Superheroes

by Margaret Ronald

  “But … ” Jang Won could see it clearly, again: E-Gui swooping in to save Kim Noh Wang’s life. He felt sick to his stomach. “This is ridiculous! Whatever politicians say, isn’t our job to defend the our people against those crazy Nork … ”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Park, but that’s an old-fashioned sentiment. I can understand that coming from some of the more senior members of the team, believe me. But you should know better. What do you think would happen to our industry, let alone our economy, if we really manage to knock the Kim regime to its knees? This isn’t a political issue. It’s a practical one. I realize it’s not easy. And that you were hoping for a promotion, dealing with all these difficult foreigners on your team,” he said with a serious, don’t you see? nod. “For now, I suggest you think about the long term. Maybe once the storm blows over … ”

  “How am I going to get my umma back?” Jang Won yelped. Which, after all, was also a practical issue, as far as he was concerned.

  “Shouting and screaming won’t help. I can’t do anything: your team members’ contracts are already cancelled! They’re downstairs in the HRM office right now, signing off on the cancellations and collecting their severance pay. As for me, I’m too busy dealing with the embarrassment you’ve caused us. Not just having to release Kim, but … by the way, you know, there was no chicken plague in the bomb in the first place. It was aerosolized chicken broth. We’re done here, Mr. Park.” Lee shrugged. “You have until the end of the day to clean out your desk.”

  Director Lee, finished, turned his attention back to his computer screen. Jang Won rose to leave, but just before exiting he turned and said, “I have to go find my mother. May I return later today to clear out my desk?”

  “No problem,” Lee said. “Security won’t be instructed to bar you until tomorrow, when your resignation is publicly announced.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Jang Won said politely, hurrying out.

  5. San Is Means Mountain

  Jang Won sat on the hard bench, waiting patiently through the understaffed lunch hour as one of the two bureaucrats behind the desk fiddled with his pen and the other argued with a white man in a suit. The official could speak English, but not very well, and the foreigner couldn’t speak Korean at all. After a little urgent begging and shouting, the foreigner was dismissed with a handful of papers.

  “Next,” the woman behind the desk said, looking around the shoulder of the white guy in the business suit.

  “But this is a matter of life and death!” he tried, but already the next person in line had surged forward, paperwork in hand. The businessman sighed returned to the benches to peer at the forms.

  The Ministry of SuperPowered Justice and Social Harmony was stuffy on that hot autumn afternoon. Stacks of forms and records were piled up precariously on every available surface. Fans whirred behind the bank of public servants’ desks, and with each pass the papers fluttered weakly as if threatening to revolt and scatter, if only they could throw off their paperweights. Everyone on the benches sat with stony, waiting faces, their eyes trained on their shoes, on the confusing required forms, and on the LED wall-display that showed which numbers were being served. Behind the desk, a Korean businessman was chatting with a higher-level administrator in hushed tones. A scruffy-looking, long-haired Westerner with Canadian flags sewn onto his leather jacket and his backpack was arguing with another agent at the front door—in barely understandable Korean—that bicycle theft was life-threatening, insisting that the Ministry dispatch a shoopah-team immediately to track his mountain bike down and retrieve it for him.

  Jang Won eyed his ticket, number 56. The LED displayed, in foreboding red, 23. At this rate, Halla Mountain would be long gone by the time he even talked to anyone. But he needed help, and didn’t dare ask his teammates, not after what he’d said in front of them. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. He could wait. Glancing around again, he saw the businessman consulting a pocket dictionary as he struggled through his paperwork.

  “Come here,” Jang Won said to the foreigner. “I’m help you.”

  “Me?” the man asked.

  “Yes, you. My number, the 56. I’m wait. So, I am can help you. You want?” The foreigner nodded and gathered up his things to move to a seat beside Jang Won.

  Here I go again … , he reproached himself silently. Why do I always have to save the day?

  The memory of his poor mother at the kitchen table, chopping carrots and asking him that exact question, flooded his mind. She’d wanted him to get a government job, to work for this very department he was now turning to for help. It’s stable, she’d insisted. It’s safer than working for a company! Is a desk job so bad? Is it so important that you actually beat up these crooks? She’d thumped the table with her hand, then. Who would marry a superhero, knowing he could die anytime? She’d finally forbidden it, but by then it was too late. He’d already signed a contract with LG. He felt a rush of guilt: nobody ever kidnapped a government paper-pusher’s mother.

