by Purple Hazel
But Young-Min’s taunting and playful kidding certainly got to him, no doubt about it. Worse than that, there was little Kwang-Min could do to make him stop. Lashing out against the handsome ensign from Space Programme was pointless. Denying the accuracy of his twin’s observations about how badly out of shape he was? That was also inadvisable. He’d look even more foolish if he did so.
However, what finally provoked his temper, was that Young-Min took it way too far. Too many times. He’d crack joke after joke, only to inspire muffled laughter and chuckles from those big Samoans who typically joined in with the workouts just to show their loyalty to their CEO, as well as his likeable twin. That was the biggest problem, by the way. Young-Min was no longer the bookish scientist-type Kwang-Min had grown up with. He was “one of the guys” and those giants loved him like one of their own drinking buddies, right from the start.
“Come on old man!” he’d call out. “Maybe you should start taking Enimen yourself, buddy!” he’d mercilessly chide the once-feared executive. Then those big guards...those monsters who protected Min-Pharma’s compound so dedicatedly...oh how they’d laugh and laugh.
They weren’t trying to be insulting to their boss—no, that would be nothing short of insane! But the hardest thing for Kwang-Min was having to take it, having to endure the mockery, day after day, as he’d be retching and doubling over during cross-training drills trying to keep up with the workout he’d requested Zero design for him. It grew into a bad, bad dream, attempting diligently to lose those ten stubborn pounds of sludge. He did it though—finally. Yet he developed quite a resentment toward his brother in the interim.
“Who the hell does he think he is?” Kwang-Min would often fume privately, when he was out there sweating and huffing and puffing to keep up. “He’s always had it easy—ever since they chose him over me.”
Kwang-Min never really got over that. In his view, he’d had to fight his way through life while Young-Min got to go off to Space Programme and become an astronaut. “Think you’re better than me, don’t you?” he’d have loved to say more than once. Instead, he kept those thoughts to himself and saved embarrassment. Truth was, Kwang-Min Jo had ordered men killed before. Poor Young-Min had no idea just how dangerous it was to provoke his anger…
But now, as he sat there, alone in his office that Monday morning, awaiting his brother’s and Zero’s return to Toronto, Kwang-Min Jo decided he’d had quite enough of that video feed by now. Instead, he switched screens to view Zero’s electronic mail box. This was something he almost always did, especially when she was travelling, so he could access important messages from informants and operatives who reported to her.
When he did, he eventually noticed an urgent communication from Min-Pharma’s operative working in Darmstadt. This was the man she’d said was actually homosexual, but was “posing as a scientist working on a grant”, while dating an employee of Space Programme. The message was encrypted, so Kwang-Min transferred it to a secured handheld electronic notepad to view it. The news, it turned out, was anything but good. Seemed their man on the scene over in Germany had happened upon some “vital information pertaining to Min-Pharma Corp”.
That seemed rather odd. Why would G.U.’s space agency care about Kwang-Min’s company? He felt his heart race with anxiety. “Oh shit. This better not be what I think it is,” he grumbled to himself. There could only be one reason for Space Programme to be snooping about in Min-Pharma’s business. It had to be something to do with his twin brother, and his involvement in the marketing of Enimen.
“It’s gotta be Young-Min Jo and those damn commercials, I just know it,” he grumbled. He quickly sent a message to his assistant not to have anyone disturb him for the rest of the day. If this was truly as bad as he thought, he needed to focus all his attention on the matter.
In reality, it was far worse than he possibly could have imagined. Hours later, he was still staring at his computer blankly, wondering just what the hell he was going to do.
* * * *
Right about that time, both Ozzie and Shamiso had received secret communiqués from Space Programme, written to them by their old friend Monika Steckel. She didn’t tell them much, didn’t divulge any big secrets, just informed them their fellow space twin Ensign Young-Min Jo was mixed up in something dangerous. That was plenty. Within hours, the two were in contact with each other on their Digital Communication Devices, discussing what they were going to do. They’d called each other first, before replying to Monika.
