“Honestly, I think we need to get in touch with your family back in South Korea. They must be worried about you. There must be someone there that can help us find your father.”
“He’s right,” Helena said, resting her hand gently on Lily’s shoulder. “There’s nothing more we can do here than we’ve already done.”
Helena pointed at the poster as she continued, gesturing at several other posters Jason had stuck up on each of the corners. “If your dad turns up tonight, he’ll call.”
Lily’s lower lip quivered. Her eyes cast down at the chewing gum stains on the concrete sidewalk. A tear came to her eye.
“Hey, it’s OK,” Jason said. “We’ll find him, or he’ll find us. Either way, we’ll get the two of you back together. Everything will work out for the best, you'll see.”
Lily nodded.
Mitchell signaled, tipping his head toward the 7-11 further down the road, giving Jason an excuse to leave Lily and give her a bit of space and some time to figure things out for herself. Helena nodded, picking up on Mitchell's signal and indicating she'd stay with Lily.
“Anyone hungry?” Mitchell asked. “Come on, there’s got to be something edible around here.”
“I’ll come with you,” Jason said, and the two young men walked off, leaving the girls on the street corner.
As they walked away, Mitchell spoke under his breath, saying, “I’m telling you, dude. It would be better if she were an alien. Less baggage.”
“Will you give it up?” Jason replied, wanting him to be serious. Jason understood a little of what Lily must be feeling, lost and alone in a strange city on the other side of the world. She probably did feel a little alien, although not in the extraterrestrial sense of the word.
Jason remembered how he’d felt when he’d visited Seoul. It was the little things that gave a feeling of dissonance, things you wouldn’t normally think twice about. Sure, he figured, there were the obvious cultural differences like the ceramic squat toilets in the rural areas, but even seeing something as benign as a stop sign with both Korean and English written on it had been strangely unsettling. He could speak fragments of Korean, but couldn’t read anything, leaving him feeling bewildered. At the time, he felt like he was on another planet.
There had been all the usual fast food restaurants in Seoul: McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken. And they carried all the same staple items on their menus, but there were also offerings that catered to local palates: Korean fried chicken with soy sauce, Teriyaki McBurger and sweet potato pizza. Technically, there was nothing wrong with the combinations and flavors, they were just different, and that difference reinforced the sense of alienation for him. Jason supposed Lily was struggling with similar subtleties, things he'd overlook. So many things that seemed natural to him must have been jarring for her.
“Hey,” Mitch said as they walked up to the 7-11. “Where the hell's a hot dog stand when you need one?”
“They must have converged on the docks for the fireworks,” Jason replied.
The 7-11 had the usual array of junk food, with bags of potato chips and candy bars along with ramen noodles and milk, but there was nothing of any real substance. Mitchell bought some shriveled hot dogs in buns that looked like they were made from compressed cardboard. Jason smothered the hot dogs in ketchup and mustard, vainly hoping to impart some flavor. They walked back to the intersection with sauce dripping on the pavement behind them.
Lily was still pacing.
Jason handed her a hot dog and a can of Pepsi.
“Oh, this smells wonderful,” she said, looking at the brilliant reds and yellows drowning the long, thin dog and soaking into the white bread.
“New York’s finest,” Jason replied, laughing.
Mitchell coughed into a closed fist, blurting out a muffled, “Bullshit.”
Helena laughed as well. The four of them sat on the hard concrete, leaning up against the brickwork of an old building as they ate their dinner on the street corner. They could have crossed the road and gone up to his apartment, but sitting there felt right, as though they were providing solidarity in support of Lily.
“Hmm,” Lily said between bites. “This is good.”
Helena looked at Jason as she said, “No cheap dates, right? Promise me. You have got to take this girl to a real restaurant. Somewhere like Cipriani’s or 21 Club. Don't be a tight ass.”
“I promise,” Jason replied as the setting sun cast long dark shadows down the poorly lit alleyways. Helena had expensive tastes, but she was right. Lily should see the finer side of town. 7-11 didn’t cut it.
