by Sunyoung Lee
CHAPTER 18
I’m making a revisit to the ward where Amelia is locked in and asked me to save her. I had totally forgotten about her. No, actually every time I reminded of her wan face, I convinced myself that it’s already too late to save her. She’s just going through an operation. She won’t die. It’s only her spirit that dies.
She looks up, feeling my presence. Her cheeks look gaunter than the last visit but, her eyes have turned tougher. I want to clap for her determination. She clenches her teeth and growls like some wounded beast. She seems to be mad at me. She must have been waiting for me to save her for a long time. I still feel relieved, believing I am not too late. Just before she gets up and jumps towards me, fixing her sharp, unpolished nails, I teleport out of the place.
I’m in someone’s office, sitting on a sofa.
“Tea or juice, hunter?” asks a voice.
I turn to see the hospital’s supervisor, Kelly. I shake my head no to anything. He still insists, placing a cup of tea at my side and sits across from me. He takes a sip of his juice. “Did you check her condition? She’s still fresh and rough, isn’t she? She has refused eating. And, of course, we didn’t give her any operation after receiving your call.”
“Good,” I say.
“So, how much is your price?”
I show him four fingers.
“Four?” he says, disappointed. “Come on, you trade with the Auction, don’t you?”
I quietly bring out four emerald buttons from my coat. Kelly fixes his eyes on those on my black palm. I grin and slowly spread them on the table. They shine beautifully from every angle.
“Facets are alive,” he says admiringly, looking at them closely. “Do you have any more gem buttons? Like ruby or sapphire…”
I put my hand inside my coat and take out a couple of colorful buttons.
“You even have a topaz! Can I touch it?”
I smile at his sparkling eyes and shake my head no. He leans back onto his sofa, crossing his arms as if pressing his desire down. He chews on his lower lip, looking into my eyes. He cocks his head a little and scrutinizes every facet of my face, just like looking into a precious gem.
“Listen, Mr. Hunter. I can supply you as many NTTs as you want. I can sell my patients. I heard MTT is already dealing with the Auction. It’s a huge market, I understand. Bidders come from all the timelines. Yeah, I’m willing to make a deal with you. STT isn’t flourishing with tourists anymore. I have to find my way to earn money,” Kelly says woozily and looks up. “So, do you want to check other patients as well?”
“I want only unaffected ones.”
He wrinkles his nose. Bullshit, then you had to tell me earlier. We already crammed them with heaps of folly genes!
“I accept any smart NTT,” I add, reading his mind.
“Difficult. We call them cockroaches. They hide well. They hide their intelligence.”
“Hunt all the roaches.”
Kelly touches his long brown hair as he ponders. “MTT already took most of them. Do you know any?”
“Cine Moon,” I say.
“The king cockroach?”
“Use him. Then his devotees will come out to the light.”
“Right… he came here once to meet Amelia. She’s one of his devotees.”
I stretch my hand to clasp my cup and put it back on the table, loudly, after gulping it down. Kelly looks at me, threatened.
“By the way, don’t touch him. He’s mine. My prey.”
CHAPTER 19
As soon as I wake up, I am eager to run to Hera and tell everything I saw and heard in my dream. But I have to be in MTT due to scheduled time travel mission this morning. I walk to the bathroom to take a shower, arranging my thoughts.
I was called as a hunter.
I had black hands.
Which means, I was not in Zeus’s body this time. I was inside a man who is going to hunt me. What is really going on? How did I reach my bedroom this time? Did Gascon transfer me again? Oh, the night was a nightmare itself. I was insane last night. I called Zeus to save me. What was he trying to do with my dream? Was it real or an illusion he concocted? Can I believe the dream? Why does he keep playing with my dreams?
I let cold water run over my body. It’s icy cold but, I don’t stop until I wake up fully. I hope my brain gives me a realistic analysis.
I stop the water and open my eyes. It’s a dream. It’s an illusion my brain made up.
