Tesseracts Twelve: New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction

by Claude Lalumiere

  “Oh, Little Brother,” Big Myoung said, aloud for once. “What’ll we do?”

  “What’s wrong, Elder Brother?” Jang Won looked around at all the long faces, wondering if maybe everyone had heard about his mother already. The Junior Sisters of Not-Inconsiderable Vengeance — the toughest team on staff — gazed over at him, dark runny mascara trails beneath their eyes. Men he’d worked with for years sat hunched at their desks in rumpled suits and sagging uniforms, looking broken-spirited.

  “Park Jang Won! Manager Park! Come into my office now, please,” a Director Lee’s voice boomed from the intercom system.

  Jang Won braced himself as he passed rows of desks and depressed shoopahs. On the way, he caught a glimpse of a newspaper headline:

  KIM NOH WANG RELEASED FROM LG CUSTODY! NEW SUNSHINE POLICY DIRECTIVE STRAIGHT FROM PRESIDENT!

  Jang Won gaped but didn’t break stride. Sunshine! Wonjjang bristled. He’d never believed the policy would actually be enacted — hell, “policy” wasn’t even the word for it! The strategy boggled his mind: what was the point of being nice to North Korea, whether they cooperated or threatened war? Just hoping that they wouldn’t keep their promise to turn Seoul into a sea of fire? It made no damned sense at all. He’d laughed off the looming threat of the policy as mere rhetoric, just campaigning, but now his worst nightmare had come true. He had no idea how a shoopah was supposed to save the world by just being nice.

  “Welcome, Team Manager Park,” Director Lee greeted him mildly as he entered the office. “Please sit down.” He gestured at the chair in front of his desk, and it slid back. Lee had powerful telekinetic powers, but Jang Won had never seen him use them before. It was mildly unsettling.

  “Thank you, Director Lee,” he said without sitting, “but I believe time is of the essence. My mother has been kidnapped and…”

  Lee wasn’t listening. “We’re downsizing our office, and bringing in new blood to change our operational dynamics and image here at LG Shoopahs Division. I wanted to announce it last night, but it was decided that we should have one last wonderful night together before announcing it.” Lee eyed him on that word, wonderful, and Jang Won knew he’d made the night just a little less wonderful. He remembered enough to know that much. “However, in your case, there is a special consideration…”

  “Director Lee! My mother’s been kidnapped!” Jang Won’s eye strayed to a framed photo on the wall behind Lee, showing the director twenty years younger, in his famous white robes, shaking the hand of the last dictator to rule South Korea, that bastard Chun. “What happened to the security—”

  “Ah, yes. Cutbacks on familial security protocols proceeded last week. You were supposed to make your own provisions. Didn’t you receive that memo?”

  “What memo?”

  “About three weeks ago.”

  “I was in Thailand then. Undercover, remember?”

  “Oh, how unfortunate,” Lee said. “But I’m sure it was emailed to you…”

  “I was tracking the world’s most dangerous criminal mastermind. I was busy.”

  “Well, you really should check your email every day, Employee Park. In any case, I regret to inform you that due to the recent shift in direction of government policy in terms of Inter-Korean relationships…”

  “How am I going to get my mother back?”

  “…LG cannot afford to keep you on staff at the present. Especially since the North Korean Government has specifically demanded that you be fired.”

  “But they’re the North Korean Government!” Jang Won pleaded. “Of course they want me fired. My team’s caught half their supervillains…”

  “Jang Won … please be reasonable. We all know these people are not nice guys. Do we have to actually call them ‘supervillains’? Because you’re the leader of the team who captured Kim Noh Wang, I have no choice. It’s just … the current political climate, you understand. Besides, using local shoopahs isn’t really economical anymore. Not with all the mutation experiments in China and Myanmar, and the toxic spills and nuclear waste facility accidents in Shenyang, Nepal, Tibet … Nepalese shoopahs work for wages no Korean shoopah would ever accept,” Lee sighed. “It’s modern economics.”

