Fiona's face is lit up by the monitor, her hands busy typing away. All of the students have left by now and which is when she usually starts working on... her second, slightly less legitimate, moonlighting career. The room has somewhat cooled down after letting the windows open once the sun set. The air outside is still fetid, but somewhat bearable compared to the day. Still, Fiona sets an alarm to close the window after 30 minutes.
She swipes through countless profiles. Gang members, politicians, landlords... there are charming faces she recognizes from the news and regular ones, too, that she might mistake for a long-forgotten uncle or teacher from another life.
She studies each profile carefully, trying to discern any kernels of their personality or wealth through various snapshots of their life. Even though she knows she should hate them all, hate this job and why she has to do it, some part of her can't help but be dazzled by their profiles.
She always ends up scrolling through hundreds and hundreds of faces, until her sight blurs and swiping gets robotic. It is at this point, often past midnight, that Fiona starts to feel a little sick with herself and her perverse fascination with these profiles. After all, she isn't picking someone for marriage. Shorter their encounters are, the better. The best outcome would be if they never meet again.
She picks one at random. Adranuch Cao, who sports a 6-figure pair of Doc Martens that Fiona could never dream of affording in the paparazzi photos. Across all of her social media profiles, Fiona finds a fundraiser for the "Anti-Terrorism Coalition", which is working to target and prosecute those who may have aided in this morning's demonstration. A true philanthropist.
Adranuch Cao is a rare-breed in this day and age. A socialite. An influencer. Physical beauty long lost its value as currency when the Obsidian Tortoise popularized advanced surgery that makes anyone beautiful. Adranuch must be doing something right. Fiona bites her lip and tries to quell her racing heart. She's found her target.
As Fiona pulls up information on the different banks that Adranuch patrons, violent expletives rattle her eardrums from the alleyway outside. "Get the fuck back here!" someone shouts. She draws her windows shut. It could be a number of things, all of which she would most likely not want to get caught up in.
Even though it's not relevant at all, Fiona can't help but pull up all of Adranuch's socials across her monitor. In one corner, a blurry photo the tabloids caught of Adranuch at an Azure Dragon club, messy lipstick and glossy eyes. In another, a photo of Adranuch Cao and Daniel Chen, the most popular candidate in the Sacramento elections, during their brief relationship. Daniel leans over Adranuch's tiny frame and whispers something in his ear, both of them smiling at something only they know. One of Daniel's hands cannot be seen from this angle. An article about how the daughter of a casino empire has been investing in various properties, "ambitious beyond her years".
The shouting continues and now Fiona realizes that the government-run Compliance Order is outside her window, something that doesn't bring much relief. She can hear them harassing some passerby, not unusual at this time of night. "Resisting arrest violates Section 135 Article III of the Sacramento Declaration," a voice repeats over and over in a mechanized boombox, accompanied by a wailing alarm.
Fiona plugs in her over-ear headphones, her most treasured possession that her father left behind. They probably go for over $20,000 now. She puts them over her head very carefully, trying not to damage the foams. Instantly, the world mutes and Fiona feels a blanket of peace drape over her entire body. Back to Adranuch Cao, who banks at the Sacramento First Bank. Easy. Fiona's been in and out of their systems thousands of times.
The wailing alarm still cuts through Fiona's headphones which makes it hard for her to focus. Fiona takes a closer look at the Sacramento Times profile of Adranuch Cao, which highlights all of her groundbreaking achievements despite being a part of one of the first waves of refugees when Asia first began to collapse.
Fiona was part of that wave, too. She remembers seeing her mother's fiery hair in the crowd, shoving people aside for a share of food that she and Fiona could split. How obvious her mother's Irish accent felt in a crowd of starving refugees, how obvious Fiona had felt in the crowd with her sleepy eyes and reddish hair. How Fiona cried at night, barely even 7 years old but painfully aware of the fact that she'd never be able to see her father's grave again.
Apparently, while Fiona was doing all that, Adranuch was introduced to would-be socialites and sitting in on her father's business meetings with the forming gangs. Fiona zooms back into the photo of Adranuch at the club, long legs flirting with a shimmering dress. Her shuttered smile, teeth gleaming white, simultaneously self-conscious and boasting. The way her eyes are closed in bliss under the laser lights. The face of someone who's never thought too hard about the world she lives in.
Her reverie is interrupted with repetitive pinging noises. Great. The familiar sound of bullets ricochet against the alley walls, even piercing through her noise-canceling headphones. Fiona is now thoroughly annoyed, and takes them off to close her windows, lest a stray bullet finds its way in. She shoves against the rusting metal, trying to get it to budge so she can get back to work. Fiona poises to throw her entire body against the metal grate and that's when she hears it – 가까이 오지마.
Don't come closer.
Memories of a past life flood her. The smooth curve of the phrase, the bubbling vowels, and clipped syllables — Fiona hasn't heard her father tongue in years. Some nights, she whispers to herself in the darkness and tries to marinate in the characters and words that made up her childhood. She savors the way they feel in her mouth even though they feel more clunky and unfamiliar as the years go by.
Some nights, the words escape her completely. Some nights, Fiona worries that the sounds that she's grasping at are nothing more than the figments of her imagination. But there it is — don't come closer, pronounced in perfect, authentic Korean. Despite the fear and urgency in the words, Fiona feels warmed with the familiarity and ease with which the phrase settles in her ears.
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The more time she spends in her defunct classroom, blinking in shock, the more she starts to doubt that she heard it at all. The sound of gunfire continues, but further down the street now. Just a usual Monday night. Compliance Order troops are always around, always going after someone for one reason or another. She'll just have to walk home a bit later, after everything quiets down.
