Chapter 437

The trip to visit Rick MacKenzie was, amusingly, both silent and conducted via public transport. At his enquiry, Keith quietly and firmly pointed out that they had to get to Arthur quickly. KL traffic being KL traffic, not even money could make a journey faster than just taking public transit -not when the light rail trains ran above the snarled and honking traffic below.

KL had tried congestion pricing for a little while. It had – briefly – helped, until the crowds had grown to such numbers that it became impossible. There was now talk of further limiting traffic in the inner city among the older roads which had never been built to accept thousands upon thousands of vehicles. Discussions ranged from registered taxis and automated vehicles taking over the city center only, to raising the price of the congestion pricing amounts even further to just banning vehicles entirely and turning it all into pedestrian walkways, with the extra space maybe adding additional housing or commercial space.

For all the noise and congestion though, Arthur could not imagine what it had been like before the first round of congestion pricing, massive public transportation and electric vehicles had arrived. It must have been a hot, humid and dirty hell of gasoline and lead, of constant backfiring cars and roaring engines as drivers lay on the horn in traffic.

In the rumble of the old elevated trains, the group stood out in silent contrast. Once they managed to make it out of old KL into the Bukit Bintang area, traffic – and roads – were a little easier, with the group picked up by a waiting car. They were whisked away not long after, past the various embassies to the various world powers along the highway into the Mont Kiara neighborhood.

Once a series of hills, it had been built up with a series of gold courses and exclusive, gated communities. With the rollout of further automation, changes in the climate and continued progress, the golf courses had shrunk in size; with large replanted forests grown in their place. Of course, those forest were single species replantations for the most part, but one thing you had to say about temperate rainforests – give it an inch and it’d take a mile. Within months, various shrubs, weeds and other types of vegetation had formed a dense undergrowth, leading to even more work needing to be done to care for the area.

All of this, Arthur knew from his own experience. Jobs cleaning out the undergrowth, hacking, chopping and pulling out thorned bushes were always available – mostly because, along with the thorned vegetation came rats, snakes and the occasional angry monkey tribe that all objected to the selective destruction of their home.

It did, however, do the one thing that the rich land owners in Mont Kiara wanted – it helped keep the surroundings much cooler than the urban hellscape of the city itself.

Not that Arthur noticed any of that, now that he was inside the air conditioned Proton car that slid forward in silent, electric ease. The national car had borrowed the Toyota chasis once more, only undertaking minor cosmetic changes; making it one of the most common semi-luxury vehicles in Malaysia.

“Not been up this way…” Arthur muttered, eyes the private road they had turned up and the security guards with their security gate that waved them through. Well, technically he doubted the road was actually private, but such minor things as private security blocking access to a public road was not something the rich had to worry about.

As the gates of the mansion they approached appeared, Arthur peered through the windows searching for the mansion. It took the car completing a turn around the corner before he could spot the three storey mansion, looming out of the trees like an English lord’s wet dream. Only closer inspection gave lie to the colonial architectural flourishes, modern solar-treated windows, a green rooftop and regular metal drain spouts indicating that construction was much more recent.

Nevermind the numerous, discreetly embedded surveillance cameras. If there had been armed guards patrolling with dogs, Arthur might have even imagined himself having wandered into a drug lord’s mansion in South America rather than a stones throw away from one of the more popular and remaining golf courses in the city.

“Quite the sight, isn’t it?” Keith said, as Arthur kept craning his head from side-to-side like an Ah Seong from the village. Caught out, Arthur sat back in the seat, a light blush rising to his face before he let out a laugh.

“Yeah, just about. Never been in a place so big.”

“Rick and his family are rich, but even they’d be hard pressed to have a place like this in America,” Keith admitted. “Exchange rate works in our favor here.”

“And not in ours,” Arthur said.

Keith shrugged, seeming unconcerned. Which, Arthur reflected, was probably fair enough. The gweiloh was a bodyguard to a rich expat. He was literally the least invested person Arthur knew in the fate of Malaysia. Though...

"How come you're not a Climber?" Arthur said, gesturing to the house. "Rick's one now."

Keith's lips thinned as he replied. "And you think that just because I'm not a Climber, I can't protect him anymore?"

"I have a Tsifu who has never climbed and probably could still kick my ass three times out of four." At Keith's nod, Arthur continued. "But I figured you'd be hired to guard him, including in the Tower."

"My presence is new."

When Keith chose not to elaborate, Arthur frowned at the man but he stayed silent. By the time Arthur had finished weighing rudeness with curiosity, they had arrived and the door was thrown open by the bodyguard on his side.

Leaving Arthur alone in the car. Which meant he had to exit, or, well, leave Rick; the big, toothy, charming and half-Indian teenager waiting on the steps of his own mansion. The height of rudeness even Arthur could not imagine. Or dare to reach.

He’d have to figure out Keith and what changed in the MacKenzie’s situation later. And how much of what changed affected him and the Durians. Though, just the thought of international politics made the inside of his left eye hurt. With a weary breath, he pushed the car door open and stepped out, hit in the face with the humid blow dryer that was Malaysian late-afternoon weather; though at least it was marginally cooler out here with all the tree shade. Then, plastering on a smile, he took to the stairs to greet his old companion, Rick MacKenzie.