  The foreign businessman sat down beside Jang Won and said, “Thanks!” When they shook hands, the foreigner politely gestured with his free hand as if he were holding back the sleeve of a robe. It was the height of good Korean etiquette, the kind of thing Jang Won figured most Westerners didn’t usually know enough to do.

  “Very polite,” Jang Won observed, taking the man’s paperwork and pen. “Do you live the Korea long time?”

  “No, only a few years. I’ve been too busy to learn the language, though. Besides, where I live, the dialect is unusual. I’ve been told there’s no point in learning it.”

  “Dialect?” Jang Won asked, shrugging. “What is dialect?”

  “I think the Korean word is … saturi,” the businessman said the Korean word awkwardly, and Jang Won nodded.

  “Where? Daegu City?”

  “No, Jeju Island,” he said. “I work for Samsung Supertronics. It’s the third time I’ve come in here in a month, you know. Every time, they’ve refused to send someone. ‘Increase security,’ they said. That didn’t help. The only remedy for supervillains is superheroes, right? This morning everyone in the lab was killed or kidnapped. I barely got away myself. And here I am again, filling out more paperwork.”

  “I see,” Jang Won said, nodding, and took down the businessman’s information. A month, he realized. This man had been waiting a month. Suddenly Jang Won wondered whether it would take them a month to do something about his mother, too. He got as far as the man’s name and foreigner ID registration when something clicked in his mind.

  “What’s your … moonjae, uh … how can I say … ?” Jang Won asked.

  “Problem?” asked the foreigner.

  “Yes, problem. What’s problem?”

  “Well, like I said, I’ve been working for Samsung. There’s a secret joint research lab on Jeju Island, where we’ve been researching a microcollider. Kind of like a small-scale, high-powered supercollider. It’s very useful for researching artificial superconductive … ” The foreigner noticed that Jang Won wasn’t quite following. “Well, it’s very dangerous. It’s like, um … do you know what an atom is?” He sketched a picture of one on a scrap of paper.

  Jang Won nodded.

  “Imagine an atom with no nucleus.” He crossed out the sphere in the middle of the atom, leaving only electrons whirling in hollow orbits. “We have artificial matter: the electrons—” he pointed at the orbiting bits in the sketch, “—but no nucleus. So we can pack these fake atoms full of … energy, or other particles. They can store pure energy. And when they blow up … ” Jang Won leaned forward “ … It makes a very big boom.”

  “They can, uh, blowing up the Jeju Island?”

  The foreigner nodded.

  “Your lab … is it maybe … in the Halla-san?”

  The businessman swallowed hard. “Yes, Halla Mountain. How did you know that?”

  “Umma,” Jang Won mumbled softly, and he realized that Kim’s threat might be serious. Halla Mountain?

  Jang Won du
g a business card out from his coat pocket and handed it to the man. “Sorry,” he said, pointing at the card. “Korea language only.”

  “It’s okay, I—”

  “I’m save your lab,” Jang Won said, hurrying toward the exit. He turned and added, “Maybe.” No sense in getting the guy’s hopes up.

  The businessman rose to his feet and called out, “Hey … thanks!” He had a doubtful look on his face but tried to smile.

  Jang Won bowed slightly, and then was out the door. He grabbed his phone from his back pocket. Out on the sidewalk, he quickly thumbed a message into his phone and hit send.

  THIS IS SUPERVISOR PARK: DON’T GO HOME! STAY AT OFFICE! I’M COMING ~~ EMERGENCY!!

  “ … and that is why you’re all about to lose your jobs, and why they let Kim go,” Jang Won declared, his tone impassioned. He was standing on a chair in the middle of the office.

  “Now wait a minute … ” said Director Lee loudly, trying to interrupt him.

  Jang Won ignored him. His team members were assembled around him, ready to protect him as he delivered his speech. “Earlier today, the morning after being released from custody, Kim Noh Wang and his thugs took over a secret laboratory on Jeju Island. They’re going to blow it up.”

  Murmurs spread throughout the office. Kevin’s voice was conspicuous, as he clarified with Neko what was going on.

