Kali stood from her seat and walked around the table, all eyes following her as she approached Soo-hyun. She stood behind them, and gently placed a hand on their shoulders.
“Soo-hyun, your brother is not a believer, but we need him.”
“Don’t fuckin’ need him,” Red muttered.
Soo-hyun felt Kali’s breath on their neck as the woman exhaled slowly. “Red,” Kali said eventually, “you would see us start a war without our greatest weapon. There will be no bloodshed unless I order it. Understood?”
Red lowered his head and mumbled at the table.
“Answer me clearly.”
“Yes, Kali,” Red said.
“Soo-hyun, will you be able to keep your brother on track, keep him focused on the task at hand? Will you make sure he cooperates?”
“Yes, Kali.”
“There’s something else I need from you.”
Soo-hyun cleared their throat. “What is it?”
“You spend so much of your time tinkering inside your workshop. You take the machines that Zero would use against us, and you make them our eyes, you make them our protectors and our pets.”
“I do what I can,” Soo-hyun said.
“It’s not enough.”
Soo-hyun dropped their head, brow furrowed as they stared at their hands, resting in their lap.
“I’m not admonishing you,” Kali said. “It’s not your work that’s lacking, it’s your self. You’ve bottled something away and hidden it. I want to change that, Soo-hyun, if you’ll let me.”
Soo-hyun nodded, but didn’t speak.
“The rest of you know your parts,” Kali said. “I will speak to you tomorrow.”
The others all got up from the table, their chairs scraping loudly over the tile floor. Kali pressed her hands together in front of her face, bowing minutely to each of her followers as they bowed to her and left.
Kali stood in silence, and Soo-hyun listened as the others trudged downstairs and filtered outside. The building door slammed closed, silencing the sounds of the commune that had briefly drifted up to greet them. Kali squeezed Soo-hyun’s shoulder. “I need you to come with me.”
She walked around the table, pausing to collect the jar of inky void before continuing down a bright hallway, deeper into the converted apartment building.
Soo-hyun trailed Kali, the woman’s bare feet silent, Soo-hyun’s heavy boots loud and clumsy by comparison. Fear and apprehension slowed their tread. They had never before been alone with Kali, had never felt the full force of the teacher’s attention.
“Here we are,” Kali said. She stopped at a door painted glossy black, light refracting off its surface in a hundred vertical lines. She opened the door and motioned for Soo-hyun to enter.
Inside, the smell of antiseptic was stronger. A counter lined the opposite wall, topped with bottles of liquid soap and disinfectant, and a bulky plastic case. A leather office chair sat beside a high, adjustable bed, its black leather covered in plastic wrap.
“What is this?” Soo-hyun asked.
Kali crossed over to the plastic case and opened it, revealing a tattoo gun lying on a bed of gray foam. It was a scaffold of machined steel holding two barrels that made up the motor, and other fierce pieces of metal Soo-hyun couldn’t name. A long steel shaft like an industrial pen emerged from one end, with a thick hunk of plastic molded with finger grooves.
“One cannot join the inner circle, without an inner circle. A tattoo on your inner thigh.”
Soo-hyun swayed on their feet, chest tight with fear. “The others all have one?”
“Even Andrea,” Kali said.
“You tattooed her?”
“She did her own.” Kali smiled. “Though I admit, I had to clean it up for her.”
“I don’t have any tattoos,” Soo-hyun said.
“That will make this one all the more special.”
“I always wanted one, but it seemed …” Soo-hyun hesitated. “Like one step too far.”
“You’re holding back, Soo-hyun. What are you afraid of?”
“Have you ever lost control?” Soo-hyun asked. “Gotten so caught up in your excitement or rage that you disappeared?”
Kali shook her head only slightly. Her questing blue eyes told Soo-hyun to continue.
“It’s the greatest feeling in the world,” Soo-hyun said, breathily.
“Then why are you so afraid?” Kali asked.
“I don’t trust myself. It’s so easy to lose control, to do something you’ll regret later, to hurt someone you love.”
“So you toil away in the workshop alone because you’re afraid you might hurt someone.”
Soo-hyun nodded.
“I will let you in on a secret, Soo-hyun: life is pain. You will hurt people, and you will be hurt. This isn’t shameful, isn’t something to be avoided at all costs. It is proof that you’re alive. When is the last time you truly felt alive?”
Soo-hyun thought for a few seconds, then shook their head and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You’ve trapped yourself in the workshop because you’re afraid of living. Because you think that who you are is somehow wrong, that you are somehow broken. You are broken, Soo-hyun. We all are.”
Soo-hyun’s chest jolted with a sob they quickly stifled. They felt seen, understood, for the first time in entirely too long.
“I appreciate everything you do for Liber, but I no longer need the Soo-hyun that hacks together drones in their workshop. I need someone with rage in their heart, I need bravery, I need soldiers. I need the Soo-hyun that threw homemade bombs at police dogs during the Sinsong riots. Where has that Soo-hyun gone?”
Before Soo-hyun could answer, Kali spoke louder: “Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know. You know because you buried them. You buried them deep down because you’re too afraid to let them live. But I need them. You need them.”
Soo-hyun nodded and sniffed, their eyes burned with building tears.
“If you’re not ready for this, if you’re not ready to be close to me, I can’t force it. You have to want this, you have to work for it. You have to be ready to dig deep and find your old reckless self, your true self. The tattoo means you will
