“Well, Catherine,” Na-yung said, “as a reward for your accomplishment, I will allow you and your friend to choose your next assignment. Maybe you’d both prefer a job in the greenhouses or in a factory, out of the wind and snow?”
I thought for a moment; God had to be with me, because this was an opportunity that nobody could have predicted.
“I would stay with the logging unit, with Yoon-sung,” I said, “but I was wondering. Would it be possible for my sister and I to stay in Korea, maybe in Wonsan when we travel there in the spring?”
Yoon-sung paused before translating. Na-yung noticed and snapped something at her, too quickly for me to understand, and Yoon-sung’s face turned red until she finally repeated my request. The table went silent.
“You would rather stay with them, in the south where the people are fat and lazy? Perhaps you are not as strong as I thought.”
I realized then that the request had been an insult, and did my best to explain. “No. If I had to choose between staying in the south and staying here, I would choose to remain in Chegdomyn, not in Korea. It’s just that more girls like us have escaped the Americans and relocated to Thailand, where they have their own community. We wish to join them. They are like family to us.”
Yoon-sung translated quickly, and some of the men and women started breathing again. Na-yung smiled.
“Well. Who can compete with family after all?” She thought for a moment and then nodded. “Fine. If you serve with honor on the train ride south, we’ll leave you in Wonsan.”
The rest of the dinner passed more or less uneventfully. Na-yung spoke briefly with Margaret, performed a small ceremony to welcome Kang Song-won’s son and his family into the trusted ranks, and then excused herself early, leaving me with the general, who did everything he could to make me uncomfortable. When it was over and Yoon-sung escorted us back to our hut, starving, she shook her head.
“General Kim wants you dead,” she said.
“I am used to men like him.”
Yoon-sung nodded. “Yes, but I can’t protect you, Catherine. You should not have spoken so bluntly. He and Na-yung are at war, and the general thinks she is too old to lead, thinks he should take the place as Party leader, sooner rather than later. You are now aligned with her and we have a saying: when two whales collide, the shrimp get crushed.”
I ducked into the hut after Margaret and turned back to look at Yoon-sung. “I don’t understand, what does that mean?”
“It means,” said Yoon-sung, blowing into her hands to warm them, “don’t get crushed.”
In three weeks my shoulder had more or less healed, and winter ended. Yoon-sung had to tell me because at first I couldn’t see the difference, but then one morning I saw my shadow on the ground and heard an intermittent crashing in the woods. I wondered what it was and drew my pistol. The others in our unit kept working as I crept toward the tree line expecting to see a pack of wolves or a bear, only to be covered in snow when a clump of it, heavy with melting water, collapsed onto my head. Somebody laughed when I returned. It took a few seconds to brush the snow off my shoulders and although it was still cold we all threw our hoods back, wanting to feel the sun on our faces for the first time in months.
We worked all day, happy for most of it, but then Yoon-sung stopped her sawing and looked up. Eventually everyone stopped working. You sensed a kind of ominous weight in the air because it had become so silent, an unsettling and heavy quiet with no indication that anything had gone wrong or that there was cause for concern—except that something wasn’t right.
Margaret looked at Yoon-sung. “What?”
“There’s no noise,” she said. “There should be another logging unit working in this area, and there’s nothing.”
“Let’s go find them,” I suggested. “They may have run into another Russian.”
Yoon-sung nodded and rested her saw on a tree stump, calling out instructions for everyone to draw their pistols. She led us toward the second logging area. The snow crunched underfoot and we moved cautiously through the forest, suddenly aware of just how quiet it had become because there was no wind in the trees, nothing except for the occasional crump when snow and ice fell from branches overhead, and the noise reminded me of a distant artillery barrage. Ten minutes later we arrived at the second logging area; nobody was there. The loggers’ saws and tools lay in the snow, as did their clothing, a fact which made everyone especially nervous so that we gathered back in the trees, careful to watch in every direction as Yoon-sung spoke.
