail-thin shadows of people hovered, their crazed
eyes catching a glint of reflected moonlight as they watched Durand pass.
For a place to hide from the police, he could do worse than here. Invisible
from the air, it already existed in defiance of the law—and in Singapore that was
no mean feat. Durand was surprised he’d never heard a whisper about this
place’s existence. But then again, he wasn’t really a cop. Not like Michael was.
It did seem odd that authorities would let a coastal industrial drainage tunnel
It did seem odd that authorities would let a coastal industrial drainage tunnel
go open and unmonitored. Wasn’t there a risk of bioterrorists using this tunnel?
As a data scientist, he was always shocked at how little of reality seemed to be
modeled in the data—Internet of Things be damned. This place shouldn’t exist.
And yet here it was.
After traveling a hundred meters in darkness, Durand came to an intersection
of three tunnels marked by bioluminescent light sticks. Green and blue and
yellow light sticks formed an arrow leading down the center tunnel. The festive
lights illuminated people rolling on the edge of darkness in the side passages.
Shadows moaning. A grinning man with a bald head with wires inserted into
drill holes at his temples leaned into the light, watching Durand pass. He laughed
maniacally as he reached out to touch Durand.
Durand batted the man’s hands away. “Off!” Durand had heard of
biohackers who electrically stimulated the pleasure center of their brain. Stim
addicts. Wireheads. They usually starved if the surgery was successful. For
every one of them who’d suffered an unendurable loss that made them pursue
the wire, there were others who were just pleasure addicts. Once the wire was in
place, the motive made little difference.
Durand moved deeper into the tunnel. The music grew louder
—cacophonous, disjointed, and thudding. Laser lights flashed ahead. He soon
entered a chamber thirty meters or so in diameter and five meters high, all
smooth concrete. It was a junction for several tunnels radiating outward. Dozens
of people languished in the preternatural twilight of light sticks, some trancedancing alone in their own worlds, others staring into space at the margins. No
one seemed to be talking.
A thin man wearing glowing lipstick approached Durand. “Blow job, baby?”
Durand shook his head, moving past into the crowd. He could see the dealers
wearing LFP glasses, while the junkies carried cheap flexible phablets. Gazing
around in the semidarkness, Durand saw glowing screens—actual physical
screens. But it figured. After all, any junkie who’d had an expensive light field
device had probably already sold it for drug money.
Instead all around him were cheap-shit, thin film screens. Addicts laughing
as they watched movies and TV shows. Porn. Played games. No photonics in
here, he guessed. Just old-school silicon.
Durand passed along a line of dealers. As he watched, an emaciated junkie
pointed out a tattoo of a molecular model on his left arm to a drug printer. The
dealer scanned it under the bioluminescent light, and a moment later the
molecule appeared on a disposable phablet screen—ready for synthesis
somewhere nearby.
somewhere nearby.
He’d never actually seen this in person—only read about it. Custom highs
were the drug business now. Your drug was synthesized as you ordered it—
specialized just for your DNA, to create the perfect high. To gauge the precise
dose, to avoid death. At maximum purity.
Buyers had to have their genome analyzed only once—a free service from
dealers, of course. Genomic analysis software could compute the perfect drug
structures for that person. A tiny change to a molecule here or there went a long
way, kicking the high up to the next level. And what better way for dealers to
write down your preferences than on your own skin? Something that wasn’t
going to get pawned off or stolen when you were stoned out of your mind.
Tattoos were forever. Another free service of the printers.
Light flashed and another drug printer scanned another tattoo. Within ten or
fifteen minutes, the junkie could have a small hit of his choice drug produced
somewhere in these tunnels and transported straight here by drone.
It didn’t take much to get high these days. Just a few milligrams would
knock you on your ass for hours. Any more could kill you. But then, drug
printers knew the precise dose their customers could handle. Big data had
entered the black market, and the drug printers knew more about their customers
than social media companies knew about theirs. The printers also knew dead
customers weren’t repeat customers.
By now some of the synth addicts had taken notice of Durand, backing away
warily as Durand passed through. He still had bloodstains on his wet hospital
gown and looked like an escaped lunatic even among the clientele here.
