by Paula Stokes
“I love listening to you speak Korean,” Jesse says.
For some reason this makes my eyes water. I blink hard. “I’m glad that you love it. I really do have to hang up, though.”
“Winter,” Jesse says.
“Yes?”
“Stay safe.”
“I will,” I promise. But I think again of the knives in my boots. Of how close I came to attacking Kyung. We have to find the technology and find it quickly. Next time Lily might win.
CHAPTER 28
The rest of the day goes smoothly, but we’ve switched from legal and informational videos to building safety, which unfortunately is just as dull.
“If the fire alarm is activated, all of the badge-coded doors will unlock and all staff must immediately evacuate the building via the stairwells,” a girl on the projector screen chirps.
“I dare one of you to go pull it right now,” Yoo Mi murmurs.
“Seriously. Either that or I need a biohazard containment breach,” Minnie adds. “I’m about to fall asleep.”
“Is biohazard breach the one where you have to strip down and shower in the decontamination tent before being allowed back on the property?” Susan tries to swallow back a yawn and fails.
Immediately, the three of us yawn one after the next, which makes Susan yawn again. “I think we might have missed something important.” Yoo Mi points at the projector screen. All of the actors on it are wearing gas masks while one person is lying on the floor having a spasm.
“I hope they have a bigger stock of those than they do in the subway stations,” Minnie grumbles. “In the event of an airborne-contaminant emergency, the first fifty people should affix a mask to their face and run like hell so no one without a mask steals it.”
We all laugh. For the rest of the afternoon, the four of us complete the training videos and help each other complete orientation modules and exams for each video. In between modules, I open a window to the UsuMed company directory and do a quick search for the three names that were on the paper in Kyung’s pocket: Nai Khaing, Cristian Rojas, and Erich Cross. None of them is in the system.
* * *
At the end of the day, Yoo Mi and I push through the revolving door and exit into the dampening cold. A street vendor is selling hotteok—pancakes made with rice flour and stuffed with melted brown sugar—in front of the building. The tantalizing scent wafts across the wide sidewalk. I freeze up for a moment, hit by a memory of my sister and me as children—before we went to the US, back when we were still Min Ji and Ha Neul.
“Ha Neul, what is it?” My sister stopped next to me on the sidewalk, following my gaze to the little silver cart. A boy a couple of years older than her was frying balls of dough on a hot plate while an older woman—his mother, probably—took orders from a line of high school and college kids. “Hotteok? You know we have no money for that.”
I nodded. But I couldn’t pull myself away from the sweet smell, from the warmth of the hot plate. The boy smashed each of the balls flat. I closed my eyes and let the aroma wrap around me. I could almost taste the soft bread and melted brown sugar on my tongue.
My sister petted my hair and it made me think of our mother. It’d been eight years since she left us at the orphanage, and my memory of her had fallen away except for a few jagged pieces. “I have an idea,” Min Ji said. “Wait here.”
I stood at the edge of the sidewalk, watching my sister in line with the school kids, wondering what she might possibly trade for one of the warm, sweet pastries. When she got to the front, she whispered into the ear of the boy helping. His mother looked over in disapproval, but her attention was quickly drawn away by the next customer. My sister brushed her lips against the boy’s cheek. He blushed and gestured with his head toward a little silver canister off to the side. Min Ji waited until his mother was focused on making change for a college girl with hair the color of honey and then reached into the silver canister, her dainty fingers closing around a circle with blackened edges. She glanced back at me and started heading down the block.
I pushed through the people on the sidewalk and caught up with her as we hit the corner. We took the stairs down into a subway station and leaned back against the wall, watching people stream past us. Min Ji took one bite of the hotteok and then pressed it into my fingers. “Eat fast,” she said, “so no one can take it away from us.”
Even though the edges were a little burnt and the melted insides had cooled and congealed, it was still delicious. I wolfed down the rest of it in a couple bites. Min Ji kissed me on the cheek, much like she kissed the boy. “Are you happy?” she asked.
