Peter Liu - Bald New World

Was Larry getting into another mess with the Colonel? Would I have to rescue him again? Then my mind went to the convention center. He’d barely noticed I’d been gone. I had assumed if I had vanished, he would have scoured the planet to find me. Perhaps I wasn’t as important to him as I had believed. The idea disappointed me. It was a wakeup call too. After Linda, I’d attached myself to Larry as he was the closest person to family I had. I’d been looking for family as long as I could remember, searching for it wherever I could, but never truly able to find it. I remembered my biological mother telling me that her birth dream for me was a cute puppy wagging its tail. Was my search for a new family as pathetic as a stray puppy trying desperately to find a home?

Larry always pursued lovers and while in the past, I’d forgiven him his vices, I realized, I was older now. We couldn’t play the young man’s game forever. I’d survived when I thought there was no way I was going to survive. We couldn’t go back to the way things had been in the past.

I would confront Shinjee because I owed her for the suffering I’d undergone. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do to her. But I had to at least confront her. And then?

I felt myopic. The future was too distant. Pain was now.

IV.

The restaurant looked the same as before; a three-story building with BBQ grills and a courtyard. I had been expecting differences and was underwhelmed that there were none. I ordered a beer at the bar, walked through the restaurant but didn’t see Shinjee. There were many drunk patrons gorging on kimchee, families enjoying grilled spicy squid, and foreigners who wanted to try something new. I spotted Hyori in a traditional Korean costume serving soju to a group of older businessmen, recognizing her by the tattoo of the mouse fighting the lion.

There was a back entrance that led to an alley they used to exit which was where we’d met them on our first date. I’d have to wait there for her later.

If anyone in the restaurant recognized me, they didn’t indicate it. Maybe it was the crew-cut wig and the fact that I’d lost so much weight. I ordered a miso soup and rice, ate it slowly to give my body energy. Korean food could be heavy and I needed to keep nimble and spry which was why I held off on ordering any casseroles or meat. There was corn in my rice and my aluminum chopsticks felt heavy in my hands. The tofu in my soup was old, indicating this was from a bigger batch they’d kept boiling throughout the week.

After I finished my meal, I paid my bill and exited. The hostess and several waitresses bowed respectfully and wished me safe travels.

I walked around to the back alley and waited.

V.

It wasn’t a long wait. Hyori was in a hurry somewhere and ran out by herself, focused on a phone call. She was blabbering in Korean about a guy she’d met and what a perfect body he had. With what Korean I knew, I translated what she was saying in my head. “It’s too bad we gotta have him sent to a camp. We should just keep him around…I know we’re behind on quota, but there’s only so many we can send at one time…No, I missed that episode. She’s such a drama queen…He deserves better. Much better. Like me.” A squealing chortle followed.

I raised up my wooden gun and fired. A dart hit her in the neck. It must have felt like a mosquito bite to her. She took a few more steps before coming to a standstill, the chemicals paralyzing her body. I walked towards her and lifted her into my arms. “You’ve had too much to drink, honey,” I said. “I’ll carry you.”

The best thing about the paralyzer was that it kept her fully conscious. There was a cheap love motel nearby masquerading as a KTV where I rented a room. The attendant gave me a lewd grin when he saw me carrying her in. “Needs somes protections?” he asked, his teeth colored piss yellow.

“I don’t like rubbers,” I told him.

“Have fun,” he said.

VI.

The room had two display screens, a cheap green sofa, concrete floor, a fake plant, and a shelf full of beer. I put Hyori down on the sofa.

“Been a while,” I said. I took the gun and fired an activator into her neck that would free the muscles in her mouth.

“W-who are you?”

I looked her straight in the face and from the confusion that stared back, I realized how different I must have appeared to her.

“I’m looking for Shinjee.”

“Shinjee? Why?” She looked at me again. “Nick?”

“Where is she?”

“I heard you were killed trying to escape from the convoy.”

“If I fire this one more time, your body will be paralyzed permanently. There is no way to reverse it, short of death. I’ll ask only one more time. Where’s Shinjee?”

“She’s doing factory work.”

“Where is it?”

Hyori gave me a Beijing address.

“What kind of security do they have there?” I asked.

“They don’t need any.”

“Why not?”

“No one would leave. They’re serving the Great Leader.”

I tried to look for the Linda in her, but couldn’t see it no matter how hard I tried. I turned around and was about to exit when she shouted, “Wait, you can’t just leave me here. Wait! What do you want with Shinjee?! She’s a failure! Leave her alone! Hey! Nick! C’mon!”

I shut the door and rushed out the front. The toxin would wear off after a day. But I didn’t bother telling her that.

“Done so fast?” the attendant asked.

“I’ll be back.”

VII.

The factory packed oxygen containers, recycling air and filtering out the toxins so that it was breathable. People could insert the cans into their gas masks. It was a popular item throughout the cities of the world as fresh air was more valuable than food in many places.

The filtering generators in this case were disgusting monstrosities that looked incapable of cleaning anything. Most likely, it was unpurified oxygen packed and sold to people at a slightly lower price by hawkers outside markets. People were breathing the same air they would have without a mask, only paying a premium for the pretty wrapping.

Just as Hyori had said, there was no security. On the outside, it looked like a normal business building with a fence around its periphery and signs written in both Mandarin and Korean. I spotted a conveyor belt that did most of the pumping and sealing of the oxygen. Eight vents spat out smog and the whole place was dusty, smelling of burning vinegar. None of the workers had on any protective gear, though they had to step out every fifteen minutes or so to clear their charred lungs. As bad as it was outside, it was worse inside.

I recognized one of those that stepped out as Shinjee. I had never thought her especially pretty, but I could recognize that she could be attractive to others. Something had happened to her since I’d last seen her. It was as though her skull had been reshaped and she’d taken a beating or two. She was skinny before, but now she was a twig, so frail, it looked like she’d snap upon contact. Her nose had been broken and patched back up, but not with any skill. She wore the white outfit of all the other factory workers and had a short purple wig on that had soot at its edges. There was no camaraderie among the workers, just forced civility.

There were a few ways to approach this. I had assumed I’d have to furtively paralyze her and take her away. But seeing the lethargic manner in which she moved, an instinct told me the direct approach would be most effective. She did not look like a woman afraid of death.

I waited for her shift to end. She scanned the bar on her card key to stamp out, bowed to some of her co-workers, then walked out with a limp. She chewed on a piece of bread as swarms of bicyclers passed her by. Exhaustion weighed down her legs and children outpaced her short walk home. She lived in a tiny apartment that appeared abandoned from outside because it was so old and decrepit. Graffiti painted the walls and the floors were dirty. She had to climb up six floors as there was no elevator and she shared a room with five others. They had a communal bathroom for the floor that stank of a year’s worth of human feces where she washed her hands.