Superheroes

by Margaret Ronald

  “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. “Carefull
y 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 shoopahs 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.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Margaret Ronald is the author of the Hunt series (Spiral Hunt, Wild Hunt, and Soul Hunt) as well as a number of short stories. Originally from rural Indiana, she now lives outside Boston.

  Kelly Link is the author of three collections of short stories, Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, and Pretty Monsters. Her short stories have won three Nebulas, a Hugo, and a World Fantasy Award. She was born in Miami, Florida, and once won a free trip around the world by answering the question “Why do you want to go around the world?” (“Because you can’t go through it.”) Link and her family live in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she and her husband, Gavin J. Grant, run Small Beer Press, and play ping-pong. In 1996 they started the occasional zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.

  Daryl Gregory is an award-winning writer of genre-mixing novels, stories, and comics, including The Planet of the Apes comic series. His first novel, Pandemonium, which was influenced by golden age comics, won the Crawford Award and was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. His other novels are The Devil’s Alphabet (a Philip K. Dick Award finalist), Raising Stony Mayhall, and the upcoming Afterparty. Many of his short stories are collected in Unpossible and Other Stories, which was named one of the best books of 2011 by Publishers Weekly. He lives in State College, PA.

  Ian McDonald is a science fiction writer living just outside Belfast in Northern Ireland. His novels include Hugo nominees River of Gods, Brasyl and The Dervish House, and his most recent novel is Be My Enemy, book 2 in the Everness series of rip-snorting parallel-universe YA adventure. He’s at work on Book 3, Empress of the Sun.

  Leah Bobet is an editor, activist, and the author of Above, a magical realist novel from Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic. Her short fiction has appeared in several Year’s Best anthologies, and she edits Ideomancer Speculative Fiction, one of the longest-running speculative fiction zines on the web. Her work on Shadow Unit is a shared-world collaboration with authors Elizabeth Bear, Holly Black, Emma Bull, Amanda Downum, Sarah Monette, Chelsea Polk, Will Shetterly, and Stephen Shipman.

  Matthew Johnson’s short fiction has appeared in markets including Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and On Spec and several year’s best anthologies, and has been translated into Russian, Czech and Danish. His first novel, Fall From Earth, was published in 2009 by Bundoran Press; Irregular Verbs, a collection of his short fiction, will be released in early 2014 by ChiZine Publications. His website is www.irregularverbs.ca.

  James Patrick Kelly has written novels, short stories, essays, reviews, poetry, plays and planetarium shows. His novella Burn won the Nebula Award in 2007. He has won the Hugo Award twice: in 1996, for his novelette “Think Like A Dinosaur” and in 2000, for his novelette, “Ten to the Sixteenth to One.” His fiction has been translated into twenty-one languages. His most recent book is an anthology co-edited with John Kessel, Digital Rapture: The Singularity Anthology. He writes a column on the internet for Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and is on the faculty of the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA Program.

  Aaron Schutz banged out the original version of this story over three sleep-deprived days for a novel-writing contest. It was the last story he wrote before he adopted two children and free time disappeared for a while. His wife got a bit worried when she saw books on poisoning people scattered around the house. Other stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Realms of Fantasy, and elsewhere. In Aaron’s other life he is an academic who writes about (and sometimes tries—with limited success—to foment) social action. His website is educationaction.org.

  Jei D. Marcade is an itinerant meme machine in perpetual search of an upgrade. A 2011 graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, ey has made eir triumphant return to Seattle to become a mad library-and-information scientist. Eir research interests include augmented reality, cyborg anthropology, and DIY biohacking. Sometimes ey writes things.

  Ian Donald Keeling is an odd, loud, little man who lives in Toronto, Canada. He acts a little, writes a little more, and suffers from delusions of granduer whenever he can. His stories and poetry have appeared in Realms of Fantasy, On-Spec, and Grain.

  Kat Beyer established herself as a fine artist before turning to fiction writing with The Demon Catchers of Milan, her debut novel. She lives with her family in, variously, Oregon, California, and Wisconsin. You can visit her online at www.katspaw.com.

  Joseph Mallozzi is a former executive producer of the Stargate television franchise (SG-1, Atlantis, Universe). He and longtime writing partner, Paul Mullie, have written and produced over two hundred hours of television. Most recently, he has been hard at work, trying to
bring his comic book series, Dark Matter, to the small screen. His daily blog covers everything from SF and superhero movies to pugs and the sheer impossibility of eating a mango: josephmallozzi.wordpress.com Thanks to classic works such as The Last Unicorn, Tamsin, and The Innkeeper’s Song, Peter S. Beagle is acknowledged as one of America’s greatest fantasy authors. In addition to stories and novels he has written numerous teleplays and screenplays, including the animated versions of The Lord of the Rings and The Last Unicorn, plus the “Sarek” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He is also a poet, lyricist, and singer/songwriter. In 2007, Beagle won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his original novelette, “Two Hearts.” For more details on Peter’s career and upcoming titles, see www.conlanpress.com and www.facebook.com/petersbeagle.

  Elana Fortin is a screenwriter in Los Angeles. She used to be an assistant, but never mastered invisibility.

  Gord Sellar is a Canadian who has lived in South Korea since late 2001. A finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2009, he attended Clarion West in 2006. His writing has appeared in many magazines, anthologies, and journals since 2007, and in 2012 his first screenplay—the first Korean adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s work, titled “The Music of Jo Hyeja”—was turned into an award-winning short film. You can learn more about him and his work at gordsellar.com

  PUBLICATION HISTORY

  “Sunlight Society” by Margaret Ronald. 2012 © Margaret Ronald. First appeared in Clarkesworld. Reprinted with permission of the author.