Rebel Seoul

by Axie Oh

  If Alex is bothered by this blatant admission of his familial ties and advantages, he doesn’t show it.

  “Although you will be the point person on the project, making sure all the members of the team are informed, you will spend the majority of your time working closely with Weapon 3016.”

  Alex sits forward in his chair. “Ama,” he says.

  “Correct. As I said, although we haven’t gone public yet, we will soon. We need to, in order to gain sponsors and further the program. In light of this, we’re working closely with our prototypes to prepare them. You are assigned as Ama’s primary supervisor.”

  Before I have time to absorb this information, Koga moves on. “And lastly, Lee Jaewon.”

  They skip over Sela, but she doesn’t seem to mind, sitting quietly in her chair with a content expression. I wonder if they briefed her earlier.

  Koga pulls up my record. Born in Old Seoul. 186 centimeters. I have above-average scores on all my subjects, nothing too impressive. The most outstanding part of my résumé is perhaps my battle count, the sheer number of simulations I’ve run, and the ratio of wins to losses. Students are required to run a minimum amount of battle simulations, around ten to twenty a semester. I ran more for credits — which can be used at school to purchase supplies and food — but also because they kept me sharp, and they’re fun.

  “You’re a well-rounded student,” Dr. Koga says, nodding to me, “but more than that, you’re a good soldier. The board was in mutual agreement that someone with your strength of character and soldierly aptitude would be best suited as Weapon 3017’s primary supervisor. You will oversee her afternoon schedule, which includes daily blood work, a variety of skill tests, and anything else required of her. You will write up reports that will be issued to the Board and the rest of your team. But your main responsibility is to monitor Tera.”

  I wonder if this was the job of the man who came out of the elevator with a head wound. Still, it would be a lie to say I’m not intrigued about the project, and about Tera.

  “Well, that completes our presentation for today. We’ll reconvene tomorrow.”

  We all stand.

  “Jaewon-ssi.” Dr. Koga stops me. “Can I have a word with you?”

  I bow to Dr. Chung and Sela as they pass. Alex gives me a questioning look, and I shrug. I have no idea what the good doctor wants.

  When the room empties, Koga signals for me to join him at a window at the back of the room, where it looks out on the city. Sometime in the past hour, it began to rain, and a deep fog coats the air.

  Dr. Koga coughs into his fist. “I pulled you aside because I wanted you to know that it won’t be easy,” he says. “Tera has had several supervisors over the years, all of whom have quit. She has . . . episodes, a result of the Enhancer. It’s not a matter of intent. Tera’s a good girl. She can’t help herself.”

  I don’t say anything. The rain begins to fall harder. The Dome might cover the city, but it’s permeable, allowing aircraft and weather to pass through. It takes an unearthly amount of electricity for the Dome to solidify, which is why it only occurs at night or when the city is under attack.

  Koga continues, “I just wanted to be up-front with you. Out of everyone, your job will be the most difficult and the most dangerous. In fact, the fine print of the NDA contract says that even if you were to suffer an injury during the interim of your assignment, you can’t press charges. Even if you were to die, your family can’t seek recompense. This clause doesn’t really apply to the others, but it will in your case.”

  Ah, so that’s the real reason I was chosen. My life is expendable.

  I turn to Dr. Koga. “You said it yourself. I’m a soldier. Soldiers follow orders. I’ll do what I need to do.” To complete this assignment. To graduate. To take my exorbitant stipend and leave.

  Koga holds my gaze, scrutinizing me through the glare of his lenses. “Very good. Until tomorrow, Lee Jaewon.”

  I bow and walk from the room.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  I find Alex in the lobby, looking out into a downpour.

  “Shit,” he says in greeting. He grabs two umbrellas off a rack next to the doors, umbrellas provided for Tower em­ployees on occasions such as this.

  I come up alongside him, taking the umbrella he hands me. “ ‘Shit, it’s raining,’ or ‘shit, what did we sign up for’?”