• • •
Sofyan Taniwan monitored his synth dealers with one eye and the Gujarat Lions
cricket match with the other. He had serious money riding on both. The virtual
screen created by his LFP glasses could have filled his vision, but as a pudgy,
diminutive man he needed to keep at least one wary eye out while inside the
Drain—the slang term for Singapore’s underground drug printing market. The
place certainly drained the detritus out of Singapore, human and otherwise.
Taniwan raised his fist and stifled a shout as the inimitable McAllister
shipped in with his fifty-third run on the video inset, making the spread.
Taniwan smiled briefly before erasing his emotion. It never paid to express
emotion among the losers spiraling through the Drain. Emotion was a tell, and
tells could be exploited. But he had just won a substantial wager.
tells could be exploited. But he had just won a substantial wager.
Just then Taniwan focused his left eye beyond his dealers, onto a thuggish,
thick-necked Eurasian man wearing—of all things—a hospital gown. He’d seen
all types in the Drain. People escaped from rehab clinics. The rich. The poor. But
they had a gaunt, zombified look about them. You could see the hunger in their
eyes. This man, though, looked like the opposite of a synth addict. In fact, he
looked like trouble, and if anything had earned Taniwan the trust of his bosses, it
was his nose for trouble.
Taniwan reluctantly dismissed the virtual cricket screen with a gesture and
focused both eyes on the man, who was now passing by his dealers with the
gawping air of a tourist in the bad part of town. And yet somehow this man
looked like he brought the bad part of town with him wherever he went.
Something was amiss here. What resembled bloodstains spattered the man’s
hospital smock. Taniwan was willing to bet it wasn’t this man’s blood, either.
Taniwan moved his hands with subtlety, so as not to attract undue attention,
bringing up his gang’s facial recognition app (like any business, they kept track
of their customers—especially the troublemakers). This sort of thing could
readily be misunderstood here in the Drain. It was a poorly kept secret that the
drug printing labs were tolerated by the SPF; they kept the synth addict problem
out of the public eye, and no doubt greased a few palms as well. However, being
a police informant was part of the deal.
The positive match was almost immediate, and the man’s virtual, closed-eye
3D headscan and name soon rotated before Taniwan. Taniwan did not like what
he saw—not one bit . . .
Marcus Demang Wyckes, leader of the Huli jing.
Implicated in hundreds of murders, kidnappings, human trafficking—and
just two hours ago personally murdering two Singapore police officers. Every
damn cop in the city-state was searching for this man. Taniwan wiped away the
virtual bust of Wyckes as though it was a letter from his ex-wife’s attorney. True
fear gripped him for the first time since he’d left the slums of Johor. Why hadn’t
he just minded his own damn business? Why did he have to spot this man? Now
he knew.
Normally Taniwan would order his men to grab felons the police really
wanted and, depending on the situation, dump the perp behind a police station,
beaten to a pulp—or dead. But that’s what you did with unconnected nobodies.
This was a different kettle of fish altogether. The leader of the Huli jing had no
doubt put out a call for his people, and they would be here soon enough.
And so would the police. Some junkie was going to spot Wyckes sooner or
later, and a whole goddamned anti-terror squad would storm in here—the very
last thing Taniwan wanted in the Drain. It was bad for business. Getting into the
feeds. Increasing taxpayer awareness. No, no, no. This would not do.
But worse still would be the Huli jing finding out that Taniwan had ordered
his men to turn Wyckes over to the police. This was a quandary. If he pretended
he’d never seen Wyckes, then the police could come storming into the Drain any
minute. If he turned Wyckes in, then the Huli jing would track Taniwan down
and torture him to death on camera as a warning to others.
But this was why Taniwan was in charge here—to make the tough calls.
After a few moments’ consideration, he decided to split the difference; he’d take
action—but make sure no one knew the real reason. Plausible deniability.
Taniwan glanced toward his dealers, where one of the Indo-Australian
enforcers shoved away a dancing synth addict. Taniwan spoke to the man over a
radio link. “Tok. See that mental case in the hospital gown?” Taniwan watched
Tok scan the crowd of addicts. “No, to your right. By the vuck pit.”
Tok zeroed in on Wyckes near the VR sex machines. “Got him. Watchu
want?”
“Take your mate and find out what hospital he escaped from and dump his
ass back there.”
“You havin’ a piss?”
“Just do it.”
