“Dao le,” the automated voice told us as we arrived at the Wudaokou Station.
A flood of people rushed out of the train. Another flood filled it back up. After Linda and I had gotten married, a part of me wished we would have stayed in Beijing. Despite its cancer-inducing atmosphere, it was still the city we met in. Could love conquer tumors? Most people here had gas masks hooked into their noses, plastic tubes sticking out of their mouths. It was the capital city and smog wasn’t going to deter ambition. America’s capital was relatively clean when it came to air pollution, but it was infested with crime. Washington D.C. had been declared a war zone eight times in the past decade, struggling with poverty from the neighboring areas. I still remembered a visit for a photo shoot outside the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. We were staying at a hotel and both Linda and I were starving after a late release. We asked the concierge what restaurants he’d recommend and he told us, “I would recommend not going outside.”
“Why not?”
“You most likely will not be coming back, even with armor on.”
We had to settle for junk food as delivery services ended after five p.m. throughout the city for safety purposes. Chips, cookies, and a soda salad tasted great when you were hungry.
Wudaokou Storage #301 was close to the station and there were Korean restaurants all over as this was Beijing’s Koreatown. I’d have to save my craving for Korean BBQ. The storage warehouse was enormous but the front lobby was tiny, a red brick-affair with a young lady at the front desk playing some game through her goggles. She was flailing her fingers and hands in front of her as she controlled objects only visible to her.
I cleared my throat to get her attention.
“Scan in,” she said.
Above her desk, there was a scanner. I put my palm against it and a retinal check followed. There was a confirming ring tone. To the right of me, a part of the brick wall slid open and an elevator awaited. I looked to the girl, but she was still playing her game. I entered the elevator. The door shut and I felt motion. When it opened back up, I was in a small room filled with weapons. It was dusty and the light had a motion sensor that triggered as I stepped in.
On the shelf, there were light bombs, an electric blade that could cut most metals, a small wooden gun that fired chemically coated paralysis darts, as well as a sleek flesh-toned skintight suit. If I wasn’t mistaken, this was an adaptive armor suit that warded off most bullets and protected against knife thrusts. It was military-grade, something George must have salvaged from the African Wars. Even though it was designed to fit Larry, it was adaptive and shrunk to fit my body. I put it on under my clothes. Though it didn’t provide protection for my head, there was also a black wig shaped like a crew cut that had titanium coating in-between without feeling too heavy on the scalp. I picked up a lens that would go over my eye like a contact lens and acted as a binocular, albeit with streaming data and thermal visuals that could be toggled. All the weapons were nonlethal. There was also a suitcase filled with cash, standard currency.
There wasn’t any message or a note. But George had prepared this, probably at Larry’s behest. What was it all for and why include me on the entry codes? What was George so scared of? I had no answers and contented myself with the equipment. I could barely feel the armor under my clothes. I took a stack of cash just in case.
When I left the warehouse, the girl was still playing her game. She didn’t even notice my departure.
II.
As soon as I stepped outside, a man in a black suit approached me. He was one of those “faceless”’ men I’d heard about but only rarely seen. He’d had plastic surgery/image facilitation to make his face generic, plastic almost to resemble that of a mannequin, skin stretched like Botox gone awry. They were part of a special agency that provided guards that were indistinguishable from one another and could get away with anything since no one could differentiate between the thousands they hired. “My boss would like to see you,” he said.
“Who’s your boss?”
“Miss Rina Zhang-Gibson.”
The Colonel? Chao Toufa’s principal rival and the most dreaded military officer in the African Wars. “What does she want?”
“She wanted to welcome you back to Beijing. You can use the phone in the car.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Of course.”
He led me to a red limo and I entered the backseat. There was a logo inside that was labeled Zhang Zhang, the brand name for her line of wigs. The projectors created a perfect 3D image of her in front of me. I’d never seen her up close. She didn’t have a wig on, was older (60s maybe?), wrinkles as battle scars under her eyes. There was a tough duress imprinted in her face, a no-nonsense tautness in her lips. Even when she smiled, there was venom in her gaze. She’d seen things I couldn’t begin to fathom. She wore a two-piece purple business suit with a white tie that resembled our old UN uniforms and I could read the tattoo from the insignia of her former African battalion on her scalp; a desert tiger. The King of Hell was there too, and I cringed when I saw the necklace of teeth around her neck.
“What brings you back to Beijing?” she asked.
I could either lie to her, or tell her the truth. Chances were, she was already steps ahead of me. Why did she want to speak to me, a nobody in the chain of things? I had to be careful, ready to jump out of the car and hurtle the light bomb at the guard.
“What do you want?” I asked back, not faltering from her eye line. It wasn’t so hard knowing it was only a hologram.
“I want to know where you stand in all of this.”
“In all of what?”
“This precarious situation we find ourselves in.”
“What’s precarious about it?”
“Larry was your close friend?”
“Still is.”