The streetlights came on, but the dark clouds rolling in overhead looked ominous.
“What’s the weather forecast?” Mitchell asked.
“It's supposed to be nice,” Helena replied.
“So are we going to the fireworks?” Mitchell asked.
“He’s like a little kid,” Helena said, talking to Lily. “It helps if you humor him.”
Lily smiled, saying, “Fireworks would be fun, wouldn’t they?”
“Yes,” Jason replied, noticing her smile seemed forced.
“There's a bus due soon,” Helena said.
“We could walk,” Mitchell replied. “It's only about four blocks.”
“You could walk,” Helena replied curtly. “Some of us are in heels.”
A few minutes later, a bus pulled up at the stop outside the 7-11. Mitchell and Helena climbed the steps, swiping their transport cards and laughing as they moved down the bus to a bunch of empty seats near the back.
Jason swiped his card and fumbled with his wallet.
“Exact change only,” the driver stated.
Jason gave up counting quarters and handed the driver a five dollar note, saying, “Keep the change.”
He took Lily's hand and led her down the bus. Even though she'd agreed to go to the fireworks, he could tell she longed to stay, and he half felt as though he should respect that and just return to his apartment to wait for her dad. And yet, there was no guarantee her father would show. How long could this go on? Lily had to have family back in South Korea she could call. And what would happen once she found her father, he wondered. At the moment, theirs was a relationship of circumstance, and not even a relationship, really.
Jason knew the stats. He'd been backpacking in Canada and had met people he thought he'd be friends with for the rest of his life. They'd swear they'd stay in contact. They'd exchange addresses, emails and even link up online, but in the end, they drifted away from each other as there was no bond, no common link between them, no basis for their friendship other than a chance meeting. Jason hated to think Lily would be the same, but he knew that was the most likely outcome. Oh, she'd tell her friends and family about her adventures in the Big Apple, she might even chat with him online once or twice, but before much time had passed they'd forget about each other and be strangers again.
The bus pulled away from the curb as he grabbed a handrail to steady himself and headed down the aisle. Lily seemed to fall further behind as the bus lurched on through the lights.
“Hey, guys!” Mitchell cried with his irrepressible smile, drumming his hands on the seat in front of him and signaling for Jason and Lily to sit down. “What do you say we hit a few bars afterwards, maybe a nightclub or two?”
Mitchell was up against the window, with Helena sitting on the aisle. Jason slipped into the seat in front of Mitchell, with Lily sitting beside him, although she didn't move up next to him, keeping one leg in the aisle. She was in two minds about the fireworks, that was obvious, and the idea of partying into the early hours of the morning didn't seem to appeal to her. Helena sensed it too.
“It'll be fun,” she said, reaching forward and massaging Lily's shoulders. Jason understood what Helena was trying to do, she was trying to help Lily relax. But Jason had a fair idea unwelcome contact would do more to upset Lily than to help. He felt much the same way about well meaning but uninvited contact. As he expected, Lily pulled away
, leaning forward slightly. Helena took the hint and pulled her hands back.
The bus pulled up to another stop and an elderly man sitting across from them got up and left by the rear doors.
Lily mumbled, “I can't do this. I can't leave my father.”
A police car raced past with its lights flashing and its siren blaring.
Jason barely realized what was happening next. He was distracted by the police cruiser and the flickering blue and red lights lighting up the neighborhood. Suddenly, he realized Lily was gone. The rear door of the bus closed and the bus pulled away into the street again, leaving Lily standing on the sidewalk.
“No,” he cried, jumping out of his seat and running to the door.
The bus continued to accelerate.
“Stop the bus!” he cried, striking the door with his palm.
“Next stop's a hundred yards down the road,” the driver called out, making eye contact with him in his rear-view mirror.
“Let me off,” Jason yelled, again striking the glass in the door panels with the flat of his hand.
