“Can’t make a city look like space, bro.”
“A space station, then.”
Khoder shrugged. He dragged on his cigarette and squinted against the smoke. “Wouldn’t matter if they did. Still the same shit underneath.”
“Is it, though? Ninety-something percent of people in Songdo think they live in a clean, bright metropolis covered in advertising. That’s real to them.”
Khoder pointed to the sky. “Shit, that’s Stokoe,” he mumbled, ash shaking loose from the end of his cigarette.
JD nodded as though he concurred, but in truth he couldn’t read the virtual constellations any better than the real ones that lingered somewhere above the digital feeds, above the light pollution, above the clouds. “And?”
“I know people in Stokoe.” After a beat Khoder added: “We could raid them.”
The kid took a step backward, eyes still stuck to the sky, but JD grabbed a handful of his vinyl collar. “You’re not going back inside; they just got here.” JD nodded across the road to where Soo-hyun stood, waiting for a gap in the traffic with a harsh set to their mouth.
“But bro, think of the loot,” Khoder said.
JD shook Khoder violently enough for the kid to bring his eyes down from the sky. Soo-hyun wore a heavily constructed black neoprene hoodie, tight gray jeans, and cowboy-esque slouch leather boots they’d stolen from an auto-store and bragged about for a month. The boots were designer-ugly, but the theft gave them a certain criminal charm. A large black bag clung to their back like a baby orangutan to its mother.
“They go by they,” JD said. “So be cool.”
“I was born cool, bro.”
“You were born an asshole.”
Soo-hyun gave up waiting and walked out into traffic—car tires shushed over the wet asphalt as they braked, and horns blared in warning.
They mounted the curb and inspected Khoder. “What do we need him for?”
“Soo-hyun, Khoder; Khoder, Soo-hyun. He’s on digital security.”
“I thought that was your job,” Soo-hyun said.
“If it was a legit repo job I’d have extra tools as part of the contract. Without those I need a hacker.”
Soo-hyun held up a hand. “Okay, you’ve already said too much.” They retrieved a small pouch from their bag, lined with microwidth titanium sheeting. “Batteries, phones.”
JD took the phone from his pocket, cracked open the outer casing, and dropped the battery and phone into the bag. He turned to Khoder, who held his phone tightly in one hand, looking at it as though he were reading something other than his own distraught reflection.
“You’ll be offline for an hour,” JD said. “Two at the most.”
Khoder’s head dropped minutely. Sadly he intoned a single “Bro.”
He disassembled his phone with an air of ritual—sacred rites delivered on the street while all around them the city bustled. Cars hissed as they passed, people walked in tech-solitary silence, and a stray dog sniffed a garbage bin, cocked its leg, and posted to that canine message board. Khoder reached his hand into the bag and placed the phone and battery gently at its base.
“Are you alright?” JD asked Soo-hyun. “You seem different.”
They bit their lower lip and nodded. “I’m good, Jules, really good. Now, let’s move.” Soo-hyun didn’t wait for a response, they simply turned and marched away, slotting the Faraday pouch into their bag without missing a step.
JD was used to Soo-hyun’s ferocious pace, but he kept glancing back to make sure Khoder was keeping up. Where JD could ram his way through the crowded sidewalks with his bulk, Khoder was a wraith. He slipped through gaps that hadn’t been there a moment before, as though the foul-mouthed boy were made of smoke.
The building’s entrance screamed corporate wealth and design by committee, with walls in three different shades of fake gold, and pink marble flooring, all lit sickly orange from exposed industrial light bulbs. JD expected the automatic doors to stay closed at Soo-hyun’s approach, but they slid apart obediently to let them through, and stayed open as JD and Khoder followed. JD kept his head down and watched his feet carry him to the elevator, idly wondering if the building’s security was good enough to get a reflection off the gaudy tiles.
JD found Soo-hyun’s stolen boots waiting by the elevator, one of them tapping quickly. “Is this the building?” he whispered.
“Don’t be daft.”
“Then what are we here for?”
“I told you yesterday: planning dinner. I’m starving. You’ve got that money I gave you, hyung? Your shout.”
“Why is it my shout? It was your idea.”
The elevator opened with a faint digital chime. Soo-hyun ignored JD’s protest and bowed with exaggerated flourish, motioning him and Khoder inside. They hit a button near the top of the control panel, simply marked “R,” and the elevator jolted as it began to ascend.
“Bro, this elevator is nicer than your apartment.”
“You haven’t seen my apartment,” JD said.
“I’m not wrong though, am I?”
JD glanced up to see Khoder reflected to infinity in the mirrored walls, staring up at the intricately detailed decorations along the roof of the elevator car, painted with gold leaf or something like it.
“Keep your head down.”
“They look at me, they see fucking Gandhi.” Khoder tapped the brim of his baseball cap where wires ran along the edge, connected to AR microprojectors. “I’ll set you up before the job.” Khoder raised a middle finger to the small dome in the corner that more than likely hid a camera. “Ever been flipped off by Gandhi, bro?” he asked it.
“How do you even know who Gandhi is?”
Khoder shrugged, still watching the camera. “Searched for ‘famous skinny brown guy.’ He was a big deal.”
JD shook his head and looked to Soo-hyun for support, but they just smiled. Their face said: “You brought him; he’s your problem.”
The doors opened and Soo-hyun pushed ahead, carrying JD and Khoder forward on their wake. They stood in the entrance to a dimly lit restaurant called Orbital. The candles that topped each table provided the only luminescence, islands of fire in a sea of darkness. Human waitstaff, dressed all in black with faces shrouded, moved between the tables—shades of black shifting