I nodded shyly.
And in that moment I truly was.
“Do you want one?” Yoo Mi gestures at the cart. “You’re staring like it’s been years since you’ve had a hotteok.”
“Yes, let’s,” I say. “I used to love them as a child.”
Yoo Mi and I stand in line and each buy a hotteok. We step to the side of the cart and nibble at our treats. The brown sugar inside the soft bread is melted almost to the point of syrup, and I have to hold the treat carefully to keep from spilling it on myself.
Yoo Mi’s phone buzzes with a text and she glances down at the screen. “Sorry. I need to get going.”
“Me too.”
She starts heading toward the subway station and I keep pace next to her. She steps in front of me as we reach the narrow escalator that feeds us down into the endless subway tunnels.
Yoo Mi heads for the silver turnstiles. I follow her through. “I’m the other way from you,” she says. “But it was nice to meet you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Hmm?” It takes me a minute to remember that I told all of the girls at lunch I lived in Gwangjin-gu, which is actually the opposite direction from Itaewon. “Oh right.” I give Yoo Mi a little wave and then take the stairs to the opposite platform.
Through the glass safety doors that prevent people from falling onto the tracks, I watch her insert a pair of white earphones into her ears. When her train pulls out of the station, I take the escalator back to the main level and cross over to the other platform. Glancing up at the LCD board, I see the express train is coming. Good. I’m eager to get back to the apartment and show Jesse and Baz everything that I learned today.
* * *
When I get home, Jesse is on the sofa watching K-dramas. I slip out of my boots, leaving my knives inside of them, and flop down next to him. “Still working on your Korean?”
“Is it weird that I can sort of understand what’s happening even though I don’t know what they’re saying?” he asks.
“No. It’s not like there’s no picture to fill in the context for you. Plus, I find Korean people to be very expressive. You can usually tell how they’re feeling just by their faces and tone of voice.”
He turns to me. “I wish I could usually tell how you were feeling.”
I smile. “I am an anomaly.”
Jesse turns back to the TV. “I’m feeling kind of useless, you know? Baz speaks some Korean and knows how to get around the city. And he’s good with computers and has hacker and spy friends. I don’t have any of that.”
I nudge him in the ribs with my elbow. “But you’re our official cook.”
He sighs. “I’m not even good at that. I’m like no help at all.”
“You helped today,” I remind him. “On the phone. And you helped me get over my elevator phobia. Don’t discount that kind of stuff just because it’s not as flashy as hacking company servers or procuring weapons.”
Jesse nods. “I just wish I could do more.”
“You can. Show me these phone calls of Kyung’s that we recorded.”
Jesse grabs Baz’s tablet and opens the recording app. He selects last night around eleven p.m. and then hands the tablet to me.
I turn the volume all the way up. I hear a soft buzzing sound and then Kyung answering the phone. His voice is low and I can’t make out all of the words, but I hear him talk about “the project” and �
�diagnosing the problem,” which has to be about repairing the neural editor. He also says something about bringing in a specialist from UsuTech to help. Unfortunately he doesn’t mention anything about where the technology is located.
When he stops speaking, Jesse switches to the other call. This one is outgoing and turns out to be Kyung calling the hotel concierge to have his dry cleaning expedited.
“So nothing useful?” Jesse looks crestfallen.
“I didn’t say that. It’s not all the information we were hoping for—not yet—but it’s good to have verification that he is here working on the problem and that he’s planning to bring in a specialist. It means we still have time. Let’s check in and see what he’s doing right now.”
I flip the camera feed back to present time, not really expecting Kyung to be back in his hotel suite, but to my surprise find him stretched out on his bed at seven P.M.
Jesse squints at the feed. “Is that … is he … wearing a headset?”
My breath catches in my throat as I realize what we’re watching. Kyung is vising.
CHAPTER 29
“Zoom in,” I say.
