“What’s this for?” JD asked.
“Happy birthday.”
“My birthday was months ago.”
“And I didn’t get you anything. It’s a LOX-Recess screwdriver. If you ever get a chance to open up a dog, you’re going to need one of those.”
“Don’t you need it?”
“I’ve got a dozen of them littered around here.” Soo-hyun squeezed JD’s shoulder. “Come on, take a seat.”
They motioned to two stools, and JD groaned as he dropped onto the low seat, struggling to ignore the ache in his knee. Soo-hyun reached into a cooler beside the chair and produced two bottles of unlabeled beer. They tossed one to JD and he caught it.
JD twisted the lid off his beer and took a sip; it wasn’t good beer, but it was cold, and it was free.
“What do you think of the place?”
JD raised his eyebrows. “It’s, uh, cozy.”
“It’s a shithole,” Soo-hyun said.
JD nodded, and they both smiled. “At least you don’t have to share the workshop with anyone else. Do you?”
“No.”
“There you go then, that’s something,” JD said. “You really like it out here?”
“It’s quieter. I’m quieter. I fucked up, y’know,” they said, pointing to JD’s knee with their beer. “Liber is good for me.”
“You can’t hide here forever.”
Soo-hyun shrugged. “Songdo will always be waiting for me, but for now I’m happy.”
“Alright,” JD said. “Kali said you’d give me the details of this job?”
“I’ve already put the file together. I’ll make you a copy.” Soo-hyun walked to an old rig asleep in the corner, and whacked the mechanical keyboard to life. They pointed to a yellow envelope on a workbench by the door. “That’s your down payment; two thousand for expenses. Don’t give Red an excuse to come looking for it, hyung.”
“I wouldn’t give him the pleasure,” JD said as he wandered over to the bench. He swept up the cash-laden envelope and slipped it into his back pocket in one smooth movement.
Soo-hyun worked at their rig in silence for a minute or two, while JD drank his beer. Another dog drone walked in through the open door and bumped into Soo-hyun’s leg, shaking its rear half though it had no tail to wag. They patted it on the head and glanced at JD.
“Might have gone overboard on the canine subroutines with this one.”
JD smiled. “Nah, it’s cute.”
“I’ve got another present for you,” Soo-hyun said. “Check the fridge. Parcel wrapped in white paper. It’s all yours.”
The fridge was tucked away in the back corner of the room, half-hidden behind a mound of scrap metal and drone parts. JD opened the fridge door to a noisy hum, and the faint smell of mold. It was empty but for a single package in waxed paper on the middle tray. He took it and held it up to his nose. Salty.
“It’s bacon,” Soo-hyun said.
“What?” JD said. He almost dropped it in shock.
“One of the residents here used to be a butcher. Killed Quincy last week, and cured her. I put some aside for your mom’s famous fried rice.”
“I can’t take this—”
“You already did, now keep it.”
JD stashed it in his backpack, and downed the rest of his beer.
“Here you go,” Soo-hyun announced. They tossed a datacube across the room, and JD snatched it out of the air. “Everything you need for the job. Just—just don’t open it on a public network.”
“It’s not my first illegal rodeo.”
Soo-hyun smiled. “Take a look and we’ll compare notes tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?” JD asked, putting the cube into his pocket.
“Planning dinner.” Soo-hyun left the workbench and crossed over to join JD, trailed by their pet drone. “Thank you for doing this. I’ll talk to you later.” They hugged briefly, and Soo-hyun ducked out through the doorway and disappeared from sight.
JD slammed the fridge door and limped after Soo-hyun, but when he stepped outside, they were gone. A dog drone sat guard beside the entrance, visual sensors whirring as it looked up at JD’s face.
“Where’d they go?” he asked. The dog’s only response was the quiet whir of actuators as it scanned the school grounds, tracking a group of kids playing a chaotic soccer match on a too-small stretch of flat ground.
JD limped away, leaving behind the commune and all of Kali’s followers. He exhaled sharp through his nose to dislodge the clinging scent of solder, but when he breathed in he almost choked on the smell of pig shit, seeing for the first time the pen of sleeping animals beyond the commune’s vegetable patch.
JD slotted the battery into his phone, and blinked the start-up sequence. He waited impatiently for that surge of connection—informational and physiological, feedback loops of connectivity threaded deep through his psyche.
Once he was back online, JD made a call. “Hey, Mom. I’ve got a present for you; is it okay if I come around?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Soo-hyun waited on the cracked footpath outside Kali’s residence. It was the first building Kali had cleaned up and renovated with the earnings from her teachings—a three-story apartment block that housed the woman and held meeting rooms for her inner circle: Andrea, Yoo Jong-seo, Oh A-sung, Brandon “Red” Jones, Jin Sang-yeop, and Park Do-cheol.
A cool breeze rolled in, and Soo-hyun shivered and rubbed their arms through the thick fabric of their coveralls.
A message from Kali had brought them to the apartment block, but nothing in the text told them what to expect from the meeting. A childlike voice somewhere in the back of their head warned that they were in trouble. Sent to the head teacher for disciplinary action. It had been too long since their school days for the fear to emerge so vividly from their subconscious, and yet it had.
They’d been so good lately.
Soo-hyun let their head fall back, and they took in the night sky. Soo-hyun had always lived under that light-stained sky, despite false memories of vivid starlight implanted into their mind by film, TV, and social media. Still, Soo-hyun found a particular sort of beauty in the image—human civilization so
