Q is for Curiosity

We’d never met in person before, but I had heard of Mr Fei Dan.

He doesn’t blink as he sits at the far end of the train carriage, watching one of his guards scan the E-watch on my wrist. After a second or two, the scanner flashes as a new screen appears, lighting up the guards face. I wonder if he notices my racing heart rate.

“Please, have a seat” Fei Dan says, speaking for the first time. I take in his white flowered shirt, matching shorts and sandaled feet as I am led, not to the seat in front of him, but behind him. My knees bend and I sink into the chair. We’re back to back. I had read that he’s an eccentric who enjoys unnecessary theatrics like this, to feel in control. But in comparison to the real bosses, the economic giants of the INK zone, he’s just a rat feeding off the scraps from their table. Fei Dan and his men scurry through the centre and outskirts of the zone, commandeering the route of the Infinity line train, using it as their personal hub for “business”. This suits people like me, who need to get around discreetly, if undignified, like chewed up gunner gum stuck under someone’s boot.

“You know why you are here” Fei Dan says over the thrum of electricity and the distant sounds of conversation in other carriages. “$100 will be transferred to your cache when you have finished.” I take this as my cue to get to work and I pull my computer out my bag with sweaty palms. Instantly the weight of my 2003 INSIGNIA laptop makes feel calmer. This is what I am good at. Stealing identities, re-writing old codes, recovering pre-war materials, it’s all just fishing for letters and numbers in a sea of data.

What Mr Fei Dan wants is something that you can’t find on regular networks like TourG, but to people who know how to programme in the old languages, like Mamba and B++, it’s free pickings – free, illegal pickings, but it’s the best way I know how to make money and keep unwanted eyes of my back. When it suits me, I can even get a new name, birthday or status, the latter being the most useful when I need a higher ranking to get into the nicer clubs in the K-district. This is not the K-district. The INK zone serves as a place to ‘Invest Not Kill’, in order to get what you want. However, the black market and darknet trade thrives underneath the surface of a river of spilled blood.

After ten minutes pass, there is an audible blast from further down the train. My fingers pause for a moment on the keys and I hear the door at the opposite end of the carriage open, and then shut. A guard must have left, but explosions aren’t rare sounds these days. I continue working. The end door opens once again but this time I hear multiple pairs of boots enter. Immediately, the guards start talking to Fei Dan in a language that I don’t understand, but it is obvious something is wrong. I check my E-watch, this seems like a good time to find a new name. Then I see it. M.J BELLOS, the screen reads. SOUTH DISTRICT 31, CL:BX-204, RFC: $20,000. Reward For Capture: $20,000. My heart turns to stone and falls through my stomach. I look up slowly, only to make eye contact with Mr Fei Dan. This is impossible, I think, just as there’s another explosion and everything becomes dark.

When I come to, I am still sat down but my hands are tied and I am now facing Fei Dan. He has a splash of red mixed into the flowers on his attire and one of his sandals is missing.

“I just wanted to know” he moans. “I was so curious about the ‘Q, and I couldn’t stop thinking abou-”

“My head” I mumble leaning forward over my knees.

“I just wanted to know” he says again, childlike.

My own thoughts cut across him. How could I be worth $20,000? Something must have happened during my search, someone must have known what we was looking for, and they didn’t like it. Thinking this sends a wave of nausea coursing through my body which is worsened by the lurching stop of the train. The inertia dampeners must have been damaged.

Fei Dan continues to whine and I think he may actually cry. What is he talking about, a queue? There’s never a queue for the Infinity line. Then I remember why I am here. The job, the ‘Q’ as in the letter ‘Q’, the alphabet, ABC. He’d wanted to know the name, the full name. I only took this job for two reasons, the first being the money, the second is that my own curiosity was peaked. To the majority of people, the combination of letters Q.R are just letters, but I know that used to stand for Quick Response codes, QR codes. Most people aren’t familiar with that term anymore, they don’t know they were invented in a place called Japan before the second millennium, or that they can hold hundreds of times more information than a single line of code. Of course that was over 60 years ago, now you can get 7D codes, capable of holding kerabytes of data. That’s why I deal with old-tech; it might not be as pretty, but is sure does last a long time.

I look up from the floor to see Fei Dan holding a black notebook with faded gold lettering on one side. I already know what it says. Q.R. Wilder. It is in fairly good condition for something made from trees. There aren’t many trees to see these days, or books, much less someone actually writing in one - they’re too easy to burn. But this had obviously been written in -and read- extensively.

“Quantum. Quentin, Qing, Qiana, Quinn, Qiao.” He pauses, “Queen?” I start to think that something may have smacked him in the head too.

“Quiet” I announce.

“What?”

“It’s gone quiet.”

There aren’t any more explosive sounds and all of the guards are gone, but there is a sound and it’s getting louder. In our collective solitude we listen to the something get closer to the empty carriage entrance, the door now torn from its frame. I stand up in an attempt to move, but immediately fall back into my seat, I’d failed to notice that my ankles were also tied together. I guess I will be worth something to someone soon. I stand up again but Fei Dan doesn’t move, simply continues to clutch the book in his hands. There's a pause in the noise. Then, a woman steps into the room, holding a gun in each hand. Both have a suppressor attached. Although her breathing is laboured, her voice is calm when she speaks.

"My book" she says, pointing one gun at Fei Dan. "My money" she says raising the other towards me.