  “But…” Jang Won could see it clearly, again: E-Gui swooping in to save Kim Noh Wang’s life. He felt sick to his stomach. “This is ridiculous! Whatever politicians say, isn’t our job to defend the our people against those crazy Nork…”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Park, but that’s an old-fashioned sentiment. I can understand that coming from some of the more senior members of the team, believe me. But you should know better. What do you think would happen to our industry, let alone our economy, if we really manage to knock the Kim regime to its knees? This isn’t a political issue. It’s a practical one. I realize it’s not easy. And that you were hoping for a promotion, dealing with all these difficult foreigners on your team,” he said with a serious, don’t you see? nod. “For now, I suggest you think about the long term. Maybe once the storm blows over…”

  “How am I going to get my umma back?” Jang Won yelped. Which, after all, was also a practical issue, as far as he was concerned.

  “Shouting and screaming won’t help. I can’t do anything: your team members’ contracts are already cancelled! They’re downstairs in the HRM office right now, signing off on the cancellations and collecting their severance pay. As for me, I’m too busy dealing with the embarrassment you’ve caused us. Not just having to release Kim, but … by the way, you know, there was no chicken plague in the bomb in the first place. It was aerosolized chicken broth. We’re done here, Mr. Park.” Lee shrugged. “You have until the end of the day to clean out your desk.”

  Director Lee, finished, turned his attention back to his computer screen. Jang Won rose to leave, but just before exiting he turned and said, “I have to go find my mother. May I return later today to clear out my desk?”

  “No problem,” Lee said. “Security won’t be instructed to bar you until tomorrow, when your resignation is publicly announced.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Jang Won said politely, hurrying out.

  5. San Is Means Mountain

  Jang Won sat on the hard bench, waiting patiently through the understaffed lunch hour as one of the two bureaucrats behind the desk fiddled with his pen and the other argued with a white man in a suit. The official could speak English, but not very well, and the foreigner couldn’t speak Korean at all. After a little urgent begging and shouting, the foreigner was dismissed with a handful of papers.

  “Next,” the woman behind the desk said, looking around the shoulder of the white guy in the business suit.

  “But this is a matter of life and death!” he tried, but already the next person in line had surged forward, paperwork in hand. The businessman sighed returned to the benches to peer at the forms.

  The Ministry of Super-Powered Justice and Social Harmony was stuffy on that hot autumn afternoon. Stacks of forms and records were piled up precariously on every available surface. Fans whirred behind the bank of public servants’ desks, and with each pass the papers fluttered weakly as if threatening to revolt and scatter, if only they could throw off their paperweights. Everyone on the benches sat with stony, waiting faces, their eyes trained on their shoes, on the confusing required forms, and on the LED wall-display that showed which numbers were being served. Behind the desk, a Korean businessman was chatting with a higher-level administrator in hushed tones. A scruffy-looking, long-haired Westerner with Canadian flags sewn onto his leather jacket and his backpack was arguing with another agent at the front door — in barely understandable Korean — that bicycle theft was life-threatening, insisting that the Ministry dispatch a shoopah-team immediately to track his mountain bike down and retrieve it for him.

  Jang Won eyed his ticket, number 56. The LED displayed, in foreboding red, 23. At this rate, Halla Mountai
n would be long gone by the time he even talked to anyone. But he needed help, and didn’t dare ask his teammates, not after what he’d said in front of them. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. He could wait. Glancing around again, he saw the businessman consulting a pocket dictionary as he struggled through his paperwork.

  “Come here,” Jang Won said to the foreigner. “I’m help you.”

  “Me?” the man asked.

  “Yes, you. My number, the 56. I’m wait. So, I am can help you. You want?” The foreigner nodded and gathered up his things to move to a seat beside Jang Won.

  Here I go again…, he reproached himself silently. Why do I always have to save the day?

  The memory of his poor mother at the kitchen table, chopping carrots and asking him that exact question, flooded his mind. She’d wanted him to get a government job, to work for this very department he was now turning to for help. It’s stable, she’d insisted. It’s safer than working for a company! Is a desk job so bad? Is it so important that you actually beat up these crooks? She’d thumped the table with her hand, then. Who would marry a superhero, knowing he could die anytime? She’d finally forbidden it, but by then it was too late. He’d already signed a contract with LG. He felt a rush of guilt: nobody ever kidnapped a government paper-pusher’s mother.

