Sherlock Sam and the Mysterious Mastermind in Seoul

by A. J. Low

  Of course, the two robots wouldn’t know how to work each other’s systems. They hadn’t even been able to walk properly the whole day.

  “Abort, Moran!” I shouted. “Abort! Come back down!”

  Moran zigzagged across the sky, then banked steeply to head back towards the ground headfirst. But he was still going very fast—too fast.

  “Slow down!” I shouted.

  “Moran! Run-the-Big-Top-Seven-program!” Watson-in-Moran shouted.

  I had no idea what that was, but Moran must have heard him because his speed suddenly slowed. His arms and legs stretched out very far and he started flying sideways. His left hand touched the ground as his flight power cut off. He started cartwheeling along the street, his arms and legs getting shorter with every cartwheel. When his arms and legs were back to their regular length, he did a double-backflip and landed right in front of us.

  “Ta-da,” Watson-in-Moran said.

  “My, that was exhilarating,” Moran-in-Watson said. “May I go back to my own body now?”

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “It-is-one-of-my-acrobatics-programs,” Watson-in-Moran said.

  “Why do you have acrobatics programs?” I asked.

  “In-case-I-ever-join-the-circus.”

  That was not something I could deal with right then. “Okay, new rule: nobody uses any pow—”

  “There-she-is!” Watson-in-Moran said. He pointed at Bok Joo, who was running down the steps into the park area on either side of the Cheonggyecheon.

  “After her!” I shouted.

  “I-will-have-her-in-no-time,” Watson-in-Moran said. Skates suddenly popped out of his feet.

  “Wait!” I shouted, but it was too late. Watson engaged Moran’s rocket skates and roared away.

  “This-was-a-terrible-idea!” he yelled.

  “Oh dear,” Moran-in-Watson said. “I will go get him. You should focus on catching Miss Bok Joo.” He stretched out his arms and legs and tried to spider-walk in the direction Watson-in-Moran had gone, but tripped immediately.

  “I am okay!” he said, getting back up.

  I ran down the steps after Bok Joo and hoped Watson and Moran would not dent each other’s bodies too badly.

  She had a lead on me, but I could see her clearly because of Dongdaemun’s evening lights. She was running straight alongside the creek, occasionally startling other people taking a stroll. I kept up as best I could.

  Suddenly, Watson and Moran crashed in front of Bok Joo in a tangle of legs and roller skates. Bok Joo was startled but quickly turned around and ran back towards me.

  When she saw me, she looked for a staircase up to the main street level, but the nearest ones were on the other side of where the robots and I were. Thankfully, these staircases were spaced pretty far apart.

  Her panicked gaze fell upon a row of stone steps between the two of us, which crossed the Cheonggyecheon. We ran towards each other, but she reached it a few seconds before I did. She nimbly hopped across the stones.

  I hopped less nimbly, and then I unceremoniously tumbled into the freezing water. I sputtered and coughed from the shock, but the water wasn’t deep. Bok Joo glanced at me quickly but continued running towards a cherry blossom tree and the staircase beyond it.

  I splashed across the rest of the way, hefted myself onto the bank, and started running again. I was very, very tired, and very, very cold by this point, so I was very grateful when the cherry blossom tree suddenly whipped around and revealed itself to be Inspector Lestrade in disguise.

  Bok Joo was so startled that she shrieked and tripped over herself trying to stop, then tumbled into a storm drain.

  “Oh!” Inspector Lestrade shouted. “Sherlock Sam, help her! My limbs are still branches!”

  I ran over as I caught a glimpse of the rest of the Supper Club up on street level. They rushed to a staircase as Inspector Lestrade attempted to remove her costume. I reached the storm drain and saw Bok Joo crying and shaking uncontrollably. She looked up and saw me.

  “Help! Help me out of here!” she shouted. I remembered that in London, Bok Joo had said she was claustrophobic, but I had assumed that was a ruse so she could stay in the command centre with Dad and Wendy. However, she looked truly terrified in the small drain.

  “Just reach for my hand,” I said, extending my arm as far as I could. Bok Joo stood up and stretched as far as she could. Our fingers brushed against each other’s.

  “Please!” Bok Joo cried.

