Seoul Survivors

by Naomi Foyle

  “No!” Sydney exclaimed, “I do!” But even as she said it, there was an uncomfortable twinge in her stomach. Forgiving a rapist—wasn’t that pointless and stupid? A guy like that didn’t care how nice you were to him; he’d hurt you in a second if he could. And as for her mom . . . You’re the biggest mistake I ever made, her mom had said to her once—did a mother like that deserve to be forgiven?

  “I mean, I did,” she said awkwardly. “But it’s not about forgiveness, is it? You have to stop bad people, lock them up, not just sit in a chair and understand them.”

  “You see? First you start using the past tense, then you start rationalizing, and soon the whole experience will seem like a dream. If you read about a rapist in the newspaper tomorrow, you’ll instinctively fear and hate him. Even if you were to use the Chair regularly, you would still need to make a significant, conscious effort in normal life to utilize its teachings.”

  Listening to Da Mi now was like being dashed with cold water. It couldn’t be, could it, that the beautiful feeling of loving forgiveness she had just experienced was evaporating, leaving the whole world cruel and heartless again?

  No, Sydney thought, I mustn’t panic. Even if she returned to a normal state of consciousness, she could never be the same. She had experienced the loss of hatred and fear, she had felt peaceful and generous, healed. She wanted to live like that forever. And if she couldn’t, she wanted to keep one thing from her session.

  “The woman was real, right?” she asked, urgently. “What was her name?”

  “Her name,” Da Mi replied gravely, “was Leanne LaRue. Despite the hackers’ best efforts, her killer was never found. But at least she was discovered soon after her death, unlike so many First Nations women who have disappeared in British Columbia, and her relatives were able to bury her body.”

  It felt important to know everything. “Did she have a little girl?”

  “I don’t know, Sydney. Why?”

  Sydney rubbed the edge of the silk cushion with her fingers. “I just wondered, that’s all.”

  Leanne LaRue. One day she’d go to that alley and leave flowers on that mattress for her. In the meantime, she had to help Da Mi put an end to this shit. She leaned forward, intently. “Can you develop the Chair?” she asked. “In your project?”

  “Develop the Chair? Possibly. But the problem is, Sydney, you’re right.”

  Her, right? “About what?”

  “In fact, it’s not us who need to radically change, but violent people. And there are so many of them: far too many to help with the Chair. Currently, there are fewer than one hundred of these Chairs in existence, and the rare orchids needed for my honey—that’s just enough for me and my friends—require a huge greenhouse and constant maintenance. Even if I could work with the manufacturers to make the effects permanent, we wouldn’t be able to make the Enlightenment Experience available to the population of one small prison, let alone the world.”

  Oh. She got it. The Chair was a temporary high for people with money—just like the Girlfriend Experience, in fact, though Sydney wasn’t going to explain that to Da Mi.

  “What the chair demonstrates, however,” Da Mi continued, “is that it is possible to alter human behavior by altering our emotions. We experience emotions physically, of course, as reactions to our environment, but in fact, they are regulated by the brain. So if I can’t change the world, then what I need to do is design a new brain: one that generates more love and less fear and aggression—a hi-speed broadband kind of brain, one that instantly downloads compassion and joy, skipping the tedious dial-up process that turns so many people off meditation. If I can do this, I can give birth to a new kind of person, one who will help create a new world ruled by happiness and generosity instead of greed and anger. Sydney, let me ask you seriously: is that something you would like to participate in?”

  Da Mi’s voice was like the candy-colored river in the goggles. It flowed smoothly through Sydney, uplifting and caressing her, soothing her moment of fear. Yes, she thought, yes. If she could love and forgive a rapist, if she could experience understanding and compassion for her mom and Darren, even for a moment, then anything was possible in the world.

  “Yes way, Da Mi!”

  “Thank you, Sydney. I’m so glad. Please, take a look at this.” Da Mi pulled out a glossy color brochure. VirtuWorld it read in a pointy, elegant font on the cover, above a picture of a castle surrounded by a daisy-chain of blond children in flowery hats.

