Shooting Stars Over Sunrise, Chapter 1, by James Wylder
Part 1: Sunrise
Sang Ki’s orange juice package was cold, but getting warmer; his father’s lap was warm, but getting colder. Though he didn’t know it, because he was so small, this moment was nearly prophetic. “Do you see that?” Shh, his father said, you need to make a wish. Sang Ki didn’t quite know why he was wishing, but he wished anyways, as deep as a four year old could. It was a simple wish, that he would get to eat cake later, but he meant it and the wish dispersed amongst the stars as the shooting one he had pointed out disintegrated in Gongen’s atmosphere. The corrosive nature of the gasses impacting the object, and its own momentum being accelerated by the gravity tore it into pebbles, and then sand, and then molecules, and then it became dust on the Gongen soil and would fall into the cups of passersby and Ki’s juice packet, and they would all drink a little taste of stardust.
“Wishes are for little kids.” Eun said, age five. Their father laughed, and grabbed Eun’s pouting hand, and pointed it up at the stars, and formed shapes and pictures. Sang Ki simply smiled and sipped his orange juice. A few meters away the other children in the Jhe family sat and pointed at the stars. The three of them were 14, 15, and 16, and had parceled themselves off from their younger siblings. They were all still one Jhe family, but in some ways they were two. Sang Ki wondered why they didn’t just come over and sit with them, let father point the stars out for them as well. Maybe he should have wished for that.
· * *
“Ray?” “Here” “Joshua?” “Here” “Li?” “Here” “Erino?” “Here” “Fujitaka?” “Here” “Ki” There was silence. “Ki?” Sang Ki sat silently, he hadn’t heard of any one named Ki at his school. His teacher looked at the tablet pc again, “Sang Ki?” “Here”. She lowered the tablet slowly. “Why do you disrespect me, Ki?” Sang Ki answered honestly, “I do not, Ki is not my name. My name is Sang Ki.”
“At this school we do not say our family names before our given ones.”
“My family name is Jhe.”
“So your given name is Sang Ki?” laughter ensued, Sang Ki looked behind him, and saw the room seemed to think he was ridiculous. He slumped.
“Yes, ma’am. It is Sang Ki.” She looked at him coldly.
“You should feel lucky Korean trash like you got into this prestigious school. Your name is Ki. If you want to argue that, go to one of your inbred schools where everyone can say all twenty of your names.” Most everyone laughed. Sang Ki hung his head. “Yes, ma’am,” Ki responded.
The playground was not much better. Sang Ki sat alone by the fence, which was not too far from the edge of the protective dome, and watched the red dust swirl like Cardinals in a dance. Since they had moved from the Korean slums in Ryuu thanks to his father getting a good manufacturing job in Takumi, friends were a non-existent commodity. His shoes, which were hand me downs from his older brother Jae-Sun, were too big for his feet, and his walk looked clumsy and ungainly. His shirt was from his older sister Mi Hi, and he covered it over with a sweatshirt from his other older sister Kyung Soon, as it was fairly clearly a girl’s shirt and it made him uncomfortable wearing it, while the hoodie just said “Swimming!” in Korean with a terribly cheesy image of a Hwarang riding a seahorse. At least the sweatshirt didn’t have the galloping purple pony the shirt had. If he had anything else to wear that day, he would have worn it. As the dust swirled along the cold red rock, a shadow intruded on the distant sunlight.
Sang Ki looked up to find a girl looking down at him, her hair blowing in the re-filtered air. “What do you want?” she was sure to berate him. Call him this insult or that insult. She sat down next to him, “you just transferred here right?”
“What do you care?” It was only then that Sang Ki realized she did not look Japanese at all.
“I just transferred here a week ago. My name is Moul Phhoung.” Sang Ki tumbled that around in his head and then gave up, he was only 5 after all.
“Who were your ancestors?”
“I’m Cambodian.” That made sense. He’d heard of that place before. Phhoung’s skin was darker then either his own or any of the Japanese students, and her cheek bones more pronounced. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he had seen her socializing with the other kids despite that. He felt a little more alone.
“ So what’s your name?”
“I’m Jhe Sang Ki. Korean.”
She smiled, “I figured that out myself. Want to go swing?” Sang Ki shook his head.
“Not really.”
“I haven’t made many friends here.”
“That’s more than me.”
