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M U S K
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GUANGZHOU, SOUTH CHINA SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE:
It seemed like everyone was wearing spider silk in the crowded streets and elevated
walkways of New Canton. They should have been, because spider silk was the third most
important force driving the economy here. Dulled into the respectable Calvin Klein blues
and greys of the businessmen in their suits at the Metro stops, or dazzling with its native
sheen in the strobe lights of the inner-city nightclubs... spider silk was the wonder fabric
of the 00s, and Guangzhou processed about 90 per cent of the global trade. It permeated
the very structure of the supercity, its profits stringing out miles of monorails and fibre
optics and eight-lane motorways into the countryside, and from above Guangzhou had
begun to look a spider's web: delicate but strong, beautiful but a crueler peasant trap
that ever was. Even Wong Ka-Fai, the Castrator of Canton, was wearing silk in his glass cell at Guangzhou's number six prison. He should have been, because Wong spent all day making the shit in the prison's factories. He was toying with a massive spider in a shimmering spider's web when Croon arrived to visit him. Croon stopped outside the cell's observation window, gaped in mock awe at the size of the spider. <<Man, that thing must sure spin some thread>> he said, in street Cantonese. <<It's our finest work-horse>> Wong replied. <<Five years of selective breeding went into the creation of this monster. It produces up to 60 per cent more silk than our earlier models, and that silk is 50 per cent stronger, and the spiders require 40 per cent less upkeep. That translates into an 80 per cent increase in profit for this organization. We're now working on a new pedigree for lingerie.>> Croon was playing Trent Perkins, an alias he had spun for this operation. Perkins was a senior executive for Hugo Boss and he was in China to secure about 7,000 meters of silk for the North American market. He was touring the prison factory as part of the deal and this naturally included a glimpse of its most notorious inmate. Wong was used to such propaganda and looked suitably bored, seated on a stool and toying with his spider. <<Wah!>> Croon said. <<Who could have imagined hairy-legged arachnids and women being bed partners!>> <<The eastern mind>> Wong explained <<doesn't seem to suffer the right-hemispherical restrictions which inhibit your growth in the west. We think laterally here, our imaginations range across parameters you would find obscene.>> <<I can see that in the variety of your food!>> Wong made a scoffing noise, as if to dismiss this barbarian. Sensing it was make or break, Croon went all out: <<What about gorilla testicles, huh? Ever chomped on one of them? They protect your DNA, apparently!>> The Castrator of Canton sprang off his stool, and paced towards the glass with a look of sheer intensity in his eyes. <<Defen' your essence! >> he said, in broken English. <<That all I can say.>> Croon noticed something unusual in the delivery in these lines, some kind of method in his madness. <<All you can say, or all you will say?>> Wong glanced at the three heavily armed prison guards who were flanking Croon, and switched back to Cantonese. <<Goodbye, Mr Perkins. I suggest you stay out of prisons; Guangzhou has so much more to offer. There's a good club several streets from here: more your scene.>>
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