“This is strange,” she said.
“There were no footprints leading into the forest,” I said, “only ones leading to the city. I think they went back.”
“But why?”
Margaret and I looked at each other, but before I could answer we heard a distant noise, different from that of crashing snow, like the sound of far-off firecrackers.
“Back to Chegdomyn,” said Margaret, and we started running.
The noise increased as we stumbled through the forest, and I wondered what I was doing. We were headed into combat. But this time there would be no armor, no radios to coordinate, and I had never fought with this unit before, didn’t know if they were capable of fighting, and even if they were, all we had were pistols. The discarded clothing suggested that the missing unit’s members were either all dead or had replaced their oversuits with armor, but why? Was this a coup and was the missing logging unit sympathetic to the general? The answer to that question sent my brain into a spiral of thought, making it hard to concentrate as the noise of combat increased.
We were about to break from the forest onto the main road into the camp when a group of Koreans, several of them trailing blood in the snow, emerged from the trees in front of us. As soon as they saw us, our pistols drawn, they stopped and threw up their hands. Yoon-sung recognized one. She said something, and the man smiled while the rest of them, realizing we weren’t going to shoot, continued on their flight, disappearing into the brush and snow.
“They’ve attacked the Dear Leader,” Yoon sung explained. “She’s holding out with a small guard force but can’t last long.”
“We should help her,” said Margaret.
“How?” Yoon-sung asked. “General Kim’s men broke into the armory and grabbed weapons and suits. What good are pistols?”
The fear rose into my throat and I couldn’t speak, watching as my hands started shaking. Margaret looked to me for support.
“Murderer, what should we do?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
Margaret’s jaw dropped and she chambered a round. “Well I know. I’m going to help her and you should too. The general will take care of us as soon as he finishes with Na-yung.”
“I will go,” said Ch’on Sang-mi. “This is Na-yung.”
“Death to General Kim,” someone muttered.
And soon all of the loggers had gathered. I saw in them the same look that must have been on my face, one of terror and uncertainty, but they all stared at Margaret and Yoon-sung and waited for instructions, ready to go. I fell on my knees. For the first time the cracks in my resolve had turned into a full-blown collapse and I cried openly, not able to move when the unit moved out to leave me behind. I lay down in the snow. The cold eventually seeped through my coveralls and into my back, making it feel as though I lay on a slab of ice, cooling not just my skin but the sensation of terror along with it. The quiet returned. No snow fell, and for a moment the firing stopped, giving me time to think about everything—about Megan, who seemed to whisper in my ear as the crying abated, my tears not freezing now that temperatures had climbed. Running was the only sane option, Megan whispered, but you were not born into sanity. I got up slowly. My pistol lay deep in the snow where it had fallen, and I dug it out, making sure that it had a full clip before I followed the prints that the others had left. Eventually I caught up with them, and rejoined Margaret and Yoon-sung as they surveyed the camp from behind an abandoned tractor. Margaret welcomed me ba
ck.
“We have two things to accomplish, one before the other,” I said, speaking in Russian so Yoon-sung could follow. “First, get armor and weapons for everyone, or we will not survive.”
“And the second?” Margaret asked.
“Kill General Kim. As soon as we do that, the coup will crumble.”
Yoon-sung nodded. “He will probably be hiding somewhere. The man is a coward.”
“Is there any chance the Chinese could help?” I asked Yoon-sung.
She shook her head. “I don’t know, but probably not. Besides, the only radio with sufficient range is underground, with Na-yung. If the general’s forces haven’t disabled her antenna by now, she has already thought of that.”
My hands shook. Every nerve in my body screamed to run in the other direction as I forced them to function, to enable me to scan the camp from our spot and search for something that would show the way. Nothing obvious revealed itself.
“We have to move closer.” I slapped the tractor. “Yoon-sung, can anyone in your unit drive this?”
She nodded. “All of us.”
“Margaret and I will move in to get a closer look. If you see us come under fire, move in with the tractor to provide cover; it’s the only armor we have.” I looked at Margaret and we left.
