Rebel Seoul

by Axie Oh

  “Careful?”

  “I told her that it was impossible for her to be with him in that way.”

  I look down at my hands. “Is it?”

  “However much” — Tera hesitates — “Ama might want to be close to him, it would be dangerous . . . for everyone.”

  Are we still speaking about Ama and Alex?

  “Soldiers have families all the time,” I say, “even if it’s only for the purpose of having more soldiers.”

  “But I’m not a soldier. I’m a weapon.”

  “You can be more than one thing.”

  “I’m not even human. Ama and I can’t have relationships. The Tower would never allow it. We’re worth trillions in investments. We have a greater purpose.”

  “You have relationships. Ama’s your friend.”

  “You’re not listening.”

  “I am listening. I just don’t like what you’re saying. You said last night in the gazebo that you were more than a weapon, or less than a weapon if weapons are supposed to exist for a purpose. You’re just . . . you. A girl with dreams and desires. If that’s not human, I don’t know what is. There’s nothing special about you. Sorry.”

  Tera sweeps back the blankets to glare at me. “Words are so easy for you. After last night, you returned to your home in Mapo-gu, Hapjeong-dong. Where did I go? Back to my white room. You sound just like Ama, idealistic and unrealistic.”

  “You sound like Tsuko, cold and unfeeling.” I don’t really believe my words, but I’m pissed at the direction this conversation has taken.

  She turns back to the wall. “Go away. I want to be alone.”

  “Alone in a prisonlike room,” I say dryly. “How fitting.”

  She doesn’t speak as I leave the room. In the halls of the ship, the soldiers I pass give me a wide berth. I don’t have a destination, but it doesn’t matter; I just need to walk off these feelings of frustration. How did we go from talking about Alex’s health to prodding each other with insults?

  The hall I’m walking down ends at a lift. To its side is the door to the stairs, which I take, moving up to the second level, then the third, fourth, fifth. I know the answer to my own question. If Ama and Alex can’t have a relationship, then neither can Tera and I, for all the reasons she stated. The cage that surrounds her is more than the literal box of her room; it’s the expectations of her “creators,” as Koga said, the reason for her being. There are so many people who need her.

  I’m just one person who wants her.

  The door on this floor opens on a long, dark room, the far wall a great window. This must be the observation deck, the highest point of the carrier. It’s empty of people. We’re still a distance from our destination, about three hundred kilometers out from the border of Manchuria, but soldiers will be on standby for deployment on the lower levels. I approach the window, my footsteps echoing across the open space.

  It’s dark outside. At some point in the night, we must have passed the old boundary line before the Great War, when the state was a country, and when that country was divided between North and South.

  It’s strange to think the world could be so different a hundred years ago from today as it will be a hundred years in the future. And yet not so different. The Proselytizer once said that he hated the past because it showed him the future, that humans are fated to repeat the mistakes of their forebears. It’s instinctual, humanity’s need to fight, to win, to kill, to live.

  The ship must have been moving through a cloud drift, because the dark of the outside dissipates. Below the ship is a massive mountain range, the highest peaks cleaving the sky.

  Mount Baekdu is here, in the great northern mountain range of Korea. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The massiveness of it — mountains seeming to grow on top of mountains, dotted with snow-covered pines.

  If we’re here, we’ve traveled farther than I thought. Soon, we’ll approach the border of Manchuria. Somewhere in the dark forests of that country hides a group of rebels, and with them, their defiant, charismatic leader, Oh Kangto. I wonder if he knows we’re coming for him.

  I’m turning away from the window when I catch sight of something — a pinpoint of light in the darkness. I squint, trying to figure out the source of the light. It seems to grow larger the longer I stare at it.

  I realize what it is the moment the alarm sounds in the carrier.

  We’re under attack.

  The first blast rocks the ship, and I stumble to the floor, covering the back of my neck with my hands as debris falls from overhead. I’m momentarily stunned, ears ringing. Then a high-pitched keening breaks me from my daze, and I look up to see cracks spiraling out from the glass window.

