Rebel Seoul

by Axie Oh

  Praise for Rebel Seoul

  “Oh deftly weaves a high tech world contrasted with the old and traditional. Rebel Seoul's nonstop action is underscored by deeper themes of loyalty, love in all its forms, and the family we have and the family we choose.A thrilling and wonderfully layered debut.”

  — Cindy Pon, author of WANT and Serpentine

  “Warning! Don’t start this book unless you have time to finish it in one sitting because you will not want to put it down! I read this book as fast as I could just so I could read it all over again! This is a heart pounding, wild action packed adventure with characters that you will fall in love with and that stay with you long after you've finished the book. It is one of the most vivid books I've read in a long time — it literally played like a movie in my head. Stunning.”

  — Ellen Oh, author of Spirit Hunters, founder and president of We Need Diverse Books

  “Rebel Seoul is a stunning debut and a hauntings read. Axie Oh will steal your heart with her deft prose and unforgettable characters. I couldn’t put this book down. Don’t miss it.”

  — Ann Aguirre, New York Times-bestselling author of Enclave

  “Open the cover of Rebel Seoul and you’ll enter the thrilling worlds of Old Seoul and Neo Seoul, where the lines between humanity and technology blur, oppression and treachery are ever-present, and battles are fought in the coolest giant robots in YA literature today. I was mesmerized from start to finish. Look alive, world, here comes Axie Oh.”

  — Mike Jung, author of Unidentified Suburban Object

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Axie Oh

  Jacket illustration copyright © 2017 by Sebastien Hue

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  TU BOOKS, an imprint of LEE & LOW BOOKS Inc., 95 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 leeandlow.com

  Manufactured in the United States of America by Worzalla Publishing Company, September 2017

  Book design by Elizabeth Casal

  Book production by The Kids at Our House The text is set in Granjon

  First Edition

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress

  Font in Acknowledgments designed by Soo-young JANG 장수영 & Joo-yeon KANG 강주연

  Copyright © 2014, 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated (http://www.adobe.com/), with Reserved Font Name “Source.”

  License This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1.

  This license is available with a FAQ at: http://scripts.sil.org/OFL

  FOR JASON

  Contents

  01 Neo Seoul

  02 Old Seoul

  03 Young

  04 Alex

  05 Assassination

  06 The Test

  07 God Machine

  08 The Girl

  09 Rain

  10 The Tower

  11 Third Meeting

  12 White Flower

  13 The Amaterasu Project

  14 Extension

  15 The Promise

  16 The Proselytizer

  17 The Burden of War

  18 Memories

  19 Missing Girls

  20 Double Date

  21 Hollow Victory

  22 Dreams

  23 Fairy Tale

  24 The Mission

  25 Want

  26 The Temple

  27 My Father

  28 Oh Kangto

  29 Forgiveness

  30 Mugunghwa

  31 Memorial

  32 The Demonstration

  33 Second Promise

  34 Punishment

  35 Last Good-bye

  36 Park Taesung

  37 C’est La Vie

  38 Tsuko

  Epilogue: New World

  Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  01

  NEO SEOUL

  The Tower’s searchlight circles the Gangnam district of Neo Seoul at a uniform rate. At the center of the district, a band calling itself C’est La Vie gives a regulated concert: four guys on lead guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums; one girl on voice.

  The light is yellow as it searches the grassy park where the concert’s being held, yellow as it searches the food and promotion carts forming a broken wall between the park and the blue-lit streets of the Grid. It rests for a moment at the front of the stage, fake sunlight in the night, illuminating pale faces in the crowd.

  Suddenly, the searchlight turns from yellow to red, a jarring, hitch-in-the-breath switch. It’s a warning.

  Twenty minutes until midnight. Twenty minutes until the trains stop in the sky, until the magnet of the Grid shuts down, until the Dome closes. Twenty minutes until curfew.

  Red. The color of fear. It makes everyone look harsh and inhuman, bloody and faceless. And then it’s gone. The light passes. It moves on to the rest of the district.

  Nobody at the concert seems to notice its arrival and departure.

  Nobody but me.

  I reach into my pocket and pull out a couple of square pills, popping them quick. Bright lights give me headaches, loud noises irritate me, but I have only myself to blame. I’ve been to concerts before.

  There’s a momentary lull after the last set, enough time for the Tower light to sweep over the crowd. The lead singer of C’est La Vie, her heart-shaped face enlarged on the holo-screens behind her, lifts her microphone to her pink-stained mouth. I can see the puffs of breath that fall from her lips. No instruments accompany her, not for these first words, spoken as if they’re her last.

  “Please tell me,” she sings, “Please tell me why people hurt one another.”

  A bitterness creeps through me, familiar and irritating. “Such is life,” I mutter.

  I lean my shoulder against a nearby food cart, feeling the coldness of the steel through the thin fabric of my shirt. I had a coat tonight, but lost it sometime between the beginning of the first set and this last one, to a girl with soft lips. She traded a kiss for warmth. I can’t say the same for me.

