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Nine Dragons Belly UP sneak preview

Here’s a selection from Nine Dragons Belly Up, the sequel to Zoom Out.

Nine Dragons take place at the height of the Dotcom frenzy of 1999.

It’s set in Hong Kong and follows the characters from Zoom Out in their new roles as employees of Asia’s hottest Internet company, Nine Dragons.

ONE DAY AT A TIME

I went to an AA meeting during lunch, to clear my head. I was fascinated by the things Clive was saying, but apprehensive about whether I was the kind of guy he was looking for. And I was certain there is no way I could survive at Nine Dragons unless I stopped drinking.

I’m not sure if Alcoholics Anonymous is the answer for me, but at least it’s kept me sober for nine days. I know that doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s close to a record for me. Anyhow, things (my emotions, my finances, my life) have been pretty ragged recently, and the meetings provide a kind of anchor, a little stability as I try to do this “one day at a time” thing.

One day at a time. Like I’m really going to convince myself that it’s only these bite-size twenty-four-hour chunks—as if I’m not looking at utter, bone-dry, boring sobriety for the rest of my life. Like I can fool myself.

The AA meetings take place in a big, rundown, former Victorian mental hospital. That seems appropriate. It’s actually kind of a cool room. The ceiling is at least thirty feet high, and there are creaky ceiling fans hanging down, wisps of cobwebs draped from them. Tall windows with big metal bolts line the walls, and a disused fireplace adds a touch of faded elegance. It’s a comfortable place. A designated area for alcoholics to sit around reminiscing about the bad old days or how grateful they are or what step they’re on.

The people in the room don’t look like alcoholics. Most are in their thirties or forties. Men wearing ties, on their lunch breaks. Only three women. An old British woman, an American housewife type, and an intriguing girl I haven’t seen before. She appears to be in her twenties. Attractive in an ethereal way, with very long brown hair almost down to her waist. I really like long hair. I watch her surreptitiously because I don’t want to be caught scoping out chicks in an AA meeting. That would he too sad for words. So I glance over discreetly from time to time.

The girl listens as people talk, watching them passively. Sometimes she stares down at the coffee mug in her hand, as if she is thinking about something. I look away before she sees me.

“I’m just so grateful.”

A mousy American woman is talking about her relationship with her Higher Power. God help me. She goes on and on about how her life has changed, how she likes herself now.

That’s great, honey.

“And that’s all I have to share. I’m just glad you all are here. Thanks for keeping me sober.” The mousy woman is finished “sharing”.

“Thanks Martha,” everyone says in unison. This always sounds so stupid to me. Whenever anyone shares, they always start off with, “Hi, my name’s_________, and I’m an alcoholic.” Everyone says “Hi, ________” in unison. Then the person rambles on for a while. Sometimes it’s pretty interesting. If nothing else, there are a lot of good stories in AA. I’ve already heard myriad tales of drunken debauches, crashed cars and suicide attempts. There’s an Australian guy named Dollar Bill. Looks about sixty, with lots of old-style tattoos (women in bikinis, anchors, that sort of thing). He flies cargo planes across the South Pacific. Apparently he was in Vietnam and flew lots of contraband around Southeast Asia before he got sober.

Bill was the last person to “share” at the meeting, and he told us about waking up “on the floor—again—not knowing where I was, and not even knowing who I was. Can you imagine that? I came to, and the room was empty, and I was covered in blood. Didn’t know whose blood it was, either. So I lay there on the floor, feeling dreadful and filled with dread. Eventually remembered who I was, but it wasn’t until I got up and walked out of the room that I could even recognize which country I was in. Thailand. I could tell by the sounds aand smells. How had I gotten there? No idea. Whose blood was it?”

Bill glanced slowly around the room, one of his eyes large and the other squeezed almost shut.

“Checked myself thoroughly, and couldn’t find a scratch. So it wasn’t my blood. Never found out whose it was. Police never came for me. My wallet was still in my back pocket, so I crept down the stairs. Didn’t run across anyone until I hit the street. I was in one of the small cities down south—Hat Yai, I think. Looked to my right and saw a bar. Knew I could use a Bloody Mary, so I stumbled on in and ordered one. Bartender looked at me a bit queer but didn’t say a word. Found a plane out the next day and returned to Melbourne like nothing had happened.”

He shook his head.

“Denial. It’s not the name of a river in Egypt.” Everyone said “Thanks, Bill.”

The meeting wrapped up the way it always does. We held hands, which I’m not too keen about. Then we recited the Serenity Prayer, which I still can’t remember. Then people milled around, talking or smoking on the verandah. I joined the smokers. The ethereal girl with long hair sauntered straight toward me.

“Can I have a cigarette?” she asked in a husky voice. She is really good looking, sexy in an unconventional way. Wore baggy clothes and no makeup as far as I could tell. I gave her a MaMarlboro and lit it for her.