  I scramble to my feet as the ship tilts, sliding and banging my shoulder against the far wall. Quickly I follow the signs on the wall to a panel. I bang it open, fumbling inside for a parachute, anything. There’s nothing. Tera, as long as she stayed in the room, should be fine. The beds double as emergency capsules, but if I don’t find a way out of here, I’ll go down with this ship.

  Through high whistling air that blasts into the carrier, I hear the screams of soldiers as they’re whipped away into the sky.

  Heads will roll for this, if we somehow make it back alive. The Proselytizer must have fed the colonel false information. Perhaps it was even planned — the Proselytizer’s capture and this mission. How they didn’t anticipate a preliminary assault is above my pay grade.

  Another deafening rumble of the ship signals the engines failing. My stomach drops. Gravity’s taking hold of the carrier. I desperately stumble to the next wall panel, punching it open. Nothing. Flares and a medical kit.

  The ship sputters, and then all is chaos — in the air, in my mind. The ship collides with the side of a mountain. The entire glass wall shatters, and I’m whipped through the opening into the night.

  The last thing I feel is my body arcing through the air, the cold wind like stars piercing through my skin.

  25

  Want

  It’s the pain that wakes me: a blistering heat that burns up my side. I move my hand downward and brush against a sharp piece of metal sticking out from beneath my ribs.

  Shit.

  I groan and sit up. Without giving too much thought to what I’m about to do, I grab the metal piece and yank it out. My head swirls, and I grit my teeth, fighting off the nausea. I drop the metal, coated with three centimeters of my blood. I take a minute to regain my breathing, then grab the edge of my shirt, rip away a strip of cloth, and wrap the wound tight, praying I don’t black out. I fumble in my jacket pocket for some pain­killers, palming them into my mouth and grinding them between my teeth. The bitter taste helps to clear my mind.

  Around me lies some of the wreckage of the crash. Broken pieces of metal. Heat orbs, most of them shattered. There’s no fire, which is a surprise. And no ship.

  Tera.

  I stand up quickly. It’s a mistake. I stumble, catching myself against what’s closest to me — a tree, its branches broken and scattered on the ground.

  I have a fleeting thought: I must have fallen through this tree.

  I stand up straight, wincing at the searing pain. I look desperately around for Tera. If she’d stayed in the room, she’d have escaped through a capsule. The air is cold and thin. My breaths puff out like chilled smoke.

  I limp away from the tree and almost fall off a cliff.

  Before me is a steep drop-off. A massive lake, several times the width of the Han River, lies below.

  It’s an eerie tableau. Pieces of the carrier sink slowly beneath the surface. All across the lake, bodies are caught in patches of ice, illuminated by burning debris. I spot several escape capsules floating in the middle of the lake. They’re empty.

  I step right to the edge of the drop, searching the waters. Can Tera swim? She’s never left the Tower. Do th
ey teach that in simulations? And if they do, would it be the same? To feel the water closing over your head for the first time, that instant chill, that lack of air. Can you mimic it?

  Panic stirs within me, almost dispelling the pain at my side. Use the panic. My father’s voice from long ago fills my mind. Use your body’s adrenaline — it’s warning you. It’s trying to help you.

  I turn and sprint down the mountain, following a clear path in the moonlight. The path is man-made and forks near the lake, the second path leading to a small temple nestled at the side of the mountain. I ignore it and take the path to the lake.

  My blood seeps through the wrapped cloth. Every pound of my feet against the ground shoots a stab of agony into my side. By the time I reach the lakeshore, I’m gripping my side, and the blood has completely soaked through the bandage. I step into the water, the cold like frozen knives digging through my shoes.

  For a moment, clouds cover the moon, throwing the world into darkness. I listen to the moans and cries and the creaking of the ice. If I live through tonight, this memory will haunt me.