  My phone chirps in my pocket, and I take it out. The number fifteen flashes red across the screen.

  Fifteen minutes until midnight. Fifteen minutes until curfew.

  I haven’t forgotten. I wouldn’t forget something like that.

  I glance to my right. Civilian cars are lined up on the back streets of the Grid, waiting to zip concertgoers safely away to the residential areas of Neo Seoul, to the skyscrapers full of the loving parents who will welcome them home.

  Open doors.

  Open arms.

  Fourteen minutes, forty-two seconds until curfew.

  It takes a little less than ten minutes to reach the nearest bridge, which means I have four minutes, forty-two seconds before I have to leave.

  My sneakers squish against the wet grass as I step away from the cart. Something sticky attaches to the sole of my shoe — a discarded piece of gum. I sigh and lean down to pluck it off.

  I hear another squelch. The toes of two studded boots enter my line of vision. I straighten and pocket the gum. Trash receptacles get taken away every night at 2200, and fines for littering go up fifteen percent after they’re gone.

  “Ay, Lee Jaewon, that’s disgus
ting,” Bora says, her voice light and cheerful. She checks beneath her high-heeled boots to see if she’s suffered the same fate.

  She hasn’t.

  “I just saw a girl in the crowd wearing your coat. Daebak! You work fast. I’d say color me impressed, ’cept you’ll probably die from a chill.”

  Tonight Bora wears a heavy coat entirely of blue feathers that puff out, making her small torso appear larger. The coat falls to mid-thigh, accentuating her long legs, poorly protected from the cold by a pair of black tights. She adjusts her wig — one that I haven’t seen before, black with dark blue streaks. Shiny stars pasted over the rims of her cheeks flash silver as she smiles.

  Bora’s last accessory is Minwoo, his own ruddy cheeks pasted with stickers of hearts and diamonds. His mop of curly hair falls across eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. Bora’s got a strong hold on Minwoo’s sleeve, and I can see the seams of his sweater breaking at the shoulder.

  “She’s so cute!” Minwoo yells, trying to make himself heard over the music. It’s been gradually picking up instruments as it gains momentum.

  I nod at Minwoo’s compliment, thinking he’s speaking about Bora.

  “Really,” he continues, “if Sela were my girlfriend, I’d just die from happiness.” Minwoo grabs a handful of fabric at the front of his sweater and rubs the area in a circular motion, as if pained. “And her name. It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Bora releases him in disgust. Minwoo stumbles, clearly intoxicated, and falls to the grass.

  “It’s her stage name,” Bora says, rolling her eyes. “Her band is called C’est La Vie. It’s, like, French or whatever. She’s just called Sela ’cause she’s the lead singer and it rolls off the tongue.”

  “Don’t belittle my goddess!” Minwoo shouts from the ground.

  I listen as the instruments drop, one by one. Now it’s only the singer, her voice somehow quiet even with the microphone pressed against her lips. “Please tell me. Why do people hurt one another? Why do people kill one another?”

  “This song is depressing,” I say.

  “No, it’s not!” Minwoo jumps off the ground, surprisingly nimble, and grabs me by the front of my shirt. “It’s goddamn poetry!”

  I shrug him off, along with his alcohol- and cigarette-tinged breath. I gave up smoking two years ago. They don’t tolerate the stuff at the academy, not for scholarship students. The pungent tobacco wafting from Minwoo makes me infinitely aware that I’m better off without it.

  “Jaewon-ah . . .” Bora takes me by the arm. I glance at her hands circled around my shirt. If she tears it, I really will die from the cold. “You nervous about the new school year? Minwoo says he bribed the members of the school board. We’re for sure going to be in the same class again this year.”

  I nod slowly, somewhat amused. Bribing a group of corrupt old men to get into the same class as your friends. It’s a different kind of bribery than that conducted in Old Seoul. In Old Seoul, bribery isn’t just about money.

  C’est La Vie’s song heads into the second chorus, gearing up for its grand finale. Some of the lights in the stage-rafters shatter in a coordinated explosion of pink-and-blue pixie dust. Heavy fans blow the dust into the crowd, and the way people are gulping in the air, I wouldn’t be surprised if the band added stimulants to the glitter.

  “Song Bora,” Minwoo squeals in excitement, “hurry up! We don’t want to miss the finale.” He rushes back into the crowd, swallowed up on either side as he pushes his way through.

  Bora hesitates, glancing back at me. “You coming?”

  I shake my head.

  She watches me another second. “Okay,” she says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She follows Minwoo into the crowd.

  I resume leaning against the abandoned food cart. I have about one minute and forty-nine seconds in the park before I’ll be forced to leave. Cars registered to the Grid are allowed out later than curfew, but taxis aren’t, especially taxis heading for one of the few bridges leading out of the city. I need to be gone before I’m taken in, accused of and convicted for something illogical.

