Oh no, Wonjjang thought as he bounced and shot upward again into the air. Poor, simpleminded Laotzu: he looked terrified, shivers of panic rippling through his massive body of jade and uncut stone and barky wood. Laotzu was great for pounding heads and busting through reinforced steel doors, but he was not the guy you wanted stuck handling a deadly viral bomb.
But E-Gui turned up just then to help. A band of ladyboys had burst past Blastman. They rushed toward Laotzu, but E-Gui—Ghost, the Chinese member of Wonjjang’s shoopah-team—appeared suddenly, half-dematerialized, and swooped among them. One by one they dropped dead as his ghostly hand squeezed their beating hearts into bloody paste.
Wonjjang turned his attention back to his hostage. He slapped Kim across the face one more time, and sternly shouted, “You have a choice.” His voice boomed against the rushing air around them. “Tell me the passcode, or I feed you the bomb and let Blastman burn you alive!”
Kim smirked and grabbed for Wonjjang’s suit, but his pudgy little arms couldn’t quite reach. Finally, he tucked them behind his back like a general inspecting his troops, a ridiculous bid for authority.
Kim shook his head. “Why are you supporting people who don’t want to help us? We’re brothers! If you would—” His harsh Northern accent grated.
Suddenly, Wonjjang lashed out, cursing: “E saekiya! You think I’m allied with enemies of the Korean people?” He changed tack, clubbing Kim’s body with his fists. Real punches, this time, not interrogation strikes. He roared even louder: “You think they’re bad for Korea? Who the hell do you think is going to get sick, you sshipsaeki? Your plague is going to kill the whole world!” They slowed through the apex of his upward final bound and began to descend toward the ground, but they were still three-quarters of a kilometre up.
“You have no pride!” Kim Noh Wang orated, raising his arms dramatically. “Your flunkyist government couldn’t even make you fly, like the American capitalist-dog superheroes! No, all you can do is bounce … like that stupid tiger in the Windy Boo Bear cartoon! Free yourself, Wonjjang! Join with your Northern brothers! Help us … instead of running around with American and Japanese bastar—”
Wonjjang had stopped listening, his eyes focused on the ground. E-Gui’s ghostly form swept through the machine. Wonjjang had seen him do this before; he knew that every circuit within it was being fried, the timer and explosives rendered inert. He sighed in relief when E-Gui drifted away moments later and Laotzu placed the bomb carefully on the ground and tore into it.
Wonjjang turned his attention to the supervillain in his clutches. “Hey, Kim,” he said, “looks like I don’t need that passcode after all.”
Kim’s pleading became an inarticulate shriek as Wonjjang lifted him up over his head and flexed his muscles. The South Korean hero was well beyond feeling fed up with his Nork nemesis. How many more times could he be allowed to escape and threaten the world? Just in the past month, Kim had flooded downtown Busan with radioactive sewage, sent an army of killer robots across the DMZ, and now had nearly dropped a chicken-plague bomb that could have wiped out everyone in Southeast Asia. Enough! And if that insane Sunshine Policy passed into law Kim would become untouchable.
Wonjjang was going to kill the little prick. Now, while he still could. That stupid bouffant hairdo: he would make a fashionable corpse. He aimed at a Starbucks hidden in an alley off the main road.
In a single, almost-graceful motion, he hurled Kim downward. Hard.
“It’s ‘Windy the Pooh Bear,’ by the way,” he called after Kim, and then pondered which kind of a coffee to order after he landed on his enemy’s tangled, mashed remains. Iced Café Mocha, he decided, hoping a reporter would snap a shot of him enjoying coffee from an American chain. It’d pass without comment in Seoul, but Pyongyang would be in hysterics.
Just then, a blurry streak of grey-white slammed into the little madman and bore him through the air. Wonjjang’s cheer of joy at killing the evil twerp—“Aaaaa-ssaaaaaah … !”—faded as the streak headed toward the waiting shock-cages a few blocks away. The Madman of Pyongyang would live to fight another day, Wonjjang realized with a disheartened sigh.
E-Gui. Damn him back to China! He had saved the malignant little dwarf’s life, hairdo and all.