“You can make one. Let’s swing.” Swinging was easy in the low gravity, though neither of them would have ever thought that. Years later Sang Ki would find the gravity of swinging on earth ridiculous. As they kicked up from the ground and glided up till they could see the sky, a large freighter passed over the dome.
“That’s where I’m going to be someday Sang Ki, flying a ship like that. I’ll see the planets up close, and mechanical Mavericks, and evil Earthers. I’ll have a sword like a pirate captain and they will all salute me.”
“I don’t really care where I am, as long as I can take stuff apart. Piece it back together.”
“You fix stuff?”
“Oh yeah, I’m really good at it. If my dad would let me I could take apart and put together the car.”
“Yeah, I know what its like, I could fly the family transport if my dad would just let me.” Sang Ki stopped, “You have a transport? Like a spaceship?”
“Yeah, my parents run a small shipping company. We sell stuff to the mavericks, mostly. They always tell me how they replace their body’s with robot stuff. It sounds nasty.”
“Yeah”
“Would you replace your body with robot parts?”
“No, I want to fix stuff, not chop my arm off.” She laughed.
“So, do you want to know how I made friends around here?” He shrugged, “sure.”
“I tell everyone my name is Ouka.”
“That’s a Japanese name. And it sounds nothing at all like Phhoung!”
“So? People don’t care about who you are on the inside. All that stuff about how we are special and the things we believe matter, nope, untrue. Just tell them who they want you to be and keep being who you are. It doesn’t matter what you actually act like, nobody will notice who you are unless you tell them.”
“So you lie?”
“And you keep living.” Sang Ki nodded.
“In that case my name is Ki.”
“You’re catching on, I’m Ouka.”
Ki pasued, “but I think you can still call me Sang Ki,” Sang Ki Said.
“Right back atcha.”
*************
Li looked around the corner, “You done Ki?” Ki didn’t turn up from his work, “there anyone coming?”
“No, but I’m nervous.” Ki’s eyes glimmered with the light reflecting off the bits of metal he was playing doctor with, “stop it. No reason to be nervous. We’ve got this totally under control.” Ouka could only bite her lip and smile. “Okay, now we should all just stand back.” The thing Ki had been working on sputtered awake, its ‘eyes’ lighting up, its form coming to its feet. The old janitorial bot had been in the closet for years, and Ki, Li, and Ouka had scouted it out a month ago. The plan had taken longer to put into action then any of them had assumed it would, but it would all be worth it in a few seconds. The bit stood to its full height, and its left arm shot out an attachment that was clearly a ratty mop. “Mopping commence.” Giggling also commenced. “Okay, actually, we should probably run now.”
“What about the cameras?” Sang Ki smirked, “Who do you think I am, an amateur?” He had totally forgotten about the cameras. As they ran, getting back to the classroom before Mrs. Takahashi got back, Ki pulled out his “Learn Together Unity-Computer” and began to hack into the school’s wireless system, sending an administrator message to the wired system that kept track of the cameras that contained malicious code which embedded itself in the RAM memory of the system and photoshopped the three of them out of the video, then modified the data on the hard storage.
They slipped into their seats, and did their best to compose themselves, as Mrs. Takahashi entered the room, and began to say something about math as the robot pushed the door open, and began to utter his deadly war cry. “Mop. Mop. Mop.” The mopping attachment shot out of its arm, and began to rotate wildly, spraying water and suds across the room, and began to mop the vid screens on the walls, their touch sensitive paneling responding instantly to the swirling touch, and rearranging icons and letters into a mosaic, with a patina of soap. Mrs. Takahashi jumped in the way of it, screaming for it to stop, but the machine only gave her a thorough scrubbing. The students were sent home that day, and there was quite a bit of inquiry as to why a malfunctioning droid was kept in a school waiting to go berserk and clean everything. Ki was never caught. Sitting together in Li’s family’s yard, the three giggled about it together for hours. “Ki,” Li said, “we should do this every year.” Ki laughed, “I’m just getting started.” Phhoung put her arms around them and pulled them in towards her, “I’ll be the brains, Ki will be the hands, you can be the eyes Li. My boys, a perfect team.”
“We’re not your boys….” Li muttered. Ki just smiled up at Phhoung.
