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Tales from Silicon City: Lunch Meeting

By Psion

All Rights Reserved

A Silicon City story

Somewhere near the western border of China...

The sun had just settled into its midday position over the hidden fortress in the Tien Shan mountain range along the border between China and Kazakhstan. Built largely underground, the only part visible from the surface was a humble-looking Chinese temple. At a distant, the temple appeared ancient yet if one got closer and looked carefully, the cleverly crafted deception eventually becomes apparent. Transplanted moss, artificially aged stonework, someone clearly went through a great deal of trouble to make it look older then it really was. By the time that became clear though, the unfortunate observer would have found himself completely surrounded....

The male known simply as Zheng regarded the intrusion with a mix of curiosity and irritation, annoyed that his trusted officers would dare interrupt his lunch but at the same time interested because those same trusted officers knew that showing up at the brown field mouse's table without an invitation or a good reason was a Very Bad career move. So it was with a raised eyebrow that he regarded the two subordinates as they brought in a third male dressed in a tattered North Korean military uniform with a burlap sack over his head.

"Yes?" Zheng began, the single word saying more then an entire paragraph.

"The eastern patrol detected this male traveling alone. When we approached him, he surrendered without a fight and asked for you by name."

"Hmmm, this is indeed unusual. Is he unarmed?"

"He was carrying an old AK-47 when we found him that was willingly handed over when he surrendered to us sir." The officer replied as he forcibly seated the canine prisoner down at the opposite end of the table across from Zheng.

"Very well then, get that bag off his head and you may join us." The warlord beckoned, eager to see who this intruder was.

The instant Zheng saw the Pungsan Dog's face, he recognized him immediately and almost as quickly wished he didn't. Yoon Lee Woojin, formerly of the North Korean army and a volunteer in its abortive failure of a super soldier program. Zheng had interacted with "Dear Leader's Science Project" briefly when he was still a junior officer in China's technical corps, helping North Korea try to cultivate a population of metabeings. The project was a near disaster in Zheng's mind; Woojin was the only truly successful test subject, thankfully that was enough to please Pyongyang.

Yet time made the entire ordeal incredibly ironic in hindsight. Shortly after the project was shelved, The Stranger came down from his hermitage somewhere in the mountain regions between China and North Korea, cutting a swath of destruction from Najin all the way to Pyongyang and lighting the whole country ablaze. The Presidential Palace was a smoking crater and UN relief workers were still finding butchered remains of Dear Leader's several sons scattered across the countryside. As for their joke of a military, Woojin might very well be the last North Korean soldier there ever was and ever will be now that reunification of the Korean Peninsula was underway. Yet of all the reminders of Korea to show up on his doorstep, it had to be Woojin...

"Lieutenant Zheng, you have a strange way of greeting guests though it's great to see you!" The canine smiled happily. "Or is it technically General now? I see you've done well for yourself." He greeted happily, gesturing to the black-haired mouse's sapphire blue business suit and his subordinates' uniforms, a navy blue jumpsuit that clearly did not belong to the Chinese military.

Zheng removed his narrow eyeglasses and massaged his forehead. "Woojin... I suppose this is the part where you propose a partnership or ask to join me in my plans?"

The canine nodded briskly, overjoyed to be on the same page as his apparent old friend. "I thought my skills would be useful to you. And I can see I wasn't mistaken, by my count you only have twenty soldiers in your employ."

That only shows how little you know fool... Zheng thought to himself. "That is a very accurate count if an inaccurate assessment of my 'soldiers.' Tell me then, what do you think my enterprise is then?"

The white-furred dog shrugged. "Either weapons, drugs, or slaves." He replied, smiling evilly a bit at the mention of the last item. "But there was also this strange rumor I heard from one of your old friends still in the People's Guard, something about a rogue artificial intelligence operating in the area."

"Interesting, and what do you think of this rumor?" Mentally Zheng was trying to figure out a way to politely ask how Woojin found him and how many people he may have told that would have to be either brought into the fold... or quietly killed off.