Wonjjang landed on his feet in front of the Starbucks and hurried out into the carnage that covered the main road. All around him, Nork thugs and minions lay scattered on the ground, groaning. Injured ladyboys and monks staggered off into the night, and the street was otherwise deserted except for a few dreadlocked Westerner hippies dressed in faux-traditional fluorescent Thai outfits, snapping pictures with their digital cameras and chatting excitedly.
A flash lit up the dark street. It came from down at the far end, where Neko had been battling Iron Monkey. Lightning blasts alternated with maniacal chittering, and the monkey woman’s voice rang out: “You can’t catch me, mister!” Another flash lit up the street.
Wonjjang hurried toward Laotzu and found him standing absolutely still, balancing in his hand a single perfectly round crystal sphere.
Within it swam a yellowish cloud: Kim’s chicken plague. Wonjjang sighed in relief. The sphere was intact.
Neko and Blastman hurried over. As they approached, Wonjjang gave Neko a furtive once-over. Her skintight plush white catsuit and cute pointy-eared helmet were dripping with gore. She glanced in the direction of the shock cages, but by now Kim would be on his way to the airport, waiting to be deposited into the reinforced cargo hold of their company jet. Wonjjang wondered if she’d seen him catch Kim at all, whether she knew that he was the one who’d softened the monster up.
He imagined her turning to him, congratulating him on capturing Kim, giving him a nice hug and a kiss. They could retire from enforcement, get a nice apartment in Seoul, and he could spend his days at a desk, doing shoopah policy analysis and enjoying his beautiful, Japanese ex-heroine wife. Who cared if she couldn’t cook Korean food? His mother would send them kimchi. It’d be perfect.
Except.
Except that it was toward Blastman that Neko turned her adoring eyes. Blastman: a blond American hero with a gigantic B insignia on his muscular chest, shining bright for all to see. Neko grabbed his hand and squeezed it, smiling broadly.
Wonjjang grumbled, “Where is Iron Monkey?”
“She got away!” Neko declared. “It’s my fault, boss. If it weren’t for Blastman, I’d be dead right now,” she said, and, giving his hand another squeeze, she looked up into his big blue eyes. “He saved my life!”
Blastman gave Neko a peck on the cheek. “You’re welcome,” he said with a broad, perfect-toothed smile.
Suddenly Wonjjang wanted nothing more than a night alone, drinking in a soju tent in the alleyway warrens of downtown Seoul.
2. A Hero’s Your Welcome Home The flight home to Seoul was short enough—it only took a couple of hours thanks to LG Corporation’s private superjet—but it was tense all the way.
Wonjjang got a head start typing up his official report. Meanwhile, Laotzu gulped down as many complimentary cans of Pocari Sweat as he could hold down, his eyes riveted to the TV; he and E-Gui were watching some horrible epic kung fu flick. A few seats up, Blastman sipped some fancy Scotch whiskey mixed with Coca-Cola and made quiet conversation with Neko in highly idiomatic English. He was a country boy; when he relaxed, his speech became almost incomprehensible to anyone who wasn’t fluent.
Wonjjang stopped straining to listen in after a while—it was no use, his English just wasn’t good enough to understand Blastman’s prattle like Neko could. But he heard enough laughter and “Totally!” out of Neko to know that she was as charmed as ever. As if to punctuate the hopelessness of understanding more than that, Wonjjang’s phone chirped loudly, announcing the arrival of a text-message. He flipped his phone open.
NO PRESS CONFERENCE, read the terse order from Head Office. No explanation.
After an operation of this magnitude? That was more than strange. For the millionth time, he wo
ndered when he’d be promoted to a position in LG where he’d be let in on anything at all. He braced himself for a moment, holding in his own mounting frustration.
“Everybody!” he said loudly, bouncing to his feet. The others looked up. “No press conference at Incheon Airport,” he announced, flatly. Managerially. What else could he say?
The disappointment was palpable. No press conference, after catching Kim Noh Wang, the biggest supercriminal in Asia? Surely this was a mistake! This was the kind of operation that made a career! They’d already changed into clean uniforms! Wonjjang understood how they felt, but what could he do?
After a few moments, Blastman asked, “But can we talk to the press? Individually?”
