C H A P T E R
T W E N T Y - T W O
If the box weren't addressed by the city, I would immediately assume it's filled with things nice and pretty. Perhaps some delivery that's intended for their Champion. Maybe a letter of congratulations, banners, gifts, and things alike.
But when I opened the box and started taking out the stuffs one by one - there weren't such things as gifts of gratitude.
Weapons. Lots and lots of them. They were nothing like I had ever seen before. One was as small as a pistol, with a curving arc on its head connected with jaws of tubelike metals. It was light and handy, the type you can hide in your pocket without getting bothered by the weight.
"That's my father's model," Yuta blurted out. I looked at him and I saw surprise on his face. "I-I didn't know he'll show it to someone. I helped him make it at his lab. It's . . . " he trailed off and gathered his focus on another material. He was eyeing a round material in the box this time. Yuta grabbed it impatiently and started examining the object instantly. There's something wild in his eyes.
"This is 2XC-Sphere. I made it with Father too. Once thrown on the floor, it produces invisible rays that scatter around the area. Those rays can electrify enemies."
Then he started playing with a weapon he just claimed as capable of electrocuting, throwing it in the air and catching it with his hand as if it were a ball.
"And what is this?" I held up another foreign device. It's shaped like a cylinder, about the size of my thumb.
"Oh, that," Yuta's eyes glimmered. "It's one of my creation, too. I started making it when I was 16. Look," he held my hand, the one that was holding the device.
I winced.
Yuta's focus was entirely on his creation. "If disturbed by an outside force," he stirred the object by shaking his hand along with mine. The slight movement caused the cylindrical object to glow in neon light. "It glows. It comes in pairs, actually. It's used as a tracker. Where's the other one?"
"This one?" I showed him an identical pair. I didn't stir it yet, but it was already glowing like a firefly.
"Yeah," his eyes twinkled. "Usually, two different people should possess this thing separately. So when one gets lost, the other could find the troubled. It's like the witchlight in the story Mother used to read to me. An alarm, if put in this modern society."
"Good heavens. That's useful."
"Indeed." Yuta smiled beautifully. He looked unbelievably pleased. A thought barged in my head that when you want Yuta to show him to you this beautiful smile that only he could muster, you only need to talk about his family and, well, his innovations.
"Sooji," he muttered, grabbing my attention. "I take this." He fisted one of the mini-cylinders and added, "And you," he gestured at its pair, "you take that."
"Thanks," I accepted. "This could come in handy. Do I only need to shake it?"
He nodded. "Just like what I did in my demonstration."
"Hmmm, nice," I said before pocketing the thing.
Kun suddenly entered the conversation. "Your father himself sent them."
He was looking at a seemingly surprised Yuta.
"Interesting. I never knew Father could approve of my creations. He always," Yuta paused and looked at the ground, "he always turns them down."
"His father? Does that mean he knows where we are?" I faced Kun.
The man simply waved his head. "Not really. But he knew that Distingué Yuta and you are together after what happened at the Dome. These weapons were intended for you to use."
"And care to explain how you suddenly appeared here and delivered such crucial weapons?" Yuta asked. As expected, he's suspicious of the other male. "Who are you working for?"
"I am working for you, Your Distingué," uttered the magician.
"You are working for the Capital," Yuta corrected him.
"Yes." A nod. "Yes, I do."
"But you are from Neon 116, aren't you Kun?"
I almost gasped.
My eyes landed on Kun, looking at his rigid yet calm face. When he nodded at Yuta's question, all that kept on ringing on my head was 'of course, of course'.
Kun had worked for Yuta for so long. It's only natural for Yuta to know his origins. But for Kun to be someone from the same section as Hendery was, bulldozed hundreds of alarm in my head.
"Do you know a guy named Hendery?" my heart raced when his name was mentioned.
I was also supposed to ask: Do you know what happened to my father? Is he really dead? What happened to village and why is Hendery blaming me for it?
But of course I couldn't ask it out loud. They know me as the daughter of the Dong family whose parents were bosses. My father's Sicheng's father too. Not the one who died. Not Baba.
Kun swallowed and answered vaguely, "I heard many stories."
"Like what? Tell me!"
I was desperate. So desperate. On the corner of my eyes, I can say that Yuta was staring at me.
"You should not know." Kun said, trigerring my insides. "This information is very private." He said those words as if muttering a magic spell.
I balled my fists tightly, urging myself to be steady. "Kun," I inhaled sharply. "If you are really on our side," I pursed my lips. "You need to stop hiding secrets from us."
An expression of realization painted across his facial features. He opened and closed his mouth in lack of words. I looked straight at his eye, searching for any hope that he knows something.
"I wish I invented a lie detector," Yuta remarked on the side. If it weren't for this current situation, I would've smiled at his comment. He spent years inventing never-seen-before devices, but not a lie detector. I was pretty sure that with the ability to access a person's Neowaves these days, it's very possible to read their thoughts and feelings as well. But that completely destroys anything that's left human in us. But didn't the virus did that already? The plague destroyed humanity - why wouldn't a series of wires and artificial intelligence do it too?
"Section 116 is something that's gone in a blink of an eye," Kun explained, leaving both of his listeners confused. "Once it is there, the other second it's gone."
"What?"
"It keeps on changing. Switching is the better word. It has no permanent location. No correct tracking. They're like huntsmen... running and searching in the wild, in the snow . . . " then he gazed at my eyes, clashing gold against gold, "And the hunt will never stop until they get you, Champion."
I almost whirled. "So they are looking for me." My throat felt dry, my body stiffened.
"Not just you. The survivors of the virus, too. Those who were supposed to be dead, but survived. They already took one of them."
Jaemin.
"One of them? There are others too?"