But how can I explain Zeus and Nixie? His proposal seemed to be real. I was in his office. I became him and touched her and felt her… And she appeared in front of me the next day.
If my dream showed me the truth, what’s happening to Amelia now? The hunter bought her to sell at an auction. Auction? Is there an auction where they sell and buy NTTs in BTTs’ district? And they invite bidders from all timelines to sell us?
But Kelly mentioned STT isn’t flourishing with tourists anymore. Then where’s auction? Outside of STT?
I turn on the icy water, again, to cool down my fury. They are selling us in a slave auction where all timeliners attend.
Don’t get excited. It’s something you already knew. It’s only confirmed.
But why will the hunter buy only smart NTTs? Silly NTTs must be easier to handle. Do they want smart slaves? What if the slave is smarter than a master? What happens then? Before that, will there be anyone to buy a half-zombie like Amelia? What if she’s not sold? Will she be thrown away? Will the hunter have her? What kinds of work will she do? Will she be able to escape one day?
“Stop it Cine Moon!” I yap, hitting the wall. “She’s gone. There’s nothing you could do with her. That’s what Zeus wants to show me. He wants me to confirm this.”
So, it was a warning. He’s doing a countdown. He’s telling me my turn is closer.
CHAPTER 20
I check time on my watch after looking at the long line of soldiers in front of the Gel Shower room. It’s 6:30AM, thirty minutes before shooting. Soldiers should be ready in the Time Travel Vessel Shooting Hall by now.
“Why are they still here?” I grumble to myself, standing in the tail of the line.
Some soldiers see me and whisper to each other. I know what they are talking about. They must have seen me last night when I was crying on the floor or running and weeping at the same time or they are talking about my swollen eyes.
No one can return my authority and I have no will to do it. Let them ridicule me. It’s the real me. I cry harder than a baby. I get hurt easily. Sometimes I fall asleep in tears, missing my father. There’s no girl but Cine Moon in me. But what if they send me to Kelly’s mental hospital? I might have looked like an insane man last night.
When I take a step forward, I find there’s no one blocking my way anymore. I look up and see them all attaching their backs on walls, making a wide passage for me to pass. I blink, wondering what they had this breakfast and I walk through soldier-walled hallway, examining their faces. Who made them this alarmed?
And I find out, once I step inside the Gel room.
“Good morning, General Cooper,” I greet him as coldly as possible.
“Good morning, General Cine Moon,” he responds tersely, not even turning his head to me. He sounds perfectly emotionless. Good job Zeus. You successfully made your avatar. I press down my wrath and ask him, “Why are you naked?”
“I’m taking a bath. It’s a shower room anyway, isn’t it?” he says, scrubbing his buttocks sitting on a chair.
True, it was a common bath room for NTTs originally before it turned to be the Gel Shower room. The board did not bother to change the interior and just installed one gel shower booth for hundreds of us.
“Why don’t you let them have a gel shower first? They’ll be late otherwise.”
“That’s what I intend. That’s a punishment. They blocked my way. It’s a common sense no BTT lines up with NTTs.”
“So are you the one? Remember your born nature. You were one of us just yesterday.”
&nbs
p; Cooper looks up, irritated. “You better stop talking about yesterdays. We are living in today.”
He rises up, fixing his gaze at me and I see the chair he was sitting on was man-formed. A soldier is bending with his back flat. I see his arms tremble. Cooper walks toward me to go to a shower booth to remove bubbles away from his body.
“Stand up,” I order the soldier. He hears me but, straightens his arms instead.
“He knows who’s higher now,” Cooper says, passing by me.
I hear water falling down and a low hum behind my back. I turn back with fury and see a man standing near the door with Cooper’s uniform hung over his face. I tread and stand in front of him. I can see only his half nose and mouth but, perceive the man. There’s only one soldier who has those wise wrinkles.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m guarding the door, General,” says Gascon.