  I imagine how it’d go down. They’d ask me why I was out so late — inside the Dome, when my Citizen ID says I should be outside it. I’d say, “I got caught out.” I’d say, “I’ll call a friend.” They’d tell me I was out late planning something treasonous against the state. I’d say, “Bullshit.” They’d put me in prison.

  When I walk away from the cart, I watch where I step. The grass, coated with a combination of rainfall, melted sugar, and glitter, sticks to my shoe.

  I check the time once more: one minute, twenty-seven seconds.

  I’m heading out to the main streets when I see someone.

  A girl.

  The lights of the stage only reach so far across the grass until it blends to darkness, and that’s where she stands, completely still, her eyes riveted on the stage.

  I don’t know what stops me; maybe it’s her stillness. Maybe it’s the fact that we’re the only ones not packed in front of the stage. We’re a couple meters out, nothing around us but abandoned food carts and grass, and the blue-lit streets of the Grid behind her.

  I’ve seen girls like her before, middling height with long black hair, some falling over her shoulders. She wears a loose, long-sleeved gray shirt and pants of the same color. And yet there’s something arresting about her — the way she stands, as if she’d run across the city and just arrived, her chest moving slightly as she breathes; the way she hasn’t blinked since I first laid eyes on her.

  She takes one step and she’s in the light.

  The look in her eyes is fierce and warm and full of longing.

  I inhale sharply and feel the cold sweep through my mouth.

  I have exactly one minute left before I have to leave. I can talk to a girl in a minute.

  I take another step, smoothing my shirt over my stomach, and a shattering of wind blows me back. A police droid descends from overhead, a shaft of light issuing from its projectors and exposing the girl. She doesn’t even glance up. Nor does she blink when airborne police trucks slide onto the grass, leaving the organized streets of the Grid, their sirens raging red like the searchlight of the Tower. Each truck releases four soldiers carrying standard-issue electro-guns, their sighting-lights trained on the girl. She’s covered with a dozen neon red dots all focused on fatal parts of the body — her long neck, her pale forehead, her beating heart.

  Her eyes never leave the stage as the soldiers drag her away, and when they jolt her with the electro-gun, her eyes remain open, only the fluttering of her lashes showing she felt it at all.

  Through the whirring noises of the droid’s engines and the wailing sirens of the police trucks, Sela breathes the last words of her song.

  “Even if I’ve never heard you, I hear you. Even if I’ve never seen you, I see you. Even if I’ve never known you, I miss you. I wait for you, my love, my land of the morning calm.”

  Something about the words makes me flinch.

  I watch as the soldiers drag the girl’s limp body off the grass and into one of the trucks.

  They’re gone in under a minute.

  A cheer goes up behind me, and I quickly turn around. The members of C’est La Vie are bowing on the stage. The small figure of the lead singer blows kisses into the crowd with a bubble blower. Blue and pink roses fall at her feet, and a chant rises up out of the tumult.

  “Sela! Sela! Sela!”

  Nobody seems to have seen the police take the girl. And if they had, they wouldn’t care.

  She’s just another lost soul in the city of Neo Seoul.

  The city of tomorrow’s dreams.

  I have zero minutes and zero seconds until I have to leave.

  There’s a feeling in my chest that feels something like disgust, but whether for the police or the crowd or myself, I can’t tell. />
  I walk onto the street and call over a cab. I open the back door, then slide into the soft interior. It smells faintly of smoke. “Can you take me across the nearest bridge?” I ask the driver.

  I wait, expecting him to charge me extra — it’s almost midnight, after all — but he just nods.

  I cross the Han River from Neo Seoul into Old Seoul with three minutes, thirty-eight seconds to spare. I don’t wait to see the Dome solidifying as it closes behind me.

  Midnight shuts the old from the new.

  02

  Old Seoul

  “Ajeossi,” I say, looking at the cab meter and pulling out what I owe, “I’m getting off here.”

  The driver stops the cab and stares at me in the rearview mirror. “In the middle of Banpo Bridge?” he asks. “I can take you the whole way.”

  I give the old man the money, my right hand already against the handle of the cab door. “I want to get off here.”

  “I won’t charge you,” he says.

  I meet his eyes in the mirror. “Thank you, but I’m going to walk.”

  Seconds pass before the old man nods, turning to take the money from my hand. I open the door.

  “This bridge is famous,” he says softly, his voice gravelly with age.

  I fight the urge to leave the cab, but only a punk skips out when an ajeossi is speaking to him. “It is,” I agree. “It connects North and South Seoul, Old and Neo Seoul.”

  Everyone knows this.

  “That’s right. It’s a connector,” he says, “but it’s also a divider. You could think of it as a symbol, of how our world is divided. North of the Hangang and South of the Hangang. Old and New.”

  I wait for him to finish speaking.