Kun blinked. "There are only two, actually. But the other one, the other survivor, they are not aware of it. Actually, I wasn't aware that there is really another one who survived the virus like Na Jaemin did. Not until Lee Taeyong asked for my help."
The name brought a heavy, unpleasant feeling in the atmosphere.
Yuta moved forward, while wearing a very serious expression. "Taeyong told what?"
Kun looked hesitant at first. But I guessed he remembered what I told him earlier because he answered: "About the other survivor. He told it to me because he needed my help that time. As you all know, I do illusions. And disguising a body to be dead . . . " he shrugged his shoulders and added, "It's child's play."
"You- you what?!" I asked, dumbfounded. "You helped Taeyong frame someone to be dead?!"
He nodded. "It was a necessary action. We needed to convince everyone. Taeyong did the right thing. If we did not do it, maybe the president has two pawns in his hands right now."
"Wh-Who?!" I said. "Who is this person that you're hiding?"
I watched as Kun gulped, neck glimmering with a sprinkle of sweat and muscular tension. Yuta crossed his arms in front of his chest, eyeing the man with a stare that's enough to impale.
The seconds that passed while waiting for Kun's answer were like individual thorns piercing my brain and saying and whispering and muttering 'why are you digging yourself deeper into this chaos? why why why why.'
And I can hear my Grandma whispering in my head 'Stupid, little girl.'
I wished Yuta actually built a lie-detector machine so we can use it now and so that it'd damn tell right in front of our faces that Kun was lying, because the name that escaped his mouth was beyond impossible to comprehend.
"Jeena," he said, breathing and not breathing at the same time. "The virus wasn't able to kill Kwon Jeena. Sh-she's still alive. Taeyong is keeping her somewhere."
The room tilted around me
and I,
felt my heart shudder,
felt the hairs on my skin rise,
felt everything once and for all
like mere speck on the dusts,
something that's ought to be extinguished but is still there and not making any sense.
It doesn't make sense.
Impossible. Impossible. How? Why?
First, Jaemin. And now Jeena?
How about Lucas? Is the virus choosing people now or what?
I saw her records. I attended her funeral. I saw her lifeless body.
Saw.
The realization tickled my core, until every possible facts stocked up my head like building blocks.
Everything's just witnessed by the eyes. There were no further proof, no further investigation. But her heart stopped. She should've been dead already.
Yuta breathed heavily, brows furrowed together in confusion and face overtaken by shock. "I must talk with Taeyong."
"I wasn't supposed to tell this," Kun said, interrupting everything so easily. When he looked at me, I saw my startled reflection on his eyes. "But I believe that you can fix this mess, Dong Sooji."
**
"What if my heart suddenly stops beating? Will I be dead?" I asked those words to my brother when I was 13. For being so young yet talking about this - I know I'm beyond weird. "Is the heart the organ that keeps a person's life running? What does the word 'die' really mean?"
"Um, Sooji...?" Sicheng muttered, voice deep with eeriness. "Are you okay?"
I slumped on my bed, arms and legs spread wide. I stared at the polystyrene tiled ceiling and mumbled, "The final flurry."
I felt Sicheng slowly take the space beside me. He kept on checking his watch, kept on glancing at the hospital's magnolia corridors, kept on watching the nurses as they moved with deliberate serenity from room to room in their rounds.
"The final flurry," I said again and added. "It's the final wave that consumes the brain before it finally shuts down."
Sicheng furrowed his brow. "What does that mean?"
I got up from bed, my eyes squinting from how bright the private ward was compared to the darkening gloom outside. "What if a person's circulation resumes minutes after he was dead," I breathed. "What if there's a 'reboot' in their brain that will keep them alive?"
"Is that possible?"
"Nope," I stood up, stretching my arms in the process. "But maybe?"
Sicheng looked twice as more confused. "You're strange."
I just laughed. "Sorry for telling you about my thoughts. You're the only person I could talk to."
He blinked, "It's okay. It makes sense anyway. Because of you, I kind of start questioning too- hey, what are you doing?!"
Click. Click. Click.
I began removing the tubes that were connected to my arms, neck and collarbone. One by one, as if they're bugs sucking my blood. Maybe they are.
"Taking these parasites off my body," I said calmly.
"Have you gone mad?" Sicheng approached me in a hurried, uneased pace. He grabbed my hand, "Bring those back, Sooji! Mom will enrage if she-"
Before he could make any more protests, I was already done removing every single damn tubes from my body.
The computer where I was connected made alarming sounds. I mouthed 'stupid machine' in my breath. Looked at my bed and said, 'stupid pillows, stupid tubes, stupid stupid stupid...'
I grabbed a speechless Sicheng on his arms and said, "Let's get out of this place. It sickens me. Mom wouldn't get mad. I'll just tell her to schedule this - this thing another day. For now, I want to get out. I want to go home..."
Sicheng looked at me,
he opened his mouth,
closed it back,
and nodded.
I reached for the navy double-doors' dull chrome handles, pulled it open, and dragged Sicheng with me outside.
The hallway was cut into tiny squares by the thin wire in the window panels. There were paramedics wheeling in patients on trollies.
"Keep your head down until we reach the elevator. Don't act suspicious," I told Sicheng.
Without further delay, we started walking. Speed-walking was the better term. We hurried in the hallway, parting everyone that passed as if they were ocean tides and we're the wind.
The wheels of the stretcher and my pounding footsteps were the only thing I can hear.
Not until a child's scream prickled the air, causing doctors in dove laboratory gowns to start running. Sicheng and I continued walking amidst the distraction, eyes on the slate grey floor.
And we never looked back from where we came from.
*
😱😱😱
Before y'all attack me, I have explanations for everything. And those explanations will just be explained further in this book and, most especially, the 3rd one.