“Can we keep whatever we find on ’im?”
“Sure. Just get him the hell out of here. Crazy people are bad for business.”
• • •
Durand moved past the printers, following light sticks into the tunnels beyond and
away from the crowd. There, he found more junkies and homeless. Durand
stepped over legs and around makeshift cardboard shelters. As he walked, his
shadow cast along the tunnel walls—but then he noticed other shadows behind
his. Turning around Durand could see two wiry-looking Southeast Asian men.
They didn’t look like addicts and wore faded digital camouflage military jackets
in the cool air of the tunnels. No one else seemed to have jackets.
Durand saw the glint of a knife catch the light as the men kept on his tail.
Other addicts retreated into the shadows.
“Oi! Mate!” The lead one had an Australian accent.
Durand turned to face them.
Durand turned to face them.
“You a mental case?”
The man’s companion clattered across trash as he moved to flank Durand. A
metal pipe slipped down into his hand from within his coat sleeve.
Durand eyed them both warily. “I don’t have anything. I just want to be left
alone.” Durand turned in place, arms extended, most likely revealing the crack
of his ass at the back of the hospital gown.
“Yeah? Let’s have a look at that wrist bracelet.”
Durand noticed the hospital patient bracelet on his right wrist for the first
time. “It’s a printed bracelet.”
“Could still work to get meds.”
“Meds?” Durand looked at it and saw the name Marcus Wyckes printed on it
along with computer codes. He had literally been wearing a name tag this entire
time. He tried to pull it off, but the material was tough.
“I’ll cut it off ya.”
Durand felt anger rising in him—as if he hadn’t had a bad enough day, now
he was dealing with these two scavengers. They appeared well used to preying
on loners.
“Don’t seem interested in the printers, do ya?”
The other one snorted. “Doesn’t look like an addict.”
The first nodded. “Right. So watcha doin’ down here, mate?”
Durand studied both men. He was half a head taller than both.
“Looks like you got in one hell of a fight.”
The other laughed. “And lost.”
“Right?” The first chuckled as he rolled a curving, clawlike knife in his
hand.
Durand felt an unfamiliar calm again as adrenaline flowed. He felt focused.
Clear-headed. This was not how he usually felt in life-threatening situations. “I
just want to be left alone. I don’t have anything.”
“Let’s see the bracelet, sweetheart.” He motioned with the knife. “You turn
around. Hands on your head, yeah?”
Durand shook his head slowly.
“We’re not askin’, mate.”
They rushed Durand, the second man raising his foot-long pipe as he came
in.
Durand felt oddly detached from fear as he rushed toward the second man
fast enough to get inside the arc of his swing. He grabbed the man’s wrist and
kneed him in the groin—then pulled him in front of the oncoming man with the
kneed him in the groin—then pulled him in front of the oncoming man with the
knife.
Durand twisted the pipe out of the second man’s grip and pushed him toward
his knife-wielding partner—who pulled back out of range as his friend collapsed,
groaning in pain.
“You’re proper fucked now, mate!” The first man lunged forward with the
knife, slashing.
Durand ducked back, raised the steel pipe—then hurled it at the man’s face,
connecting with a resounding CRACK. He followed it in.
Durand rained haymakers to the man’s head, stomach, and ribs. The knife
fell to the ground as the guy collapsed. Durand grabbed the pipe from the floor
of the tunnel and continued beating the man with it—a soggy ringing sound
echoing in the tunnel.
“Happy now?” Durand panted heavily as he turned the man over, raising the
pipe again.
The sound of gasping and shoes sliding on concrete behind him. Durand
turned to see the second scavenger trying to get to his feet.
“Aaaahhh!” Durand raced after the man before he could even fully stand.
“No! Wait!”
Durand struck him in the stomach, and then continued beating him until he
collapsed—then still continued beating him.
“I just wanted to be left alone!”
After a few more blows, Durand tossed the pipe to the ground, where it
clattered and rolled across the tunnel floor. He stood panting, and then turned
around to see the eyes of gaunt addicts in the semidarkness.
He pointed at them. “If any of you fucking get near me, I won’t be as kind.”
The reflected light on those eyes disappeared, and he heard people pull
farther into side tunnels.