“Ki, you jerk, get over here.” The three older students, all Chinese, weren’t really leaving them much choice, it was after all an alley. Phhoung turned her eyes to Sang Ki, who looked back at her, quivering. Ki was good with machines, good with his hands, good with computers, he was however a twig. “W-What do you guys want?” The three of them laughed, and one punched another in the arm affectionately. “We’re going to turn your South-Asian scum-asses to pulp is what we’re going to do. My dad is on the City Administration board. You little chumps don’t deserve to be here. I can’t even tell you apart with how big your cheek bones both are.”
“You can’t scare me!”
“Or me!” The boys, in response seemingly, cracked their knuckles.
“Get ready for some pa-“
The boy promptly fell over, clutching his groin, and spasming. Behind him stood Jhe Eun, holding a stun stick at what had once been groin level. The other two boys tried to say something witty and rush her, but she just began to wail on them with the stick, leaving welts, bruises, and mild electrical scarring. One they were down, she began to kick them, her foot digging into ribcages until the sounds of cracking bone resonated throughout the alley. When there was no chance any of the boys was rising anytime soon, Eun walked over them shaking her head, “Sang Ki what in God’s name do you think you’re doing in an alley? Mom and Dad would be furious! You almost got beat up. And Phhoung, really, you’re smarter than this.”
“It was my idea… It was a shortcut.”
“Well Sang Ki, you’re an idiot following her. Lets go home. Come on.” They followed her, heads bowed. Sang Ki never actually got the nerves to ask where she got the stun stick.
“Phhoung is coming over for dinner tonight, if that’s okay.” Eun called into the doorway, “that’s fine Eun! Is Sang Ki with her?” Eun laughed, “obviously.” Dinner was Tang Soo Yook with some Potato Jun on the side. Phhoung hadn’t had it before, but to the rest of the family it was an old favorite. “So dad, build anything interesting at work today?” Sang Ki’s father smiled. “I’ve got a little surprise for you actually.” He reached into a bag and pulled out a strange piece of machinery that resembled a perforated cylinder on top of a box with a huge amount of connector prongs on it. Sang Ki got up and took it from his father, and began to examine it. “What is it?” Phhoung whispered.
“Gimmie a second…” He opened it and began tracing the wires inside it and where they went.
“So, Phhoung, what do your parents do?” his mother spooned another helping into her bowl.
“Oh, they’re cargo pilots. Or were, they pay other people to fly the ships now and just arrange everything.”
“Is there anything that interests you?”
“I want to be a pilot! Fly ships like we used to. I loved that.”
“Have you considered being a military pilot?” Eun chimed in. Their father laughed.
“Eun has it in her head she is going to be a Hwarang when she grows up.”
“I will be!”
“We keep trying to tell her the Gongen military doesn’t have Hwarang, they’re too…” Everyone knew she was going to say Japanese and Chinese. No one needed to finish the sentence, or the sentiment.
“I’m still going to do it.” Eun pouted.
“It’s an energy converter, it takes some sort of unusual fuel source and processes it into electricity. Not like a normal fuel though. And it doesn’t seem to quite work.”
Sang Ki’s dad grinned and stretched his machine scarred arms out, in a yawn, then rubbed his stubble. “Indeed it doesn’t. Shocho seems to want it for something, but its going to take years to perfect this technology whatever it is. Anyways, it can’t even work right. Our shift manager let us take them home to see if we could find the issue. But no one’s going to.” Sang Ki’s face was an eternity of focus.
“It’s the gas conversion chamber. It needs to be spinning at the exact right speed to get the gas fuel through the chamber and collect the energy, which I’m assuming is partly radiation.” He squinted in. “But the wiring is melting trying to pump the energy out, and as it gets hotter starts twisting with the spinning of the conversion chamber.” He pulled the casing off, and pointed at several places on the cylinder. “It’s simple really, the device doesn’t have enough chambers. If the device was divided so there were different chambers to collect energy while the fuel was at different temperatures the fuel could be cycled so it never over heated the system while still producing the same energy output.”
Everyone was just staring at him. “What?” he said. They all looked amazed. He’d only just pointed out how the dumb thing worked. It wasn’t that exciting
Three weeks later his dad got a raise.