  The clouds pass. Moonlight leaps across the water, and I catch sight of Tera. She’s several meters into the lake, her unconscious body sprawled across a thin slab of ice, a deep gash at the side of her head.

  Hold on. I struggle out of my blazer. The weight of it will drag me under, and I’ll need it for warmth, should we make it back. I rush into the lake, diving into the water when it’s deep enough to swim.

  I’ve almost reached her when she slips from the ice and disappears beneath the surface. Gathering breath, I submerge myself entirely in the lake. I’m blind beneath the water and can hardly make her out — just the shape of her, sinking farther and farther away.

  It’s cold. It’s so cold. And I’m tired. I have no breath. But I have to reach her.

  You can always have what you want, Jaewon, because you know the value of commitment. When you’ve committed yourself to something, you can never fail, because you know there’s only one path you can take: to see it through to the end.

  More words from my dead father.

  You can always have what you want, you just have to want it.

  I want it.

  There are so many things that I want.

  I want the light on my face in the morning to be just that — light, not a cold reminder that I’m awake.

  I want this ache inside me to leave, the one that says I’m alone, and that I always will be.

  I want to believe in the world I live in, to see it in the light of day and in the darkest of night and realize it’s a world worth fighting for. It’s a world worth living for.

  What do you want, Jaewon? What the hell do you want?

  I want her.

  I reach out, unseeing, and find her hand in the darkness.

  I circle my good arm around her, pulling her toward me, and use the other to push us to the surface and into the light.

  26

  The Temple

  The first thing I see when I wake is the low glow of a hundred heat orbs, staggered in the air like fireflies. The first thing I feel is the soft pressure of fingers, gently brushing against my wrist.

  “Jaewon-ah,” Tera asks, her voice groggy, hoarse, “are you awake?”

  “Mnh,” I mumble, rubbing my eyes. The memory of where we are, and how we got here, returns in fragments.

  The lake. I’d had to drag Tera onto the shore, still unconscious from her head wound.

  The path. The path away from the lake was scattered with debris from the crash. I’d found a bag of heat orbs, a thermal blanket, and a spare uniform.

  The temple. It was halfway up the path, a crack in the mountains. Abandoned, a one-story edifice with faded green- and-red-paneled doors and a shrine, robbed of its idols. Inside, I’d laid Tera down on the wooden floorboards, using the last of my energy to release the heat orbs from the bag, strip us of our wet clothing, and wrap Tera in the thermal blanket. I’d just finished rewrapping my wound and throwing on the dead soldier’s spare when I’d blacked out.

  I didn’t feel a thing until the gentle brush of Tera’s fingers against my wrist.

  Beside me, letting out a low breath, Tera sits up. The heat orbs mirror her movements, rising lazily in the air to form a disjointed halo around her head.

  “You look warm,” I say.

  She watches me, her brows knitting together. “You look cold. Your lips are blue.”

  I lift my fingers to my lips. They don’t feel cold. Or they don’t feel colder than the rest of me. I grab a heat orb out of the air and bring it to my mouth, pressing it to my lips. I glance at Tera, grinning. “How’s that?”

  She looks away, a blush brightening her cheeks.

  I release the orb and roll out the tick in my shoulder. It’s a mistake; the pain in my side wakes with a burn.

  “Jaewon-ah,” Tera asks, anxious, “are you all right?”

  I count to twenty in my head. There’s a fogginess at the periphery of my vision, and when I look at Tera, her features are blurred. “It’s just the altitude,” I manage to get out. “I’m not used to it yet.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she says. “Ama gets that look sometimes when she’s saying something but it’s not the truth.”

  “When she’s lying?” I ask, dryly.

  Tera huffs in annoyance, and I laugh, shaking my head. It’s silent for a bit before I say, “It’s good that you had — have Ama. As a friend, I mean. It must have been hard, growing up in the Tower alone.”