Durand caught his breath and looked down at the motionless bodies in the
glow of light sticks. The men were crumpled and bloodied but breathing. As his
own pulse slowed, Durand could barely believe what he’d done. He’d just badly
injured two men, beating them into unconsciousness.
He’d been schooled in hand-to-hand combat at the Naval Academy. And
he’d taken the odd karate and jujitsu course. But it had always been theoretical
up until now. He hadn’t had a real hand-to-hand fight since high school. And
never with an actual enemy.
He examined his thick, bloodied hands. The tattoos had reappeared along his
forearms.
Then it occurred to him that there must be police informants all over the
Then it occurred to him that there must be police informants all over the
drug printing markets. How could he have been so stupid? Junkies were among
the most pliant of informants. Soon this place might be crawling with police.
He had to keep moving. He didn’t have the luxury to dwell on this. He
started rifling through the first man’s overlarge camouflage jacket. He found a
vape pen case and several blister paks with custom drug process codes on it.
These he tossed aside.
He heard the man groan.
Durand pulled a cheap phablet from the guy’s inside pocket. A thin film
device. Common with drug users and low-level criminals. Prepaid. Solarcharged batteries. A couple millimeters thick at least.
In other words: obsolete crap. It would still be useful, but if either of these
men spoke to police, they’d be able to track this device. Durand tossed it into the
nearby puddle of water.
What Durand needed most was clothes. He pulled the hospital gown off and
dropped it at his feet. Feeling vulnerable in his nudity, Durand stripped the
shapeless sweatpants and gray hoodie from the larger of the two men and put
them on. He also slipped on the man’s overlarge camouflage jacket. It was tight
in the shoulders, but it would work.
He then grabbed the second man’s well-worn military boots. These were
uncomfortably small, but they were infinitely better than bare feet.
Now clothed, Durand searched amid the trash for the fallen knife. He saw it
lying in a puddle of brackish water.
Picking it up, he could see it was a grown knife—probably a keratin-silica
hybrid from some vat in Thailand or Vietnam. Highly illegal in Singapore.
Nonmetallic and thus difficult to detect on scanners. He squeezed the handle
where it felt soft, and the blade retracted like a cat’s claw into the handle. He
squeezed it again, and the blade reappeared. It felt organic, like some hunter’s
souvenir from a big game hunt. He retracted the blade again and stored the knife
in his jacket.
It was a felony to carry a concealed weapon in Singapore, but that was the
least of his supposed crimes. And he guessed these men would have friends.
Durand then rifled through the second man’s pockets. He found another thinfilm phablet device, but also a dozen or more bitrings in a plastic pouch—
probably stolen. These were disposable cryptocurrency devices popular with
undocumented migrants, itinerants, and synth addicts. They served as wireless
wallets for small amounts of digital money. They typically required physical
contact between a terminal or another bitring to transfer funds—and were
contact between a terminal or another bitring to transfer funds—and were
usually tethered to a parent device for loading money or setting up transactions.
Bitrings were no safer than carrying cash really but were never loaded with
much. It certainly beat connecting your main device to a potentially malwareinfested point-of-sale terminal. And they were easily concealed by junkies.
The only question was what type of currency was on them. There were a
dozen popular blockchain cryptocurrencies now—ChiCoin, ThaiCoin, Biocoin,
SinCoin—most linked to a central banking authority. Cryptocurrency providers
had concluded in the early 2020s that it was better to sell blockchain software
solutions to central banks than to enter the heavily regulated banking industry on
their own. More libertarian-minded flavors, like Biocoin, still existed (named
because it used cell division and mutation inside a bioreactor as a calculation
engine to unlock coins, while simultaneously generating intrinsically valuable
biomass). But whatever money was on them should work.
One of the men groaned again.
Durand decided he’d figure the rings out later. Right now Durand had to be
anywhere but here. He headed off down the tunnels, moving past more homeless
camps and dozing addicts clustered in twos and threes. Those awake watched
him warily, but avoided his menacing stare.
Durand collected several light sticks from the tunnel floor as he walked and
held them up as a torch. Looking down a darkened side tunnel, he decided to
follow it, going deeper into the maze beneath the city. He wondered how far the
tunnels stretched.
After walking several minutes, turning down occasional side tunnels, Durand
spotted the glow of two phablet screens in the shadows ahead. He continued
warily and the glow suddenly disappeared.