*************
Jhe Sang Ki felt the priest put his hands on his head, a few words, and a bit of the holy spirit, and he was confirmed as a member of the Catholic Church of Gongen. He looked back, his father, mother, sister Eun, Older siblings, and his two new younger siblings all smiled ear to ear. Sang Ki walked back to where his confirmation class was sitting, and felt a rush of joy. He prayed to God he would make the right decisions, lead a good life, make his family happy, let all the children boogie, and make a better world for the people he cared about. He prayed this in the name of Mary, all of the Saints, the Pope, the great Prophet Bowie, and his lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
* * *
The man with the gun watched all of them patiently. The sweat was already starting to drip down their bodies, and Ki tried to ignore the sting as it dripped into his eyes. The gun went off, and Ki took off. The runners from Confucius High School had taken an early lead, but Ki, Li, Joshua, Fujitaka, Erino, and Ty weren’t that far behind. Fujataka tried to make a pass but got elbowed back. The 1K was an interesting race; 2 laps around the track, long enough that you couldn’t sprint but short enough you couldn’t really take a moment to recover without being left behind. Jhe was doing alright, coasting behind the runner in 2nd place in the green uniform. He was in the lead for his team, but that wouldn’t mean much if he couldn’t move up. They finished the first 250 meters, and Ki knew he wouldn’t be able to get past this guy on the curve as they began running it, since Ki would have to pass him on the outside and he’d have a slight edge. As they hit 375 meters and headed onto the straight towards the end of the first lap, Ki began a kick, pushing his legs harder, his chest beating hard and his breath a little wheezy as he surged. The other runner tried to keep up, but his mind failed him, and when the Confucius team runner realized he was beat, he was. Ki took that moment to cut in, and began the curve right behind the leader.
Ki could only hope Li and Fujitaka had taken that opportunity to get past the same runner, but he wasn’t looking back to see where they were. He was focused on #1, who was going to try to break him. The leader began speed games, sprinting in spurts to see if he could throw off Ki’s rhythm or focus. Ki just moved into the land next to him, and surged next to him. On the next straight. There was only 250 meters left, and Ki would be running next to the guy on the straight, which was a slight disadvantage, but if Ki could psych him out he’d get him on the straight. The runner was clearly trying to outpace Ki, putting everything into the sprint on the curve. Ki followed him, and mentally got ready for the straight. When Ki hit the straight, he had won, though he didn’t know it. The former leader had focused on breaking Ki on the straight, and Ki had been focused on keeping up and out sprinting him. While the leader may have even been faster than Ki, when they hit the straight with Ki even with him, the leader lost his confidence. He still sprinted, still ran fast and hard, but Ki dogged the last straight with the narrow focus of a charging bull. Ki crossed the line, and staggered to a stop exhausted. “First,” the ref tapped him on the shoulder. It took a few moments for Ki to stop panting, staring down at the rubber track, and half hoping he would vomit, and turn his head to see how the rest of the tam had done. Fujataka had passed the lead Confucius runner, from the look on the Confucius runner’s face probably in the last few seconds of the race, and Li and Joshua had taken fourth and fifth. Overall, they had really made a mess of the other team’s distance squad this race. Fujitaka clapped a hand on Ki’s shoulder, “great race man, you really kicked their asses.” Ki smiled, “Sadly for them we’ve got two more years of this, and those guys are graduating.” Fujitaka laughed harder then he probably should have, and slapped Ki on the shoulder again, which made both of them feel close to throwing up again.
“Ki!” she yelled, and ran up to him, hugging his sweaty body and planting a sloppy kiss on him as he stood up and started his way off the track. “That was amazing Ki!” she ran her thin Japanese hands over his bicep as she walked off the track with him. “Thanks, Kiyoko.” She just kind of stood there looking up at him, then turned her eyes over to Li, as Ki drank purple sports drink. “Good race, Ki,” Phhoung said, and Ki tipped the cup in acknowledgement, Phhoung stood there for a moment, then walked off.
Later that evening, Sang Ki and Kiyoko sat watching the stars outside the city’s dome. The air was thin, but they had both spent quite a bit of time outside the walls, and the thicker air inside seemed a bit too Earth-like and foreign sometimes. “Ki, what’s that constellation.” Ki scanned the sky following her finger, and marked the points with lines in his inner eye. “Cassiopeia, the queen in her throne, joining the King in the sky. Or in Korea Hyeonmu, the Black Tortoise.” Kiyoko swirled the cola in her can and took a swig, “In Japan we called the Black Tortoise Genbu. It’s funny how these things cross cultures.” Ki smirked, “Well, Cassiopeia and the Tortoise only overlap, they aren’t quite the same thing… But everybody sees the same stars mostly. Earth and Gongen have nearly the same tilt. Nearly the same seasons, well, reversed.”