  I tried to stretch farther, and I suddenly felt myself pitching forward. I would have fallen in if Officer Siva and Inspector Lestrade hadn’t reacted quickly and grabbed me. I clasped Bok Joo’s left hand as Mom and Dad reached down from the other side to grab Bok Joo’s right hand. We hauled her out and my parents held her until she had calmed down. Officer Siva put his jacket around me and told me to strip down to my underwear. I knew the dangers of hypothermia, and that it was no time to be shy or embarrassed, so I did as he said and wrapped his jacket around me. I slowly felt warmer and my teeth chattered less.

  Once Bok Joo had stopped crying and had calmed down, she said, “I think…I think you should call my dad.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  We were in the office/studio Bok Joo had been using all day during her holographic projections. I was warming up with a blanket and a hot cinnamon tea Bok Joo had provided. Dad and Officer Siva were trying to dry my clothes using hair dryers they had found in the studio. Jimmy, Nazhar, Wendy and Eliza were trying to buff out some of the scratches on the two robots’ bodies that they had received while trying to use each other’s powers. Inspector Lestrade was trying to contact her superiors at Interpol, but kept being put on hold. And Mom was trying to console Bok Joo, who was waiting for her dad to show up.

  “This is his office,” Bok Joo said. “But he sometimes films here as well, which is why there’s all this equipment. I knew I could use the space today because he took the early train to Busan.”

  “Can you switch the two robots back now please?” I said.

  Bok Joo looked up at Mom, who nodded. Bok Joo went to the nearby computer and opened what looked like a DOS window. She typed in some lines of code faster than I’d ever seen anybody do it. She was clearly an amazing coder.

  “Oh. I-am-getting-that-funny-feeling-again,” Watson-in-Moran said.

  “Yes, I am as well,” Moran-in-Watson said.

  Bok Joo continued to type rapidly. She turned around in her chair and looked at the two robots, the cursor still blinking on the computer screen behind her.

  “Please-tell-me-I-am-back-in-my-own-body-and-not-Sherlock’s,” Watson said.

  A cheer erupted from everybody. Bok Joo had kept her word and the robots were now back in their own bodies.

  “Thank you,” Mom said, before getting up to hug Watson and Moran.

  I inched closer to Bok Joo and asked, “Why?”

  Bok Joo shrugged. “It all started because I couldn’t stand James Mok. He was an obnoxious jerk who was taking over the school by being smarter than everybody else. However, I knew I was cleverer than he was, so I proved it by stealing the Lewis Chessmen before he could. But that didn’t stop him, and I knew he would continue unless you came back and caught him in the act.”

  “That explains London, but why do all this afterwards?” I asked. “Why switch the robots’ bodies? Why do all this?”

  “James talked about you a lot,” she said. “About the great Sherlock Sam, the only person who had ever got close to beating him. I knew that was nonsense. There are plenty of people smarter than James, myself included, but his ego would never admit it. So I thought I had to beat you in order to prove myself. James talked about what had happened in Singapore, about how he kidnapped your robot and left all these clues for you, thinking you’d take forever to solve them.”

  She sighed, then continued, “So I thought I would do that too, but in a more brilliant way. Instead of letting you play a game I knew you were comfortable playing, cracking riddles and codes, I
would devise games that had very little or nothing to do with using your famed deduction skills. What if I just made you play a bunch of ridiculous variety show games? And I forced you to separate from your friends, so you couldn’t rely on their skills to help you? On top of that, I wouldn’t kidnap anybody close to you. I thought switching the robots’ minds would give you enough incentive to come play my games, but maybe not enough that you’d try so hard.”

  I gave a small laugh. “You don’t know us very well,” I said.

  Bok Joo returned a short laugh. “Clearly not.”

  Everybody else had started listening in by this point.

  “How did you find me?” she asked. “I thought my clues were vague enough that you wouldn’t know to come to Dongdaemun, and even if you did, Dongdaemun was so big you’d never find out exactly where I was.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “The five clues you gave us could have led us to any number of places beyond Dongdaemun, including various other spots along the Cheonggyecheon, not to mention almost everything along the Han River, but they were still very important clues. And once I had confirmed that you could only see out of Watson’s physical eye and not Moran’s, I worked with the Supper Club behind Watson’s back, either in person or via phone for those that had been eliminated, to decipher all your clues.”