  “The second,” Alex answers. “It’s always raining.”

  We stand there in silence, watching the droplets hit the pavement. Maybe Alex is thinking of Ama. I wonder briefly if we’ll have a conversation about what we’d seen in the Tower, but Alex doesn’t disappoint.

  “See you later.” He steps outside, opening up his black umbrella to shield himself from the rain. In only a few steps, he’s disappeared from sight.

  I’m about to step out into the downpour myself when I hear footsteps behind me. I’m not alone in the lobby.

  The presence of another person wouldn’t normally put me on edge, but whoever this is waited until Alex left before emerging from the shadows beneath the Marionette.

  “Of all the places I’d think to find you,” a familiar voice drawls, “the Tower would have been the very last. You’re playing with fire, Lee Hyunwoo’s son. It’s almost as if you had a death wish.”

  Memories flash in my mind.

  I don’t want to die. The thoughts of an eight-year-old boy.

  I want to live. At sixteen years, my thoughts had been the same.

  I turn to face Park Taesung, the red moon pin on the lapel of his jacket a reminder of the scarred circle burned over my heart. The scarring was part of the initiation process into the Red Moon gang. I’ve had it for ten long years, even if for the last two it hasn’t had any significance beyond a bad memory.

  “No greeting for your old boss?”

  Slowly, as if there’s a gun pressed to the hollow of my back, I bow.

  “Ah, that’s better.” He takes a step forward, and I have to will myself not to take one back.

  Don’t show fear.

  I don’t know why he’s here in the Tower. Park Taesung is an Old Seoul criminal. He’s a thug and a murderer, and he’s hurt me more times than I can remember, but that’s not why I fear him.

  He knows the name of my father.

  “Lee Hyunwoo’s son,” Park Taesung calls, laughing. “Lee Hyunwoo’s beloved son.” I look around sharply. There’s only a receptionist in the lobby, and he’s seated far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to hear our conversation. “What would the Director say if he heard that name? What would he say, Lee Jaewon?”

  Park Taesung steps close, and I grit my teeth. His hot breath rakes across my skin, our cheeks almost touching as he whispers close to my ear. “He’d say, ‘Tell me the name of the traitor’s son. Tell me, so that I may kill him.’”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. I won’t die for my father’s mistakes.

  I feel Park Taesung step away, a lightening in the air around me.

  “Jaewon-ah, you haven’t said a word to me. Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here?”

  You’re here because you’re a shark in the water, and you smell blood.

  “I’ve become a sponsor on a project. They call it the Amaterasu Project. Have you heard of it?”

  I open my eyes. He’s moved to the base of the Marionette, his hand held out to knock against the God Machine’s foot. It makes a hollow, ringing sound.

  “I want to know every detail about the project. I already know the main players. Ama . . . and Tera . . . but I want to know more.”

  He must have a death wish, asking me to spy on the govern­ment for him while we’re inside the Tower. I look up at the nearest security cam, which more than likely records audio as well as visual.

  He chuckles at my uneasiness. “No one will know we’ve spoken. You’d be surprised how
many people actually work for me at the Tower. It’ll be like old times. You in my gang, reporting to me. What do you think?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Park Taesung walks toward the doors of the lobby, his back facing me. “You always have a choice, Lee Jaewon. That’s the one thing you can be sure of.”

  Live or die. I guess those are choices.

  “The Amaterasu Project is the future,” Park Taesung says, “and I want a part of that future. Don’t you?”

  He doesn’t give me time to answer. He steps through the doors and into the rain.

  I’m alone in the dark lobby, with only the Marionette for company. It doesn’t surprise me that Park Taesung knows what’s going on behind the Tower’s high walls and steel-locked doors. Red Moon is the largest crime syndicate in Asia, and he’s its boss. He has the funds, the connections, the spies, and the Tech.

  My father once said that if only Park Taesung used his influence for good, then he could achieve something truly great in this world. Then again, “good” is relative. As is “greatness.” Maybe Park Taesung thinks the Amaterasu Project is greatness. Maybe he thinks a finely honed weapon is good.