“Okay,” said Wonjjang, smiling at the idea of a workaround. No press conference, but they could chat with the reporters. Head office probably wouldn’t like it, but this was a ridiculous directive. Better to follow it to the letter, but to give his team some slack. “Go ahead, but keep it off the record,” Wonjjang said, and went to the jet’s bar to mix himself a drink.
Suddenly, he felt a presence behind him. He turned to look, bottle of whiskey still in one hand and a glass in the other.
It was E-Gui. “Nice assist, today,” the Chinese shoopah said ominously in fluent Korean.
“Uh, thanks,” Wonjjang gave a slight, cautious nod, not so deep as to be deferential to his subordinate but enough to suggest he was more appreciative than he really was. “Do you want one?” he asked, holding up the liquor bottle.
“Thank you,” E-Gui nodded, and picked up a glass, holding it out politely with his right hand. He smiled awkwardly.
Wonjjang stared tensely at him for a moment, and then said, “Why did you catch him?”
“Mmm?” E-Gui sipped his drink.
“Kim Noh Wang. Why did you catch him? Nobody would have shed any tears if he’d died back there. It would probably have been great for our careers, even. What were you thinking?”
E-Gui blinked, unmoved. “You’re not very politically aware, are you?”
Wonjjang couldn’t say anything then, because it was true. If he’d known his way around a meeting, he might have avoided being saddled with the job of managing a bunch of foreigners when LG had signed up for those friendly exchange-and-training deals with the Asian and North American branches of the World Superheroes’ Cooperative Association. Instead, Wonjjang had found himself cursing the WSCA for years, with their silly pipe dreams of international shoopah coordination and friendship. What did it get you? Chinese shoopahs stepping in and saving Norks, that’s what.
“I heard a rumour and … well, trust me, I did you a favour,” E-Gui said, and leaned forward, adding softly, “And if any footage turns up you’d better say you accidentally dropped him.” The Chinese mutant gave Wonjjang a wry smile.
Wonjjang raised his glass to his lips, ready to swallow down his resentment. But before he could sip it, E-Gui raised his Jack and Coke in a mock toast.
“To caution,” the Chinese shoopah said, and after an awkward little bow he turned and walked away.
Wonjjang shook his head but didn’t say anything. Then he returned to the cabin and to the mellifluous sound of Neko laughing at another of Blastman’s jokes.
Wonjjang shook his head, sat down, knocked back half his cocktail in one shot, and reclined his seat back as far as it would go.
“You first, Neko,” Wonjjang said. Plush and white and furry, her catsuit was also fitted perfectly to her body, highlighting both the curves and the rippling muscles beneath.
“Uh, thanks … boss,” she said awkwardly, and adjusted the mini-backpack that was slung over one of her shoulders. He glanced at her backside as she stepped out onto the deplaning ramp.
Blastman was right there beside her and went on ahead, saying, “Thanks!” to Wonjjang as he passed by. Beaming at Wonjjang with his dazzling white Hollywood smile, he asked, “You okay, boss?”
“Uh … no thank you … ” Wonjjang mumbled. It was the first English phrase that popped into his head. Suddenly aware of the frown on his face, he gently pushed the American out onto the ramp behind Neko.
Wonjjang ended up being the last to leave the plane. Stepping out into the warm, late-autumn sun, he saw the usual mob was there to meet them: several dozen teenagers and college kids dressed up as their favourite shoopahs. Not many costumes were emblazoned with his own Sino-Korean logo, Wonjjang noted with a twinge of annoyance. His personal trademark stock was down again. Some of the teenagers were holding up a banner that read LG PAN-ASIA SUPER SQUAD: FIGHTING! He tried turning his attention to Neko’s fans, but their skintight catsuits didn’t compliment them as much as they did their idol: most of them were too much, well, like middle-school girls, meaning either skeletal or pear-shaped.
He spotted a small gang of middle-schoolers—pimply boys and pot-bellied girls—dressed up in Wonjjang costumes. The usuals. He almost didn’t bother to acknowledge them with his usual quick salute, but, when he did, they cheered their little guts out.
Corporate crowd control was really serious that day, more than just the usual pair of gigantic almost-shoopah thugs in black suits and sunglasses. There were at least ten of them this time, arranged around the cordon. Beyond the barriers, reporters shouted out questions in Chinese, Japanese, English, and, mostly, Korean. Flashes continuously went off by the dozen.
