by Axie Oh
“Really?” Tera teases. “You? A gangster boyfriend?”
“And I didn’t even have these on my face.” I point to the wounds on my lips and eye, which don’t hurt as much now that I’ve had some wine.
“I’ve been on blind dates,” Alex says. “At this hotel, and other places. I should have called you.”
I raise my glass. “Next time.”
Ama glances curiously at Alex. “Did you date any of the girls?”
“Yes, on those blind dates.”
Ama purses her lips. “You know what I mean.”
Alex shakes his head. “Not seriously.”
“What counts as a serious date?”
He looks at her. “When it matters.”
A shadow falls across our table. I glance up to see a kid standing there. He’s unshaven, hair hanging limp over his face, skin pale, and eyes bloodshot.
Alex is the first to recognize him. “No Seungri.”
21
Hollow Victory
Seungri, No Seungpyo’s twin. He’d been sent to study abroad in Japan after the test, and I’d mostly avoided thinking about him since then. An image flashes through my mind of the bridge in the simulation, of Seungpyo’s laughing face as he volunteered to go first. I got you, my cute little brother.
Why is he back in the country? I wasn’t close with Seungri, but I feel a flush of shame for not having gone to his brother’s funeral.
“You look happy, Alex,” Seungri says. The raw pain in his voice is palpable.
He stands at the corner of the square table between Ama and me with one hand deep in the pocket of his coat. Behind him, the servers have noticed Seungri. They start to make their way over. If I can somehow signal to them that we have a situation . . .
“Don’t move!” Seungri growls.
He pulls a gun from his coat pocket. It’s a fission gun, model SG-88. How the hell did he get one of those? One blast and it’ll rip apart everything in its direct line of fire. The tension in the room ratchets up a notch. The servers stop approaching, and instead begin evacuating tables.
“No Seungri,” Alex says calmly, “what are you doing?”
Seungri lifts the gun and points it at Alex. “It didn’t have to be like this.”
Does he blame Alex for what happened to Seungpyo in the test, for not having informed us beforehand about the change in the rules? How long has he been planning this revenge?
“Alex?” Ama whimpers.
Alex’s gaze flickers to her before returning to Seungri. “Let’s go outside. This is between us. We can talk outside.”
It’s a legitimate play by Alex. If he can get Seungri outside, then it’ll lessen the chance of casualties as we stall for time. The hotel must have called security and notified them of the presence of a fission weapon.
“Alex?” Ama reaches across the table toward him.
“No,” Seungri says, almost sadly, “you don’t care about your life enough.” He moves the gun until it points directly at Ama’s head.
“Wait,” Alex says, voice cracking, “just wait.”
“A girlfriend you actually care about.” Seungri sneers. “That’s a first.”
“She has nothing to do with this.”
“Seungpyo had nothing to do with the test!” Seungri shouts. The gun trembles violently in his hand. “But where is he, Alex? Where is my brother? He should be here with me. We’d never been apart until — How am I supposed to go on?”
“Dammit, Seungri. I’m sorry. Shit, I’m so sorry. It’s my fault.”
“It is,” Seungri says. His hands are shaking so hard he has to use both to hold the gun. It doesn’t matter if his aim is off. A fission blast will wipe out anything in an eight-centimeter radius from the gun. “That’s why I’m going to kill her. So you know what it’s like to lose someone you love.”
“Ama,” Tera calls softly from across the table. The girls look at each other.
“Seungri-yah, please,” Alex says, desperate now. “Take it out on me. Kill me.”
Seungri’s eyes go dull. “This is for Seungpyo.”
It happens in a flash, literally. The fission gun goes off. A huge beam of concentrated nuclear energy aimed straight at Ama, and it . . . stops.
Midair, the beam stops.
It’s being held back by an even greater force. Ama’s eyes burn green.
Seungri stumbles back. “What the hell?”
Tera shouts, “Now, Jaewon!”