  “That was a mistake on my part,” Bok Joo said. “I knew you’d figure out I couldn’t actually see through the eyes of the hologram, but I thought it would at least confuse or distract you.”

  “Shopping,” I said. “Dongdaemun is almost entirely shopping.”

  “My mom actually does a lot of trading here for her work,” Jimmy said. “She talks a lot about Dongdaemun’s wholesaling district and has many partners here for her import/export business.”

  “Water,” I said. “The Cheonggyecheon passes right through Dongdaemun.”

  “With the map I picked up at the airport,” Nazhar said, “I was able to identify the main waterways in Seoul, and which places they passed through.”

  “Design,” I said. “The Dongdaemun Design Park is located slightly south of here.”

  “I’m a big fan of Zaha Hadid,” Wendy said. “She designed the DDP, which was completed in 2011, and was one of the main reasons for Seoul’s designation as World Design Capital in 2010.”

  “Sports,” I said. “The Dongdaemun Stadium was demolished in 2008 to make way for the Design Park.”

  “My parents watched a baseball game at the stadium here before I was born,” Eliza said. “They took a photograph at the game, and it’s one of the few I have of them when they were still happy together.”

  “And food,” I said. “There are tonnes of eateries and restaurants in the area, serving all sorts of delicious Korean dishes. My stomach confirmed this clue on its own. I was very hungry.”

  “Yes, you’re right of course,” Bok Joo said, “but you said so yourself, those five clues could have pointed to any number of places in Seoul. It’s why I picked them, in fact. How did you know I was in Dongdaemun, and how did you know I was here specifically?”

  “After we had figured out the image cards for the King Sejong Statue,” I said, “I noticed the Cheonggyecheon outside of this window when you broadcasted. I didn’t know what stream or river it was at the time, but I knew it wasn’t the Han River. That removed a great many places from the list of possible places.”

  Bok Joo looked out the window and shook her head. “I can’t believe I didn’t think to block out the background when I was broadcasting. I thought the camera angle was sufficiently narrow. I should have checked.”

  “When you appeared in Ssamzigil while Wendy was trying to choose paper for her ddakji, I heard someone saying what I thought was ‘lot of fitting’ in the background noise from your hologram,” I said. “Dad later confirmed that what was actually said was ‘Lotte FITIN’, a famous fashion mall near the Dongdaemun Design Park.”

  “I had planned to take your mom there after all this was over,” Dad said, grinning. “I like buying her shoes she doesn’t need.”

  “So you were sure Dongdaemun was the correct location, and that I was near the Cheonggyecheon,” Bok Joo said, “but that’s still a very large area to search. How did you narrow it down to this place? Did you just get lucky?”

  “Yes, but not in the way you think,” I said. “I’m lucky that Jimmy is my best friend. When you told us to go to Myeongdong, Jimmy overheard something about a clock’s second hand and books, again in your background noise. Nazhar confirmed that Dongdaemun has a Secondhand Book Street, just south of the Cheonggyecheon.”

  “And Secondhand Book Street is only one block long,” Bok Joo finished. “You guys really are amazing. This was exactly why I wanted to split you up. I’ve always had to work things out on my own and never had anyone to help me.”

  “That was exactly why James targeted me, Bok Joo,” Eliza said, quietly. “I didn’t realise it back then, but I was really lonely. And regardless of his other short-sightedness, James can sense vulnerabilities in people like a bloodhound.”

  “I don’t like asking people for help,” Bok Joo replied, looking away.

  Suddenly, a very familiar-looking man burst into the office and started speaking rapidly in Korean.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” Bok Joo replied. “I’m okay.”

  He crossed the room and hugged his daughter.

  Dad pointed at the man, mouth agape. Mom elbowed him, but I could tell she was thinking the same thing: this man looked a lot like the actor Gong Yoo.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, standing up. “Thank you for rescuing my daughter.”

  “Um, you are very welcome,” Dad said. “I’m Michael, and she’s Kat.”

