CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jack
We dried off and ignoring the pjs, shrugged into the fluffy white towelling robes and slippers provided by the hotel.
Nate then made a bee-line for the pile of clothes he’d left discarded on the lounge floor.
I swiped up the laundry bag filled with our valuables and poured the contents of the bag onto the coffee table.
Nate had a sliver money clip with a thousand Euros; whereas I kept my cash in a monogrammed black leather wallet my mum gave me for Christmas.
“We need to put our cash, cards and passports in the safe,” Nate advised as he collected his phone and the Faraday card holder from his jeans pocket.
We put our dirty clothes into the laundry bag, and then using the concierge tablet in the entrance hall, I notified reception of our laundry pick up, and our measurements, then I left the bag outside the room door.
“You should put the chips in the safe, too,” I suggested, picking our passports, cards, and cash from the small pile of our belongings.
Nate removed the fake bank card from beneath the insole of his trainer.
“Gimmie a look,” I said my hand out. Nate passed the card to me and I peeled back the vinyl to display the chips.
Using his iPhone camera, Nate took several photos of the chips before I covered them up, protecting them again.
“Where’s the safe?” Nate asked.
“Didn’t Vogel say it was behind a flower painting?
” I’d seen three flower paintings in the suite.
I moved from room to room looking at the wall art and, “Aha! Found it,” I called.
“It’s here in the dining room.” The dining room décor was dramatic, with crimson walls, black furniture, and a huge oil painting of Irises in a vase.
The frame was hinged like a door, with a magnet clasp to ensure it remained closed.
I stood aside as Nate opened it to see the hi-spec safe installed in the wall, the door unlocked.
Pasted onto the back of the canvas were printed instructions on how to reset the safe.
We read the instructions and it comforted me to discover that this model used dual password and biometrics to secure its contents.
I passed our cash, cards, and passports to Nate and he put our items and the chips inside the safe.
We reset it using a password number we both knew and then added Nate’s thumb print biometrics.
Nate was the only person who could access it now and that was fine by me, because I wasn’t planning on letting him out of my sight for the next couple of days.
We returned to the lounge, and with my belly leading the way I went straight for the food trolley while Nate slumped on the couch with his phone in hand, his thumbs typing furiously.
We hadn’t eaten anything but a few chicken pieces last night and as a high-energy person I needed a lot of food to fuel me.
I pushed the trolley closer to the coffee table.
“What can I get you?” I asked. Nate was reading something on his phone screen but absently replied, “Oh, yeah…A little of everything.” I loaded two plates with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, toast, and then poured and doctored tea for both of us.
I placed the food, drinks, and cutlery on the coffee table.
“What time is it?”
“Coming up to nine-thirty.”
“Find anything out?” I asked as I joined Nate on the couch.
“Hmm…Did you know there’s a worldwide shortage of computer RAM and microprocessor chips?” he said sounding adorably nerdy.
“No, I did not. How fascinating!” I replied dryly, picking up my plate of food and cutlery.
“It’s been going on for years. RAM is in everything from phones and laptops to smart washing machines, and fridges. The demand outstrips supply, so the big tech companies are pre-ordering wafers of chips years in advance!”
“What about our chips?”
Nate was silent for a moment, his finger swiping up the phone screen as I dug into my breakfast.
Then he said, “I uploaded a photo of our chip for a reverse image search. The only mention of chips that look like ours is on a Reddit forum page for tech nerds.” He paused for another moment, scrolling. I buttered a couple of slices of toast and had inhaled them both before Nate spoke again.
“There’s an anonymous post with photos of processor chips that look like the ones in the credit card.”
“Uh hmm,” I murmured, chewing on a rasher of sweet, salty bacon.
“The Chinese government discovered an economically viable deposit of Kazakium, a rare earth metal. Specific rare earth metals are crucial in the tech industry for enhancing performance and increasing the miniaturization of chips,” he read.
“The post said that a company in Shanghai Huǒhuā Labs, is developing the smallest AI chip ever created. It’s called a Téng hú, which translates to mean Barnacle. ”
“Like barnacles that stick to the hull of a boat?”
“Yeah. They attach to existing AI GPU chips, extend their life, and speed up processing ten-fold,” he said excitedly.
I was learning a lot about Nate in this moment.
I recalled that during the script read-throughs Nate always had a lot of questions about his character’s motivation, and the details of the tech our characters used.
He wanted to understand all aspects of the fictional world he was playing in.
And now I saw how this need for detail was very much a part of his personality.
“Imagine what these could do if the US military-industrial complex got a hold of them, used them in weaponry, or robotics,” Nate suggested.
It hadn’t even figured in my thoughts, but yes, if these chips were as useful and powerful as the information suggested they would be a lure for defence companies.
“When was that info posted?”
“Just three of weeks ago, what do you think? This looks like one of our chips, yeah?” Nate asked, tilting his phone screen for me to see. He flicked between the close-up photos he’d just taken, and then the chip on the Reddit post.
“Same numbers, same Chinese characters,” I observed.
This situation felt really fucking dangerous and we were out of our depth.
Nate sat back and continued scrolling through the Reddit thread.
In the minutes that Nate was reading I’d hoovered up my full English and now I’d moved onto a bowl of fruit.
Next a fresh warm Danish pastry was in my future.
“They’re prototypes, still in development,” Nate finally revealed. “Not for sale, so it looks like the ones we have were stolen from the Huǒhuā Labs facility,” he explained. “The post says each chip has an estimated market value of $100,000 or more.”
On hearing how much the tiny buggers were worth, I inhaled some pastry flakes, and coughed. “WHAT? Is that per chip?” I gasped. Nate passed my cup of tea to me and a sip soothed my throat. By the time I’d recovered I’d done the maths.
“We have a million dollars in chips in the safe!”
“Yeah, and as they were smuggled into Germany, if we’re caught with them in our possession we’ll be arrested for industrial espionage,” Nate warned. “If the chips do what this anonymous poster says they do, a lot of tech companies want to get their hands on them to reverse engineer,” he stated.
“And the Chinese will want them back,” I added. “Should we go to the authorities?”
Nate met my eyes, his wet hair was unkempt, his jaw displaying the prickly stubble I wanted to rasp against the sensitive skin of my inner thighs. After a moment of thoughtful consideration, he said,
“We keep our mouths shut for the time being. If the men who trashed our room are keeping tabs on the hotel, they don’t know which room we were moved to.
This suite has better security, an over door camera and concierge connection.
The reinforced doors got a good bar-lock too, so, unless there’s a Chinese Spiderman coming in via the balcony, no one’s getting in here.
We need to rest up. We should just finish breakfast and go to bed, work things out later when we’ve got clearer heads. ”
The shower sex was great and although my libido was egging me on for more, more, more, my body was wilting. I knew the immediate effects of the Rohypnol lasted for hours and would take up to five days to leave my system. If I was going to feel like shit, I’d rather do it lounging in bed with Nate.
Nate finally put down his phone and began wolfing his breakfast. I’d re-filled my plate…
after all, I am a growing boy! The suite was calm; and quiet.
A cool summer breeze wafted through the open French doors and the hum of the city was lulling.
My tummy now full, I was beginning to relax into a food coma.
I could just curl up here with Nate and snuggle, it would be perfect.
It was then that the Star Wars Imperial March ringtone sounded from Nate’s phone. We startled and glared at one another. We both knew what it meant. It was the ringtone Nate had set to identify a call from Roz Appelbaum!
****