by Axie Oh
I take the lead. I’m first through the heavy metal door at the top of the stairs. It opens onto the flat roof of the Tower.
A girl stands at the ledge of the roof. Her hair whips wildly out from behind her like a kite caught in the wind. She’s barefoot, and her back is to us, but I recognize her immediately.
A person who doesn’t exist can’t die.
“Tera!” Ama shouts from behind me. “Don’t be a pancake!”
The girl — Tera — doesn’t seem to hear.
“Jaewon,” Alex says, “go grab her. I’ll cover you.”
I check the safety of my gun and tuck it into the waistband of my pants. “Try not to shoot me.”
I leave them and make my way slowly across the roof, scuffing my shoes against the cement so that Tera can hear my approach. When I’m standing behind her, I cough to signal my presence. I don’t try to grab her; instead, I move to her left and look over the ledge, whistling at the far drop. Even the tallest buildings beneath the Tower are hundreds of meters away.
The Skyway is in motion, its trains zooming throughout the city. The Tower is located next to a main terminal, and I can see the colored pathways of the Skyway branch off into colored lines, one yellow line leading to Bundang, one orange line leading to Apgujeong.
I plot the trajectory of the girl if she were to jump. There’s a chance she’d hit one of the colored lines.
“I’d wait until night if I were you,” I say. “The Skyway shuts down then, and the lines disappear. You’d have an unimpeded fall. Much less messy.”
A tightening around the corner of her mouth is all she gives me as an answer. Apparently, she’s not amused. I switch from sarcasm and try Alex’s usual tactic. Cold intimidation. “Step down before the wind knocks you over, and it’s no longer your choice.” I reach out, thinking I’ll grab her arm, but hesitate when she turns to look at me. Her eyes follow my outstretched hand to my face, and I realize she’s waiting for me to touch her. But not in kindness, not in concern. She’s waiting for me to touch her with force. I can see it in the way she watches me, her dark eyes expectant.
I drop my hand.
Her voice, when she speaks, is just as I remember it from the lighthouse, soft and clear. “I want to feel free.” I have to strain to hear her words in the whistling wind. “If only for a moment.”
“Death isn’t freedom.” I try to sound like I believe my own words.
She raises an eyebrow. “Who says I want to die?”
“You’re standing at the edge of a building a kilometer in height.”
“One kilometer and two hundred and fifty meters,” she corrects.
“It’s that extra fifty that will do it.”
She scowls, and I grin — why do I feel this urge to annoy her?
“Well, you’re wrong.” She closes her eyes and spreads her arms wide. “I don’t want to die.” She inhales and breathes out, “I want to live.”
For half a second, I think she’ll jump. I move to reach out and catch her. But she remains still, holding that position. She breathes deeply the cold winter air. I can see her eddying breaths; they escape past her lips like whispered ghosts. Her chest moves and up and down, slow and rhythmic. I’ve never seen someone so in the moment, as if this was the first time she’s ever breathed, or the last.
The gun feels like a weight at my back.
“Are you a prisoner here?” I ask. Maybe she’s a rebel. One of the assassins from the dance troupe. Then again, what do rebels even look like? She’s wearing what she wore at the concert, a loose shirt and pants. And even if she were a rebel, it doesn’t explain why she was at the concert or in the simulation.
She opens her eyes again to look at me. “You don’t know?”
“Let’s assume I know nothing right now.” These are the things I know: I saw her at the concert, where she was taken away by the police. I saw her in the simulation, in which I thought she was a student taking a test at another academy. And now I see her here, standing on the rooftop, breathing in the air as if she can absorb the wind. Who is she?
“You’ll know soon,” she says, her eyes moving across my face. “And then you won’t look at me the way you’re looking at me now.”
“And what way is that?”
Like she’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met before. Like she’s mysterious and strange and easily annoyed.
“Like I’m human.”
I feel a presence at my back, and I look to see Alex standing close behind us, with Ama and Dr. Koga. I’m grateful to see Alex has put away his gun. In its place, though, he holds the electro-braces.
Tera looks at the braces.
Koga shrugs helplessly. “The others will be nervous if you’re not . . . secure, my dear. Jaewon-ssi, would you do the honors?”
It’s strange how he’s so polite about it. Tera steps down from the ledge and turns her back to me. I take the braces from Alex.
Electro-braces are the highTech counterpart of Old Seoul handcuffs. When powered on, an unbreakable electro-chain forms between the two links. I carefully close the cuffs around her wrists and switch on the link. The spark of electricity ignites in a white-gold chain, and a light buzz fills the air. It looks wrong, seeing her cuffed.
I peer down at my own wrists, the jut of my veins the only color beneath the skin. I wear a ring on my left middle finger — a platinum band, cheap, meaningless. It’s just a ring. It doesn’t hurt, because I can take it off.
Ama throws me a curious glance before approaching Tera. I notice for the first time that they’re wearing the same outfit. Their appearances, though, are markedly different. Tera is average height, pale and slim, while Ama is short and rosy-cheeked. She puts her arms around Tera’s shoulders and leans in to whisper something.