“Reversed would make sense.”
“But still, every other set of planets in our solar system, and most others anywhere else have different ones. For all we gripe about the differences between our people’s, we are more nearly the same then any other. The same stars, the same lights, the same blackness around them, and the same chill or warmth that surrounds us as we watch… No one else.”
“That’s the best argument for a united system I’ve ever heard.”
“That’s just an argument for humanity.”
“You know what’s more human than anything else?” She edged closer, and set her chin against his shoulder. Her hand moved to his chest.
“Us. Just us being here Kiyoko. Sitting here, talking.”
“How long have we been together?”
“A few months.” She leaned up and kissed him.
“So, be human.”
“I am human.” She rolled her eyes, “just follow my lead” and she pulled him by the front of his shirt onto her, and kissed him, running her hands through his hair.
“I’ve never-“
“You’re not the only one.”
****************
Ki watched Li and Kiyoko dance, the two of them spinning on the dance floor, looking into each other’s eyes longingly. She had her hands around Li’s neck, and his were around her back. They looked as though they had been waiting to do this for years. And probably in the back of his head, Ki knew it had been coming. Kiyoko had never looked at him like that, and had always looked at Li like that, always.
“Are you okay?” Phhoung slid into the chair next to him. Just like Ki she had come here alone, or politely, solo, unlike Ki her date hadn’t dumped her three nights ago to go with their best friend.
“Not really, Phhoung, no.”
“Want to talk?”
“Its pretty obvious.”
“That was really cruel of her to dump you for him, and make you watch this tonight.”
“I shouldn’t have even come. I knew I’d be watching this… I just feel kind of dirty Phhoung.”
Her gaze wasn’t so much pained as on its brink, waiting to be pushed over an edge it knew was coming. “That’s… Silly Sang Ki. Why would she make you feel dirty?” He turned to her, and the look said it all, but he said it anyways.
“We… You know. Neither of us had before… I thought she loved me. I really did… I…” Phhoung couldn’t really hold back her tears. “I’m sorry Phhoung, I know you must be so disappointed in me… It’s a sin… and…” Phhoung shook her head.
“I just, Phhoung, I should have seen it, she always looked at Li like that. He’s always been such a womanizer, and talks about how he can’t stand innocent girls, quotes the music man ‘sadder but wiser girl’ crap… She just wanted him, and wanted to be what he wanted. Now she is.” Ki got up, and headed for the exit, the other well-dressed dance goers mumbling as the clearly upset boy headed through their midst.
“Wait. Wait!” She followed him as he walked, out the door, past the teachers who were guarding the entrance. She ran till she caught him outside the building, the cool Gongen air giving them goose bumps, the stars lined up with Turtles and Chairs.
“Sang Ki. Wait. Please.” Sang Ki turned, he’d cut the holding his emotions in crap, there was no one else around. “I just feel so used Phhoung. I bet you think I’m worthless.”
“I don’t. I love you Sang Ki. I love you. Just shut up, you’re my best friend in the whole world, we did pranks with robots together, sang songs at camp, walked your dog together. You are nothing if not kind, and maybe only too kind for your own damn good.” She stepped towards him, and nuzzled herself into his chest, “just hold me already. Like I’ve been waiting for you to. Just stay quiet Sang Ki. The night doesn’t care if you’re crying, it only cares that we’re cold.”
“I-“
“Show it who is boss.” He wrapped his arms around her, and she put hers around him.
“There, perfect. I can’t see them cause I’m busy cuddling on your stupid self, so tell me about the stars Sang Ki.”
He did. And she listened till their parents came to pick them up.
*****
Earth was amazing. It wasn’t like anyone had said, with the streets filled with shady corporate controlled scum all out to steal your inheritance, instead it seemed no more shady then Gongen. Sure, the air was thicker, which made it difficult to really breathe well, but Greece was amazing. Sang Ki, Phhoung, Li, Kiyoko, Fujitaka, Joshua and Eun had made themselves one travel group for the trip, which they all suspected might very well be the last trip off Gongen to Earth any of them would ever take judging by the news. “Crisis grows as blockade increases.” “Earthers destroy Gongen shipping—War on the Horizon?” “Unprovoked move into Earther space.” “Unprovoked move into Gongen space.” “War.” “War. “War.” There had been worries they wouldn’t be able to get off world, but at least for now they were safe. Eun and Joshua stood together on the balcony, holding hands.