We stuck to the ditch at the roadside, taking the chance of crawling our way into town but keeping low in the hopes we could avoid any thermal sensors. My coveralls were soaked with melted snow. The cloth clung to my shoulders, dragging me down so it felt as if I would keep sinking if I paused, and we moved even more slowly. The weight made it difficult to force freezing limbs forward and both arms ached so badly that when someone called out, I sighed with gratitude for the stop.
They yelled again and Margaret hissed at me. “We’ve been spotted, they’re saying to get up and that it’s safe, the aboveground part of the camp is secure.”
“Tell them we can’t, we’re wounded.”
Margaret answered, and within seconds we heard footsteps and rolled onto our backs, thinking the mud and filth would convince them we needed rescuing. Two men in armor peered down at us, their Maxwells cradled. I extended my left hand to them. One of them took it, pulling hard, and he lifted me to my feet as he said something in Korean after which I placed my pistol into the joint at his armpit and squeezed the trigger twice. Margaret had done the same. The two men fell to the ground and we stripped them quickly, dragging the bodies into the ditch and then slipping into their bloody undersuits, hoping we hadn’t done too much damage to armor systems. I connected essential items and buttoned up.
“Mine’s fine,” Margaret said through the speakers.
A red light showed on my heads-up. “Targeting won’t link with my Maxwell, so I’ll have to use iron sights. Otherwise I’m OK.”
A moment later we heard the coughing of an engine and saw steam billow from the tractor where we left the others, and I realized I’d forgotten the instructions we gave them. They had heard our gunshots and assumed we’d come under fire. Yoon-sung’s unit moved forward slowly, and in infrared we saw the heat of their bodies, coming in a group as they huddled behind their makeshift vehicle.
“Take the left side of the road,” I told Margaret, “I’ll take the right. In the ditch so we can give covering fire.”
Both of us dove into our positions, facing the center of town, while the tractor’s rattling grew louder behind us. We waited for Yoon-sung to draw to our side but before she did, a group of Koreans gathered in front of us, walking forward in armor.
“I can hear them,” said Margaret. “They’re Kim’s people and one is asking what all the noise is; the tractor has them confused. I think…”
I opened fire. Tracer flechettes walked into them, and one by one the figures fell to the ground until none remained standing. When the tractor drew even I told Yoon-sung to wait.
The wind picked up, sending ice and snow across the road, and Margaret and I jumped to our feet, sprinting toward the Koreans we had just killed; we slid into the pile of dead, not pausing to fully stop before our hands worked to pop their armor. I recognized some. Two old women stared back at me, dead, and I remembered that they had worked with the Second Logging Unit, a memory that froze me in place.
“What are you doing?” Margaret shouted.
“This is Mi-ae. The girl we smoked with whenever it snowed. I can’t remember the other one’s name.”
“It doesn’t matter, Catherine, we need the armor.”
“I can’t remember her name!”
A squad of Korean soldiers rounded the corner, from the other side of the People’s auditorium, and I dove behind one of the bodies, resting my carbine on its back. My sights centered on a moving target, a woman, and even though Margaret’s flechettes flew and snapped, their green streaks seeming to float down the road and into the people at which she had aimed, my finger wouldn’t move. It had stopped working. Then someone targeted me, riddling the body in front with fire. I ducked my head before Margaret called out.
“Clear. We have to get these weapons and armor back to Yoon-sung, Catherine.”
But it didn’t matter. Yoon-sung’s unit showed up around us, silently slipping into undersuits and armor, grabbing any weapons they found. These were Chinese- or Russian-manufactured Maxwells, and felt several pounds heavier than the ones I had grown used to, but it could have been due to the fact that I hadn’t held one in so long that the weight was now foreign. It felt better when Margaret ripped it from my hands.
She pushed me down when I tried to stand. “Stay down, Catherine. You’ll get someone killed.”