Who are they? How do they know each other? I’m bursting with questions. If Tera isn’t a prisoner, then what — who — is she? Alex appears just as curious, watching Ama with an unnerving intensity.
We follow Dr. Koga back to the elevator. All of us crowd inside, Koga at the front, the girls in the middle, and Alex and I pressed against the back.
The only sound to break the silence is the buzz of Tera’s cuffs. Ama moves Tera’s long, unbound hair over her shoulder so it won’t get caught in the electric chain.
When we reach the lobby, the elevator doors open to reveal a contingent of waiting guards. They’re in riot gear, helmeted and carrying thick shields. Tera walks out, and they ring her. Alex and I exchange a glance. What’s going on? She’s unarmed. What do they think she can do to them? It’s an eerie sight: a ring of faceless men and women dressed in black surrounding Tera, defenseless, her hands hooked behind her.
They walk across the lobby, round a corner, and disappear from view.
12
White Flower
With a promise to get us some answers soon, Dr. Koga directs Alex and me to a conference room on the thirtieth floor, and then tugs Ama away with him in the direction Tera and the soldiers had taken. I have to call Alex’s name several times to get his attention. He shakes his head. “Sorry.” We take one of the steel elevators off the lobby and approach the conference room. The door has a biometric lock, so I hold my bandaged wrist to the scanner. It reads my ID through the MediTape and whirs open.
It’s a standard room, with windows at the back. The main feature is a long glass table that stretches down the middle of the room.
Alex heads over to the table and collapses into a chair. I take the seat opposite him, farthest from the window and closest to the door. The table is bare except for a bowl of water at the center, atop which floats a single white flower.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out to see that I have three messages. The first is from Bora. She left early from her assignment and is now getting a haircut. It comes with a small video of her in a swivel chair, making peace signs. I mute it and watch the minut
e-long video. The second is from Minwoo, who says he’s bored and heard about some sort of breach at the Tower. He asks if I know anything, and I text back, No. The last is from the food cart ajumma who asks if I can man the cart tonight for a few hours. This I text back with an affirmative.
I put my phone back into my pocket and glance over at Alex to see he’s watching coverage of what they’ve titled the “Tower Incident.” News travels fast. I lean back in my chair and look around the room. The far wall features a display screen that currently depicts the symbol of the NSK, a black circle over a white background. The words issued by the Neo Council after the Great War are printed in Chinese above the screen. I can’t read the characters, but I remember what they say.
Only countries destroy other countries. Only selfishness breeds selfish actions. Without nationhood, there is no war. Without nationhood, there is only peace. Unity in all things; humanity above monstrous division.
This was the basic ideology of the Neo Council after the First Act of the Great War — that if countries were dismantled, lasting peace would be attainable. Each country became a state — China, considered too powerful, had been separated into North China and South China — and each state elected a representative to sit on the Council. The first test came when Western powers, fearing a united East Asian sphere, declared war on the Neo Alliance. This was the Second Act of the Great War. It ended in a decisive victory for the Neo Alliance, which cemented its sovereignty over East Asia. For several years, the Neo Council ruled without dissent, until a charismatic ruler arose in South China, calling for independence. Under his influence, South China seceded from the Council. After months of guerilla attacks by the rebels, North China declared war on South China, pulling the whole alliance into war. The Third Act of the Great War had begun.
Five decades of war — hundreds of millions of deaths. And for what?
Alex, having finished watching the news, sprawls across the table. His fingers extend out to graze the petals of the white flower. “I don’t see the use of flowers,” he says absently. He pulls a petal from the flower in the bowl and drops it into the water.
I’m about to respond, probably to say something as inane, when the doors whir open. Dr. Koga walks in, accompanied by a middle-aged woman with Eurasian features. Immediately Alex and I stand and bow. When I look up, I’m surprised to see the next person to walk through the door.
“Jaewon-ssi!” Sela cries happily. The pop star rushes to my side and takes my arm. The last time I saw her — besides on the billboards on the way over here — was a week ago at the test. Maybe her enthusiasm is a carryover from when I saved her life during the simulation.
I wonder if she knows I would have saved anyone in that specific situation. It would have been shitty not to.
“Take a seat,” the woman who walked in with Dr. Koga says, and Sela takes a seat to the left of me. Koga and the woman approach the display screen, and it syncs to Koga’s tablet, transitioning from the NSK flag to a blue background. “My name is Dr. Natalie Chung,” the woman begins, her Korean accented and clipped. She’s tall and lean, a contrast to Koga’s short and squat. “I’m the lead machinist here at the Tower. I work in weapon design and the development of God Machines.
“You were all specifically chosen for this project by our board of directors, which includes me and my esteemed colleague, Dr. Koga Hiroshi.” She pauses for Koga to give a little bow. “Together we went over the results of your tests and chose each of you as candidates for our project.”
She keeps saying “project.” I wonder if she’ll ever get around to telling us what it is.
“Before we move forward with our presentation, I would like you all to sign this nondisclosure agreement, which prohibits you from speaking about your time here in the Tower without Dr. Koga’s or my express authorization. Just press your thumb to the signature at the bottom.”
Sela emails the NDA to her lawyer, who gives her the go-ahead to sign a few minutes later, and I think Alex actually reads the whole seven or eight pages before pressing his thumb down.