“What are you doing?” Mitchell cried out, still pinned by the window by Helena. “Leave her, dude. If she wants to wait on a street corner, let her do it. You don't owe her anything.”
Jason grabbed the emergency release lever and pulled. The door opened, but the bus was speeding along at easily thirty-five miles an hour. The concrete raced by in a blur. The wind howled through the open door, swirling into the footwell.
“Hey!” the driver called out. “What the hell do you think you're doing? Get back in your seat!”
The driver eased off the accelerator and onto the brakes with the kind of precision that had been missing from his driving so far. He slowed the bus, pulling over close to the curb. Jason watched as lampposts and trash cans whipped past, timing his jump.
“Don't you—“ the driver called.
“No!” Mitchell yelled.
Jason jumped from the bus, landing on the concrete sidewalk, surprised by his forward momentum. He could have sworn the bus had slowed to a running pace, but it must have been still moving considerably faster than he realized, and he found himself rolling on the pavement with his arms up protecting his head.
“You stupid dumb fuck!” the driver called out. He'd brought the bus to a halt about thirty feet away and had opened the front doors, standing on the bottom step as he shook his fist at Jason. “Damn kids!”
Jason got to his feet, grimacing at the skin torn from his forearms and his bloody elbows. Pain surged, surprising him with how much it hurt.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mitchell cried, stepping down out of the rear doors of the bus, followed by Helena.
“Just go on without me,” Jason called out, feeling stupid. He waved them away. What was wrong with him? This was unlike him. Jason wasn't one to be impetuous and stupid. As far as stupid went, that stunt was right up there with the dumbest things he'd ever done. If his head had struck the concrete he could have suffered a serious, life threatening concussion. People had died from less, and he knew it.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” he whispered, turning his back on Mitchell and Helena and looking at Lily in the distance.
The driver of the bus closed the doors and the bus pulled back out into the traffic, leaving them on the sidewalk. He could hear Mitchell walking up behind him.
“Oh, my God. Look at your arms!” Helena cried.
Jason could feel blood dripping from his fingers.
“I'm OK,” he said, raising a hand and requesting some distance. “Just ... give me some space.”
“No problem, dude!” Mitchell said, holding his hands out in a non-threatening gesture, his fingers splayed wide.
Jason ran down toward where he'd last seen Lily a couple of hundred yards away on the next block. He jogged across the street, barely pausing to look for traffic. She'd disappeared down a darkened alley. Rain began falling from the night sky. Twilight was over. Even with streetlights, the night seemed unusually dark.
As he approached the alley, Jason heard a deep, resonant hum like that of a generator. Lights flickered from the narrow alley between the buildings, flashes of blue-white like those from an arc welder cutting through the darkness.
He glanced back at Mitchell and Helena. They were waiting to cross at the lights.
Jason slowed to a walk, wondering what could be causing the flashes between the buildings. Wisps of smoke drifted from the alley. He stepped around the corner and into a gale not dissimilar to what he'd once felt from the downdraft of a landing helicopter. Flecks of dust and dirt whipped through the air. Scraps of paper tore around him.
Lily was no more than thirty feet away in the middle of the alley, bathed in a blinding green light. She was leaning slightly backwards, pitched at an unnatural angle, one that should have caused her to fall to the ground, but somehow she remained upright. Her arms were outstretched, as though she had been crucified on some invisible cross, while her feet drifted a few feet above the ground. White smoke billowed down from above. Bursts of vapor surged out of a series of flickering lights some twenty stories above the alley. The smoke swirled around her body as she slowly gained height.
“No.”
Jason's one word was barely audible above the pulsating hum coming down from above.
The white light transformed into a kaleidoscope of color. Tiny, circular rainbows formed in the cold white mist, giving the view a trance-like quality.
Jason fell to his knees just a few feet inside the alley.
“No,” he repeated. “This can't be happening.”
