The only noise on the trip was the autocar skidding over loose pebbles of road as it came to a rest.
“Well,” said Simon, “There we are.”
Yeung-Sung nodding, watching out for any movement through the window. Supposedly, the curving bumper rail marked the boundary of the colony. But apart from the Wi-fi, what other importance did the Champion’s place on it? Why would they demand he come here?
‘Even if I ran past that line, how long until the blip of my lost connection would alert GLI?’
He checked his phone. No new messages. No new directions.
“What do you think I should do?” Yeung-Sung asked Simon.
“They must be nearby, “ he replied, “Once they reveal themselves, I’ll be sure to create a discreet report.”
Rolling his eyes, Yeung-Sung exited the autocar into a world of grey. Sifting clouds above warned of rain, and so Yeung-Sung had brough a thin rain jacket -purple, naturally. It rippled in the breeze a s he zipped it up, drawing the heat from his skin. Still on the lookout for some sort of life, all Yeung-Sung saw was the bump of the landscape, whose energy was also sapped by the hungry clouds looming ever closer. When Yeung-Sung rubbed his warmth into his arms, he noticed his phone light up.
Am I being watched? Air bubbled down his back like frozen breath. Where could they be?
On a whim he looked above and traced his vision over the rolls of misty grey that curved over the land, the wind rustling the branches of the roadside shrubbery with a sound like a thousand cracking spines.
Leaning back through the open car window, Yeung-Sung smiled at Simon. “Leave me. They won’t come out till you’re gone.”
Simon widened his eyes, grounding the tip of his meaty fingers into the griddle plastic of the dashboard.
He’s afraid for me. Which…while nice, he needs to learn to read the situation.
Yeung-Sung kept his smile and straightened up, standing beside the autocar, nestling his hands neatly in through the side pockets of his raincoat.
“I am glad we met,” Yeung-Sung said into the still distance.
The Brit coughed a desiccated cough, ragged with emotion. “As -as am I.” For the first time -that Yeung-Sung had witnessed, anyway- Simon bowed. “Thank you, Yeung-Sung. For your wisdom…and your faith. In me.”
He snapped his voice up again, almost hostile into the autocar speakers. “ -Take me back to headquarters!”
Like a trained horse, the autocar swung its weight around and kicked off.
Taking a few steps after it, Yeung-Sung held his fists tight, stretching out the filmy polyester or his jacket like a fake boulder. He pinched his wet nose, watching the coned spray of its headlights disappear over the bends of the country road until, once it winked out, he let out a gasp of fear and exhilaration. Sniffing and keeping it back in the cold and uncertain evening.
But he had little time to feel down.
Huge black wheels roared, rising from behind the mounds a hundred feet away, over the sides of the road. With them came the rattling, half-crazed cackle of quadruple motorcycle cylinders.
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Stepping into a guarded stance in the middle of the road, Yeung-Sung waited for them to surround him, the engines snorting and sneering at him, pouring black mucus into the air. Each bike held a rider in full black, except for the pair that stalled directly in his face, halting close enough for the smell of rubber to wrinkle Yeung-Sung’s nose, close enough for him to reach out and grab hold of the moistened handlebars.
Are these really the Champions? Something doesn’t feel right about this…
The all-leather outfits, the motorcycles; if he had known there was a group like this, he would have joined it on his first day. Besides the obvious question of where they got all this equipment, and how they hid it from GLI, the most unnerving thing was the fact that he didn’t see a colony phone on any on of the them.
As the pair in front of him kicked their stands into the ground, dismounted and took off their helmets, Yeung-Sung was screaming off his head with;
Are they even coloners? Could they be…North Koreans?
Yeung-Sung swallowed, recognising the rider. But then behind him strode in a Latin woman.
“Hey, we meet again.”
“You’re form the riots,” Yeung-Sung shouted, “You were about to bash in the autocar that I arrived in that night.”
The male shrugged, and the other drew her finger in a line down his jacket sleeve, turning back in an wicked smile.
The girl from that same group?
She tussled shiny black springs of her hair and stuck her helmet in underneath the armpit of the tight jacket they all seemed to wear.
How did they all get one? Seriously?
Yeung-Sung took a wary step back as the woman female Champ approached, only to back into another rider. Twisting, his bike throttled into life, shepherding Yeung-Sung inside the tyre circle.
I need to clear the air before this goes anywhere unsavoury.
“You brought me here for a reason,” Yeung-Sung said quickly. “But are you -you guys really the Champions?”
The woman stopped, her thick boots slapping the tired old cement. Keeping a curious eye on Yeung-Sung she reached in under her fastened jacket through the wide collar to bring out a pair of battered spectacles. With a blink and a smack of her lips, she plopped them down over her button nose.
“Who do you think we are?” she asked. She took another step.
Flinching, Yeung-Sung fought to stammer out an answer. “Umm, The Duners -I mean, it would seem more in line with them? That’s who I thought you were at the riots?”
Between swinging springs of hair, the Champ’s expression didn’t move.
Yeung-Sung shut his eyes to think.
“Uh-huh? Is that so, Duners? Well, you may be right.”
He opened his eyes to the groups waiting smirks. “So,” he began, “…you are the Duners?”
“Of course. I’m Carmen and this is my partner Lorenzo.” She thrust out her hip, exposing a stuck-out swatch of belt. Yeung-Sung stumbled his way through reading the face of every driver in the circle to find confirmation.
“And what about the Champions?”
The group hooted, blaring their horns in terrible synchronisation.
“Right here, boracho,” said Carmen, “I thought you were supposed to be smart…I’ll be nice -I give you a minute.”
Circling again, he counted the bikes, all eight of them. Adding in Carmen. who rode on the back made nine -And of course, whoever messaged him to meet is not here; there are no phones here. That made ten. A group of ten.
Wil’s voice echoed in his head, “-Obsessed with the number ten.”
“You are the Champions,” Yeung-Sung realised, “And also the Duners…at the same time?”
He slammed a hand into his forehead. How could that be? They were completely different types of groups; The Champions were, at most points of the experiment, the best faction. They would have phones on them at all time. They wouldn’t be wasting their time riding motorbikes and hiding out at the colony’s border.
And it hardly works the other way around, either.
“But I thought the point of the Duners was to sabotage the colony. They -you- oppose the experiment on a fundamental level, right?”
Carmen strode over and took his arm in hers, saying, “What better way to take down an economic experiment than to be at the apex, controlling the entire flow of the money, eh?”
She tugged hard. “But that’s not exactly how it’s going down, is it? Let’s go for a walk.”
She pulled him forward, but Yeung-Sung stood his ground, soles screeching against the tarmac.
“No!”
He went to grab her, but the eyes of the men around him was too big of a warning sign that it was even overriding this instinctual action.
“You know why I’m here; Where is Wil? Why did you take him?”
She narrowed her eyes. Clamping down again, she pulled him forward so hard that his shoulder almost popped. After that, Yeung-Sung had little choice but to follow her into the grey.
“Where do you think I’m taking you, cholo?”