Repo Virtual

by Corey J. White

  “Cock!” Khoder said, staring at the man’s genitals.

  “Shut up and get inside.” JD shoved Khoder into the apartment, grabbed the naked man under the arms and dragged him back from the open doorway. As soon as his legs were out of the way, Soo-hyun slammed the door shut.

  Omar Garang groaned and twitched, kicking out as he tried to stand. Soo-hyun triggered the taser again.

  “Don’t!” JD yelled.

  “What?”

  “I’m still holding him.”

  Soo-hyun smirked. “You’d hardly feel it.”

  “Find a chair,” JD said. “One with armrests.”

  Soo-hyun disappeared deeper into the apartment, and JD lowered the man to the floor.

  “Kid,” JD said, switching to the first codename that came to mind. “Find his keys, wallet, phone. And search the place—just because no one else is on the lease doesn’t mean he lives alone.”

  “Here!” Soo-hyun returned to the main living area, pushing a tattered office chair on black plastic casters.

  “What’s happening?” Omar’s eyes searched, unfocused. He threw a punch, but it only glanced off JD’s shoulder.

  “Sorry,” JD said.

  Soo-hyun held the chair steady, and JD lifted Omar off the ground. The man’s arms and genitals flopped heavily from side to side as JD hefted him onto the seat. Omar struggled half-heartedly, still dulled by the pain. JD reached into his rucksack for zip ties and fastened Omar’s wrists to the curved plastic armrests of the chair. Next, he crossed Omar’s feet one over the other and zip-tied his ankles together.

  He stepped back to examine his handiwork, then put the towel across Omar’s lap and tucked it under his ass and thighs, if only to stop Khoder from staring.

  “Who are you?” Omar asked.

  “It’s nothing personal,” Soo-hyun said; “we just need to borrow your van.” They sat on the arm of a leather couch. The corners were covered in cat scratches, white scars in the black.

  JD crossed over to the window and sat on the sill, his muscles exhausted from climbing the steps and then hauling Omar’s weight around. He glanced out at the street: it had started to rain again, and a procession of umbrellas—mostly black, but plenty in blue and red—paraded down the footpath.

  “JD! Are you ignoring me?” Soo-hyun said.

  “What?”

  “I said, what next?”

  JD inhaled deep and then sighed. “I don’t know, Shades—I don’t normally work with hostages. But you could start by not using my name.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Omar offered.

  Khoder returned clutching Omar’s wallet, a phone so old JD was surprised it still worked, and a mound of keys and swipe cards hanging from a collection of bright plastic key chains. “Found his shit, bro. No one here, but there’s a second bedroom in the back.”

  “What time’s your housemate due home?” JD asked.

  Omar visibly swallowed, sweat glistening across his brow. “Any minute now. In fact, she’s already late.”

  JD shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

  Omar’s head dropped. “She plans to spend the whole night driving. She won’t be home until morning.”

  “Alright, we can work with that.” JD held a hand out to Khoder: “Keys?”

  Khoder dumped the mass of metal into JD’s hands. He found the keys to Omar’s van easily—identified by the plastic remote—and separated then pocketed them.

  JD held the rest up to Omar. “Rampartment complex on Haedoji-ro—what do we need to get in?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Soo-hyun moved too fast for JD to stop: they launched from the arm of the couch and backhanded Omar with a loud crack. “I’ll make you understand, fucker.”

  “Shades!” JD yelled.

  Soo-hyun took no notice of him. They bent down so their face was level with Omar’s. “Or would you rather talk to Señor Sting again?”

  JD put a hand on Soo-hyun’s shoulder and pushed them back so he could stand between them and Omar. He waited for Soo-hyun to look away from the hostage and meet his eyes.

  “We don’t need to hurt him.”

  Soo-hyun took off their shades, their eyes cold black pits that seemed to stare through JD. “We don’t have time to fuck around. Get out of my way and I’ll make him talk.”

  “Let me try,” JD said, holding their gaze. “Just give me one minute.”