“How can you guard covering your eyes?” I say and remove the uniform out of his face at once. No mercy was left in my mind. That’s not the Cooper I used to know. He is now so rotten that he uses an older man as a hanger. I madly tramp toward him as he finishes showering. I clasp his upper arm and pull him as I walk to the opposite side. He struggles not to be dragged, pushing me away. I promptly trip him up with my foot and drag him on the stony floor, hearing his screams. I throw him under a gel shower booth and wildly toss his uniform onto his face. I try not to see his bloody legs and knees that were scratched by the rough floor.
“Make sure gel soaks every part of your body and clothes,” I say and punch a button with my fist. As gel gushes over his head, his clothes fall down and expose his furious eyes looking at mine. We share the glares until the gel stops pouring down.
“Enough. Next, Gascon!” I shout and check him walking towards me before turning back to Cooper. He has not moved an inch.
“What are you doing? Disappear! Disappear at once! I don’t want to see your face.”
I don’t want to see his face from you!
“I don’t…” I hold my tears soaring up. “I don’t need you anymore.”
He slowly gets up and peers down on my face. He seems like he’s gaining some more height after he became a GTT.
“You can’t order me what to do.” He says it word by word clearly, “You are below me. You better learn how to treat your superior, quickly.”
CHAPTER 21
I don’t know how I managed to take a seat on a TT vessel after having gel over my body. I believe Gascon helped me. I fainted, mentally, with extreme anger and shock. I now fully accept the fact. He changed. He totally transformed. He can’t come back.
“Oh, Zeus, it’s him!”
My conscious returns back at the name. Zeus. He’s here to destroy my life and every person around me. I knew his plan from the beginning when I first met him a half year ago. That’s when he came to MTT to join the army.
I was one of the judges interviewing him.
“My goal is to hunt every cockroach,” he answered to a question what he wanted to accomplish in MTT.
“Why?” I asked.
“Do I need a reason when I kill cockroaches?” he asked me back.
“I mean why should you do that in MTT? Why not police?”
He grinned at me before answering this: “Because here’s the head of them.”
Every judge gave him the best grade except me. I expressed my opposition with the grade rather than raising my voice that he’s a psycho. And in just six months he did a lot of hunting in and out of MTT. He is the number one devotee who sent most sinners to our infamous Justice Judge Noir who tortures the sinner with various ways before ending their lives. He also has become a leader of BTT Generals in that short period of time. He seemed to have removed some of the formal Generals with his hands and filled his side with new bloods like Ares, Bacchus, Venus and other Generals who named themselves after Greek gods or goddesses to prove their loyalty to him.
He chose to squeeze my throat gradually rather than slaying me at once. He started with reducing my authority in MTT. I used to be one of the judges, when interviewing new recruits whether they were BTTs or NTTs, before he appealed the board that it is an insult to a BTT to be judged by an NTT like me.
He made more strict rules for NTTs and considered complainers as sinners. None of them came back after they were sent to the courtroom. And finally he removed people around me one by one. I didn’t know them by name but, as my devotees. I am glad no one yearns for my thumb but, I worry what on earth happened to them.
“Excuse me? General Cine Moon?”
I look up at the voice to find a young soldier standing in front of me.
“Can I sit next to you?” he asks me.
He quickly sits on my right once I nod yes.
“Father, he’s here! Cine Moon’s here!”
I turn to my left at the thin voice which sounds like a child before puberty. A juvenile soldier pushes a big round hand mirror onto my face. I see a man’s face instead of mine.
“Good morning, General! I can’t believe we are video-phoning like this!” he says, deeply impressed. “I’m watching you with my sons!”
The screen divides into half and shows my face between two boy soldiers’ in the half. I look blank compared to their happy faces. The younger one keeps calling Zeus and Zeus with excitement. It seems like some soldiers call his name when they are surprised or shocked. I only hope they don’t do this in front of him.
“Oh, General, you have to know how much I admire you. I’m running a pub and your posters are everywhere,” he says and turns the videophone to show me inside his pub.
