A maniacal laughter filled Wonjjang’s ears, and he forced his eyes open and stared at the blurry form astride him. He could make out enough — beady little eyes, the green slamdex Mao suit, and that stupid bouffant hairdo — to know that it was Kim Noh Wang. He slammed his head back against the floor and it rebounded hard, thumping Kim in the face. But the little psychopath held on, shrieking in rage as he began slapping Wonjjang across the face and screaming, “I warned you! You had your chance to serve the Dear Leader! You could have been a Hero of the People!” In the background, Neko and Iron Monkey’s struggle became frantic, and then Iron Monkey shrieked in pain.
“Ryun Ja!” Kim shouted, his voice high-pitched above the whine of the helicopter, and Wonjjang’s vision cleared a little. “Now!” More of the burning fluid splashed through the air from behind Kim, where a blurry figure now stood, and Wonjjang’s eyes began burning again. Kim clung to him like a kid on a bucking pony, while Wonjjang kicked and struggled. When moments later his ankles, too, were bound in cold metal, Wonjjang shivered in panic. Not far from him, Neko and Iron Monkey’s desperate screams filled the air as their fight intensified. Suddenly he could feel a face close to his, and the garlic-and-cognac reek of Kim’s breath wafted into his nostrils.
“We’re going to take you home with us, Jang Won, and re-educate you. You’re going to be a great asset to the People’s Republic … and I’m going to train you personally.” The little monster laughed, and the stink made gorge rise in Wonjjang’s throat.
“Never!” Wonjjang shouted.
“Fine, have it your way,” Kim said, and the weight shifted on his chest. Wonjjang struggled to break his bonds, but he wasn’t strong enough to snap steel. He never had been. Suddenly, he was struck by a vision of the future that awaited him, should Kim succeed: he’d seen pencil-sketches of the “freak gulags,” the concentration camps where dangerously powerful mutants were brainwashed into serving Kim’s government. He could see himself sleeping on the filthy floor of a tiny hut, hundred-pound weights on each ankle to keep him from bouncing away. Trudging through his life, until maybe someday he became crazy enough to actually accept a mission. Blow up some subway station in Tokyo, or bounce into downtown Seoul with a knapsack nuke on his back. His body stiffened, as if trying to die in order to avoid such horror, and he forced his eyes open again. He wanted to see Kim, so he could remember how he’d been captured, what he’d been fighting for so long. So he would not give in and become a Nork agent.
“Ryun Ja,” Kim called out again, his head turned. “Inject him, now!”
Over Kim’s shoulder, Wonjjang made out a blurry figure struggling to advance as the helicopter floor began slowly to tilt again. Everything — Wonjjang, the blood all around him, Kim on his chest, the hazy figure beyond — slid suddenly toward the peril of the open doorway.
The figure got close to him, and he caught the unmistakable scent of…
…hard liquor?
Ryun Ja? It was a girl, Wonjjang realized. She was dressed in Nork slamdex, with her long dark hair dangling around her shoulders. He couldn’t see her face clearly, but he saw her hesitate. Then Neko screamed, “No!”
He blinked his eyes hard, willing himself to see, and opened them again.
The Nork girl was still there, blurry, clutching something in her hand. Kim was shouting something at her, his voice inaudible because his head was turned away from Wonjjang. She was not looking at Kim, though: she was staring over his shoulder, at Wonjjang himself. Despite the blurriness, he could see the hesitation on her face.
This was his chance, his last moment to escape the prospect of permanent bondage. He carefully raised his head up as high as it would go, and then with all his strength he slammed it back against the floor of the chopper and let his spine go completely rubbery. His head swung up into the air and spun like a tetherball, clobbering Kim in the back and sending him sailing through the air.
Kim landed in a slippery puddle of blood just as the helicopter tilted sharply, and he slid straight for the doorway. In a flash, Iron Monkey was streaking through the air toward him, with Neko right behind her. Iron Monkey caught Kim by the arm and hauled him back into the chopper.
Wonjjang sat up, flung his back against the ground, and bounced himself to his feet, landing right in front of the Nork girl. Suddenly, he was drowning in the scent of cognac, and in her dark eyes, and in the nearness of her, even while Neko and Iron Monkey struggled over Kim on the floor nearby, their battle having devolved into a kind of blood-spattered tug-of-war.