  “That guy?” Kevin’s exasperation was obvious. “We just caught him, two days ago! Jesus, what the hell are you people doing here?” Kevin scowled, shaking his head in disbelief, and Neko patted him on the shoulder.

  “You see, even Blastman and Neko want to help stop this—and they’re not even Korean! How can we stand by and watch the Norks destroy our beautiful Jeju Island? Will there still be Sunshine when Jeju is gone?”

  “Manager Park!” Director Kim hollered at Jang Won, and this time the interruption silenced the crowd. “Anyone who aids Mr. Park in his illegal endeavour will be fired from LG with no pension, no chance of subsequent rehiring, and no settlement package … ”

  “But,” Jang Won added, “you’ll be a real hero.”

  The silence was thick as dwenjang jjigae. Employment, or heroism? Jang Won sadly thought he knew how most people would choose. After all, he himself had chosen employment over heroism for many, many years.

  Just then, Keun Dwaeji stood.

  Everyone turned and watched in silence. A triumphant smile spread across Lee’s face when the pigman strode across the room toward Jang Won. His hooves clop, clop, clopped on the tiled floor, and, as he approached, his natural pig-grin straightened out, giving him a grim appearance. He got right up close to Jang Won, crossed his arms, and leaned forward to look him in the eye.

  “You really think you can handle this, kid?” Keun asked, stabbing a hoof sharply into Jang Won’s chest.

  Jang Won gulped, and said, “Yes, sir.” He braced himself, expecting Keun’s other hoof to slam into his face.

  As Keun turned away from him, Jang Won sighed a little. Keun would speak against him, and nobody would join Jang Won. His umma was doomed.

  “Well, well,” Keun said, and Lee’s face went deathly pale. Keun Dwaeji turned to the rest of the room, and said, “This unfortunately ill-mannered young fellow has woken up. Finally! I’ve been waiting years for someone around here to do that! After all my undercover trips to Pyongyang, after all the Norks I’ve captured, those gaesaeki are still running that country. And now it seems like almost nobody is willing to do anything about it. We’re helping them,” he indicted everyone.

  The pigman cleared his throat, put his arm around Jang Won’s shoulder, and looked around at everyone’s shamefully lowered heads. “I’ll go to Jeju Island with you, kid. But I get first dibs on Kim Noh Wang. I’m gonna clobber that ugly little bastard to death.”

  The tide had turned. Director Lee was admonishing the staff, but nobody was listening. Keun was a leader … others would follow.

  Suddenly, Jang Won felt much more like Wonjjang again, like a real hero. “We’re going to borrow the choppers,” Wonjjang cried out, and a mob of them followed him up the roof, their cheers drowning out Director Lee’s protests. Nobody could stop them now.

  Hold on, Umma. Hold on.

  6. Like a Two Chopstick

  Ten stolen LG choppers hurtled southward across the peninsula in a scattered formation, with many more shoopahs flying alongside. They cast an imposing, mottled shadow on the ground below. Kids ran to schoolroom windows to catch a glimpse of them, and farmers looked up from their fields, waving happily, oblivious to the crisis but glad to see the shoopahs crossing the sky just the same.

  Wonjjang saw his homeland below in a way he never had before. This was the land he was fighting to save. Not just lines on a map, or an idea. These proud mountains, these tranquil rice fields and toiling townspeople below.

  “We need a plan,” Keun Dwaeji said, interrupting his reveries as the southern ocean crept into sight.

  “What do you suggest, sir?” Wonjjang asked politely.

  “Go in hard and beat the living crap out of them,” Keun Dwaeji said, without a hint of sarcasm. He caught Wonjjang’s eye, and added, “After all, that’s not what they’re expecting, is it?”

  “Sounds great!” said Blastman, and Neko nodded enthusiastically, flashing her claws and clapping with excitement.

  E-Gui shook his head. “I don’t think that’s such a good plan.”

  “Why’s that, young man?”

  “Unnecessarily wasteful,” E-Gui replied. “If we sacrifice too many people, we could lose out in the long run. It’s not wise.”

  Because it might let us win? Wonjjang wondered.

  “So what do you recommend, E-Gui?” Neko asked, frustrated.