“Wait- are they dating?”
Sang Ki looked as though someone had challenged him to a staring contest with their clasped hands.
“Apparently so.”
“Lets leave them be then.”
Phhoung led him by the hand away from the pair, and back into the Hotel lobby, where there were several of their classmates including Li, Kiyoko, and Fujitaka as well as some businessmen lounging it what Sang Ki guessed was expensive clothing. Whether or not it was expensive, it was definitely gaudy. “So, we get the last educational trip to Earth ever, and we spend the end of it in Larissa, Greece. Somehow it doesn’t quite seem fair. I wanted to go to Rome.”
“You can’t get everything you want Phhoung, just be glad you’re here,” Fujitaka said in between a pastry. Kiyoko was clasping Li pretty close, and the darting eyes of the Earthers towards them summed up the whole trip. In LondonPlex they had been spit at, their first stop and the last major city they had been to. Since then they had visited a lot of small towns, parks, and large but strategically unimportant cities. Wherever they went they were followed by Dave, their handy bodyguard/clearly a CGC operative, who was at this time drinking Coffee while reading a magazine that probably wasn’t suitable for kids.
“Dave?”
“Hmn?”
“We’re going to go out shopping.” He got up and stuffed the magazine sloppily into his jacket. “Well, get the other two, I can’t leave you kids alone.” From the red in his eyes, Dave wasn’t drinking his coffee black.
“I’ve got it,” murmured Fujitaka, the only one in the group who wasn’t busy holding hands or cuddling. “I was wondering, Dave,” Sang Ki began, “what’s going to happen to us if war breaks out while we’re here?” Dave paused, and let his eyes drift up to the ceiling where the pictures of Greek Heroes that were not at all period looked down upon them. “You ever hear of Achilles?” Kiyoko gave him a look that looked far more condescending on Gongen, “We’ve been to school.”
“I’ve never been to your commie schools. Achilles was born in Larissa, at least that’s what’s been passed down, who really knows, but anyways Larissa allied with Troy, while Achilles became Troy’s sworn enemy.” They all waited for Dave to say more. He sipped his coffee.
“What’s your point?” Li said, more because Kiyoko looked like she wanted him to say it then anything.
“Don’t think that the place your born means everything about you. Ah, there’s your lovebirds, lets go.”
Sang Ki turned to see his sister and Joshua, who seemed to have faint lipstick the same shade as his sisters on his mouth. “Ew.” He muttered, Phhoung nudged him in the ribs, ”cute.”
They followed Dave through the snowy streets, leaving icy footprints on earth that they would never walk again, that had been walked for thousands of years before them. Their feet seemed older with every step. Dave took them to a shop run by a young couple, Isora and Kozmo. Earther fashions littered the walls, and Sang Ki, Li, and Fujitaka mainly just watched the girl’s smiles as they tried things on.
“Slow business day?” Sangi Ki asked the owner.
“You guys are from Gongen right, the field trippers?”
“Yeah,” Li cut in. Kozmo pulled out a tablet, and brought up the day’s headlines, “you’re on the news as you can see.”
CHILD SCHOLORS/SOCIALIST SPIES – OUR JOURNALISTS WEED OUT THE TRUTH.
GONGEN SENDS CHILD SPIES IN HOSTILE INTRUSTION
WHEN WILL THE FIRST BOMB STRIKE? ARE SCHOOL TRIP GONGEN HUMAN EXPLOSIVES?
GONGEN CHILDREN TRY EARTH CAPITALISM – WILL THEY BE EXECUTED UPON THEIR RETURN?
PARENTS GROUP DEMANDS GONGEN CHILDREN BE DEPROGRAMMED, CALLS GONGEN GOVERNMENT “CULT”
PROTESTS ARISE AT FAILURE OF CGC TO SAVE BRAINWASHED GONGEN CHILDREN FROM GOING “HOME”
PROTESTS ARISE AT CGC’S WILLINGNESS TO ALLOW GONGEN SPIES ON EARTH
“Ah.” Sang Ki sat the tablet down. “Well, I can assure you the military industrial complex will delight that we discovered whatever kind of hat Phhoung is wearing over there.”
“That’s about what I figured, the cops are keeping people off the streets mostly, though they are having trouble with some of the more violent protests.”