But underneath the din, she hears that voice again – young, old, warning, afraid, all at once. He says: "조심해!" Be careful. It's barely perceptible and yet. Fiona feels the words languish in her veins, twisting and turning memories that she's long forgotten. How her father used to say that she'd rush into danger, not because she was brave, but because she trusted the world too much and never thought to be careful. How she inherited this recklessness from her mother.
She remembered his gravelly voice, be careful, be careful, be careful, and patient and stern. It's a benign expression, but the way her father would tell her to be careful even when she stepped outside the house for a minute, whether she was two or eight, ingrained the parental anguish of letting children out of sight to her. She often wondered if she had chosen her career due to this Asian parenting.
Before she knows it, she's fastening up her Sheltersuit and toggling the bulletproof armor extension. Be careful, her father would say in affectionate Korean. She takes a minute to lock up because people will ransack anything these days, but keeps fumbling with the lock as she hears the pursuit drift further and further away. Her lungs burn when she runs but before long, she sees the crowd of Compliance Order troops surrounding an unsuited man, poised for arrest. "밖에 나가면 조심해". Be careful out there, her father would say. But she doesn't hear him anymore.
Nowadays, Sheltersuit arrests aren't usual, but not uncommon either. It would be extremely uncomfortable, if not suicidal, to leave the house without a Sheltersuit. Minutes outside unsuited will inevitably lead to at least second-degree burns and days of coughing out the soot. Hours, and you'd end up like the girl on the news this morning. But nowadays, it's not uncommon for people to be suicidal.
But what is strange is the man's outfit. Despite the ever-present and suffocating heat, he's adorned in formal-looking dress wear that reminds Fiona of hanbok, the traditional Korean attire her father used to tell her about. Almost as though he's from a different world.
Fiona has so many questions. And so she can only watch with horror when she realizes that he's cornered by an entire squad of masked troops. "Resisting arrest is grounds for execution without trial," the artificially distorted voice announces. Full-bodied fear seizes Fiona's chest as the squad raises their identical machine guns and aim it at the unsuited man.
"Engage." The voice announces emotionlessly and they all do. The guns' safety locks come off clicking simultaneously, an underwhelming announcement of imminent death.
The man bows his head. For a second, Fiona catches the look in his eye. He doesn't have the glossy look of a crazed man, driven beyond any reason. He doesn't have the same defiant look as what Fiona imagined the 14-year-old girl would have had.
No. His dark eyes watch the bullets fly towards him, completely alert and clear as day. The emotion in his pale face is not indecipherable nor ambiguous. There is simply unwavering grief. Grief that is so potent and resolute that Fiona stumbles back.
In almost a daze-like slow-motion, she hears the bullets pierce through the air. She lets out a wordless scream and he–
He shifts almost imperceptibly and all of the oxygen is sucked out of the air. Her world slows. She watches the stranger's chest expand with a breath, she feels her mouth opening in a wordless scream, she does nothing as the bullets soar mid-air. And with a loud BANG, a shimmering white light blinds Fiona.
The white light dances all around her. It absorbs all of the energy out of her bones, and she feels a lightness and joy she hasn't felt in years. It surrounds her everything, and everywhere she looks, there are echoes of the past. Her father's warm hands — guiding her along the keyboard, sloping the pencil along her Hangul lessons, spooning jjigae broth into her mouth. Her mother's warm laugh and fiery jabs, even until the end. Fiona tries to burn the images that dance within the white lights into her brain. It's beautiful. It's painful. Her eyes are closed.
Silence.
Fiona opens her eyes and blinks through the black dots that dance in her vision. For a second, she can't believe the scene in front of her. But it's there. Dozens of Compliance Order troops, laying on the ground and unmasked to reveal the same, genetically-cloned face. Their dead eyes stare up at the sky, revealing about as much emotion as they usually do. Curiously enough, the air glimmers with white whisps – at first, Fiona thinks they are ashes. But when they flutter to the ground languorously, Fiona realizes they're bits of paper scrolls. Fiona can't help but think of an old poem that her mother used to murmur, between blinks of sleep: Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths...
And in the middle of it all, the strange Korean man, alive and well. Staring at the ground like nothing ever happened. Enwrought with golden and silver light...
They both stand there like that, as unmoving as the dozens of cloned bodies on the ground. Seconds or maybe minutes pass and a dreadful blaring alarm begins. The pair are washed in a red strobe light that signals the imminent arrival of backup forces, and they blink out of their daze, as if waking from a dream. I have spread my dreams under your feet...
Fiona and the man make eye contact above the dozens of cloned bodies. The unwavering grief is still there, virtually unchanged. There's something else there, too, an emptiness that sends chills straight to Fiona's toes. But for some reason, she's not scared of him. There is a small mole on his cheekbone, a small blemish that punctures his soft features. It's so human, despite everything she just saw. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Despite his boyish looks, he is all height and sharp angles. His shock of silver hair gleams in the night and his eyes are... a shade of lavender? Maybe some sort of lens computer? She knows people do that now, but she can't find any hint of LED diodes. No, his eyes are vividly violet. His lips, too, are almost purple —perhaps from the shock. Fiona's almost too entranced to realize she's gawking. Almost.
"What are you?" Her voice trembles in the air.
He doesn't say anything.
Fiona opens her mouth. She reaches into the depths of her mind that she only allows herself to think about late, late at night. This time, she doesn't have the time to run the pitches through her head, to whisper the shape of the words before solidifying them aloud. She says the only thing she can think to say, a word that's been repeated to her hundreds of times, gesturing towards a sleek keyboard or a warm hug — "저랑 같이 가요."
Come with me.
It comes as a whisper. For a second, Fiona thinks that he might not have heard her and so she bows her head and turns to leave. It's only a few moments later that she hears his footsteps, following.