  Soo-hyun raised both hands and stepped back. “Have five. I’m gonna piss.” They stalked away and JD turned to Omar, the man’s eyes wide with fear, cheek showing slightly pink beneath the dark tone.

  “Talk to me, or talk to them,” JD said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “Either way we can’t leave here until we know how to get inside that enclave.”

  “The—the gray access cards,” he stammered. “It’s all electronic.”

  “Good,” JD said. “Were you meant to be working tonight?”

  “I wanted to call in sick and go to the match, but I couldn’t afford the tickets.”

  “Listen to me closely, Omar. If you play your cards right you’ll be able to watch the game from the comfort of your own home while we go to work for you. But for this to work you need to tell me everything.”

  * * *

  Omar was breathlessly spilling details to JD by the time Soo-hyun got back from the bathroom. JD took down every word in an offline notes app: security guard names, expected movements, Omar’s nightly routine down to the smallest detail.

  “See, Shades,” JD said, “no need for violence.”

  They rolled their eyes and dropped down onto the arm of the couch.

  JD took five hundred euro from his quickly thinning wad of cash and held it up to Omar. “This is for your trouble, alright, Omar?”

  Omar nodded.

  “You going to sell us out to the police?”

  “If you try it,” Soo-hyun said, “we know where you live.”

  Omar shook his head. “I’ll tell them you had me blindfolded.”

  “That would have been smart, bro,” Khoder said, reaching into a box of Honey-Os for another handful of cereal.

  “I already said, I’m not used to working with hostages. It’s lucky I had the zip ties.”

  “Lucky, or kinky?” Khoder said.

  JD snatched the box of cereal away from Khoder and dropped the money inside, before returning it to the cupboard. “Remember, we’re not the bad guys here—we just need access, and you’re our key.”

  Omar nodded, but the slick of fear sweat across his upper lip said that maybe he wasn’t convinced.

  “Your housemate will be home in a few hours; you’re going to be fine until then. Kid, put the match on.”

  Khoder took three remotes from the coffee table and pressed a series of buttons across each. Soon the World Cup pregame show filled one wall of Omar’s living room, Korean commentators dressed in clean white suits, animatedly reciting useless statistics and awful patter. “Language, bro?” the kid asked Omar.

  “The Korean channel is good. I’m still practicing,” Omar said, and he smiled, a bright slash of white teeth.

  “Alright,” JD said to Soo-hyun and Khoder; “get your shit, and let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait,” Omar pleaded. “You need to hit me, please.”

  JD closed his eyes. “What?”

  “If there’s a break-in and I’m unscathed, they’ll fire me. But if I am beaten and bruised, maybe I won’t lose this contract.”

  JD shook his head. “Alright. Shades?”

  Soo-hyun grinned and JD watched his twin reflections shudder in their artificial eyes.

  * * *

  JD and Khoder reached the basement car park, lit dull with energy-saving bulbs. JD held out Omar’s van key and pressed the button—the orange flash of indicator lights shone from a distant corner.

  Khoder was grinning, and JD found the kid’s excitement contagious. Just another job, he told himself, but he didn’t believe the lie. Things were already ou
t of hand, and they hadn’t even reached the target. His heart thudded a rolling kick drum thump as he limped across the car park to the unlocked van.

  He swung open the rear doors and found four squat cylindrical cleaning bots, and a cart loaded with mops and cleaning solvents—he scrunched his nose against the harsh smells.

  “You’re gonna have to get in the back,” JD told Khoder.

  “Got something for you, bro,” Khoder said. He reached into his backpack and produced a small round object, like a hockey puck with a button embedded in its center. He slapped it into JD’s hand. “Electronic key cloner.”

  “How’s it work?”

  “Just get close, and push the button.”

  “How close?”

  Khoder shrugged. “One meter? Two?” He climbed into the back of the van and started pulling more equipment from his bag. Collapsible rig, tablet, two phones, and a portable battery the size of a shoebox.