Lily was being drawn up toward the light, with her arms outstretched and her hands limp. Her body was pulled up into the swirling clouds still churning down from above.
The circle of lights above the building began turning, slowly building in speed as Lily's body rose higher, becoming lost in the mist. From what Jason could tell, the lights were roughly forty to fifty feet across, but their exact width was obscured by the rooftop. Whatever this was, it had to be hovering no more than a few feet above the roof. Jason wanted to run for the stairs, to chase after Lily, but his body felt weak, drained of strength.
The rainbow of colors radiating above him reached a fever pitch, moving so fast the individual lights became indistinguishable.
And then it was gone.
The mist cleared, dissipating and disappearing into the night, leaving a clear view of the clouds thousands of feet above.
There were footsteps behind him.
“Tell me you saw that?” Jason said, his eyes still looking skyward.
“Saw what?” Mitchell asked, coming up beside him.
In the distance, well beyond the rooftop, bursts of light broke through the night. Spectacular splashes of color lit up the grey, moody clouds as fireworks burst in the sky over the river.
“Oh, damn. We missed the show,” Mitchell said with a hint of disappointment in his voice.
“We need to get you to a doctor,” Helena said, ignoring Mitchell as she reached out her hand and helped Jason to his feet.
Jason was shaking. His fingers were trembling.
“You're in shock,” she said, looking into his eyes with compassion. She raised his forearms, taking a good look at the grazes on his arms. “Oh, that's got to hurt. Come on. Let's get you to the emergency room and get you cleaned up. I hope your tetanus shots are up to date.”
Jason was in shock, but it wasn't the pain in his arms that had shaken his being. He'd spent the best part of a decade building a rational model of the universe in his thinking, establishing a framework for understanding the cosmos and formulating his theories and calculations, but here, in a matter of seconds, his world had unravelled. What seemed so crazy when Mitchell talked about it now seemed probable. No, he thought, not probable, actual.
Could it be that the anecdotes of UFO sightings were true?
Was Earth being surreptitiously visited by aliens from some other world?
Could his
eyes be believed?
Should he discard his scientific training over some fleeting experience that seemed more like a dream than reality?
Could these two views be reconciled?
They couldn’t, he decided, and yet he had no plausible alternative explanation for what he’d witnessed. Although he knew eyewitnesses were notoriously unreliable in a court of law, he couldn’t bring himself to ignore what he’d seen.
Lily had been taken.
“There has to be another explanation,” he mumbled to himself. “There has to be.”
Chapter 07: Caught
Lee woke bumping around in darkness.
He was in the back of a truck weaving along a rough track. He bounced on the cold metal bed of the truck, sliding as the clumsy diesel engine rattled in his ears. His hands were tied behind him. A shroud covered his head. Dim light seeped in from around his neck. He felt sick. The smell of fumes wafted around him, making it difficult to breathe.
As the truck rounded a corner, Lee fought with his hands to steady himself. His bound fingers grabbed at the corrugation built into the steel deck beneath him, and he tried to avoid bumping into what felt like wooden logs or boulders on either side of him. Lee shifted his knees, trying to get some grip when a boot kicked him in the stomach.
“Lie still!”
Lee grimaced. He hadn’t anticipated the blow. He had no way of knowing he was being watched and the boot caught him on the side of the hip, causing a jolt of pain to surge through his body. He groaned in agony, sliding into the closed tailgate as the truck rounded another corner.
It was at that moment he understood the gravity of his situation.
Lee had been part of evade-and-escape drills during his compulsory service in the South Korean air force and understood what was happening. This was the first stage of his imprisonment. No one ever escaped, either from the training exercises or the real thing. Evade and escape was a misnomer. Evade meant prolong and delay, hopefully buying others time. Escape was a false hope, something to help you through the initial interrogation. His heart sank at the realization he’d probably spend the rest of his life in a North Korean labour camp, but he knew even that estimation was overly generous. In reality, his life was probably now measured in terms of days or hours, not years.
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