“Commodities control the world,” she stated. “In the past, the British fought a war for tea. Tulips were the rage for the Dutch. Oil drove most of the internecine Middle-East diplomacy in the early part of the century. Now, hair is the most precious of commodities. I suppose one day, that’ll change. But now, we have to fight over who controls the production of hair. Chao Toufa has some secret recipe that allows them to make the most realistic hair anyone has ever seen.”
“I’m not really involved in the business side of things. I just help Larry shoot his films.”
“I’ve tried everything to find out that formula, but my spies have failed.”
“I’m not trying to put you off, ma’am, but I really don’t know anything about the formula.”
“You know what I’ve found out in this business?” she asked. I shook my head. “Never underestimate the lengths people will go to quench their vanity. At any time, if you find yourself tired of this farce and want to make a deal, let me know. I can help you. We can do it over a phone call, or you can visit me in Bangkok.”
“What kind of deal?”
“I don’t want war with you.”
“War with me?”
“I’ve been informed Chao Toufa is trying to make a move against my factories in Saigon and Detroit,” she stated.
“Not that I know of.”
“There’s no need for a charade of innocence. Let’s talk terms. What do you want?”
That’s what I wanted to know from her.
“Respectfully, nothing,” I informed her. “I don’t have any information about the formula or a fight. I honestly doubt Larry does either, and I don’t think the people who do are gonna tell me.”
The Colonel regarded me coolly, not saying a word. The message ended abruptly. I stepped out. The messenger I’d seen earlier was smoking on the corner. I didn’t care. Everyone was trying to push me around. So she was a psychopath. Could she be any worse than the religious nut I’d endured? I realized, probably. I suppressed a shudder and headed for the Korean restaurant where Shinjee worked.
III.
I couldn’t get the deadly glower of the Colonel out of my head. Was I a target now? Was
it her that George was so scared of? What made her think I’d know anything about the formula for the hair? Unfortunately, I’d have to deal with that later. Right now, my focus was Shinjee.
I knew she was trouble from the first moment I saw her. But I never thought Larry’s relationship with her might nearly get me killed. As I went back to the restaurant, I thought about that first date when Larry told me Hyori looked like Linda to get me to go along. Why had he been so pig-headed about his desire for Shinjee? I felt pain in my teeth, smelled blood even though I knew there wasn’t any. The more I thought about Shinjee, the more my gums hurt.
Was Larry getting into another mess with the Colonel? Would I have to rescue him again? Then my mind went to the convention center. He’d barely noticed I’d been gone. I had assumed if I had vanished, he would have scoured the planet to find me. Perhaps I wasn’t as important to him as I had believed. The idea disappointed me. It was a wakeup call too. After Linda, I’d attached myself to Larry as he was the closest person to family I had. I’d been looking for family as long as I could remember, searching for it wherever I could, but never truly able to find it. I remembered my biological mother telling me that her birth dream for me was a cute puppy wagging its tail. Was my search for a new family as pathetic as a stray puppy trying desperately to find a home?
Larry always pursued lovers and while in the past, I’d forgiven him his vices, I realized, I was older now. We couldn’t play the young man’s game forever. I’d survived when I thought there was no way I was going to survive. We couldn’t go back to the way things had been in the past.
I would confront Shinjee because I owed her for the suffering I’d undergone. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do to her. But I had to at least confront her. And then?
I felt myopic. The future was too distant. Pain was now.
IV.
The restaurant looked the same as before; a three-story building with BBQ grills and a courtyard. I had been expecting differences and was underwhelmed that there were none. I ordered a beer at the bar, walked through the restaurant but didn’t see Shinjee. There were many drunk patrons gorging on kimchee, families enjoying grilled spicy squid, and foreigners who wanted to try something new. I spotted Hyori in a traditional Korean costume serving soju to a group of older businessmen, recognizing her by the tattoo of the mouse fighting the lion.
There was a back entrance that led to an alley they used to exit which was where we’d met them on our first date. I’d have to wait there for her later.
If anyone in the restaurant recognized me, they didn’t indicate it. Maybe it was the crew-cut wig and the fact that I’d lost so much weight. I ordered a miso soup and rice, ate it slowly to give my body energy. Korean food could be heavy and I needed to keep nimble and spry which was why I held off on ordering any casseroles or meat. There was corn in my rice and my aluminum chopsticks felt heavy in my hands. The tofu in my soup was old, indicating this was from a bigger batch they’d kept boiling throughout the week.
After I finished my meal, I paid my bill and exited. The hostess and several waitresses bowed respectfully and wished me safe travels.
I walked around to the back alley and waited.
V.
It wasn’t a long wait. Hyori was in a hurry somewhere and ran out by herself, focused on a phone call. She was blabbering in Korean about a guy she’d met and what a perfect body he had. With what Korean I knew, I translated what she was saying in my head. “It’s too bad we gotta have him sent to a camp. We should just keep him around…I know we’re behind on quota, but there’s only so many we can send at one time…No, I missed that episode. She’s such a drama queen…He deserves better. Much better. Like me.” A squealing chortle followed.