Jesse enlarges the screen, confirming what I was afraid of. “It’s not the headset he stole from me,” I say. “It’s not one of Gideon’s.”
“Are you sure?”
“Look at the shape of the prongs.” I point at the screen. “They’re different.”
“So he’s managed to produce his own headset already? That’s bad,” Jesse mutters.
I flip through the different camera feeds, pausing on the one in the living room. I glance around the apartment. “Where’s Baz?”
“Somewhere with Chung Hee, I think.”
“Did he take the motorcycle?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen the keys anywhere. Why?”
I point at the computer screen. There’s a black circle on the end table closest to the front door—a wireless phone charger. “Look. Kyung left his cell phone in the living room.”
“So?”
“So if he’s vising, maybe I can sneak in there and put this in it.” I hold up the tiny bug Sebastian gave me to take to UsuMed.
“Too dangerous,” Jesse says. “What if he hears you?”
“I’ll be quiet,” I say. “This whole plan is too dangerous, but the less information we have, the riskier it gets. Come on—you just said you wanted to do more.” I get up and head for the door.
“Do more does not include getting us killed,” Jesse grumbles but follows me. As I slide my boots back on, he tries again. “You know Baz would not approve of this plan.”
“Baz would think this plan was brilliant,” I lie, trying to ignore the fact that Baz said sneaking into Kyung’s room when he was there was too risky. “He’d want to be the one who planted the bug.”
“What if Kyung’s finished vising before we even get there?”
“I’ll bring my tablet so we can check in.” I grab my coat from the closet and button it over my work clothes. I gesture impatiently at Jesse as he finishes lacing up his boots and grabs his knit cap.
“All right,” Jesse says. “Let’s do this.”
* * *
I call up the train schedule on my phone as we head for the nearest subway station. “It’s going to take us forever,” I mutter.
“What about that?” Jesse points at a hot-pink moped with butterfly decals parked in the alley behind our building. It probably belongs to a college student.
“What about it? Did she leave her keys?”
“No, but I think I can get it going.” Jesse glances furtively around and then hurries over to the bike. Quickly he pulls off a small panel by the speedometer and reaches inside. In less than a minute the moped sputters to life.
“And you said you weren’t helpful.” I give him a hug and we both pile onto the tiny bike. “Do you know how to drive one of these things?”
“Um, not really. But I can ride a bike so how hard can it be? I’ll try to bring it back in one piece. Hopefully she won’t even know it was gone.”
The seat is barely big enough for the two of us, so I sit pressed against him, my arms wrapped tightly around his middle. Luckily the moped is sturdy and manages to stay upright, even through a few sharp turns. Jesse doesn’t try to ride it up and down curbs like Baz, so that helps a lot, as does the fact that the bike’s speed seems to top out at about forty miles per hour.
“The subway might have been faster,” I joke, as we pull up to a stoplight.
“True. But this is riding in style. All I need is one of those Hello Kitty facemasks.”
“Remind me to buy you one of those for your birthday,” I say.
About twenty minutes later, Jesse and I arrive at the SkyTower hotel. We pull around the corner and leave the bike parked on the side street, close to where I waited for Sebastian the other day. Keeping our heads down, we cross the street to the hotel’s entrance, take the elevator to the top floor, and duck into the penthouse Baz rented to check on whether Kyung is still vising.
My skin crawls when I see that he’s still in his room with the headset on, but now he’s no longer alone. There’s a girl on the bed with him who doesn’t look much older than I am. They’re kissing. In one smooth move he pulls her slinky dress over her head and drops it to the floor.
I turn away from Jesse, hurrying toward the bathroom where I lean over the sink, retching for a few seconds.
“Winter.” Jesse places a protective hand on my lower back. “It isn’t necessarily—”
“What?” I say, my head still hanging over the sink. “Prostitution? You think a girl that age wants to do those things to someone twenty years her senior? It makes me…” It makes me wonder if Kyung assaulted me and I don’t remember it. “It makes me want to go over there and stab him right in front of her. At least that way she’d be free.”