  “It’s the place in the Chair!” she exclaimed.

  “It is. It’s also the project I would dearly love your help with. VirtuWorld is a GRIP and ConGlam co-production, a European theme park presently under construction on the banks of the Han.”

  Sydney opened the brochure. The first page was bursting with pictures of hi-tech Euro-style rides. “The Kremlin Gremlin, the Eyeful Tower,” she read. “It looks really fun.”

  “It will be a fantastic day out, Sydney, but the main attraction of the park won’t be its virtual reality jousting tournaments, but the Peonies: one hundred and twenty cloned children, genetically gifted with superior musical and athletic ability and, most important of all, truly peaceful minds.”

  Sydney turned the page to find a picture of an orchestra composed of sixty blond peas-in-a-pod girls and boys. They must all be photoshopped, the same two kids, but still, it was freaky to look at.

  “Clones? You can do that, Da Mi?”

  “We’ve been able to do it for years, but only recently has the law been changed to allow us to bring these new, much-loved and inherently loving children into the world.”

  Sydney leafed through the rest of the brochure, which was filled with pictures of the children: dancing, doing yoga, meditating, playing badminton, singing in a pop group wearing silver skirts and trousers. “The Peonies is a cute name,” she said, hesitantly.

  “ConGlam expects they will be a huge draw for Koreans, who value social conformity, but also admire excellence in achievement and the culture of the West. What ConGlam doesn’t know is that the Peonies will also be the world’s first race of truly enlightened human beings. Only you are privy to that secret.”

  Sydney examined the pictures more closely. The children looked like kids at some fancy boarding school, their beautiful faces shining with intelligence and happiness. She took a deep breath and closed the brochure. “But why are you telling me?” she whispered. “I’m just a hick from Sticksville, BC.”

  “No, Sydney,” Da Mi spoke with steady force, “you are a brave, charming, resourceful young woman. As soon as I met you I knew you had something special to offer this project. ConGlam is looking for an egg donor, to provide fifty percent of the Peonies’ raw genetic material. I want you to be that donor, but I also want you to be the Queen of the Peonies, to be a central part of the image of VirtuWorld, and to work with me over the next decades to make a small but very real paradise on earth.” Da Mi’s eyes misted, but she continued speaking, softly, almost as if to herself. “For so long, I’ve been keeping this a secret. Even my most trusted medical staff know only that the children will be talented and gentle. I’m not a mad scientist, Sydney, I’m a human being who needs to share her dreams, and after the way you responded so deeply to the Enlightenment Machine tonight, I know that I can share those dreams with you.”

  Sydney hardly dared breathe, let alone speak. “Of course you can, Da Mi,” she whispered.

  “My dreams are the dreams of all people who have suffered, Sydney. I know from the little you’ve told me about your life that you are a survivor. You’ve overcome many difficulties and lonely times to arrive here tonight. Epigenetically speaking, that kind of spirit is an inheritable trait, and I want the Peonies to have it. If I can also give you the chance to thrive, that will bring me the greatest pleasure and honor.”

  Da Mi bowed deeply from the waist, and Sydney reciprocated. When they rose again, Da Mi had tears in her eyes. “Oh dear,” she said, “you’re going to think the Peonies are simply the p
ie-in-the-sky daydreams of a soft-hearted old woman, but I have the scientific proofs of my intentions. Here—I want you to ask every question you can think of.”

  “You’re not old, Da Mi,” Sydney protested as Da Mi handed her the leather notebook. It was filled with page after page of diagrams and equations, strange terminology, sets of initials circled in red ink. Sydney leafed through it, wondering if she would ever understand a single thing about “genomes” and “proteins,” if she’d ever even be able to pronounce the words scattered throughout the pages like magic spells: “serotonin,” “oxytocin,” “noradrenalin.” She’d had a friend called Nora once . . .

  “So, um . . .” she started tentatively, “how exactly are you going to change the brain?”

  Da Mi leaned forward. “Stem cells,” she said, with an air of quiet triumph.