  The foreign businessman sat down beside Jang Won and said, “Thanks!” When they shook hands, the foreigner politely gestured with his free hand as if he were holding back the sleeve of a robe. It was the height of good Korean etiquette, the kind of thing Jang Won figured most Westerners didn’t usually know enough to do.

  “Very polite,” Jang Won observed, taking the man’s paperwork and pen. “Do you live the Korea long time?”

  “No, only a few years. I’ve been too busy to learn the language, though. Besides, where I live, the dialect is unusual. I’ve been told there’s no point in learning it.”

  “Dialect?” Jang Won asked, shrugging. “What is dialect?”

  “I think the Korean word is … saturi,” the businessman said the Korean word awkwardly, and Jang Won nodded.

  “Where? Daegu City?”

  “No, Jeju Island,” he said. “I work for Samsung Supertronics. It’s the third time I’ve come in here in a month, you know. Every time, they’ve refused to send someone. ‘Increase security,’ they said. That didn’t help. The only remedy for supervillains is superheroes, right? This morning everyone in the lab was killed or kidnapped. I barely got away myself. And here I am again, filling out more paperwork.”

  “I see,” Jang Won said, nodding, and took down the businessman’s information. A month, he realized. This man had been waiting a month. Suddenly Jang Won wondered whether it would take them a month to do something about his mother, too. He got as far as the man’s name and foreigner ID registration when something clicked in his mind.

  “What’s your … moonjae, uh … how can I say…?” Jang Won asked.

  “Problem?” asked the foreigner.

  “Yes, prob-lem. What’s problem?”

  “Well, like I said, I’ve been working for Samsung. There’s a secret joint research lab on Jeju Island, where we’ve been researching a microcollider. Kind of like a small-scale, high-powered supercollider. It’s very useful for researching artificial superconductive…” The foreigner noticed that Jang Won wasn’t quite following. “Well, it’s very dangerous. It’s like, um … do you know what an atom is?” He sketched a picture of one on a scrap of paper.

  Jang Won nodded.

  “Imagine an atom with no nucleus.” He crossed out the sphere in the middle of the atom, leaving only electrons whirling in hollow orbits. “We have artificial matter: the electrons—” he pointed at the orbiting bits in the sketch, “—but no nucleus. So we can pack these fake atoms full of … energy, or other particles. They can store pure energy. And when they blow up…” Jang Won leaned forward “…It makes a very big boom.”

  “They can, uh, blowing up the Jeju Island?”

  The foreigner nodded.

  “Your lab … is it maybe … in the Halla-san?”

  The businessman swallowed hard. “Yes, Halla Mountain. How did you know that?”

  “Umma,” Jang Won mumbled softly, and he realized that Kim’s threat might be serious. Halla Mountain?

  Jang Won dug a business card out from his coat pocket and handed it to the man. “Sorry,” he said, pointing at the card. “Korea language only.”

  “It’s okay, I—”

  “I’m save your lab,” Jang Won said, hurrying toward the exit. He turned and added, “Maybe.” No sense in getting the guy’s hopes up.

  The businessman rose to his feet and called out, “Hey … thanks!” He had a doubtful look on his face but tried to smile.

  Jang Won bowed slightly, and then was out the door. He grabbed his phone from his back pocket. Out on the sidewalk, he quickly thumbed a message into his phone and hit send.

  THIS IS SUPERVISOR PARK: DON’T GO HOME! STAY AT OFFICE! I’M COMING ~~ EMERGENCY!!

  “…and that is why you’re all about to lose your jobs, and why they let Kim go,” Jang Won declared, his tone impassioned. He was standing on a chair in the middle of the office.

  “Now wait a minute…” said Director Lee loudly, trying to interrupt him.

  Jang Won ignored him. His team members were assembled around him, ready to protect him as he delivered his speech. “Earlier today, the morning after being released from custody, Kim Noh Wang and his thugs took over a secret laboratory on Jeju Island. They’re going to blow it up.”