"I laughed in your friend's face. Renegade robots, that's American science fiction. Besides, how could you set up this operation if there was autonomous military equipment operating in the area? I didn't see any bullet holes in the building before I was picked up."

The mouse merely smiled and shook his head, hopefully his expression said enough about the matter; he was still undecided between clueing the Korean canine in and disposing of him at the earliest opportunity. His army was a predictable factor; the genetically enhanced super soldier was not. Unfortunately the answer was not coming to the rodent strategist immediately, not with all the other things currently weighing heavily on his mind. On the other hand delaying that question gave him a good way to fish for more information.

"Well old friend, I trust you must be tired from driving all the way from-"

"Walked." The wolf dog corrected proudly. "Walked most of the way at least. Thought this would be the right area to look as well, you always were very strong with technology and all of the elite of Dear Leader's army knew this was where China discarded its rejected weapon prototypes." He chattered on, unaware that he had freely given away the answer to the other question that had been bothering his host.

"Very impressive, well I'm sure you must be tired from your journey regardless so let me call my aide and see about giving you a room." Zheng smiled and pressed a button on a remote he carried in his pocket.

"You are most kind Zheng, and to show you how much I appreciate the gesture I will share with you an idea I had. I must confess I was thinking of defecting from Dear Leader's service for a while now, I even contemplated engineering a... misunderstanding in the demilitarized zone that had the potential to... escalate."

"Define 'escalate'." The mouse asked, fighting to keep the suspicion out of his voice as they waited for his butler to arrive. Given how many tasks there were to manage to keep the household running, a small delay was unavoidable.

"Oh just a minor border conflict between North and South Korea that hopefully would consume the entire peninsula, making it easy to sneak away in the chaos with a unit of picked males." The muscular dog replied dismissively, like he was discussing the armed robbery of a small convenience store in Beijing.

And pointlessly slaughter tens of thousands in the process assuming the situation didn't fully spiral out of control into a full Third World War... you will have a lot to learn if you truly wish to work with me Woojin. Zheng thought quietly as he smiled broadly at the other male. "I suppose it was a good thing for you that The Stranger destabilized your country then?"

"Funny how things work out like that old friend, but the idea still has merit. There happens to be two aid relief bases within a stone's throw of each other, one Chinese and the other belonging to the NATO vermin. Both are guarded by detachments of their respective militaries. It shouldn't be hard to-"

"I will take it under advisement." Zheng interjected abruptly before his guest said something the mouse would be forced to kill the other male for suggesting, silently grateful that his chief housemaster had finally arrived to the dining room and lead Woojin off to his temporary quarters without further ceremony.

The mouse kept his benevolent smile until he was certain the canine was well out of earshot, his face promptly fell into a frown as he took his narrow eyeglasses off again and buried his face in his hands. "Why in the Divine Heavens could he have not shown up at dinner? It's still too early in the day for me to be breaking into my supply of Russian vodka. Stupid, worthless, he WOULD be the only North Korean soldier to survive The Stranger's wraith. Miserable idiotic cur... I suppose he has produced one useful gem of information though, Beijing appears to be continuing with the story that their pet AI went rogue."

The two troopers that brought Woojin in, having sat silently at their places at the low table during the entire conversation, began to tremble and shake. Zheng laughed and shook his head. "Haven't you two worked for me long enough to know better? What, do I look like the villain in that one American video game... what was it called? Distant Scream 4? Yes, because ruthlessly slaughtering underlings for mishaps that weren't their fault is effective management of personnel. I seem to remember giving you both explicit directions that you followed to the letter, unfortunately in following those orders you happen to put me in a miserable mood."

"We're sorry, we can still make it right sir." The senior soldier of the two that brought Woojin immediately apologized.

Zheng held up his hand dismissively. "No need, even a male with no value to his life still has his value as a hunk of meat. We will have to manage him, carefully test him to see if he can be trusted. But if that blasted super soldier serum I helped the North Koreans develop works the way I predicted it would, he might prove to be a useful weapon for the... problems that have been occurring in the northeast." He smiled deviously, eliciting chuckles from his subordinates. Yes, perhaps there was a sliver lining to this particular rain cloud after all....