What a crazy interior. I am hung over every wall and one of them is painted with my portrait. I’m posing like one of the Zeus’s troupe wearing a crown of ivy. Every table has three Cine Moon dolls, no, they are sugar, salt and vinegar bottles. And my manikin stands near the entrance to welcome customers.
Oh, Zeus.
He smiles at my shocked face. “And you will be even more surprised if you know my boys’ names.”
I swallow. Please don’t tell me. I think I know them. I send him an earnest glance.
“Yes, they are Cine and Moon!”
Cine and Moon. Oh, Venus!
Venus is another expression being used among NTT soldiers. I think I can’t hold it any longer. I’m too embarrassed with the beautified me.
“I have to go,” I tell him rapidly. “It was nice to meet you.”
“Thank you very much, sir. Hope my sons become like you one day. They are already my heroes joining MTT army,” he says.
I nod and pass the video phone to Cine, the older boy. I look down and repeat the conversation I just shared with him in my mind. I check if I mentioned anything against BTTs. None. But my last words “It was nice to meet you” can be a problem. If I am fortunate, they may accept it just as an expression. The worst scenario is that they may think I was really glad to meet my admirer and would track him down to remove him.
“General,” Cine says on my right after turning off his phone. “Is it true that you hate us? Why do you hate us? We all love you. We all became soldiers to be like you.”
I want to answer that is exactly what I hate about myself. I don’t want to be the one to attract young boys into MTT army.
“We call that Cine Moon syndrome that every boy wants to be next you! My father fed us gallons of milk so we could get into the army earlier. I’m taller than boys in my senior years,” says Moon.
“How old are you?” I ask him.
“I’m thirteen.”
“Thirteen in the army?” I repeat myself, taken aback. This is crazy.
“It’s not an ordinary army. It’s time travelers’ army!” says Cine excitingly.
Yes, we exist for them but, you can’t ever be a real time traveler unless you surrender them like Cooper, I think bitterly.
“Now tell me how to be a General,” says Moon, shining his eyes. I almost burst out at his seriousness. His naughtiness reminds me of Cooper.
“You want my advice?” I ask.
He nods eagerly. His brother also leans toward me as well.
“Leave MTT as soon as possible before you’re bewitched,” I whisper, hoping they understand my twist.
Moon pauses and whispers back, “I think I’m already bewitched! I love MTT!”
Alright… It’s my fault to overestimate you. Or is he acting, knowing the board is watching us?
Bars come down. We grip the bars and hear the announcement the vessel will be shot in a minute.
“You know what?” says Moon. “It’s my first time to go out of STT. I’m so excited.” Then he smiles as if nervous. I stare, thinking maybe it isn’t that bad to be a MTT soldier despite that we are mostly sent to wars as secret warriors.
“I’m not going to be a General only,” Moon adds. “I’ll be the head of MTT so I can change the rules they made to lock us up. I’ll do that before my father dies so I can take him out of STT and show him the bigger world.”
“Stop.”
That’s just one word I need to say but, my lips don’t move. I look up at the ceiling with fear. There are invisible cameras everywhere.
What the boy had just said was “taboo”.
CHAPTER 22
“Wake up! You must wake up before the vessel takes us back to MTT!”
I open my eyes to the voice waking me up. But there’s no one around me. I stand up but, soon fall down on the floor feeling dizzy.
Where am I? I look around but things are turning, turning and turning around. Someone grabs my hand and talks to me with an anxious voice. “General, he’s not waking up. I’m afraid he left his soul between timelines! What should we do?”
What I can see is only a mouth. A large mouth with thick lips circling in a marbling…
Instant wooziness occasionally visits me after time travel. It is a light TT sickness. Some people lose some body parts during time travel. Some people lose their life as the souls get separated from bodies during travel. We call that leaving one’s soul between timelines.
I hear a sharp sound ahead and feel a burning pain on my cheek the next second. It was a slap on my face. “General Moon! I haven’t learned how to bring back the lost soul! He’s old and tired. Gascon will die if we don’t help!”