  Murmurs spread throughout the office. Kevin’s voice was conspicuous, as he clarified with Neko what was going on.

  “That guy?” Kevin’s exasperation was obvious. “We just caught him, two days ago! Jesus, what the hell are you people doing here?” Kevin scowled, shaking his head in disbelief, and Neko patted him on the shoulder.

  “You see, even Blastman and Neko want to help stop this — and they’re not even Korean! How can we stand by and watch the Norks destroy our beautiful Jeju Island? Will there still be Sunshine when Jeju is gone?”

  “Manager Park!” Director Kim hollered at Jang Won, and this time the interruption silenced the crowd. “Anyone who aids Mr. Park in his illegal endeavour will be fired from LG with no pension, no chance of subsequent rehiring, and no settlement package…”

  “But,” Jang Won added, “you’ll be a real hero.”

  The silence was thick as dwenjang jjigae. Employment, or heroism? Jang Won sadly thought he knew how most people would choose. After all, he himself had chosen employment over heroism for many, many years.

  Just then, Keun Dwaeji stood.

  Everyone turned and watched in silence. A triumphant smile spread across Lee’s face when the pigman strode across the room toward Jang Won. His hooves clop, clop, clopped on the tiled floor, and, as he approached, his natural pig-grin straightened out, giving him a grim appearance. He got right up close to Jang Won, crossed his arms, and leaned forward to look him in the eye.

  “You really think you can handle this, kid?” Keun asked, stabbing a hoof sharply into Jang Won’s chest.

  Jang Won gulped, and said, “Yes, sir.” He braced himself, expecting Keun’s other hoof to slam into his face.

  As Keun turned away from him, Jang Won sighed a little. Keun would speak against him, and nobody would join Jang Won. His umma was doomed.

  “Well, well,” Keun said, and Lee’s face went deathly pale. Keun Dwaeji turned to the rest of the room, and said, “This unfortunately ill-mannered young fellow has woken up. Finally! I’ve been waiting years for someone around here to do that! After all my undercover trips to Pyongyang, after all the Norks I’ve captured, those gaesaeki are still running that country. And now it seems like almost nobody is willing to do anything about it. We’re helping them,” he indicted ev
eryone.

  The pigman cleared his throat, put his arm around Jang Won’s shoulder, and looked around at everyone’s shamefully lowered heads. “I’ll go to Jeju Island with you, kid. But I get first dibs on Kim Noh Wang. I’m gonna clobber that ugly little bastard to death.”

  The tide had turned. Director Lee was admonishing the staff, but nobody was listening. Keun was a leader … others would follow.

  Suddenly, Jang Won felt much more like Wonjjang again, like a real hero. “We’re going to borrow the choppers,” Wonjjang cried out, and a mob of them followed him up the roof, their cheers drowning out Director Lee’s protests. Nobody could stop them now.

  Hold on, Umma. Hold on.

  6. Like a Two Chopstick

  Ten stolen LG choppers hurtled southward across the peninsula in a scattered formation, with many more shoopahs flying alongside. They cast an imposing, mottled shadow on the ground below. Kids ran to schoolroom windows to catch a glimpse of them, and farmers looked up from their fields, waving happily, oblivious to the crisis but glad to see the shoopahs crossing the sky just the same.

  Wonjjang saw his homeland below in a way he never had before. This was the land he was fighting to save. Not just lines on a map, or an idea. These proud mountains, these tranquil rice fields and toiling townspeople below.

  “We need a plan,” Keun Dwaeji said, interrupting his reveries as the southern ocean crept into sight.

  “What do you suggest, sir?” Wonjjang asked politely.

  “Go in hard and beat the living crap out of them,” Keun Dwaeji said, without a hint of sarcasm. He caught Wonjjang’s eye, and added, “After all, that’s not what they’re expecting, is it?”

  “Sounds great!” said Blastman, and Neko nodded enthusiastically, flashing her claws and clapping with excitement.

  E-Gui shook his head. “I don’t think that’s such a good plan.”

  “Why’s that, young man?”

  “Unnecessarily wasteful,” E-Gui replied. “If we sacrifice too many people, we could lose out in the long run. It’s not wise.”