Since everyone else signs it, I sign it. I don’t have a lawyer or a fast-processing mind. I don’t even have a real identity. The one programmed with my thumbprint is for another Lee Jaewon whose mother is dead (false), whose father is dead (true), and has no ties to the United Korean League (true/false).
“Now,” Koga says, “onto the main reason we brought you here today.” He clears his throat and clicks the tablet. The words the amaterasu project display across the screen. “In the year 2152 at the end of the First Act of the Great War, the Board of the NSK constructed the Tower as a special center to build the world’s greatest weapon. A scientist by the name of Sato Jun was the head of the project. He named it the Amaterasu Project, after the sun goddess of Japan. The Director at the time gave his team the go-ahead, and they began production.”
The Amaterasu Project. I’ve never heard of it before. I glance at Alex to read his reaction, but his face remains blank.
Dr. Koga scrapes his hand against his stubbled chin. “During the First Act of the Great War, Enhancers made war a mad bloodbath that ended in more deaths than lives saved. With the drug-addled Enhanced of that war, scientists began conducting tests to see why humans reacted so negatively to the drugs, why they couldn’t retain the Enhancements in their body without succumbing to addiction and psychosis.”
No wonder they asked us to sign an NDA. After the First Act of the War, performance Enhancers were illegalized, in Korea and in every single state in the Neo Alliance.
“Of those scientists, Sato’s team was able to weave some of the Enhancements into the genome of a human child, altering a select set of genes in their DNA and allowing for the drugs to enhance the child before the onset of puberty. In fact, they deduced that the drugs are ineffectual after puberty, which accounts for their misuse by adults prior to their studies. The drugs also work exclusively within the genetic makeup of a female rather than a male, due to the unique expression profile of females during puberty. There were some setbacks along the way, but now, almost fifty years after it first began, we have two test subjects who’ve made it past childhood and into adolescence who’ve shown stability in skill levels. They are our prototypes. Our goddesses, if you will.”
the amaterasu project flashes bold on the screen.
The pieces click into place.
A person who doesn’t exist can’t die.
Amaterasu.
Ama. Tera. Su.
Ama . . .
. . . Tera
They’re code names.
13
The Amaterasu Project
“Ama,” Dr. Koga says, tapping a button on his tablet to display an image on the screen of the girl from the elevator, smiling and lovely, dressed in a blue jumpsuit, “or Weapon 3016, is sixteen years of age, the first prototype of her category.” Koga swipes across the tablet screen, and Ama’s stats appear in vertical script alongside her image — her weight, height, place of birth, and a short description of her skills and temperament.
“In her inherited genetic code, Ama already had an inclination toward the psychic; her parents and grandparents were shamans in China — all of whom were casualties in the war. The Enhancers mutated this natural inclination into an ability.”
“She’s . . . psychic,” Alex says slowly.
“Correct. She can pick up thoughts as well as dreams and memories. She, however, suffers some minor side effects of the drugs, including a weakness of the body and an inability to fully control the use of her Enhancements.”
Dr. Koga gives his tablet another tap.
The screen switches from depicting an image of Ama to an image of Tera. Unlike Ama, Tera isn’t smiling in her photo. Her straight brown hair falls loosely around her shoulders. Her dark eyes are focused on the camera.
“Tera,” Dr. Koga says, “or Weapon 3017, is seventeen years of age. She diff
ers from Ama in that her Enhanced abilities are mostly physical.”
Another swipe and this time, Tera’s stats roll vertically down the screen. Like Ama, it shows her weight and height. Her place of birth is recorded as Neo Seoul in the Neo State of Korea, a year after my own. Her list of abilities is long, including the distance she can jump, the rate of her cell regeneration, and her strata of knowledge on a variety of subjects, namely battle strategies. Her temperament is left blank.
Sela raises her hand, and Dr. Koga nods at her. “You said the other weapon, Ama, suffers side effects. Does Weapon 3017 manifest side effects?”
“Yes, although Tera isn’t weak of body — quite the opposite — she does suffer occasional headaches, and of course, difficulties in controlling her Enhancements.”
He exchanges a quick glance with Dr. Chung. I have a feeling they’re not telling us everything.
Alex asks, “Did this project pass an ethics board?”
I glance at him, surprised he’d care.
Dr. Chung answers. “The project hasn’t gone public yet. And those are issues that perhaps Sela can help us with, as we’ve decided to bring her onto the project to help with public relations.” The machinist has neatly avoided answering Alex’s actual question of whether an ethics board looked at this project before it began nearly fifty years ago.
“Yes!” Dr. Koga says jovially. “Which brings us to the last item on today’s agenda.”
He clicks his tablet, and Alex’s stats appear on the screen.
“Alex, we believe you are the perfect candidate to lead the team. You’ve been student president every year at your academy, you’ve received stellar grades in all your classes, especially leadership and diplomacy, and you’ve led your team to victory on one of the hardest tests ever administered to seniors.”
“And as the Director’s only child,” Dr. Chung adds, “doors will be open to you that wouldn’t be open to anyone else, which can only help the project long term.”