“Thanks,” she said, and strolled off to lean against one of the big pillars. I realized she hadn’t looked at me. I looked at her a lot during the meeting, wondering what her story is, and whether she has a boyfriend. I’d like to get to know the ethereal girl. I don’t even know her name. I’ve never heard her speak in a meeting before. Good God, what if we ended up dating? I’d be a guy who met his girlfriend in Alcoholics Anonymous. Oh God, just shoot me.

Hi, I’m Brian, and I’m an alcoholic.

THE INTERNET WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING

When I got back after lunch I’d already received the email from Amy. There were five topics, or threads, as they are termed, with three people assigned to each topic. Here is my group’s task:

Create content based on these two categories:

a) MP3

b) Agriculture

Agriculture?

We must design a format that allows a person, anywhere in the world, to interact with our segments through TV, the Web, over mobile phones or maybe even by carrier pigeon—I’m not sure. For example, we might have a band playing live on TV, which will be broadcast all around the world. People could watch them play live, and chat with other viewers via the Internet, or email Nine Dragons and rate the band or call on their mobile phones and request a different song. People who have cameras attached to their computers could actually talk to the band and appear on TV. Then maybe other people could upload pictures they had drawn of the band members and send them to Nine Dragons, and we would put those pictures up instantly, while the band was still playing. Or maybe other people would send in their own songs, and everyone would rate those songs. Staff back at Nine Dragons would be monitoring all the input, and switching back and forth to whatever seemed to be the coolest stuff at any given moment.

Phew.

I decided to take a cigarette break and headed up to the roof of our twenty-four story building. I get my most valuable information about Nine Dragons up on the roof, talking with fellow smokers. Amy Spencer smokes a lot, so almost every time I traipse up the stairs to the roof, she’s there. We’ve established a pretty good relationship, even though she’s senior to me and knows I don’t really know anything about broadcasting or the Internet. Perhaps that’s the reason we get along. I’m not a rival. Just a fellow smoker.

Amy was gazing out over the harbor sucking on a Salem Light when I came up.

“Planning another day of world conquest?” I joked.

Amy smiled in a world-weary journalist sort of way.

“Something like that.”

I lit up and looked across at Kowloon, from whence our company gets its name. Kowloon is an Anglicized rendering of gau lung: nine dragons.

“You know,” Amy said, “our deadline is impossible to meet.”

“Is it?” I a ssumed she was referring to Clive’s mandate that our service be launched by December 31st, less than four months away.

“Yep. There are no two ways about it. We don’t have enough time to recruit sufficient staff, build the facilities, develop programming and ramp up production. It is absolutely impossible.”

“Do Clive and Guy know this?”

Amy shook her head sadly. “I’ve talked to Guy, but he just smiles enigmatically and says we’ll make it. Of course I can’t say anything to Clive, because I’m not senior enough and he would take my comments as a lack of faith; an indication that I wasn’t a true believer.”

Amy really seemed distraught by this. I have no way of knowing whether our schedule is realistic. But Amy worked at the local cable TV company when they rolled out their service a few years ago. She ran their English news department, and apparently had to do similar things on a smaller level: hire people, build a control room, and so on. So maybe she knows what she’s talking about.

“Well, I’m doing my best to create a really solid agriculture thread,” I said, hoping to make her laugh.

Amy looked at me reproachfully, as a mother would toward an obnoxious child.

“I’m sure you are, Brian. But we don’t have any of the back-end designed yet, don’t have the facilities built yet, don’t have the people hired and trained and ready to do a combined TV and Web service twenty-four hours a day.”

I could tell she was about to take out another cigarette, but she thought better of it.

“And we’ve got a leader who is wanted on felony charges in Europe.”

I exhaled slowly, then said the obligatory, “What?”

Amy turned to look out over the harbor again, as it shimmered with boats and sunlight.

“Clive Walker got himself involved in a few scams in the former Soviet satellite countries right after the break-up of the U.S.S.R. It gets complicated, but it involves fraud, theft on a grand scale and maybe murder.”

She turned back to look at me.

“How do you know this?” I asked.

Amy decided to have that second cigarette.

“I’m a journalist, Brian. That’s my background. When I got this amazing job I wanted to know everything I could about the people who were running it. I called a former colleague who works at the Sydney Herald now. He remembered the name, and after a couple of weeks I was able to dig up old news reports from ’91 that revealed that our boss was convicted in absentia in Belarus, after he’d fled the country. He can’t go anywhere near Europe these days, but he’s safe from extradition out here.”

Amy took a long pull, held the smoke in and exhaled slowly, the way real nicotine aficionados do.

“Clive always protested his innocence. Said he was set up by the local mafia. I don’t know. But I do know that he’s a con artist who is used to dealing in huge amounts of money. And when I see Nine Dragons receive millions and millions of dollars to do something that’s never been done before, with people who’ve never done anything like this before on an impossible time schedule . . . well, it makes me wonder.”

She tossed her still-burning cigarette on the tiled roof.

“Make of that what you will, Brian. In the meantime, I’ll continue to do my job—just in case this outrageous scheme is going to work.”