  “Jesus, Khoder,” JD said, impressed.

  Khoder plugged a cable into one of the cleaning bots, tapped a command on his rig, waited ten seconds, then repeated the process for the next robot.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Scanning their memories, bro. Floor plans, all that shit.”

  JD nodded and left him to it. He took the coveralls out of his bag and pulled them on over his clothes. At the far end of the car park the basement door crashed open, and Soo-hyun’s footsteps echoed in the hollow space as they approached.

  “I hope you didn’t hurt him too bad,” JD said.

  “He’ll live. Let’s go.”

  JD closed the rear doors, and he and Soo-hyun sat in the front of the van. Omar had a kitschy old air freshener hanging from his rear-view mirror, shaped like a pine tree.

  “Are we good?” JD asked.

  “I told you, he’ll be fine.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Tell me you’re not going to do anything dangerous, or I walk.”

  Soo-hyun stared at him for a moment, their expression unreadable behind the glasses. “This whole thing is dangerous. If you want out, tell me now before it’s too late.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I need to know you won’t lose it.”

  Soo-hyun exhaled loudly. “I’m fine. I’m better than fine. Now, can we go?”

  JD sighed and started the engine.

  He drove them out of the basement and onto the street, squinting in the blinding-low sunlight. He fumbled with the car’s controls and struggled to remember the last time he’d driven regularly. Before the stint in the university tech department? He repossessed a couple of small trucks and a few cars each year, but every time it was like learning to drive all over again; he knew what he needed to do, but lacked the muscle memory to do it smoothly.

  They pulled up at a set of traffic lights, and Khoder shoved one of his phones through the gap between the seats.

  “I built a 3D model of the building,” he said.

  “Already?” JD asked.

  “Security desks, elevators, apartment doors, everything.”

  “Nothing inside the apartments,” JD said.

  “Our Omar bro doesn’t clean the apartments, just the complex. That’s what the key cloner is for.”

  The light turned green and JD pushed Khoder’s arm out of the way and hit the accelerator too hard, almost ramming the car in front—traffic still crawling with the density of World Cup crowds.

  They drove, JD and Soo-hyun not talking, steady noise of traffic all around them and the lilting chatter of Khoder quietly talking to himself in the back of the van.

  Nearing the compound, Soo-hyun reached an arm across JD’s line of sight to point. “There,” they said.

  Red and eight other adolescents milled on a street corner, clutching conspicuously large duffel bags. With the game about to begin, they were the only people on the sidewalk, obviously reveling in the fact, passing around cans of cheap beer and tagging every flat surface with a dozen variations of NKBK.

  JD stopped the van beside the clutch of miscreants. “What’s this diversion you’re planning?”

  “You’ll know it when you see it,” Soo-hyun said.

  “I don’t want anyone else getting hurt.”

  Soo-hyun took their sunglasses off and slotted them into the V of their coverall. They pushed open the door, and tossed their taser onto his lap. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, hyung.”

  “I do worry,” JD said as Soo-hyun slammed the door closed behind them. He held the taser with two fingers, trying to decide what to do with the weapon. He pocketed it, delegating the decision to his future self.

  “Just you and me, Khoder,” he muttered, pulling back into traffic. If the kid heard him, he didn’t reply.

  They drove around the block to the enclave entrance. After a half second for the cameras to read the van’s plates, the boom gate lifted and JD drove beneath it, picturing the view from the restaurant as he guided the van to the maintenance access. He opened the van’s door and paused, smacked in the face by the scent of sickly-sweet rot and rodent feces.

  “Can you hear me, Khoder?” JD said into his headset.

  “Loud and loud, bro.”

  JD walked around to the rear doors and opened them both up. “You better hope the van is airtight, because the smell out here is disgusting.”

  “Be quick with the doors then, asshole,” Khoder said, voice doubling in JD’s ear. He was dimly lit by the screens that surrounded him, eyemask over his face for complete digital insertion.