  “Oh, yes, where are my manners,” he said. “My name is Song Ji Chul.” He extended his hand and Dad shook it.

  “Is that…your only name?” Dad asked. Mom slapped his arm.

  “He means you don’t have to thank us, really,” Mom said, shaking Uncle Ji Chul’s hand as well. “It was the least we could do.”

  “How did you fall into the storm drain, Ha Na?” Uncle Ji Chul asked.

  I quickly made a decision. Bok Joo didn’t like asking for help, but I had no problem offering it when I knew someone needed it—I am an unrepentant kaypoh after all. And just maybe, next time, instead of trying to solve or cause problems on her own, she might just reach out to people she knew she could trust.

  “That was my fault, Uncle,” I said. Everybody looked at me, including Bok Joo.

  “My friends and I were playing with Bok Joo… I mean, Ha Na, and she fell in,” I said. “We’re really sorry.”

  “Ah, Bok Joo,” he said, looking at his daughter. “I guess you children met in London?”

  Had I already blown my plan?

  “It’s silly, I know, but I thought enrolling her at that school in London under an assumed name would give her a better chance at a regular life,” he said. “So the person you met as Kim Bok Joo is actually Song Ha Na.”

  “My dad is pretty famous in Korea,” Bok Joo said. “He’s a very popular programme director for a lot of variety shows here.”

  “My work takes me all over the country, and even overseas sometimes, which means I can’t always look after Ha Na like I should,” Uncle Ji Chul said.

  “What about her mother?” Mom asked.

  “She passed away many years ago,” Uncle Ji Chul said. “It’s just me and Ha Na.”

  “My mom died too,” Nazhar said. “It’s just me and my dad. I know it can be very hard sometimes.”

  “Yeah, it can,” Bok Joo said softly.

  I was starting to understand why Bok Joo aka Ha Na did what she did. I looked up at Officer Siva and Inspector Lestrade, who had both remained very quiet during this entire conversation. They looked at each other and nodded. Inspector Lestrade had stopped trying to call her superiors. I then glanced at Watson and Moran, who also nodded. The rest of the Supper Club had already caught on.

  “Well, we should probab
ly get going,” Dad said. “Sam needs to get into some warm clothes again.”

  “Please, keep the blanket,” Uncle Ji Chul said. “Ha Na’s friends are my friends too.”

  As the others were saying their goodbyes, Bok Joo said to me in a low voice, so that her father couldn’t hear her, “Thank you for this, Sherlock. You have no reason not to turn me in, so thank you. And thank your friends too. And I’m so sorry for all this. I will never do something like this again.”

  “You’re very clever, Bok Joo,” I said. “I mean, Ha Na. You might actually be smarter than me, and I hope you use that intelligence for good in the future.”

  “I will,” she said. “Maybe the next time we meet, we’ll be solving a mystery together.”

  “That would be cool,” I said. “Also, have you heard of Instanoodlegram?”

  “What? Instant noodles? I love instant noodles,” Ha Na said.

  I grinned, got her email address, and told her I would send her an invite soon. I then walked towards the Supper Club and we waved goodbye to Ha Na and Uncle Ji Chul.

  I then stepped on the blanket and tripped through the doorway. I stood up and realised that blanket had not come through the doorway with me.

  “Sherlock Sam is Singapore’s Greatest Kid Detective!” Jimmy shouted.

  “Even-when-he-is-modelling-the-latest-pair-of-designer-underwear-from-Korea,” Watson said.

  I quickly covered myself up again.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  After our whirlwind trips to London and Seoul, life at home settled down a bit. Eliza, Nazhar and Wendy resumed studying for their upcoming PSLEs, while Jimmy got a new pet guinea pig. He named it Benjamin too.

  Mom and Dad had started watching some new Korean dramas: one was about police officers in Seoul and another was about a very cute couple. I think my parents liked that one because it reminded them of themselves.

  Inspector Lestrade had to explain to her supervisors why she had used another Interpol jet without proper authorisation, but she was able to wiggle out of any trouble with her usual aplomb. Officer Siva had returned from his “holiday” to a mountain of paperwork on his desk, but since Netflix had started carrying Mexican telenovelas, he said it all evened out.