I have no idea what’s going on. My mind is in a panic. Still, I don’t hesitate, trusting Tera to know what she’s doing. I rush for Ama and knock her to the floor. The beam explodes forward, flaring over me. I can feel the heat of it against my back. It burns a massive hole in the nearest wall, which fizzles out.
Turning, I see Tera snap Seungri’s wrist. He drops the gun. She catches it, disables the mechanism, and throws it onto the table.
Ama’s unconscious beneath me. Did she stop the beam with her mind?
“Ama!” Alex shouts, and I move aside to let him take her in his arms.
I wonder if Koga knows Ama has that kind of power. If he did, wouldn’t he promote it to the sponsors? Tera knew — she’d called out to Ama right before Seungri released the blast.
Do the girls have powers they’re keeping from the scientists?
Gasps and screams behind me. I turn see Tera punching Seungri in the face. Her eyes blaze blue.
Shit.
“Tera!” I shout. “Don’t!”
But she either can’t hear me, or she refuses to listen. Something has taken ahold of her. This must be what Koga and she herself had warned me about, an effect of the Enhancer manifesting in violence and an inability to think clearly.
I rush over and grab her by the shoulder. She backhands me across the chest. I fly backward and crash into a table.
I wipe blood from my mouth. Damn, she’s strong. I haven’t physically fought her, not in the Real. In the simulation, her Enhanced strength must not have carried over, because it wasn’t like this. If she’s hitting Seungri at half the strength she just used on me, he’s not going to make it. I stumble forward and grab her from behind again. She spins in my arms, raising her fist. I do the only thing I can think to do — I get in close and wrap my arms tighter around her. She struggles, but I hold tight. My hot breaths rake against her ear. “Stop,” I say. “You’re going to kill him.”
Seungri lies on the floor, unconscious.
I can feel Tera’s heart racing against my own. “He was going to kill Ama,” she says, her voice cold, lethal.
“I know. It was wrong of him, but he’s not himself right now.”
She growls. “That’s no excuse.”
“You’re right. It isn’t. But he lost his brother, and he believes it was Alex’s fault. There’s nothing that makes what he did right. But he’s subdued. What makes you want to hurt him now?”
She wants to hurt him — I can feel it. I want to hurt him too, for what he’s done. But neither of us are killers. She needs to have the time to think.
While the staff rushes in to secure Seungri, I hold her until her heartbeat slows, until her breaths lengthen and deepen. One server is on the phone. Hotel security is approaching through the lobby in the distance, which means NSK forces aren’t far behind. I lean back to see her eyes are no longer blue, but brown, warm and beautiful.
And then I notice her arm. “Shit.” The beam must have raked across it during the release. Her whole upper arm is bleeding and charred at the edges. “We need to get you to a medic.”
I’m freaking out, but she remains calm. Her eyes sweep my face. I wince. She really did a number on me. The kidnapping thugs were nothing compared to one hit from Tera.
“Jaewon-ah?” Tera asks, anxious.
Alex hobbles toward us, having managed to get an unconscious Ama bala
nced on his back. “We need to get out of here,” he says, “if we don’t want to have to answer a million questions.”
That’s when we hear them, sirens approaching from outside the hotel.
22
Dreams
Despite the restaurant manager’s objections, Alex takes us out the back door of the restaurant and calls over his car. We pile in. Alex lays Ama down on the two-seater. She’s small enough that with her knees curled, she fits comfortably. The rest of us collapse on the long end, Tera in the middle.
We head to Alex’s house since we have to go there anyway, and he says he has a medical room.
We’re quiet, lost in thought. I feel guilty, leaving Seungri unconscious on the floor, but the police will arrive soon, and they’ll take him to a hospital. The Tower will cover up our involvement, no doubt, although I’m not looking forward to reaping the consequences of our actions, whatever they may be. If it’s corporal, I can take it. If it’s a dismissal . . .