I raised up my wooden gun and fired. A dart hit her in the neck. It must have felt like a mosquito bite to her. She took a few more steps before coming to a standstill, the chemicals paralyzing her body. I walked towards her and lifted her into my arms. “You’ve had too much to drink, honey,” I said. “I’ll carry you.”
The best thing about the paralyzer was that it kept her fully conscious. There was a cheap love motel nearby masquerading as a KTV where I rented a room. The attendant gave me a lewd grin when he saw me carrying her in. “Needs somes protections?” he asked, his teeth colored piss yellow.
“I don’t like rubbers,” I told him.
“Have fun,” he said.
VI.
The room had two display screens, a cheap green sofa, concrete floor, a fake plant, and a shelf full of beer. I put Hyori down on the sofa.
“Been a while,” I said. I took the gun and fired an activator into her neck that would free the muscles in her mouth.
“W-who are you?”
I looked her straight in the face and from the confusion that stared back, I realized how different I must have appeared to her.
“I’m looking for Shinjee.”
“Shinjee? Why?” She looked at me again. “Nick?”
“Where is she?”
“I heard you were killed trying to escape from the convoy.”
“If I fire this one more time, your body will be paralyzed permanently. There is no way to reverse it, short of death. I’ll ask only one more time. Where’s Shinjee?”
“She’s doing factory work.”
“Where is it?”
Hyori gave me a Beijing address.
“What kind of security do they have there?” I asked.
“They don’t need any.”
“Why not?”
“No one would leave. They’re serving the Great Leader.”
I tried to look for the Linda in her, but couldn’t see it no matter how hard I tried. I turned around and was about to exit when she shouted, “Wait, you can’t just leave me here. Wait! What do you want with Shinjee?! She’s a failure! Leave her alone! Hey! Nick! C’mon!”
I shut the door and rushed out the front. The toxin would wear off after a day. But I didn’t bother telling her that.
“Done so fast?” the attendant asked.
“I’ll be back.”
VII.
The factory packed oxygen containers, recycling air and filtering out the toxins so that it was breathable. People could insert the cans into their gas masks. It was a popular item throughout the cities of the world as fresh air was more valuable than food in many places.
The filtering generators in this case were disgusting monstrosities that looked incapable of cleaning anything. Most likely, it was unpurified oxygen packed and sold to people at a slightly lower price by hawkers outside markets. People were breathing the same air they would have without a mask, only paying a premium for the pretty wrapping.
Just as Hyori had said, there was no security. On the outside, it looked like a normal business building with a fence around its periphery and signs written in both Mandarin and Korean. I spotted a conveyor belt that did most of the pumping and sealing of the oxygen. Eight vents spat out smog and the whole place was dusty, smelling of burning vinegar. None of the workers had on any protective gear, though they had to step out every fifteen minutes or so to clear their charred lungs. As bad as it was outside, it was worse inside.
I recognized one of those that stepped out as Shinjee. I had never thought her especially pretty, but I could recognize that she could be attractive to others. Something had happened to her since I’d last seen her. It was as though her skull had been reshaped and she’d taken a beating or two. She was skinny before, but now she was a twig, so frail, it looked like she’d snap upon contact. Her nose had been broken and patched back up, but not with any skill. She wore the white outfit of all the other factory workers and had a short purple wig on that had soot at its edges. There was no camaraderie among the workers, just forced civility.
There were a few ways to approach this. I had assumed I’d have to furtively paralyze her and take her away. But seeing the lethargic manner in which she moved, an instinct told me the direct approach would be most effective. She did no
t look like a woman afraid of death.
I waited for her shift to end. She scanned the bar on her card key to stamp out, bowed to some of her co-workers, then walked out with a limp. She chewed on a piece of bread as swarms of bicyclers passed her by. Exhaustion weighed down her legs and children outpaced her short walk home. She lived in a tiny apartment that appeared abandoned from outside because it was so old and decrepit. Graffiti painted the walls and the floors were dirty. She had to climb up six floors as there was no elevator and she shared a room with five others. They had a communal bathroom for the floor that stank of a year’s worth of human feces where she washed her hands.
“I was expecting a lot of things, but not this,” I said to her.
“D-do I know you, sir?” she asked.
“What did they do to you?”
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“It’s me—Nick.”
“Nick?”
“Larry’s friend.”
She examined my face. “You-you were killed trying to escape.”
“So I’ve heard,” I answered.
“H-how did you get away?”
“Does it matter? That night before you shipped me off. Who was that dead on the sofa?”
“W-what?”
“Whose body was on the sofa?” I asked again.
“It was Larry. Why?”
“Do I look stupid to you? Larry’s alive. I just saw him.”
“That’s not Larry,” she protested.
“Then who is it?”
“I don’t know. But it’s not Larry.”
“I talked to him. It’s Larry.”
“Can’t you tell the difference between a fake Larry and the real one?” she demanded.
“Why would there be a fake Larry?”
Bald New World Page 16