  I exit the lobby and call over a cab on the Grid.

  The cab driver watches me slide into the backseat. “Where to?”

  “The Banpo Bridge.”

  As we cross the Han River from Neo Seoul into Old Seoul, I allow myself to remember the reason my father rejoined the resistance in the first place.

  It was for a rumor. There’d been a rumor of young girls being snatched off the city streets, turning up dead in the Han River months later.

  Their cause of death: Enhancer overdose.

  My father had wanted to know who was taking the girls and why they were injecting them with Enhancers. When cross-city officials performed the autopsies on the bodies, they’d found enough drugs in the blood to kill a grown man twice over. Nobody could figure it out — the why or what of it. Or at least, nobody who knew the truth lived long enough to spread the truth.

  After my father died, the rumors gradually stopped.

  Young and I had been eight at the time. I remember him asking me, right after the third body showed up, what I thought would happen to a person if they were pumped with Enhancers.

  “They’d die,” I’d said.

  Young had nodded, his bottom lip bleeding as he chewed on it. “And if they lived?”

  “They’d be immortal. But they wouldn’t be human.”

  14

  Extension

  The next day at school, I break up a fight in the cafeteria.

  “Bora,” I say as I pull her away from a second-year, “relax.”

  Bora struggles in my grip. “Nobody talks to me like that!”

  I release her. “She messed up your hair.”

  Bora’s fierce scowl turns quickly to a look of horror. I grin as she pulls out her phone to check her appearance. She has several strands sticking out, but other than that, she’s fine. The second-year she’d been fighting with hasn’t fared so well. The girl crouches on the floor, holding her head between her hands and wailing in apparent torment.

  “Liar.” Bora laughs. “My hair’s perfect.” She tucks the strands back into place. “Well, now it is.”

  School goes by slowly. We have lectures all morning, PE after lunch, and then simulation runs in the early afternoon. Bora and Minwoo both seem to like their assignments out at the naval yard. Minwoo thinks he’ll work there permanently after graduation. “It’s easy,” he says with a shrug. When they ask about mine, I cite my NDA.

  Outside the gates after school, the same thug my mother hired before approaches me with an envelope of cash.

  “She let you come again,” I say. “You must be a good actor.”

  He peers at me from beneath a bushy eyebrow. “Sure, kid. Same old, same old?”

  “Yeah.” I wave him off and get into Alex’s car. The screens are blacked out inside, and he’s leaning his head back against the seat. He’s not sleeping — I can tell because his fingers are tapping against his thigh. His other hand is wrapped in a brace, and I wonder if he injured himself during a PE drill. We don’t speak, and he has the presence of mind not to ask about the thug.

  With the blacked-out windows, the only proof that the car moves is the slight vibrations beneath my feet. Is this how Alex usually travels, in darkness?

  At the Tower lobby, we pass through security and scan our ID badges. The receptionist gives us new uniforms, black pants and a white shirt with a red patch on the shoulder. We change in the bathroom and return to receive the rest of our uniform — a shoulder holster complete with an electro-gun. “It’s locked to your biometrics,” the receptionist tells us. “Only you should be able to shoot that gun.”

  “Right,” Alex says. He checks the safety and secures it in the holster at the side of his chest. I follow suit.

  The receptionist then informs Alex that Dr. Koga waits for him in the basement. As for me, I’m to report to Dr. Chung in the GM hangar. It’s a large building attached to the Tower through a Skybridge on the twenty-third floor. We head toward the bank of steel elevators at the back of the lobby and part ways.

  I press the button for the floor. As the lift ascends, I receive a message from Koga on my phone. “Good afternoon, Lee Jaewon,” it relays in his cheerful voice. “Every day you’ll receive instructions upon arrival at the Tower. You have a meeting with Dr. Chung now in the hangar. After your assignments have concluded, please write up a report and send it to this number.”

