BA3 - Chapter 34

My knee bounced, emitting a tap-tap-tap from my heel smacking the stone floor. My shoes felt two sizes too small, as did the rest of my compressed body. Cho towered beside me in the plush seat, obstructing my view of the balcony.

I leaned forward again to catch a glimpse of them. Hana was the only person I could barely make out. She sat alone in the front row, and shadows of tall men sat behind her. My palms clammed up as thoughts of betrayal swam through my head. Jigu be damned, if Ko-nah hurt Hana in any way, I would invoke every ancient, dark magic to hunt him down and destroy him.

“Jiyong, you have to calm down,” Mae whispered to me.

I turned my head back to the stage, watching the performance.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

The urge to look around Cho pulled my chest forward, but I sat back. She was right. I needed to calm down. Hana was strong and very capable. If she were in trouble, she’d likely have a better chance of escape than any of the rest of us. Thespra was strapped to Ko-nah’s back. If he made one wrong move, I could sever his spinal cord with two easy swipes.

“That was dark, Jiyong. Where is your head?” Mae said with a hint of shame.

I took a deep breath. My head was circling around fear for Hana’s wellbeing, not on the mission. This was the exact thinking that could get her, or others hurt. I had to be present, calm, and aware. I had to be able to react in an instant.

I recalled the moment I felt danger in my heart, looking into the reflective visor of the terrorist in the other train. He’d had a smirk on his stubbled face—like he was excited to do it. My leg stopped short mid-bounce and heat filled my chest.

Anger wasn’t better than fear.

I had to be still if I was going to think clearly.

I closed my eyes and took a long inhale through my nose. Air filled my belly and I let my hands rest on my knees. Another breath, deeper still, and out. The air coming in was chilled and smelled of the perfumed dancers. The music stilled my thoughts, carrying me into the moment. Thoughts came in flashing pictures: the child, the man, the train went down. I breathed deeper still and connected with the memory.

The man appeared in my mind’s eye as a still, and this time it stayed.

“I’ve stabilized the connection to this memory, so we can recall and rebuild data that may have started to fade due to trauma,” Mae said quietly.

‘Great work, Mae.’ I thought with a smile.

My focus in that moment shifted all around, between the girl and the man, the floor, Hana, and then back to the man. The scene slid forward flash by flash—

There. What is in his hand?

The audience clapped, pulling me from meditative thought. I opened my eyes and clapped along with them.

‘Mae, what was that?’ I asked, trying to keep my focus on the fuzzy object in his out-of-focus hand. There were freckles of light coming from it, blues and golds.

“Looks like another piece of my old systems. But why didn’t I detect it?” She wondered quietly.

‘Does this mean they’re using you to take over the trains?’I asked, excitement growing in me.

“Very likely… but why wouldn’t they just control it from the train station?”

‘Maybe they can’t?’

“No, there has to be a larger system in play here operating all Dokun’s technology. I’d say it’d have to be an AI on my level of sophistication—which could be why it was so loud at Yamato Corp! Jiyong, that face in his office, I don’t think that was a trick! I think he has one of Japan’s AI!”

I winced from her loud excitement, asking, ‘And this is a good thing?’

“Oh, I never said that. What’s good about it is that I don’t think he has any morepieces of me. I think Hiro had one of the only pieces—which I have no idea if my personality copied to all of them. There could be emotionless data crunchers out there who sign like me, but aren’t even close to being what I am.”

The lights on the stage dimmed and the set change began. Gentle music kept us company for the transition, and I closed my eyes once more. The image of the man appeared in my mind’s eye again.

‘If they could control it from the train depots, but don’t, that means they have a specific reason for not wanting to.’

“Correct. But why?”

The answer struck me like a meteor. ‘Because he wants to boost public opinion of AI, and machina. He’s playing the long game to win their hearts and minds. He wants proof that his AI tried to prevent the attacks, and that they came from the outside. He’ll use the Enjiho footage to capture everything, make a compelling story out of the footage, and sell it to them easily.’

Mae cut me short. “But why wait? Why hold onto this data and direct several attacks to take place? Why not look like the hero now?”

Ena appeared in my mind’s eye. “And you’re what, our fuhyō?”

A sense of understanding washed over me as everything came together.

‘He was waiting for all the pieces to fall into place. He doesn’t just want to look like a hero and boost public opinion. He wants to frame someone for it all.’

The lights came up and a new stage was set. Cho’s sister Zari stood at the center of eight girls, all her junior. She was in her flowing mountain robe. The shawl that had been at her shoulders floated above her, dropping real snow that hung on her lashes and melted on her skin. A stringed instrument played a low, dreary tune.

Zari twirled and the cloud above her blew away, turning and swirling into a vortex of white mist that engulfed the audience. I looked up, marveling at the tiny dots of snow. The balcony caught my attention and I leaned back a little more to see it. Either Ko-nah or Dokun had their arms raised in the air, and twinkles of en munje drifted up the walls.

The blue sparkle was hardly visible through the cloud, but I saw it snake up and behind them to the domed, stone ceiling.

The ceiling…

I’d remembered seeing the trains, some of them several kilometers in the air, and thinking how horrible it would be for one of them to go down. The passengers inside wouldn’t just be hurt, like the little girl and those others had been, and whatever they hit would suffer sever casualties, too. I recalled our walk into the performance hall, the towering buildings around us all had trains ferrying passengers hundreds of meters in the air.

‘Mae, what can we do to stop a huge train from smashing through that ceiling and crushing us?’

“Little to nothing… Reinforcing the ceiling, if that’s what Ko-nah is doing with his en, won’t stop that train from obliterating us.”