“Violent protests?” Fujitaka looked downright distraught.
“Two dead in LondonPlex, two days after you left.”
“But… We’d left.”
Kozmo shrugged, “Doesn’t stop people from being dumb.” Isora walked over with the other two girls, “I think the governments footing their shopping bill has not been good for these girls,” she said, all smiles. They were still bagging the purchases when the brick went through the window. The glass sprinkled the floor like glitter, Dave yelled into his com, and the two dark silouettes fading into the distance as they fled were soon followed by others, these ones with helmets. Dave’s boots crunched the glass to dust as he stepped over to the brick, and picked up the brick, he turned it over, and his eyes glanced at it like he was reading it. Sang Ki tiptoed through the shining glass, towards Dave, and read the words himself.
“Go home… what’s that last word mean Dave?” Dave threw the brick to the ground, and pulled out a bottle of something noxious, which began sizzling on the brick as soon as he poured it on it. “Nothing. Lets go.” He turned to the shop owners, “we’ll transfer you the money.” They rushed to gather up their purchases, and followed Dave across the glass.
Joshua tapped Sang Ki on the Shoulder, “What’d it say?”
“Go home, then some word I didn’t know, started with a C.”
“Shut up back there, we’re going back to the Hotel.”
They were quiet, until they got to the Hotel.
“Hello, Dave.
The man stood, with eight other men, in a long beige coat. He wore spectacles, which seemed unnecessary these days, the others were wearing armor. They had guns.
“What seems to be the problem, Clem?”
“You know damn well what it is. The CGC never should have authorized this project. We’re doing a hostile takeover of it, get some use out of it.”
Dave sighed, “you aren’t getting the kids, you balding lame brained moron of an unenlightened disenfranchised rotoscope of your own ambition.”
Sam just blinked for a moment, the Gongen all formed a clump behind Dave. Sang Ki reached into the pocket of Dave’s coat. Dave reached for his holster.
“What?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
“Move out of the way or we shoot you. We don’t need all of the kids, we can spare missing.”
“Try me.”
“Fine, kill him.”
“Sir?” One of the soldiers said, “I appear to be stuck in flash reduction mode.”
“Same here sir.” The echo resounded from all the troops.
“Flash reduction?” Phhoung muttered.
“Blacks the helmet visor to minimize flashbang grenades effectiveness.” Sang Ki muttered back.
“How do you know that?” She looked down to see Sang Ki, Dave’s tablet in hand.
“Get your helmets off!”
“The mechanism is locked sir!”
Sam yelled and raised his gun. Dave already had his up. Shooting nine times isn’t hard, and it’s even easier when your targets are scratching at their helmets rather then looking to their rifles. Still, even though its easy, the amount of blood there is is never easy. Several of the Gongen teens threw up, several cried, Sang Ki just stared. Dave looked behind him, and grabbed the tablet from his limp hand.
“Fucking CISyn. Thanks for the assist, if this war goes sour for you guys, you call me for a job afterwards.” Sang Ki just looked at the trails of brain and blood leaking out the back of the helmets.
“You killed them. They’re dead.”
“Yeah, and we’re getting you kids off planet tonight. This won’t be on the news, I promise. Its CISyn, so I don’t think there’s any chance it would be. Go inside and pack your bags.”
It wasn’t on the news.
* ** * *
Sang Ki and Eun were eating breakfast when they heard the news. It wasn’t hard to find the news out, there wasn’t a channel that wasn’t covering it. Sang Ki’s memory was still soaked with the blood of his trip to Earth, he hadn’t slept well, no one had. The propaganda coup both sides were hoping to gain from the visit vanished as they returned home early with no official explanation of why. Though he hoped that Shocho got some use out of the knowledge the CGC was willing to shoot CISyn agents dead if they got in their way, but that wasn’t exactly a surprise to anyone. It was just a surprise seeing it.
“The Earther oppressors have finally made their intentions clear. While an attack is not guaranteed, it is evident that war is now at hand. Sang Ki looked over at Eun, she hadn’t turned her eyes away. “You’re enlisting aren’t you.”
“I already did. I just didn’t want to tell mom and dad till it got serious.” Should have told me, he thought.
“I don’t know if I will.”