  “I think we ought to rely on a long-distance attack to start with. Use all the mutant powers available to us, use these choppers … then we can rush in. It’s not like Kim’s goons have many decent mutations among them. They could barely afford any proper radioactive mutations research to begin with! Less risk, better payoff.”

  “Assuming they haven’t blown the island apart by then … ” said Keun Dwaeji. He was right: timing would be everything.

  “Then … ” Wonjjang said, “Let’s split up: send a major force overhead, while a small team infiltrates and catches him. Two chopsticks to squeeze Kim and pick him up. Sound good?”

  “I’m in,” said Blastman. Neko, Laotzu, and Keun Dwaeji agreed. Finally, even E-Gui followed suit.

  “Great,” Wonjjang said. “But how do we get the shoopahs who have the distance-attack powers into the air? Not all of us can fly. In fact, most of us can’t … ”

  “Well, I’ve got an idea,” Blastman said, and when the American explained it, Wonjjang could see Kevin, the decent-hearted kid from Iowa who was trapped inside the superhero, grinning like a farmboy who’d just discovered the biggest colony of gophers in the world and just happened to have brought his shotgun along.

  The dimming light of sunset danced and wavered as shadows swept across the northwestern face of Halla Mountain. They were human figures, flying shoopahs and those who were borne in the arms of the fliers. Helicopters followed them, their whine breaking the silence of the heroes’ approach. The shoopahs plunged through the air, steeled for the coming battle.

  From the mouths and hands and bodies of these heroes rained a typhoon of destruction: electromagnetic waves, searing bolts of electricity, laser blasts, burning flame, and streams of vomited acid poured down upon Kim’s assembled forces. Wonjjang saw it all through the eyes of Big Myoung, who was watching from one of the LG choppers and telepathically broadcasting the scene to the leaders of various shoopah-teams who’d joined the struggle.

  “It’s time,” Wonjjang announced quietly to his team. They hurried down the smooth stone tunnel toward the heart of Halla Mountain. Suddenly, a deep, grinding screech halted them in their tracks, and they instinctively reached for the walls as the earth shook all around them. The shudder subsided almost immediatel
y, but Wonjjang’s team exchanged wary glances.

  “Come on,” Keun Dwaeji hissed impatiently. “Hurry!” He trotted down the tunnel, the others following his lead until an echoing taunt rang out from behind them: “Ah-ha!”

  “Ah-ha?” Wonjjang mumbled, turning. It was Kim Noh Wang, with over a dozen henchmen. As usual, they’d seemingly come out of nowhere.

  From the other direction, deeper down the hallway where the team had been headed, came a nastily familiar chittering noise. Wonjjang turned just in time to see his mother’s matchmaker leap up onto Keun Dwaeji’s chest and grip his head in her two hands. He struggled, slamming his hooves into her, but she twisted hard, until the pigman’s neck broke. She leaped from him as he collapsed, shuddering.

  “He was always an American-imperial lackey,” she snapped, her eyes wild, and she began chittering again. A long tail slashed out from under the hem of her dress.

  Iron Monkey! Wonjjang realized, a jolt of horror exploding in his belly when she launched herself overhead toward Kim. Blastman lashed out with a jolt of electricity, and Neko slashed at her, but she dodged their attacks and swept past them, scurrying along the wall until she leaped to Kim’s side. Her gleeful chittering filled the hallway as she shed her ajumma dress, revealing a skintight army-green slamdex bodysuit beneath.

  “Where’s my mother?” shouted Wonjjang in Korean.

  “Your mother? Oh, Jang Won,” Kim taunted. “Heroes don’t have mothers … ”

  “Or wives,” Iron Monkey added, and clapped with vicious amusement.

  “I’ll kill you!” Wonjjang screamed, lunging forward. E-Gui held him back.

  “Be reasonable,” E-Gui said softly.

  “Yes,” said Kim, smiling. “Be reasonable. First … where are the supplies I demanded? And my friends?”

  Wonjjang struggled against E-Gui, and shouted, “Dead. I’ll kill them all, every one of them, with my own two hands, if anything happens to my mother. Where is she?”

  Kim sneered. Blastman watched, a perplexed look on his face. “What’s going on?” he asked. He couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but electricity crackled around his two fists. He was on the verge of attacking Kim and his underlings.