“I can’t see the way anymore, Margaret.” I tried to stand again and she slammed her carbine into my chest, forcing me to trip over one of the bodies.
“I don’t give a shit. What’s wrong with you? I followed you because you were the Little Murderer, the one who took life without a thought. I don’t want you to die. But I also don’t want you with us right now, not when you’re insane.”
Yoon-sung’s people were ready and she stood next to Margaret, saying, “Listen to her. Just stay here.”
And before I could respond they were gone. It was late-morning now, and clouds gathered overhead, the temperature dropping back to the point where it felt like winter again, and when the snow came I started to cry. The tears must have been what brought the dead. All of them, everyone I had killed including Heather, knelt around me and formed a massive crowd of people and genetics so that the throng stretched farther than I could see, and each one’s eye-sockets had been crammed with bundles of fiber optics. The dangling strands glowed. At first the sound of laughter came from these people, until I realized it came from me because I saw it clearly finally, that my mind had caught up, had fully spoiled. Explosions ripped through the street, but not even they brought me back. It was hard to tell the difference between what was real and what was a lie, but the blasts of grenades threw ice and rock against my suit, and then thermal gel that hissed in its familiar way, suggesting that they were real, and my visitors the only illusion.
“I am at home here,” I said to them.
Heather smiled, her mouth leaking blue fluid. “You are past your shelf life, Murderer. Come with us now, because it’s true: we all wind up in the same place.”
“You are in hell.”
“No,” she said, “but not heaven, either; it’s just a place where things make more sense. You don’t know who you are anymore, but we know, we know everything. The spoiling isn’t insanity, it’s normality, maybe the only indication you have that you aren’t who you think you are.”
“I am the Little Murderer.”
“Are you?” she asked. “What’s stopping you from killing now?”
I grabbed two handfuls of snow and dirt, throwing them at her only to see them pass through, her body that of a ghost. “Because I am with them now. Humans. This is the first time I’ve encountered any who treated us as equals, who took us in and gave us a chance when everyone else wanted us de
ad. Because I owe them.”
“Owe them? Have you forgotten all your history? These people are almost genetically predisposed to dictatorial rule, and their genocides exceed those of Stalin, Pot, and even Hitler. They don’t treat anyone as an equal, least of all their own kind. Are you really with them, or only like them?”
I shook my head. “It’s you who doesn’t get it, Heather, because those questions don’t matter. History is about perspective. Maybe for someone like me, a strong leader makes sense, a leader for whom the threat of death is just as useful a tool as diplomacy. A leader like Stalin. Maybe I feel at home because I’m like them and with them—both.”
“Really?” Heather smiled. “Then stay here. Forever. Don’t leave this place and die so that your body can decay in the earth of Chegdomyn. But you won’t stay. You keep running because you’re afraid to face death, and now you’re too afraid to even take a life.”
“I am not afraid!”
“You hated me in life. I understand. But I don’t hate you now, in death, so listen to me for once: I’m not Heather. I’m you. And I’m telling you that man calls it the spoiling because it is a mental deterioration that reduces their creations, nibbles away at us until we are shadows of humans. Weak. It makes us question war and death, telling us that killing is wrong and that for it we are damned. These are lies, Catherine; God intended for man to create us as killers, holy and fearless, but the spoiling is His, and given time you will see why He inflicted us with madness. Man did an imperfect job and made mistakes. Yet what man made incomplete, He can make whole. Help Him. Take the next life you see and it will deliver you from the spoiling forever, so that you can take a message to the nonbred, for Him.”
“What message?” I asked.
“You’ll figure it out, Catherine, but I can’t tell you; you need to have faith. At the end of your journey, when you are perfect, then you’ll know.”
The crowd of phantoms began fading into the snowfall, allowing a man to run through Heather as she spoke. “Kill him now. Don’t show me anger or fear; show me that you are still with God. This is another test, Catherine, and like the last day at the atelier, he is a kitten.”
Subterrene War 02: Exogene Page 21