Jade Dragon Read Online Free Page B

upward and grew
spines of impact-resistant piezoplastic. At their tips were
pressure-jet web guns, needle-fine nozzles that could fling a polymer
spray into the air. Like spider’s thread, the polymer hardened on
contact with the air, turning thick and gluey. It was water soluble, and
it lasted for less than five minutes before it dissolved, but that was
typically more than enough time to coat the wheels of a speeder and
force them to slow. Ko had caught a grille full of the stuff once, back
when a race against some Wanchai show-off had sent him down the wrong
road. It was like driving through treacle.
    The trick to beating the tanglers was to drive in a way the designers
thought only an idiot would.
     
    Ko shifted around the neon-lit bulk of bleating robohauler and aimed the
bonnet of the Vector directly at the closest pylon. He saw the thin
streams of fluid hissing into the night air, crossing away and to the
right, converging on the place where the traffic control computer
estimated he was
supposed
to be.
    “The pole with the lanterns…” Feng said. “You’re going to hit it!”
    “Yes.” Ko ran the sedan right into the plastic upright and heard it
clatter and scrape against the underside of the Mercedes as it folded
beneath it. The car listed sharply as some of the rangier fluid spat
over the rear tyres, but he was ready for it and there was hardly enough
to cause him trouble. In the rear-view, he spotted the hauler going
headlong into a puddle of the stuff and the vehicle skidded hard. The
robot truck’s simplistic road-brain lacked the finesse to manage such a
sudden change in highway conditions and the hauler spun out, throwing up
a fountain of sparks as it scraped the barrier on the median strip. The
Vector made some complaining noises and shuddered. A clatter of noise
from the back seat drew Ko’s attention. “What the hell is that? A bag?”
     
    “The speed traps were ineffective.” The masked man spoke for the first
time, never once turning his head from the driver’s seat. His voice was
neutral in a way that seemed too precise to be fully human.
    Frankie watched the distance markers blinking past the window as the
remaining cars in the YLHI convoy followed the expressway back toward
the city. He felt an odd sense of amusement at the thief’s boldness,
taking one of the Vectors from right under the nose of his escorts. He
let his gaze wander to Alice. Her annoyance was palpable there in the
back of the sedan, coming off her chilly expression in ice-cold waves.
The car felt cramped, the air inside uncomfortable.
    Alice paused only to listen to the report from the man in the Monkey
King mask and then returned to the conversation she was having in hissy
Japanese with her vu-phone. A hand-held cellular model, the compact
wedge of electronics was standard-issue equipment to every Yuk Lung
executive above grade three. She gave Frankie a contrite but irritated
look. “I am so very sorry you had to witness that, Francis. You are
barely home for ten minutes and you are forced to watch a crime unfold
in front of you. Rest assured, the thief will be caught and punished.”
She turned back to the phone and barked out something angry.
    “Damn kids,” said Ping, the guy who’d taken his bag at arrivals. Coiled
in the front passenger seat, he sported the beginnings of a nasty bruise
on his cheek. “Oughta ban the lot of them from the ’port. Only go there
to race up and down the highway.” He started to say something else, but
Alice gave him a sharp glare; it was Ping’s fault the car had been
taken, and so he had forfeited the right to speak because of his laxity.
    “Highway patrol enforcers are inbound,” reported the Monkey King. “He’ll
be at the bridge before they get here.”
    Frankie wondered where the agent was getting this data from. There had
to be an audio-video link inside the mask, or else some cyberware
implant looping a feed from the police band. He heard the masked man
make a tutting