I look over at Tera. Her eyes are closed, and she holds a cloth napkin from the restaurant over her wound. If the consequence is a dismissal, I don’t know what I’ll do — just the thought of leaving her now gives me a sinking feeling in my chest.
The car takes us southwest out of the city and up into the mountains. I’m surprised that Alex lives outside the Dome — no one I know with Neo Seoul citizenship does. We drive up to a gate that scans Alex’s car before opening.
The mansion itself is built into the side of the mountain, a mixture of modern and classical architecture, glass and wood and steel. The car self-parks in the driveway, and Tera and I put Ama, still unconscious, onto Alex’s back. Technically Tera is the strongest of us, but Alex insists on carrying her, and Tera has a massive burn wound on her arm.
We enter the house through a side door. The lights are all off inside. If Alex has servants, they don’t appear. It’s likely all automated. And there’s no sign of his father. To the left, orange and yellow light from the sunset seeps into the house through floor-to-ceiling windows.
Alex moves soundlessly across the wood-paneled floor before shouldering into a room off the kitchen. Automatic lights flicker on. It’s a state-of-the-art medical facility. The cabinets appear well-stocked, and there’s a low bed at the center of the room. This is where Alex heads, gently setting Ama down and tucking a throw blanket around her shoulders.
The room also has a fully stocked refrigerator and a large-screen television. There are several maid-and-butler bots in the corner, which, when powered on, are programmed to assist and clean. A person could survive an apocalypse in here.
“Do you get injured a lot?” I joke.
Alex tenses, his shoulders hunching slightly. Immediately I regret my words, reminded of the few times I’ve seen him with inexplicable injuries. “It’s good to be prepared,” he says evenly.
He motions Tera forward to check her upper arm. The napkin placed over the wound is soaked with blood. Slowly, Alex eases it back, revealing the clotted wound beneath. He picks up a bottle of saline on a side table and uses it to irrigate the wound. Blood washes away.
He frowns. “Does this hurt?”
Tera bites her lip, looking a bit sheepish. “No.”
He pours water onto a towel and wipes the rest of the blood away to reveal her skin beneath. It’s unblemished. Smooth. No sign of the burn from the fission gun.
She shrugs. “Regeneration.”
“That’s . . .” Alex searches for the right word. “Useful.”
It’s my turn next. I peel back my shirt, and Tera wraps my ribs with MediTape while Alex sticks me forcefully with remedy patches. Afterward, we gather around Ama and watch the slow rise and fall of her chest.
“Maybe we should take her back to the Tower,” I say. This might be beyond our scope of understanding.
“No,” Tera says. “This has happened before. Not this exactly, but where her powers have overwhelmed her into unconsciousness. It’s a kickback from stopping the blast. She just needs rest.”
We take Tera’s lead on this. She grew up with Ama; she’d know what’s best for her friend.
“I’ll stay with Ama,” Alex says. “You two should wash up. There’s a bathroom next to this room. Tera, you can use that. And down the hall is my room.” He nods at me. “Pick out a dress shirt from the closet. We still have to go to that party tonight.”
“Ah.” I’d forgotten about the party. So much for our tailor-made suits.
Alex walks over to one of the cabinets and pulls out a pair of sweats. He hands them to Tera. “They might be a little big, but they’ll be more comfortable than what you’re wearing.”
She nods and takes the clothing.
Outside in the hall, I hesitate. I want to ask Tera if she’s all right — beyond the burn wounds which she can apparently regenerate from. She almost killed a person today, which must be weighing on her, especially when what she fears most is her own history of violence. I want to tell her, You stopped, and that’s what matters. But maybe she doesn’t need to hear my thoughts — just needs space for her own.
Tera nods at me and heads into the bathroom. I find Alex’s room at the end of the hall. A great fish tank dominates the middle of the room, casting everything in eerie shades of blue and green.
