THE DARWIN OF the 21st century was a Pac-Rim city on the edge of the south-east Asian powerhouse. Consequently, kung fu was an almost mandatory business skill. In 2021, keen to exploit the Second Asian Boom, Australia declared most of its northern coastline a Special Economic Zone. Business taxes were dropped, immigration restrictions eased, environmental concerns sort of hushed over for a while. More than 50,000 migrants - southern whites, Indonesian entrepreneurs, Vietnamese shitkickers, Chinese and South Africans and Russians - headed for the new gold rush. Most of them ended up in Greater Darwin, a prefab sprawl kind of a cross between southern California and upmarket Bangkok, but with even less morality.

Franz Hoebbard was in one of the first waves. He quit a lucrative PR position in The Hague to make his fortune in the new wild west. What he got was a job translating software into Bahasa Indonesia (which he's studied at university.) Denied creative expression, his PR skills mutated and he moved into a wholly unexpected direction: representing workers on the company union. Which of course went against the whole freewheeling creed of the Zone.

Hoebbard reported the attack to the police. They asked a few token questions and scratched around for evidence but frankly couldn't find "squat, mate." To make matters worse, they didn't quite believe Hoebbard's story of how the Ninja jumped six storeys to the ground.

<<I've seen shows on TV about the amazing powers of martial art warriors>> Hoebbard said. <<Why, I heard in the Boxer Rebellion, kung fu fighters were able to catch bullets with their stomach muscles.>>

<<This isn't a Bruce Lee film>> one of the cops said. <<Pardon the French, but why the fuck would they want to attack you? No offence, but you don't seem the richest man in Darwin. A waste of fucking time!>> which is of course how cops spoke in Australia these days.

<<I work with the trade unions. I make a lot of enemies. I don't know, maybe my company's trying to threaten me or something.>>

<<I wouldn't go around making allegations like that>> the cop said. Darwin had the largest privatised police service in the world, and Hoebbard's own company owned shares. <<I could charge you with slander.>>

An uncomfortable silence developed. <<Well>> Hoebbard said <<can't you dust for your some prints or something?>>

<<Not unless you pay for it mate!>> The cop tipped his hat, took one last look out the window and smirked. <<We'll take care of things.>>