Durand put his hand on the knife in his pocket and held up the light sticks. “I
know you’re there. I don’t want trouble. I’m just passing through.”
He proceeded and soon he could see two outlines in the semidarkness.
Passing by them in the tunnel, he could see they were young Burmese or Thai
men clad in cheap printed clothes—both of them thin and clearly nervous. One
of them held a piece of steel rebar.
Durand studied them. “Either of you speak English? Nĭ huì shuō pŭtōnghuà
ma?”
The men turned to each other uncertainly.
Durand raised the bag containing the bitrings. “I want to buy one of those
phablets.” He pointed at the phablet still in one man’s hand. “I’ll pay. Wŏ huì
fù.”
The man on the left said simply, “How much?”
The man on the left said simply, “How much?”
Durand reached into the bag and fished out a bitring at random. He tossed it
over.
The man caught the bitring warily, and then touched it to one he wore—he
then consulted his phablet screen. He shook his head. “No good. Much more.”
Durand tossed another one. “That’s what I’ve got.” It wasn’t, but he hoped it
was enough.
The man checked this ring like the first, then looked at his companion. They
both seemed either pleased or offended. It was hard to tell which.
The second man nodded. He tossed the cheap phablet over to Durand, who
caught it without dropping the light sticks.
“You go now!” The man raised the rebar menacingly.
Durand nodded and continued down the tunnel, glancing behind him to see
that the glow of their remaining phablet had returned. He also thought he could
hear gleeful laughter.
Okay, maybe they got a deal. But he got what he needed, too: access to the
Net.
• • •
After twenty minutes of walking, and taking several more turns, Durand entered a
small chamber that bore evidence of past human habitation—plastic tarps, spent
light sticks, excrement, and trash. But nothing recent from the look of it. A small
pool of brackish water occupied the center of the chamber. Small drainage pipes
fed into the room from two walls, but the tunnel continued through the far wall.
He had a means of escape if someone came from either direction.
Durand tossed the light sticks onto the floor and then dropped onto a fiber
pallet next to the pool of dirty water. He felt his exhaustion coming on him in
waves.
He caught sight of a stranger’s face reflected in the puddle’s surface next to
him. He gasped and reached for the knife—but then stopped.
It was his own reflection again.
The surreal nature of his situation hit home.
The Eurasian face staring back at him was bruised. Square-jawed and thicknecked. His bald head scratched and cut. His dark brown eyes intense.
Who was this? Was it really Wyckes?
Durand felt more bereft than he had ever felt. Even worse than the night his
father died, back when he was in high school—and he had to grow up so
suddenly. No, this . . . He didn’t even know what this sensation was. Utter loss.
The death of himself.
How was this possible? It seemed like just last night that he’d been reading
to Mia. But that was weeks ago now.
The magnitude of all he’d lost became clear. Mourning gripped Durand.
Examining his own thick-fingered hands again, he began to weep. Everywhere
he turned made him feel more lost. Could he even convince his wife and child
who he was? How could he ever get back?
Durand wept for an unknown time, teetering on the edge of insanity as he
gazed at the bruised and beaten stranger in the water’s surface.
There was no getting back.
Images of his wife and daughter came to his mind. But they now soothed
him. They would know him. He was sure of it. He could convince them.
And then something occurred to Durand: he was still himself.
His mind was unchanged. His body and face might have changed, but he was
still himself inside. So his brain hadn’t been altered. Was it the blood-brain
barrier?
This comforted him. There was a limit to the transformation.
Durand took a deep, calming breath, then looked down into the pool of water
at the stranger’s reflection. The analyst inside him wondered.
How was it done?
And more importantly:
Why was it done?
Someone had somehow edited his genomic sequence—trillions of living
cells, each edited in hundreds of ways. CRISPR edits on an unimaginable scale.
Edits on an embryo were one thing, but edits to a living, complex organism?
This was light-years different. The human body had evolved over millions of
years to resist invaders. Attempts to change DNA—say, by a viral infection—
were quickly detected by RNA within the body, the invaders destroyed. If a
virus somehow managed to make edits, these wouldn’t match the DNA template
in the cell’s nucleus—and if enough changes occurred, the cell would effectively
commit suicide in a last-ditch effort to protect the rest of the organism.