“Why?” he said, his voice hard but quiet, and then, instantly, he realized that he knew her face. He recognized her lips, her long black hair, those beautiful, determined brown eyes, and that scent of cognac that hung all around her. This girl who smelled like French liquor, she was … the college girl from the airport washroom — the agent who’d given him the exploding pen! So beautiful — how could she be a Nork? How could he fight her? He wanted to kiss her, to swing an arm around her body, but his hands were bound together with tight metal handcuffs. He raised them up toward her.
“I just … I—” she said, fumbling in her pockets, and Wonjjang’s heart sank. If she drew out a weapon, he’d have to hurt her. But a moment later she had a key between her fingers, and she grabbed at Wonjjang’s cuffs. While she unlocked them, he stared at her and read the history of pain clearly written on her face. She had suffered. The lines around her eyes spoke of living as a mutant under a government of psychopaths. She had the face of an angel who’d been trapped in a nation-sized prison camp.
And now she was setting him free, this strange Ryun Ja girl. The handcuffs snapped open, and she knelt to unlock the leg irons when Kim suddenly wriggled free from the grip of the battling women and pounced at her.
“What are you doing?” Kim shouted, bowling her over. “Betrayer! Defector!” he roared, clubbing her in the head with his balled fists. Before Wonjjang could bend forward and strike Kim down she calmly flicked her fingers at the Nork leader, sending droplets of fluid into his face, and then quickly jabbed him in the leg with a syringe. Kim cursed and howled in pain, his hands on his eyes, and tried to stumble away, but Wonjjang was too quick: he grabbed Kim by the back of his uniform and hoisted the struggling dwarf off the floor. From the corner of his eye, Wonjjang saw Iron Monkey shove Neko out the chopper door and then bolt toward them.
A moment later, Wonjjang’s leg irons came loose, and he spun and hurled Kim outside after Neko, hoping she might catch him on the way down. He knew from experience that she would land on her feet no matter what. She wasn’t called Neko — “cat” — for nothing. His attention was focused almost completely on Kim’s vile henchwoman, who had invaded his home and kidnapped his mother.
“You!” Iron Monkey screamed, and Wonjjang had just enough time to reach out his arms to grab a handle on the wall and a passenger seat for support and then go completely rubbery as she slammed into him. His body rebounded violently from the blow, and Iron Monkey was flung out through the doorway in a flash.
Suddenly, Wonjjang and Ryun Ja were alone in the chopper. The pilot’s seat was empty. But it was an LG chopper, so he supposed it was flying on autopilot.
“Why did you…?” he asked, moving closer to her.
Suddenly, the chopper spun out of control. Maybe there wasn’t an autopilot function after all? Without a word, Wonjjang rushed the girl to the doorway and, hand in hand, they leaped from it. On the way down, he wrapped his arms around her, and said, “Whatever you do, don’t let go of me.”
“Never,” she said, and squeezed him tightly to herself, her face so close to his that he could almost feel her lips. He barely noticed the abandoned helicopter spin off towards the ocean.
As they fell, Wonjjang was entranced by how her hair flapped wild and beautiful around her face, with those dark eyes staring at him, so hard and at the same time so lovely. When they drew close to the
ground, Wonjjang gripped her around the waist and lifted her up, to shield her from the coming impact. He caught a glimpse of the chopper far above, still spinning out of control, abandoned by the swarm of weary shoopahs who’d anchored it for so long. When his feet slammed into the ground with an enormous thud, his legs absorbed not only the shock his own fall but also that of the girl’s. He then set her down carefully.
Only a couple of feet away, Neko was perched on top of Kim Noh Wang. She skewered one of his arms with a claw, screaming, “…and that’s for the Japanese girls you kidnapped!”
The Madman of Pyongyang shrieked in pain.
“And this,” she dragged the claw through the flesh of his arm, “is for attacking Tokyo. And this…” she slipped another claw into his belly as he shrieked some more, “…is for being a complete bastard!” She drew the claw out slowly, drawing out a loop of bloody intestine hooked on its curved end.