“I was going to say against her will,” Jesse murmurs. “You know what? Never mind. Why don’t you stay here and I’ll sneak in and plant the bug?”
My whole body goes tense. “Stay here and watch that? No, thanks.”
“But what if—”
“I’m fine. I can do it,” I say tersely. I stare at my reflection, willing myself to stay calm, stay in control. Jesse is right. I can’t assume that girl is living the same existence I lived. And even if she is, there’s nothing I can do to help her without blowing our entire plan.
It hits me that it’s a bad idea for me to go in there looking like Jae Hwa, UsuMed customer service trainee. If Kyung catches me in his suite, he’ll know I’m here and that I’m after the tech, but that doesn’t mean he’ll suspect I’ve infiltrated his company. I pull off my wig and shake out my natural hair. “Give me your hoodie,” I say.
“What?”
“I should have changed. If something goes wrong, I don’t want to blow my UsuMed cover.”
Jesse shrugs and shucks off the sweatshirt. He’s wearing a white T-shirt underneath. The angry red line that runs down the center of his chest is just barely visible through the thin fabric. He hands the hoodie to me. I start to unbutton my own shirt, for once not caring if Jesse sees me less than completely dressed. I’m not sure how much time I have or if I’ll get another opportunity like this.
Jesse turns around and I yank off the shirt and slip into his sweatshirt. It’s almost a dress on me. I slide out of my skirt and boots too so I’m just in leggings and Jesse’s sweatshirt. I tuck my throwing knives into the center pocket of the hoodie, just in case. “Wish me luck,” I mutter.
“Wait. I’m coming with you. What if you need backup?”
“Backup is supposed to wait until someone calls for help. Watch the cameras. You’ll see if I get in trouble.”
“But I won’t be able to warn you if he, uh, finishes.”
I shudder. “Fine. Text me if I’m in danger.” I set my phone on silent and slip it into the pocket next to my knives.
“I think we should call—”
I reach up and give Jesse a quick kiss on the
cheek and Baz’s name disappears on his lips. “Everything is going to be all right. Thanks for the sweatshirt.” I take one more look at the video feed to make sure Kyung is definitely still occupied. Then I duck out into the hall.
I slink around to the other side of the top floor. Glancing at my phone and seeing no messages, I tap the cloned housekeeping keycard against the reader and the door light turns green. Very slowly, I open the door and step onto the tiled area where shoes are left. I close the door quietly and creep up onto the hardwood floor. Another glance at my phone. No texts.
The door to Kyung’s bedroom is closed, which is both helpful and harmful. Helpful because it means the noises coming from it are muffled and indistinct. Harmful because as much as I don’t want to listen to what’s going on, if either of them get up and leaves the room, I won’t hear it until it’s too late to hide.
I check my phone again. So far so good.
Staying low, I tiptoe into the living area. I crouch down behind the sofa as I reach for Kyung’s phone. I pause for a moment to memorize exactly the way it’s sitting on the charger. Then I lift it from the base. The screen lights up, asking me for a password. I turn the phone over and slide it out of its protective case. I use my fingernail to try to pry off the backing to the battery compartment. My nail breaks. The battery cover stays where it is.
I swear under my breath as I fish one of my throwing knives out of the pocket of Jesse’s hoodie.
Jesse: What’s taking you so long?
Ignoring the text, I use my knife to carefully pry the backing off the phone, and place the bug. I slip the phone back into its case and wipe my fingerprints off with the cuff of Jesse’s sweatshirt. I replace it on the charger. I’m getting ready to head for the door when I hear a squeak.
Jesse: The girl is coming!
Damn it. Still completely naked, the girl crosses from the bedroom to the kitchen. Humming to herself, she opens a couple of cabinets. Then she begins to fill a teapot with water.
Me: I’m stuck.
Even if she makes tea and returns to Kyung’s room, I can’t get out without risking being seen unless they close the bedroom door again.