  Sydney nodded wisely. She sort of knew what stem cells were. Or at least she could Google them later.

  “I’ve found a way to use them,” Da Mi continued, “to alter the genes that govern the areas of the brain responsible for regulating love, altruism, and empathy. I’m building on decades of work by others, of course. I am just the vehicle, not the driver of this evolutionary change.”

  Sydney closed the notebook and placed it back on the table. “Won’t it be weird for the clones, looking exactly like each other?” she asked. It was a dumb question. In response, Da Mi sighed.

  “Science fiction has so much to answer for when it comes to the common perception of human clones,” she said. “Twins and triplets are genetically identical and no one fears for their sanity, do they?” But the scientist wasn’t expecting Sydney to answer. She was talking forcefully now, as if she were lecturing to a hall full of people. “No, the Peonies will look alike, but each will have their own unique personalities and gifts, and they will also have loving and supportive surrogate mothers. Physically, psychologically and spiritually, the children will be among the healthiest people in the world. They might need protection from the cruelty and greed of society at first, but VirtuWorld will provide just that sheltered environment.”

  Da Mi was back in the room now, smiling at her again. Sydney thought hard, trying to pick a better question this time. “What about later?” she asked, “when they’ve grown up?”

  “As intelligent and confident adults, they will be free to live wherever they wish,” Da Mi assured her, and in a dreamy voice added, “Perhaps they will start new religions, write great books, lead new political coalitions of the dispossessed and the right-thinking . . . At the very least, their own children will inherit their powerful consciousness, and spread peace into future generations. Once our ‘experiment’ is proved successful, all parents in wealthy nations will be demanding Enlightenment genes for their own children, and if the UN could oversee the procedure in the developing world, the Peonies would multiply, like a single cell, indefinitely, until, two hundred years from now, the world will be the paradise visionaries and saints have always known it could be.”

  She paused. Then, in a brisk new tone, she asked, “Have you heard of the Mayan prophecies, Sydney?”

  “Sure. They’re about the end of the world—but it was supposed to happen in 2012, wasn’t it?”

  Da Mi smiled. “The Mayan Prophecies foresee not the end of the world, but the end of one cycle of history and the beginning of another, far better human society. This transition is not an overnight event, but a process that will take decades, if not hundreds of years, to become fully apparent. In December 2012, there was a great planetary convergence—it marked the first day of the new Mayan Great Calendar, a new epoch that will eventually bring peace and prosperity to all human beings. The winter Solstice, December twenty-first, is traditionally a day to welcome the return of the light, and I want to implant the embryos on December twenty-second this year. Can you help me prepare for that date?”

  It was all so wild and enormous, but if Da Mi thought she could help, she would try her hardest. “Definitely, Da Mi.”

  With a smile, Da Mi produced another contract from the briefcase. The terms included a sizable signing bonus, as well as large monthly payments for the next twenty years; in return, Sydney would undertake not only to provide the eggs for the clones, but to appear seasonally at VirtuWorld for banquets and feasts, dressed in the latest designer gowns. She would also be provided with an unlimited supply of honey, and she would be able to come to Da Mi’s house to use the Enlightenment Chair whenever she wanted—though she would soon be able to afford one of her own, of course. Maybe, Sydney thought, as she took Da Mi’s gold fountain pen in her hand, Mom could never handle me because I wasn’t ever going to grow up to be a waitress in small-town BC. It was hard to totally forgive all those vicious things her mom had said, but maybe one day, with Da Mi’s help, she would be able to throw them out, like ugly, itchy clothes or painful, too-tight shoes. Then she’d get a brand-new outfit, one that suited her down to the ground.

  She signed the contract.

  Da Mi snuffed out the candles and they crawled back out of the anbang. It was dawn, birds were caroling in the trees, and the living room was gleaming, every polished surface offering armfuls of the golden gossamer light Sydney had been born to wear.