Wonjjang looked on in shock, wondering why he’d ever been so attracted to her.
“Neko,” he said. “Don’t. He deserves worse than death. Let’s make him really suffer.”
Kim laughed wickedly, coughed up a little blood, and narrowed his eyes, scowling at the girl who’d betrayed him. He opened his mouth, but Wonjjang knelt quickly and slapped his hand over it.
“No more slogans, Kim,” he said. “You’re finished. Maybe the government won’t touch you, but I know someone who’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never…”
But only a moment later Wonjjang yanked his hand away from the Madman of Pyongyang’s mouth. The little twerp had bitten him! He scowled at the leering Nork, bracing himself for a torrent of maniacal, nonsensical slogans and nationalist prattle, but instead Kim’s eyes went bleary and he slumped back, slipping into unconsciousness.
“Knockout drugs,” Ryun Ja said, holding up the syringe she’d used on Kim, which had been meant for Wonjjang. The others nodded, and then, with Neko still eyeing the Nork girl warily, Wonjjang dragged Kim’s body up the wreckage-strewn mountainside to where the surviving shoopahs had begun to gather. Some were dripping blood, while others were merely bruised and weary-eyed, but they all smiled proudly.
“Gotcha!” Wonjjang proclaimed loudly, lifting the unconscious criminal above his head. They cheered.
As the cheers petered out, Wonjjang heard a familiar voice: “Let me through,” it said.
“Umma? Gwenchana?”
“Of course I’m okay,” his mother snapped, shoving her way through the crowd. “My, how ugly! Why’d you knock him out? I was gonna tell him off!”
Blastman stood close behind Jang Won’s mother. “E-Gui shut the microcollider down. He said to say it was good working with you. And to say … goodbye.”
Wonjjang nodded, then heaved Kim’s limp body over his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here!”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” the Nork girl said, looking from Wonjjang to his mother. She bowed firmly and smiled at Wonjjang’s umma, and Wonjjang was sure he’d never seen his mind-reading mother smile so widely in all his life.
7. All’s Well That Ending
“Tell me, tell me … why does your beautiful wife smell like yangju?” It was the third time in twenty minutes that Jang Won had been asked why his wife smelled like Western liquor.
He glanced over at his bride, Ryun Ja. Soft afternoon sunlight streamed through the picture windows of the reception room at the Gumi City Big Love Royal Wedding Hall, lighting up her face and the intricately embroidered traditional Korean wedding gown she wore. Jang Won was struck by a pang of joy. She retained her firm Northern features, but her stoniness had softened in the past months, and the fear in her eyes had all drained away. She would never forget life in the North — the hell of the mutant camps, the lies and brainwashing — but she had moved beyond it all, finally.
Yet she still had that same fiery beauty about her, gesturing as she spoke to Jang Won’s mother. Her lustrous long black hair trailed down her back — he’d asked her not to put it up for the wedding, since it was so beautiful hanging loose like that — and he watched her place her hand over her mouth gracefully when she laughed at her mother-in-law’s response. If only his teammates were still in Korea to see him now.
“She’s a special mutant,” he said, quietly, with an air of mystery. Beside him, Big Myoung chortled. “Modified to secrete cognac. Kim Noh Wang brought her along everywhere.”
“Jinjja?” Jang Won’s younger cousins exclaimed in disbelief.
“Yes, really,” he said. “After making love, I can sip it from her armpits. I asked her to grow out her armpit hair, so it collects better.”
“Liar!” one of his cousins said, shaking his head.
Another cousin laughed, and said, “Me, I want a wife who sweats soju!”
“Ahhhh, that would be delicious,” his cousins all said, their eyes suddenly dreamy.
Laughing, Jang Won raised his glass and commanded, “One-shot!” Everyone followed suit, clinking glasses, and they gulped down their shots of soju in unison. As the ritual of refilling glasses resumed, Jang Won excused himself and crossed the room to his wife’s side.
“Hey!” he said to his wife with a grin. “Carefully buttering up your mother-in-law?”
“I was just asking Ryun Ja when the grandchildren will be coming,” his mother said with a half-smile. “I hope a baby is coming soon, Jang Won?”