“Ozzie? Did you get the message from Monika, Love?” asked Shamiso breathlessly. She’d stepped out of her hotel room in London to speak with him while she walked down the hallway of the penthouse floor. This was about all the privacy she knew she was going to get on such short notice. It would have to do.
“Yep...saw it just now darlin’. What a mess he’s in, huh?” replied Ozzie. He was back in Dallas by now and staying at the team’s hotel in the city. Samson was in the bathroom taking a shower. Ozzie was stretched out on the bed after the long flight back from London. He was exhausted, but he’d also gone through his messages when his DICE had lit up with the notification from Space Programme. At the time, it had baffled him why they’d be contacting him so early. Crewmembers from Santa Maria weren’t due to report back for nearly two months.
“Any idea what she’s talkin’ about?” asked Ozzie. “You think they found out somethin’ ’bout that shifty brother of his?”
“Blimey,” she sighed. “No doubt ’eez up to no good, that geezer. I mean just look at those absurd advertisements. People really believin’ that codswallop? Are they dim? I sure hope not. And ’ere’s our old shipmate out there selling that crap like it’s the dog’s bollocks. You remember.”
“Oh hell yeah,” scoffed Ozzie. He could still see that silly commercial touting what was surely a risky pharmaceutical product with possibly harmful side-effects, presented like it was nothing more than some new brand of beer—or a shampoo that would make your hair glow in the dark. “He’s gotta have his head up his ass. Ain’t enough money in the world to get me up ’ere doin’ sumpin’ like that.”
“Me neither,” she grumbled. “So whuddaya wanna do? Monika says we gotta go talk to ’im, and soon. Looks like she wants us to get ’im out of there ’fore he fucks up. That what you’re reading into it? ’Cause I sure am. I think she’s tellin’ us to go rescue him, don’t you?”
Ozzie sighed and laid the back of his hand across his forehead as he lay on the hotel bed. After that long flight from Heathrow, all he’d wanted to do was get an hour of sleep before he had to report back to the Wranglers’ practice facility for films. Nevertheless, his loyalty to friends like Young-Min Jo was as fierce as ever. He’d always be there for him, no matter what happened. He’d promised. And now...well something clearly had. There was little left to do but go help his former shipmate.
“Then we’re goin’. No way ’round it’,” groaned Ozzie. “We gotta go. You know it...’n I know it. Monika wouldn’t o’ contacted us if there was any other option. Shit...ya’ think she don’t know what we’ve been up to? She’s gotta know we been pretendin’ to be our famous twins these past few months. Hell, that’s her job...to keep track of us.”
He then sighed and added, “And you can bet she knows just how much trouble Young-Min’s got ’imself into. I don’t give two shits about his asshole brother, but Bones has been my friend for more ’n twenty years. Monika says we need to go see him...then you ’n me better head on up to Toronto.”
Shamiso readily agreed. In fact, her concert tour was heading to New York that week, then they were playing in Toronto the following Saturday night. After that, she figured Rudo and Neville would surely give her the day off Sunday to go find Young-Min Jo. But could Ozzie accompany her then, with such short notice to his teammates and coaches?
“Yeah, I can do it,” he confirmed. “After Mexico City this weekend, we play next Saturday night in Detroit. Pretty close to Toronto, I believe. I’ll tell the coache
s ’bout it and see if they’ll let me return to practice Monday after we visit with our ’ole buddy. Sunday’s always a travel day anyway. Shouldn’t be a problem. In Detroit, I’ll rent me a car and drive up. That’ll be nice, getting to drive cross-country like that.”
“Okay then, Love. Well...Bob’s your uncle. I guess I’ll be seein’ you in Toronto then. Can’t wait.” Then after a pause and an excited giggle, she commented “Hey, whatever mess ’eez in, it’ll still be lots of fun seein’ ’im again either way, don’t you think?”