  Part Four

  KEEPING MUM

  19 / The Flock

  The women spent their last three days in Beijing sightseeing. It was mid-July and sweltering, but even Older Sister stopped complaining as the air-conditioned bus ferried them from The Forbidden City to Tiananmen Square, from the Ming Tombs to sprawling shopping markets. Wherever they went, Mee Hee craned her neck in all directions at the city swarming around them. Sometimes Beijing was homey as a village, people squatting, washing, cooking and sleeping on the sidewalks. Sometimes, with its massive office towers and their scalloped, angled profiles, the city was marvelously strange.

  Su Jin was the only one not impressed. “America is more modern,” she sniffed as the bus passed a group of construction workers smoking beside a huge crater in the road. “In America, cigarettes are illegal, so the air is clean and no one has wrinkles anymore. Soon, in America, people will live until they are two hundred. Then they can choose to be frozen until something new and exciting happens, or they’ll move to Mars and meditate for peace, like the ancient monks in all religions of the world.”

  “What rubbish,” Older Sister snorted in the seat opposite. “You’ve been reading too many of Dr. Dong Sun’s trashy magazines, girl.”

  Mee Hee reached out for her friend’s hand. “America must be a wonderful place if Dr. Kim was educated there,” she said softly before Su Jin could snap back. “Let’s go one day and see for ourselves.”

  Su Jin squeezed her hand, then let it go as the bus pulled into the parking lot. Soon the women were hiking along the Great Wall, exclaiming over the views from the endless, ancient rope of stone. Walking back, they passed other Koreans, laughing and taking photos of each other on the parapets: real South Koreans, in big black sunglasses and sparkly jewelry. They made Mee Hee feel very shy. Would she ever look as glamorous?

  “Seoul has a big American influence,” said Su Jin knowledgeably, back on the bus. “I can’t wait to go there.”

  “We won’t be in the big city much,” Older Sister pronounced. “We don’t have to change our ways. I was born a country woman and I will die a country woman. Just give me a garden to tend and children to raise, that’s all I ask.”

  Yes, Mee Hee thought, that’s all I want too. But just to see Seoul, not to live there, just to visit, surely that wouldn’t be beyond me?

  The bus left from Beijing the next morning with the Doctors Che sitting up front behind the South Korean driver, dressed in blue suits—like tour guides, they said. The journey to the coast took hours on the pot-holed highway, but the women were enchanted by the scenery—the emerald shoots of rice poking up in the paddies, farmers pushing their carts, the golden roofs of temples hidden in the hills. When they weren’t looking out the windows they amused themselves by memorizing th
eir new passport names and making up stories about their pasts in South Korea. Mee Hee was now Cho Min Hee, a seamstress in a village in Kyonggi-do; she had won the trip to China in a lottery. It was the first time she’d ever left home, and her husband was very worried that she would stay in Beijing with a Chinese tailor. Everyone knew how nimble Chinese tailors were. But no, she’d bought her husband a piece of jade from the Forbidden Palace and was coming back home to live with him forever.

  At the ferry docks, the doctors handed over all their passports to the Immigration official. He rapidly thumbed through them and stamped their “return” visas with a pounding rhythm. Thereafter, no one gave them a second glance.

  They spent the night huddled in their bunks on the ship. Younger Sister was seasick and Older Sister stayed awake with her, holding her head and cleaning her mouth with a wet cloth whenever she threw up. Su Jin slept curled up tightly in a ball, but Mee Hee lay quietly for hours. Her photograph of Dr. Kim was down at the bottom of her bag, but she didn’t need to look at it to summon up her savior’s kind face. Usually that serene image would be enough to help her float off to sleep, but tonight she hovered in a half-dream, imagining her first meeting with the beautiful Dr. Kim; wondering if she could ever dare to give Dr. Tae Sun a present; allowing herself to remember, for the first time without crying, the feeling of Song Ju’s head in the crook of her arm.

  In the morning she drank coffee with the other women in the boat café. The ferry arrived in Inchon at noon. The women clung together on the deck, staring at the shoreline, then sat silently on the bus as it grumbled off the boat and into the busy port city. Even Su Jin could find no words to express the feeling of being in South Korea at last.