  Even if I’ve been alone for the past two years, before that I was always surrounded by friends — Young, Jinwoon, Daeho, all the boys in our gang. I don’t think a day went by when I didn’t see at least one of them.

  Tera shakes her head. “It wasn’t always just us two.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The project is on its third trial. There were many Teras who came before me. Amas as well. Of course I didn’t know all of them. Some of us were kept in different facilities. But I knew enough of them to know they were just like Ama and me. Some were war orphans like us, while others were brought to the Tower because they were sick, and their parents thought the Enhancers would help them. But they didn’t help them. Not in the end.”

  Tera pulls her legs to her chest. “What makes Ama and me so special?” she says. “Why do we get to live while they all died? In a way, I want to be the goddess the experiment wants me to be, if only for all those girls who couldn’t, but at the same time, I’m so . . . I’m so angry. For what they did to those girls, my friends, to me, and to Ama. Tsuko thinks I’m ungrateful, and he’s right. I am not grateful for what they’ve done. But Tsuko also said I was made with a purpose, and others have sacrificed for that purpose, and isn’t it my responsibility to pick up the burden that was too heavy for them to carry?”

  I don’t have an answer for her. Tsuko said something similar in the elevator, about the responsibility of war. Does Tera carry the responsibility of the project? It seems like a heavy weight, even for someone as strong as she is.

  Tera reaches out to brush the hair back from my face. “But you’re right. I do have Ama. I am grateful to the project for bringing her to me. She’s everything to me, the one person I cherish most in the world.”

  “One person?” I ask, hopeful.

  She laughs. “Well,” she teases, “one of two.”

  I close my eyes and smile. Maybe she feels pity for me because I’m wounded and feverish and slightly delirious, but I’ll take it.

  Her hand moves over mine. For once, hers is warm. Or maybe it’s my hand that’s cold. “Jaewon-ah,” she says, “while you were sleeping, you must have been dreaming, because you kept saying someone’s name. You sounded so sad.”

  I’m tired of being sad.

  “Who is Young?”

  “He was my friend,” I say. “My
best friend.”

  “Tell me,” she says.

  And even though I’ve never spoken to anyone about Young, I tell her.

  “We grew up together. He lived in the apartment next to mine, and only a thin wall separated our rooms. I always knew when he had a bad dream, because I could hear him. His mother died when he was five, and his father was absent most of the time, so my parents looked after him. When they were gone, all I had was Young. He was my brother in everything but blood. Together we joined a gang. Old Seoul gangs have a difficult initiation process, but Young and I saw each other through it. And for five years we were Runners in Red Moon.

  “We also managed to go to school, even while in the gang. I always wanted to skip, thinking it was a waste of time, but Young kept me going. He’d say, ‘You’re smart, Jaewon. You can make something of yourself.’ He used to get terrible grades in school, but he’d go anyway, because he knew if he didn’t, then I wouldn’t.

  “When we weren’t at school or running for the gang, we’d bum whole nights in simTech rooms. They’re rooms you can pay a standard fee for and use the simTech to do whatever. I’d play games. Sometimes I’d make money playing the games. I was always good at them, even when I was a kid. We got by. It was a way to live.”

  “Jaewon-ah,” Tera asks softly, “what did Young do to you?”

  I close my eyes. “So the initiation process into gangs is pretty harsh. It involves a beating to show your determination and strength. To get out, it’s even worse. I was accepted into the military academy at Apgujeong with a full scholarship. Young sent in my application without me knowing. I promised to go if he’d leave the gang with me.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “When we arrived at the headquarters of Red Moon, the rest of the gang had gathered. To . . . see us off. The boss asked me if I was set on leaving. I said I was. Then he asked Young if he was sure of the choice he had made. I should have suspected something was wrong, with the way the boss was looking at Young, a smug smile on his cruel face, with the way he was looking at me, as if he’d won a game I didn’t know we’d been playing.