Ozzie wasn’t so sure about that. He only knew Monika’s instructions were explicit. She wanted the two of them to get in contact with each other and plan a trip to Toronto to see their friend “a.s.a.p.” When accomplished they were to reply to her message with a date they’d be arriving in Toronto—and where they’d be staying. That’s all they were told...at least for the time being...
* * * *
By now, Kwang-Min could see the writing on the wall. It wouldn’t be long before he’d have to face an indictment he figured, what with all he’d just read. He’d been sitting in his desk chair for hours mulling it over. It was now late Monday night and he was practically exhausted—as well as quite frazzled. This time it didn’t look like some class-action lawsuit he’d have to fend off for his company. This time it looked like they were going to try and take him down, right along with his entire organization. It was that serious.
Misleading product information. Outlandish claims. False statements to regulators. Lying to government officials. Misrepresentation. Endangerment of consumers. An intent to defraud. It was all there, spelled out in a sixty-page report procured by their operative in Darmstadt.
“Damn. That guy’s good,” remarked Kwang-Min cynically. “Glad we have him,” he then added, but the words felt like cigarette ashes on his tongue as he spoke them. About the only positive in this entire situation was that Kwang-Min had been told of this well in advance so he could prepare himself.
He then deleted the original message from Zero’s electronic mailbox. She couldn’t know of this yet. No one could. Until he’d formulated a plan, he and the man who’d obtained this information would have to be the only witnesses. He quickly sent a reply to the handsome fellow instructing him to “direct all further communications to the CEO of Min-Pharma Corp until further notice”. That was one potential leak he knew he had to eliminate fast.
But what to do next? That’s what continued to perplex the now uneasy executive. His whole empire. All he’d built up and all he’d accomplished. It was now in jeopardy. They’d fry him this time for sure. He had no time to regret his actions though. The issue now was his own personal survival. Just like he’d done so many times in the past, he directed his thoughts to self-preservation. If it was one skill he’d honed rather well over the years, this was it.
“No question about it now. I’ve got to make a run for it,” he said to himself, and the words seemed to slip off his tongue as though he was at a cocktail party and made an offhand comment that people might react to with shock and dismay. He couldn’t believe he’d just said that, even though it was the cold, hard truth. Truth be told, it was something he’d often contemplated, when things were going poorly during Min-Pharma’s early days and he suspected G.U. officials might step in to close him down. If that ever happened, he’d always figured he’d just disappear...flee Toronto in the middle of the night, and fly to Singapore where he had “friends” who’d gladly hide him.
He had money stashed there. Millions. He often fantasized how he could live out the rest of his life as a fugitive from justice...if it ever came to that. Now it had come to that. But what was he going to do? That was the question.
Should he run? What if they caught him? Prison? Surely it would lead to that. How could it not? Eighteen months? Maybe twenty years, commuted after five for good behavior? His stomach tied up in knots. He’d never survive, he just knew it. There were no country club prisons anymore. Those had vanished nearly a century ago. Penitentiaries were hellish places where he’d face the worst of humanity on a daily basis. They’d abuse him mercilessly, being a famous person who’d run afoul of the legal system. He’d heard stories. Terrible stories.
“No way,” he grumbled.
And if he ran off to Singapore? A public figure with a price on his head? How long could he really expect to buy friendship and loyalty from those scumbags he’d worked with all these years? Why should he honestly expect men like that to be reliable? A sizeable reward in the offing, just to turn him in?
“They’d do it,” he said to himself, eyebrows raised anxiously. He knew they would. Maybe not immediately. But eventually they would. When his money started to run out maybe. Probably sooner, the bastards. How could he hope to trust them? Not for long, that was for sure. He needed a better solution to his problems than putting his future in the hands of drug smugglers.
So he set himself to devising something even more clever, even more diabolical and daring than anything he’d attempted before. His mind began working like a machine. He started putting things together, creating a solution that at first seemed downright ludicrous when he considered it. But when he began to fill in the little holes and connect the pieces together, he saw how it could be achieved...with a little luck.