My heart pounded in my throat, but I knew what I had to do. I couldn’t let everyone die here. I stood, terror vibrating in every centimeter of my body. Cho took one look at my face and his eyes bulged like mine.

“What is it?” He asked, dread I his voice.

I sent ry to my throat. “Everyone has to get out! There’s going to be an attack on the Performance Hall!”

The music faltered and murmurs drifted up through the room.

I moved past the students to the alley and raised my voice louder. “Run! Get out! It could happen at any moment!”

An older woman with curling purple hair and an elegant dress boomed behind me from the stage. “Given the times, any threat on our lives must be taken seriously. Everyone, proceed out of the theater in an orderly fashion.”

I refused to let my gaze drift up to Hana, no matter how desperately I wanted to look at her. I was Ko-nah, not Jiyong. Ko-nah wouldn’t look at Hana, and I had to keep the performance up if we were going to have any chance at accomplishing our mission.

The hall grew louder as the students evacuated from the back rows first. The dancers fled the stage into the back rooms, Zari giving us one last look before disappearing behind the curtain.

Cho waved her off, then bent down to whisper. “What’s going on?”

“I think a train—

A roaring boom flattened me to the ground and deafened my ears. My head bounced against a chair cushion, and my vision went dark. When my sight returned, the bright world was spinning. I blinked and popped my ears, trying to regain equilibrium as my eyes focused on a dark object hanging above me.

The ceiling was destroyed, and noon light streamed in on rays of brilliant color. I shook my head and looked once more at the massive chrome object hanging above my head, restrained by a swirl of red and blue munje. I’d seen Hiro support so much weight on nothing but air with the Valeria, somehow. How could they hold up all that metal with munje alone?

“Cho, Yuri?” I gasped. My voice was muffled in my own ears.

My throat ached and I coughed, sending plumes of concrete dust into the air. I rolled to the side and pushed myself up on my elbow. That’s when I saw it clearly. Ko-nah, but with my face, stood on the edge of the crumbling second floor next to Dokun. Both had arms raised—red power flowing from Dokun and blue from the image of me. The red supported the train, while Ko-nah’s blue held aloft massive chunks of stone ceiling.

Hana tugged on my doppelganger’s arm, pleading something I couldn’t hear. Ko-nah turned and said something back. She stepped forward, grabbing his face in her hands and planting a kiss on his lips. My stomach squeezed and turned, a primal heat bubbling in me.

No, this was her duty. Dokun was watching, and she had to keep up the act.

Hana ran from the ledge and Ko-nah, his face stricken with confusion and pain, turned back to the destruction. His eyes met mine through the floating stones and fleeing bodies. He moved his mouth, the Busaneo word for “run” taking shape on his lips.

I climbed to my feet and searched the ground for my friends. Cho was face down in the rubble but roused at my touch. He had a gash over his left eye leaking blood down his dirt caked face.

“Yuri,” he said desperately, then stumbled to his feet. We found Shin-soo who had curled himself over Yuri, and helped him to his feet. He too had blood running down his neck from some head injury, and Yuri wouldn’t rouse.

“We can’t hold it much longer!” Dokun’s amplified voice burst through the noise of the wailing crowd.

Cho pulled Yuri up into his arms and we climbed over the boulders of destroyed ceiling and broken seat fragments toward the exit. It was even louder in the dusty lobby. Students covered in white, chalky debris and blood milled about, looking for their friends and anyone who could help.

Cho found a fragment of chair cushion and knelt, resting Yuri’s head against it. He pulled three vials from his interior pocket—one for each of us—then a fourth with a green stopper for Yuri. I drank the potion in a single gulp. Invigorating waves of calm power roused my fearful mind, and I became alert.

I stood on my toes, searching the crowd for our instructors. I caught sight of Sung-ki’s tall frame and catfish moustache, then waved my hand overhead to call him to us. He brought Woong-ji along with him, and we all crouched around Yuri. Cho tilted her head back gingerly and poured the potion into her mouth.

A second later, she gasped awake. She looked up at Cho, bewildered, then around at the group of us. “Well, this isn’t going quite as we planned,” she said in a raspy, slurred voice.

Hana pushed through our ring and knelt next to Yuri. “Where are you injured?”

I wanted to pull Hana up into my arms and hold her close—but I was wearing Ko-nah’s face. I kept my eyes pointed down at Yuri, though my heart begged for me to check Hana for injuries. I had to keep up the act, just as they had.

Yuri blinked her eyes out of sync. “Mostly my head. I think. I don’t know.”

Hana’s hands emanated black zo and she touched Yuri’s stomach, chest, neck, then head. Her munje soaked into Yuri like dry soil drinking water.

“We should abandon the next steps and go straight to evacuation,” Shin-soo said.

If we ran, all we would save is our own lives. If we ran, Dokun would come to power and subjugate all the people of Kokyu, and maybe the world, to his idea of a perfect future. No munje, only machina.

I pointed up to the second floor. “Ko-nah is still in this. We must come through for the people of Kokyu, and the future of the world.”

“I’m still in,” Cho said, determined fury in his eyes.

“Same,” Yuri said, using Cho’s offered hand to help herself up.

“Not like I have a choice, but of course I’m still with you,” Shin-soo said, wiping blood from his temple.

“We know what’s at stake if we fail. I’m ready.” Sung-ki said.

“I’m with you.” Hana reached out for me, then tucked her hands behind her back and chewed her lip. We still had an act to put on.

“Master?” I asked.

Woong-ji nodded. “Let’s finish this.”