Jang Won fought the urge to argue with her. It was his wedding day; it was supposed to be a happy occasion. “If she’s asking me, she must not have liked your answer, right, honey? What did you tell her, Ryun Ja-sshi?”
“We have so many things to do,” his bride answered. “Freeing the North won’t be easy, and I’m not ready to give up or retire from our paying work, either,” she said, smiling. The small business she, Jang Won, and a few other ex-LG shoopahs had started was thriving, and more and more people were beginning to listen to their message about the North, too. The Sunshine Policy was on hold, and alternatives were being debated in Congress with a vigour few had imagined possible. The Great Leader up North had agreed to compensation: a thousand cases of Hennessy Paradis cognac and an undisclosed amount of taxpayer’s money — but crowds of protestors had made it clear to the Southern government that any more cooperation, including Kim’s release to the North, would result in the defenestration of every member of the Lee Administration. Perhaps big changes were finally afoot, and Ryun Ja and Jang Won had decided to make sure they were a part of it all. “Maybe we’ll have time for children after all that. I’m still young.”
“You’re young,” Jang Won’s mother said, “But I’m not. Jang Won here took so long to find you … I thought I’d die before he found a girl…”
“And yet, here we all are,” Ryun Ja interjected with a smile. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it? Impossible things can happen.”
“Impossible?” Jang Won feigned outrage. He felt a tap on the back of one of his legs and turned to see Kim Noh Wang standing behind him, in a tiny custom-tailored suit, one hand grasping the hem of Ryun Ja’s gown. One of his fat little wrists was bound in a thick metal tracker-bracelet rimmed with blinking lights.
“Yes, Noh Wang?”
“You think this is over?” Noh Wang sneered, an evil look in his beady little eye. Jang Won just looked at him with pity as he threatened him: “I’ve got plans for you, kid, things you can’t even imagine. You’re going to wish you were never…”
“Kim Noh Wang!” Jang Won’s mother shrieked, and she sprang to her feet. “You said you’d be a good boy. Do I have to teach you your lesson again?” She turned to Jang Won and said, “I’m sorry, son, he promised he would behave. He’s been acting up lately, talking about Iron Monkey sending him secret messages. I’m starting to think it’s impossible to change his heart…”
His mother set off after Kim, who had fled under a table surrounded by retired s
hoopahs knocking back shots of soju and chowing down on barbecued pork. She dove under the table and caught Kim by his pudgy little legs, and he shrieked in distress.
“It’s okay,” Ryun Ja said, and, daringly, kissed her husband right there in front of everyone, not caring who might see. The boozy fumes clung to his lips as she pulled back from him, winking. “Don’t give up on him, mother-in-law!” she called out, and then, to Jang Won, she added, “Sure, we have to keep him chained up for now, but, who knows, he might give up his evil ways someday, right? Even impossible things happen sometimes…”
Jang Won leaned forward and kissed his lovely, cognac-flavoured wife.
Wylde’s Kingdom
David Nickle
Pilot: Look Out For Jim!
Max first spied the two fanboys through the mosquito netting surrounding the bed in his nearly submerged Brazilian apartment. He was sure he had them pegged: just another couple of bottom-feeders churned up from the silt by Atlantica, who’d tracked down their hero Jim to his dank retirement here at Serra Do Mar Bay. They’d kicked in the door, true. But Jim fans had done far weirder things in Max’s experience.
One fanboy had an acoustic-guitar case slung over his shoulder. “Either of you know ‘Girl from Ipanema’?” Max asked. Although it wasn’t what he was going for, they both laughed appreciatively.
The two introduced themselves as Dan and James, and, as James pointed out, James was another name for Jim. James was the one carrying the guitar case, and he set it down on the floor and opened it while Dan explained in detail just how much Max’s work as Jim on Wylde’s Kingdom had meant to him. Trying to be polite, Max noted he had put on a little weight since then and didn’t think he could do the stuff Jim had done anymore. Just as politely, James pointed out that was one of the reasons they were here. “You have put on a few pounds there, Jim,” agreed Dan.
Tesseracts Twelve: New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction Page 25