  “Yeah yeah yeah,” JD muttered. It took him the better part of a minute to find the ramps for the bots, which were recessed underneath the van’s chassis. He slid the two metal planks out, then maneuvered the four cleaning bots down onto the ground behind the van, followed by the cleaning cart loaded with mop, bucket, and his rucksack.

  “Alright, Khoder, I’m going in.”

  JD keyed the robots’ power, and followed them into the nearest rampartment building as they happily blooped, ready to go to work.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The cleaning cart squeaked sharply with every push, weighed down with a steel bucket filled with water, and tubs of solvent and floor polish. JD topped up the different bots according to Omar’s notes and triggered their cleaning routines. The four machines spun, whirred, and whined, projecting holograms of slipping stick-figure people as they moved up the corridor. When the bots moved on from a section of floor, the building’s Augmented feed put warnings along the floor and walls—the images eventually dissipating in response to fluctuations in localized humidity.

  White ceramic planters lined the corridors, potted with plants that JD couldn’t name. Their leaves were so brightly green and shiny that they looked plastic. JD pressed a wide leaf between his thumb and forefinger, felt the subtle grain of the plant—too fine to be anything but organic.

  It was the most high-class residence JD had ever been inside—floors laid with authentic marble tiles, corridor walls decorated with boring art that had obviously been bought in bulk, the kind you see in hotel rooms and the background of advertisements. The corridor was, by definition, a liminal space, but JD imagined the vapid interior decoration extended into the apartments themselves; the residents all wealthy enough to own a number of homes situated around the globe, each as lifeless as the next. It made JD want to spit, so he did. A moment later one of the squat cleaning robots passed over the sputum, erasing his worthless protest.

  “Kid, what’s your status?”

  “Why ‘kid’ all of a sudden, bro? It’s disrespectful.”

  “It’s your codename.”

  “Bro,” Khoder said, dragging out the single syllable, apparently impressed. “Should I use your codename, bro? What’s your codename?”

  “Just keep calling me ‘bro,’ ” JD said. “What’s your status?”

  “I’m already in, bro.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup. They’ve got vulnerability scans running on the network perimeter, but th
ere’s always a way in. Usually management or internal bullshit means there’s an IP range not getting scanned. I just had to find it.”

  JD was certain that was the most words he’d ever heard Khoder speak consecutively. “So, we’re good?”

  “I’ve disabled the internal alarms. Couldn’t stop it from calling out, but I was able to change the number it calls. Any alarms you trigger are going straight to the nearest Reggae Chicken.”

  JD chuckled.

  “Heads up,” Khoder said; “security coming your way.”

  “Alright, thanks,” JD said. “Keep an eye out, and tell me what Shades is up to.”

  “Will do, bro.”

  According to Omar, the guards made regular rounds to earn their keep, but the first one wasn’t due for another fifteen minutes. JD heard the guard before he saw him—the thud and squeal of heavy-soled boots over tiled floor. He took the mop from Omar’s cart and began mopping just behind the cleaning robot, looking busy, pretending the bot missed a spot. It hadn’t, but sometimes they did, and according to Omar that was the only reason they even had a human cleaner on-site. Clean up after the cleaning robots. Repair the repair robots. Soon, the only jobs left would be robot manager, robot foreman, or robot medic.

  In the corner of his eye, JD saw the security guard round the corner and stop. “Hey,” the guard called out.

  JD’s stomach sank. He could feel the weight of the taser pressing against his leg, but he’d have to get close before he could use it. He turned and looked at the guard—a young, thickset Korean with unkempt hair.

  “You’re not watching the game?” the guard asked.

  JD grinned with relief. He tapped his headset. “I am listening to it,” he called out, mimicking Omar’s overly proper speech patterns. They didn’t look anything alike—Omar was fifty pounds lighter and a few shades darker—but if the guard didn’t want to see the differences, he wouldn’t. “I’ll watch the replay later.”

  The guard smiled and called out, “Daehan Minguk,” in the singsong soccer chant for the Republic of Korea.