No, humans—and life in general—had evolved serious genetic security.
That’s what made biology so robust as a manufacturing platform. If you tried to
break it, it resisted.
So how had they done it?
So how had they done it?
Durand examined his bruised arms and neck. He recalled that when he
awoke the doctor said the swelling had only just receded—that he had wholebody swelling and bruising while he was in the coma.
His body trying to fight something off.
Edits.
His body must have been trying to resist massive, contemporaneous edits.
Dear god.
Someone had really figured it out. They’d figured out how to edit the living.
Durand sat back and contemplated this. If that was true—and he had
firsthand evidence that it was—then it had major implications, not just for
Durand but for all of humanity. For the future of life on earth.
Anything could be changed now. By comparison, embryo edits were child’s
play.
Durand looked closer at his reflection in the water. Even the bones of his
face and jaw had changed. He opened his mouth. His teeth had been slightly
altered as well. DNA was the cornerstone of criminal forensics. Of legal identity
itself. If you couldn’t rely on DNA staying the same, how could you hold anyone
responsible for anything?
It suddenly dawned on Durand: That’s why Wyckes did this.
Durand pulled the cheap phablet from his coat pocket and searched public
newsfeeds. Durand saw his new face all over the headlines. The top item on the
Straits Times described the Singapore Police Force’s massive manhunt aimed
toward preventing Marcus Wyckes from escaping Singapore.
Durand quickly found the Interpol Red Notice, too.
There he was—the man reflected in the water’s surface.
The Huli jing had literally made Durand into the criminal he was hunting.
Durand recalled Marcotte’s briefing. How arrests and turnover of Huli jing
ringleaders had no effect on the cartel’s rapid expansion.
He lowered the phablet in sudden realization.
The Nine Tails of the Huli jing weren’t dying—they were changing their
DNA. Perhaps killing someone else in their place.
Then a startling idea occurred to Durand: if the Huli jing could edit him once
—they could do it again.
Couldn’t they? If they changed his DNA, then they could probably change
him back.
Durand caught his breath.
There still might be a way to get back to his family. Back to his life.
Durand’s mind raced, despite his exhaustion. He looked at the stranger’s
Durand’s mind raced, despite his exhaustion. He looked at the stranger’s
reflection in the water.
He nodded, and the stranger nodded back. “The Huli jing could change me
back.”
However, it would require one critical component he was currently missing.
Some of his original DNA . . .
A slight grin creased the stranger’s mouth. He knew just where he could get
that.
D
Chapter 13
etective Inspector Aiyana Marcotte approached heavily armed Singapore police
tactical units guarding a subbasement corridor. The masked sentry there
noted her Interpol ID with suspicion but nodded her through.
She walked toward bright lights and evidence technicians 3D-scanning the
scene of two dead policemen in a blood-spattered elevator car. Several
Singapore police detectives conferred nearby. Hospital attendants waited with
gurneys since the scene was just down the hall from the hospital morgue.
Detective Sergeant Michael Yi Ji-chang stood beyond the yellow police tape
and saw her approach. “Evening, Inspector.”
Marcotte stopped alongside. “I had planned on congratulating you for
locating Marcus Wyckes.”
“You still can.” He grimaced. “Though he got away again.”
She nodded toward the scene. “I’m told the Singapore police had two dozen
men managing the transfer.”
“I personally watched them chain Wyckes hand and foot.” He pointed at the
unlocked cuffs still wrapped around the rails of a toppled gurney.
“Have they found the gun?”
“No. No idea how he got one, either. Probably a polymer piece—maybe
printed here in the hospital. They’re checking printer logs.” Yi shook his head. “I
had Wyckes. I should have just stayed with him.”
“Then you’d be dead, too. If I’m not mistaken, you have no gun.”
Yi said nothing.
“Too bad we don’t have police powers here.” Marcotte studied the scene.
“It’s pretty clear Wyckes had inside help.”
“I’d agree with you except there’s street camera imagery of Wyckes fleeing
alone, barefoot and bare-assed—looking confused and afraid.”
Marcotte pointed. “Elevator security camera cut out during the escape.”
Yi considered this news. “I hadn’t heard that.”
“And one of the police drones was taken off station
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