  The elevator doors open to a bridge, walled on four sides by glass. Far below I can see the water gardens that trail between the Tower and the hangar. There’s a group of people moving through the area. To the left and right is the greater Gangnam area with all its colorful lights, and above me, the sky.

  The bridge ends at another security checkpoint beyond which are huge metal doors. It takes both guards’ clearance on a biometrics pad before they open. Stepping into a cavernous room, I’m met with the sounds of low hum of machinery at work, the cling and clang of moving parts, raised voices above it all. The hangar smells of oil and fuel. I walk to the railing to get a better look. Below is a huge room filled with God Machines. They’re lined up in rows, I estimate fifty or so total. Industrial walkways are built around the hangar at the level of the GMs’ torsos.

  Two lie horizontal on the ground floor. Masked machinists weld large pieces onto a GM’s body, while engineers stand to the side, pointing to holographic diagrams. I take a long escalator down to the ground level. I’m not into GMs the way Minwoo is into cars or Bora is into fashion, but even I can appreciate the awe-inspiring sight of so many different models in one space. There are the standards TKs with wheels, like the ones from the test, as well as the RLs and their upgraded counterparts. But there are also infantry GMs, with powerful legs and jet packs to skim across short distances, and suits with air mobility. These last I have an itching to try.

  “Lee Jaewon!” I turn at the sound of the muffled voice. One of the welders lifts his mask, revealing a guy a little older than me with a goatee. “I was told to look out for you.” He points to the back of the hangar where there’s a small door. “Dr. Chung is through there.” I nod in thanks and head in the direction he indicated.

  At the door, there’s another security lock. Only a red line marks the spot where they injected my ID. I hold my wrist up, and the door opens to another room off the main hangar, smaller and quieter. The room is dim when I enter, filled with shadows. There’s no one here but Dr. Chung, who stands at the center of the room behind a large control panel. I approach her, wondering if I should yell out that I’ve arrived. She should be able to hear my approach, the loud tap of my shoes against the metal floor. It’s eerie, the silence and the darkness. And then there’s a sharp click as a spotlight turns on, illuminating the space beyond.

 
; An incomplete God Machine hangs suspended by cable wires at the center of the room. It has no weapons, and it’s missing a left arm, but there’s no denying it’s an advanced model. It has long, distended legs, a thin torso, a narrow head, and black eyes. Its one arm looks to have retractable claws.

  I reach Dr. Chung. “What is it?” I ask.

  The machinist glances up from the control panel. “We’re calling it an Extension,” she answers, “due to its unique capabilities. It’s built to be an extension of the pilot. Unlike a normal GM, in which the pilot sits inside the cockpit and controls the exterior unit, like a ship, the Extension acts like a suit of armor. The pilot in a way merges with the suit so that her movements inside are directly mirrored by the God Machine.”

  “Sounds like an Enhancer,” I say.

  “It is exactly like an Enhancer. In fact, the cerebral connection between the pilot and the machine would be the equivalent of taking five hundred Enhancers at once. For a normal human, it would be too much for the brain to process.”

  Normal human.

  “Tera will be the pilot,” I say, and she nods. I turn away so the machinist won’t see my expression. Five hundred En­hancers at once? I saw Alex take one the day of our placement test, and he’d looked ready to pass out. I swallow. “Won’t it . . . harm her?”

  “It’s possible,” Dr. Chung says, without emotion. “But she’s already shown great aptitude in connecting with the machine. We’ve been increasing her minutes incrementally. Today she managed to complete a simulation without any visible side effects.”

  I whip my head around. “She’s inside right now?”

  Dr. Chung raises a brow. “Tera isn’t an ordinary pilot. You would do well to remember that.”

  I nod, chastised. “Of course, doctor.”

  “We’ve finished her tests for the day. There’s a GM lift.” Dr. Chung points to a metal platform that pilots use to board upright GMs. “You can take it up to retrieve her. She should be coming out of the connection, but she might be a little dis­oriented. You have your gun?”