Jade Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page A

sound under his breath as he guided the Mercedes around a
stalled robohauler and through the thick slurry of spent tangler foam.
The other car in the group was quite a way behind them.
    Alice looked up and met the driver’s eyes in the rear-view. Frankie saw
something unspoken pass between them.
    “He’s going to go for the WarPark off-ramp. I can catch him. With your
permission?”
    She nodded, and with a grunt of power from the engine, the driver threw
the Vector into top gear.
    Alice punched in a different number. “Traffic control, this is YLHI
mobile 41312, enacting clause six of the Corporate Self-Defence Act.
Advise all enforcement agents that this is a duly noted and legal
exercise of our company rights.” She hung up without waiting for a reply
and snapped the cellphone closed.
    A thought formed in Frankie s mind. “My bag… Where’s my carry-on bag
from the plane?”
    Ping looked at the floor. “In, uh, in the car.” He pointed in the
general direction of the road.
    “Don’t worry,” said Alice. “The moment the vehicle was stolen, the
contents of your personal computer were nashloaded to our central server
and then the machine was wiped. Your company phone was also
automatically severed from our internal network.”
    “That’s not what I was thinking.” He extended his hand to her. “May I?”
    The woman gave him a dubious look, but passed him the vu-phone all the
same. Without really being sure of what motivated him, Frankie hesitated
with his finger over the keypad, trying to remember his own number.
     
    With one hand on the wheel, Ko rooted through the contents of the
carry-on bag on his lap. In-flight toiletries kit. A dead d-screen. Half
a bottle of Copperhead mineral water. Some entertainment softs still in
the wrapper. And…
    “Eyes on the road!” said Feng.
    The Vector drifted hard, missing a slow-moving drop-top by less than an
inch. “I can do two things at once,” Ko held up the last object in front
of him. A corporate cellular telephone. “Crap.” These things were worth
a lot to the right people, and Ko knew half a dozen hackers who would
part with a lot of yuan for an intact celly with all the hardwired comms
protocols inside; but there was also the fact that these phones were
wired with satellite locator chips that could light him up like a homing
beacon. Ko tossed the bag into the back seat again and slammed the phone
on the dashboard three times in rapid succession, splintering the case.
A glimpse of wires and circuits peered out at him from a break in the
plastic. “Ah, why risk it?” Ko reached forward to open the window. “Best
to toss it, just in case—”
    It rang with the gentle chirp of a nightingale.
     
    “Hello?” The voice on the other end of the line was young and wary. “Who
the hell is this?”
    Alice was watching Frankie very carefully. “Stealing cars is not a good
way to win friends and influence people, kid.” He kept his voice level.
“You should stop this before you get hurt.”
    The reaction he got was exactly the one that he would have given in the
same place. “Screw you, wageslave! Go polish your shoes or something.”
    “What are you trying to accomplish?” whispered Alice.
    Frankie waved her into silence. “That was pretty slick what you did back
there. With the tanglers. That took balls. You gotta be good behind the
wheel to pull off something like that.”
    “Don’t flatter me, pal.”
    He kept speaking, ignoring the interruption. “Or of course, it could
just be that you’re lucky. Are you the lucky type? All balls no brains,
gonna wrap yourself around a lamp-post one day?” The words bubbled up
from inside Frankie, spooling out of some place locked in his past. It
was strange to hear Alan’s words coming out of his mouth, but there it
was. Suddenly he was inside that stupid kid’s head, thinking what he was
thinking, going where he was going.
    “Eat my dust, suit. This ride is too fine for cashwhores like you.”
    Frankie