Christopher and the woman with pink hair raised one eyebrow in a twin gesture and watched him, already walking, place the empty glass back on the table.
He wanted to say goodbye, but his tongue wouldn’t budge. Richard put his hand over Rose’s, only briefly looking back.
The woman and the man blorted with laughter.
8. King of Beasts
The odd dream came to Richard on the night from Thursday to Friday, but only on Sunday did he understand its meaning.
He really did once live under the identity of Richard Weiss, on a mission dubbed the Station, working at the German Federal Foreign Office, and his partner – and, according to the script, his wife – was agent Rose Weiss. They came to the Station four years ago, the automobile party was a year and a half after the start of the operation … Another year and a half later Richard and Rose had to flee Berlin, covering their tracks, they nearly failed the mission – and barely averted a catastrophe – because they were compromised.
A year ago, Rose Weiss, who then already worked in counterintelligence and conducted internal investigations, was looking for the mole. Richard didn’t like to remember the devious scheme that framed him as the mole if he could help it … A year ago, during the manhunt, Alexandra shot Rose Weiss when they were fleeing from Moscow to London – since they had no other choice.
The woman with pink hair from the dream was Alexandra, the man with the goatee – their common friend Christopher, a former Circus agent who fabricated his own death to get away from MI6 and start his own craft. Why it was that Richard’s imagination opted to put them in the setting of the Station, he had no idea – until he turned on the hotel room TV.
Nothing happened over the past days. He was looking for signs, racking his brain about who might benefit from intimidating him and what reaction was expected of him – but made no move.
Richard couldn’t stand burying his head in the sand or lying low – but for now the time at the hotel looked like an attempt to hide from the problem.
Dario reported events from the paddock to him, Richard watched the news and broadcasts of the free practice and qualifying rounds on local TV. Now, representatives of the corporation Nonoda8, which supplied power units for Rote Stier race cars, were speaking live from Fuji channel, as usual describing the magnificent prospects of the technologies of the future that became reality in the present. The president and the head of the Innovative Research Excellence department were answering questions about the new standards for Formula One power units according to regulations set to take effect in three years, as decided by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile.
Nonoda abolished maintenance of their own racing team – but was actively involved in the racing life with the technologies they developed. Rote Stier and Nonoda had a partnership, they joined forces and divided the area of operation, though in overlapping fields they were, undoubtedly, competitors.
The day after, the next one after the race, there was a tour planned for the Rote Stier team to Nonoda’s headquarters in Minato City, the district of Tokyo skyscrapers – where the chiefs would once again shake hands and employees will get entertained – by making it into entertainment.
Richard was eating ramen out of a plastic bowl, sitting on the bed, Alexandra was blow-drying her hair in the bathroom. They had already managed to visit the Hama-rikyu Gardens, a three-quarters-of-an-hour walk away – getting there by taxi – and pick up food on the way back.
The race was set to start at 2 PM local time, Nonoda’s presentation was coming to an end. The automobile corporation showcased not merely car manufacturing achievements, but also artificial intelligence, based on their own internal projects for monitoring, analysis, and assistance. Yusuke Kuma, head of the Innovative Research Excellence department in the center of Research and Development, talked about projects involving an accelerator based on the Nonoda Research Institute in Silicon Valley, about proprietary developments, the system Cooperative Intelligence, a neural network self-learning from user behavior with a name that grated the ears.
“Funny,” Alexandra chuckled, Richard looked up at her from the ramen bowl. “A year ago, some student sold them his artificial intelligence development that he’d worked out with the funds from Imperial College London. An excellent move: use the reputation of a government institution to develop their own startup that draws attention with its progressiveness – just like D’Angelo’s prototype.”
Giuseppe D’Angelo was a character from the book ‘Cats Don’t Drink Wine’ – a detective novel about a murder on Italian vineyards – that brought Alexandra popularity. A talented strategist and businessman who created his own Barolo empire by resurrecting ancient legends about the wine of the blood of kings and alchemy … Richard knew that story, he remembered the man the character was based on – and he just shook his head.
“… by popularizing science. As Henry Ford said, whatever we undertake, there has always been and will always be a gap between the mass consumer and the creator of innovation,” spoke Kuma from the podium. “As there has been and will continue to be an eternal struggle between classes, each member of which considers himself the bearer of true wisdom – scientific, intellectual, or folk – and will strive to keep the exclusivity and narrowness of their own circle, not accepting changes that come in force in the new age of technology.”
“Actually, Gedeon Richter said that,” Richard objected with his mouth full.
Alexandra smirked, crossing her arms over her chest.
“But that doesn’t stop us from advancing ideas and engaging in educational activities, blurring the boundaries, making the impossible possible,” the speaker continued. “That is the mission of any activist – to step over the line, pulling the valuable across, show it to the world and share it. I, too, once didn’t understand the point of popularizing science – thinking that that way, science is devalued, its supposed simplicity is shown – as if anybody can launch a rocket into space and make a discovery. But the truth is that the only thing stopping a layman from launching rockets and making discoveries is closed-mindedness – the belief that there is some difference between classes.”
“Actually,” Alexandra drawled. “Neither Ford nor Richter said that.”
“Hm?”
Yusuke Kuma was a thin, middle-aged Japanese man – the sort of person by whose appearance it was impossible to tell their real age – he spoke English well – though with typical Japanese articulation, and he conducted himself wonderfully on stage. Decades of development of Nonoda’s innovative technologies passed under his leadership, a couple of years ago he had been in a serious car accident and went through lengthy rehabilitation – to later step back on the rails with renewed energy.
“My Grandmaster Rublev said that – and I even remember that it was in his kitchen, over tea with his partron Hermann,” Alexandra explained. “And they were discussing his postgraduate who hated popularizers of science – who devalue the work of scientists, displaying their work like a piece of cake. And the point of the quote was not the normality of class division, but the ignorance of both sides of the argument.”
The hand holding the ramen by chopsticks froze over the bowl, the ramen slipped back into the broth. The fact that the quote belonged to Richter, a Hungarian pharmacist, Richard remembered from the speech of Baer whom he faced on the Station. At the very automobile party – when Richard met him – he’d been saying the same thing as Kuma was, right now, from the podium. The only difference was the language – Baer spoke German, the Japanese man on the television screen – English.
“They could