I step into Alex’s closet — it’s twice the size of my apartment — grab a shirt, and head into the bathroom. I take a slow shower, letting the heated water sluice over my cuts and bruises. My thoughts wander to the day, the morning with the gangsters, the day with Tera and Ama, the dinner, Seungri’s face as he held the gun. I think of Tera, how she wanted to hurt Seungri, to kill him, but stopped herself. I think of her, showering only a few meters down the hall. I turn the knob from hot to cold, and finish up quick.
Towel-drying my hair, I put my clothes back on with Alex’s borrowed shirt. In the hall, I notice the door to the guest bathroom is open.
“Tera?” I ask. When she doesn’t answer, I peek in to see the bathroom’s empty. The mirrors are fogged, indicating she finished not too long ago. In the medic room, Alex has fallen asleep on a chair next to Ama’s bed, his head resting on the pallet beside her hand. I give the rest of the room a cursory glance, but Tera’s not here.
I search the house, the rooms we walked through when we first entered, the kitchen. I’m moving through the back of the house when I see it. A sliding door is edged open, cool air whistling through the crack. I step through it onto a balcony. It overlooks the cities — Old Seoul and Neo Seoul.
The city. Seoul. For a moment, I just stare at it. My home. All those lights. All those people. Slowly I walk to the balustrade. My eyes are drawn to a gazebo a little way below, stone steps leading down the hill from the side of the balcony. A familiar figure sits on a bench inside the gazebo, knees pulled up to her chest.
Tera.
“You look comfy,” I say, approaching her in the gazebo. She’s wearing the sweats, rolled up at her elbows and knees.
She pats the bench beside her. “Have a seat.”
It’s already fast approaching 1800, and the sky has darkened. The blue of the Dome stretches over the city, like a ghostly planet fallen to the earth. I don’t know where Alex’s father is. He said the Director isn’t leaving his home recently due to security concerns, so he must be around here somewhere. Still, I don’t think about it too hard. Not when Tera sits beside me, peaceful. The wind catches her hair and flicks it against my shoulder.
“Jaewon-ah,” she asks, “where do you live?”
I point a finger to the nearest district across the river. “Mapo-gu, Hapjeong-dong. In a small apartment.”
“By yourself?”
“For the past two years.”
“And before that?”
“I was in a gang. I lived with the other members.”
She looks at me. “But not anymore?”
I shrug. “I
left the gang.” My hair, still wet from the shower, feels cold against my neck.
She’s quiet for a moment. “Is it hard? To leave?”
“For me it was. But I had to do it. I thought — I thought I wanted something more.”
Tera rests her chin on her knees. “Tsuko says that’s the problem with humans. They want things. It drives them to do the unthinkable — to kill, to fight, to die.”
I hate to agree with Tsuko, but he’s right. The NSK is proof of the first. They kill to keep the power they’ve established. The rebels are proof of the second. They fight to gain back what they believe they have lost — their homeland, their country. My father is proof of the last.
An airship streaks a vapor trail across the skyline. The sun dips low behind the eastern mountains, until it disappears altogether, leaving only darkness. But not for long. All across the valley, lights flicker on until the city is a sky with multicolored stars.
It’s beautiful from far away.
It’s beautiful from up close too, if you know where to look.
I know what I’d see if I were to zoom into the city. In Old Seoul, the bridge cart ajumma, brandishing her wooden spoon at the metalworkers who come to have a drink and a smoke after work. In Neo Seoul, Bora tugging Minwoo to some concert or shopping district, laughing as her wig slips from her head.
But from up here, it’s like I can see them both at the same time, the distance between them so small as to be nonexistent.
Beside me, Tera drops her legs from the bench. She taps her feet lightly against the wooden slats. “In war, do you think people are born on a side?” A lantern in the gazebo flickers on. It must be on a timer, or maybe have a sun sensor.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m a government weapon. That means that I was made for war, a specific side of it. But for most people, you are born, you become someone, and then you choose. I just . . .” She leans forward. “I think — I think I’m becoming someone. Right now. Right at this moment.”