He almost sat back and laughed sinisterly when he finished drawing it up in his mind. The solution, when he finally concluded his manic thought process, was even more fantastic, and yet nearly foolproof, than anyone could have conceived. What he ended up with was a plan to ingeniously fake his own death. Then—once the world thought he was dead and buried—he’d blend right into society once again.
Only he wouldn’t return to the world as himself. That’d never succeed. No. He’d simply return to Space Programme and report for duty in a couple months...as his twin brother Young-Min Jo.
“Ah yeah...I can do it,” he muttered to himself, as exhaustion began to creep over him like a fuzzy warm blanket, pulling him down and making him yearn for sleep. “The only trick is fingerprints. Identical twins have different fingerprints. Same DNA. Same everything else. But not fingerprints.” He then got up from his desk chair, where he’d been sitting for hours, and fixed himself a cup of green tea.
“I’ll have to keep working out...hard. Same as before,” he continued. “Have to drop another five or ten pounds just to convince them I’m really him. But I know how to do that now, don’t I? I won’t need Zero either. She showed me plenty. All I need is a...”
And that’s when he remembered something he’d read about on an airship once...an article about how the military had designed latex gloves which could be programmed via computers to match another person’s palm print. So lifelike, they could be slipped on discretely and pass most any high-level scrutiny. He knew just how to acquire them, too. A few minutes of research back at his desk and he’d looked up the company’s contact info. Next day he’d purchase the system from them—through a conduit of course to protect his identity—then he’d figure out a way to copy his brother’s palm print.
“Hell, if I need to, I’ll have Zero do it...while he’s sleeping,” he chuckled to himself. His morale was suddenly improving. It was so incredibly freeing to think this way. To pull off an escape like this required nothing short of brazen audacity and he felt renewed with a sense of vigor thinking about it.
That however left only one sticky issue to deal with, and that was what to do with the real Young-Min Jo. Unfortunately—at least for the evil business tycoon—this proved to be the easiest part of all. Young-Min, sadly enough, would have to die.
* * * *
It was now 20:00 hours. The flight from Spain had been supremely enjoyable for Young-Min and his beautiful lover Zero. Especially for Young-Min Jo as a matter of fact. They’d arrived at Toronto Pearson and took a cab from the airship terminal to a nice restaurant in town called “Scaramouche” and had dinner. It had a nice view of the Toronto skyline at night. They dined on prime rib—something Young-Min had never tasted b
efore. The guards sent with them got a separate table, while Zero and Young-Min dined alone...
The flight had been wonderful—this time anyway. First Class. Plenty of legroom. Reclining seats. Champagne brought to them throughout the trip. Zero had even given Young-Min a blowjob in his seat while he laid back and disguised their little tryst by holding a blanket over her head while she worked on his cock. It was dark outside over the Atlantic when she’d gone down on him. Most passengers were sleeping off their drinking benders in nearby seats and were otherwise oblivious. Young-Min Jo figured no one suspected a thing.
Of course, someone did though. It was nearly impossible to conceal what they were doing from everyone on the flight. Flight Attendants were still milling about, even as the airship had been cruising toward the Canadian coast for several hours. But Young-Min was supremely confident they hadn’t noticed him squirming…hadn’t noticed Zero’s head bobbing up and down over his lap. He was mistaken. Any pervert paying close attention would have known they were having oral sex.
And sure enough, one did. A lone flight attendant, a man in his mid-thirties, noticed what they were doing as he tiptoed by. By then Young-Min’s eyes were closed, concentrating on his building orgasm. But when he finally released, gasping and panting, sounds muffled by the sounds of the airship, it was all the amused fellow could do to contain himself. He stood just to the back of Young-Min’s row and watched him climaxing from over his shoulder.
Savoring the moment, the fellow giggled, muffling his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he waited until the pretty young lady had uncoupled her lips from the gentleman’s erection. Nevertheless, he simply couldn’t resist kidding them about their mile-high tryst. It was just too easy. He’d hate himself later if he didn’t. He gently leaned in, just as Zero sat up, wiping semen off the side of her mouth, and in a sexy deep voice said “Dessert anyone…?”