Right outside the barrier, beside a couple of wary-looking guards, a small crowd of protesters howled. Mostly college-aged radicals, with a few middle-aged women and retirees among them, the protesters wore matching white oversized T-shirts printed with the same slogan in Korean and garbled English: DANGEROUS UNNEEDEDLY AMERICAN GO TO THE HOME! They raised their placards and fists into the air when Blastman passed near them.
But Blastman was used to this kind of thing. He sauntered closer and declared loudly against the crescendo of cusses and thrown objects, “Well, thankya, thankya verr’ much!” in boisterous, weirdly accented English. He swivelled his hips and flicked off tiny flares of lightning, incinerating their flung tomatoes and eggs instantly in midair. Blastman was almost certainly making some kind of American joke with the dance and his comments, but Wonjjang really didn’t get it.
Neither did the crowd. The angriest protesters continued to curse and shout while several of the rent-a-shoopahs banded together in front of them. Blastman finally shook his head with a chuckle and crossed the cordoned-off zone to where Neko was waiting, near some Western and Japanese reporters.
By the time Wonjjang was on the ground, the pair was already chatting with those reporters. E-Gui had half-dematerialized, clothing and all, and drifted down from the plane’s exit hatch toward a group of recognizably Chinese newsmen, and Laotzu was chatting in awkward Korean with some of his fans, who were dressed in elaborate, awkward costumes that emulated the raw stone and uncarved wood of his body.
Wonjjang just wanted to march straight past them into the terminal. He was dying to go take a bath at his favourite public bathhouse and sit in the sauna till he’d sweated every last trace of Thailand out of his system.
But right then his handphone rang. He glanced at the caller display: UMMA. It was his mom. If he didn’t answer immediately, he’d never hear the end of it. He rolled his eyes and flipped the phone open. Reporters called out to him from beyond the cordon, ignoring the fact that he was on the phone.
“Jang Won!” she hollered through the phone. Wonjjang was his superhero name—“Won Jjang” literally meant “Number-One Best!”—but his mother never used it. She had named him Jang Won as a baby, and that was the only name she ever called him.
“What are you thinking?” she shouted. “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“Umma, I just—”
“Wonjjang! Can you confirm the rumours of renewed problems with your shoulder?” one newspaperwoman bellowed in Korean.
“I heard you let that awful man live,” his mom said. She coughed her disappointment at him as he shook his head at the reporter. The injury
hadn’t troubled him in months.
“Umma, E-Gui did that. If he hadn’t, Kim would’ve … ” he lowered his voice, “ … died.”
“Wonjjang!” a reporter yelled. “Can you depend on your team’s international members to remain faithful to our national interests in territorial disputes with their home countries?” Wonjjang cast him a nasty glare.
“Is that the Chinese one?” his mother asked.
“E-Gui? Yes. Chinese.”
“I knew it,” she said, despondently triumphant.
“What do you think of the warming up of relations between Pyongyang and Seoul?” This reporter, a fellow mutant, had stretched his rubbery arm out to reach his microphone close to Jang Won. As the question registered, Jang Won turned his head, the surprise obvious on his face. A flurry of camera flashes went off instantly, and someone yelled, “Will the Sunshine Policy interfere with your work?”
“Have you eaten dinner yet?” his mom demanded. It was only a couple of hours before midnight.
“I’m sorry, I’m taking an important call,” Jang Won said to the reporters, and then, into the phone, said, “No, Umma.” He really was hungry.
“As the leader of the team that captured the infamous Kim Noh Wang, the Madman of Pyongyang,” a familiar female reporter called out, “how do you feel about the close inter-Korean cooperation demanded by President Kwon?”
“I’m making dwenjang jjigae. I want you to come home right now,” his mother said.
“I’ll come, Umma, but it’s going to be a while. I’m in Incheon.”
“Are you worried about forecasts of a dramatic rise in international shoopah-crime in East Asia as a result of the LG’s intensified focus on domestic issues?” a foreign reporter asked him loudly in English.
“And who will eat my wonderful fresh jjigae? The neighbour’s poodle? The President? God? Nobody who loves his mother lets her dwenjang jjigae go cold.”
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