“You should Sang Ki, there’s a lot at stake here. Our families, our lives, our freedom. What would happen to me, or Ouka if we got occupied? You know what happens when invading armies come. It won’t be pretty. You saw those Earthers, willing to kill each other at a moment’s notice. Just think what they’ll do to us.” Jhe Sang Ki didn’t want to admit she was right, but he knew she was, “I’m going to call Ouka.”
He rung her up on the vid screen. “Phhoung?”
“Sang Ki.” Tears were running down her cheeks.
“I see you saw the news.”
“I’m joining up.”
“I am to,” He decided, he then decided something else. “I’m coming over in a few minutes.”
“I’m still in my pajamas…”
“Doesn’t matter.”
He cut her off, and went to withdraw his savings.
His father stared at him, as did his mother, as did Phhoung’s mother and father.
“What did you just say?”
“We’re getting married. And we’re enlisting.”
“And we’re enlisting.” She repeated.
“This is all so sudden, Sang Ki you can’t just rush into these things.”
“Yes, yes I can. Phhoung is my oldest friend. I love her mom, and if we don’t fight we’ll never have a chance at a future. And I don’t want to die knowing we didn’t take this chance.”
His father looked into his eyes, and looked down at his hands. His father had lost more than one fingertip in his time, and his arms were littered with the scars of an accidental machine cut.
“You have my blessing, son.”
“Jh-“
“Your son’s grown up. He can make these choices. We weren’t that much older when we got married.”
“Phhoung, you have our blessing as well. Your father and I couldn’t be happier.”
Phhoung and Sang Ki looked at each other. They didn’t speak, but “finally” was all over their eyes.
“So you want to enlist as a pilot?” Phhoung nodded, “I’ve written up my experience here.” She hit a key on her data pad and the data shot over to the recruiter’s computer. “So I see…. Very impressive. I’ll forward you, you’ll still have to go through the normal tests, but I think you’ll be able to skip basic flight.” There were several smirks. The recruiter looked over at Sang Ki, “and you’re enlisting as…?”
“Technical Division, technician or Comp Ops. Which ever you need more of.” Sang Ki tapped his computer, and transferred his qualifications. The man frowned.
“Look, I see you’re more than qualified, but we don’t have any positions open there. The technical division does its own recruitment through the party.”
“So would I have to join the party and send my files through them?”
“I’m saying after you did that, you’d have to spend several years interning and sucking up to party members.” Ki gritted his teeth.
“Fine,” Ki spat out, “I guess I’ll be a grunt then.”
Ouka looked over at him, “You’ll be right in the middle of it!”
“So will you. I’m not staying out of this fight if you’re in it.”
The recruiter shrugged, “you can’t always get what you wanted.”
“I didn’t ask for your aphorisms.”
The recruiter was silent, and filled out Ki’s admission forms. It wasn’t that Ki had shamed him, but he didn’t know what an aphorism was.
Sang Ki opened his eye lids. Behind those were his eyes, specifically the iris and pupils, and behind those were lenses corneas optic nerves and a brain. In front of him was Phhoung. She was curled up, one of her arms clutching his chest, gently breathing in and out. It was their third night living together in the cramped apartment just outside the military base, they’d be married in just a few weeks, and they hadn’t seen any point in waiting to live together, neither had their families. His muscles were sore from the accelerated training the army had been putting him through, not to mention the previous night’s activities, his hair cut short, and his soon to be wife sleeping next to him. She was flying daily, getting familiarized with the other pilots in her squadron and their tactics.
That sounded great compared to the mud crawling Ki was doing, learning to assemble a plasma rifle and clean it, getting accustomed to the armor, and learning how to work in a squadron. But it was all worth it, because she was right there with him, Phhoung, brilliant Phhoung. He kissed her Forehead. Everything was going to be okay. The Earthers might not even show up, or if they did, Gongen would be ready. All of his friends had joined up, his sister had first, and had been transferred into some sort of special training program. He was proud of Eun, only a handful of other women were chosen for the project. He stroked Phhoung’s face, all the strong women in his life taking up arms and rising up while he was the grunt. At the very least they would be safe. Carefully, Sang Ki slipped out of the covers, and pulled a robe on over his cold skin. Naturally, he checked the news feed.
Every eye has a brain behind it, filled with all sorts of parts in between. When light goes into our eye, we aren’t really seeing what’s there; our brain just takes a bunch of information and makes a picture out of it. So, maybe what Sang Ki saw wasn’t real.
“DIPLOMATIC TALKS FALL THROUGH.
EARTHER BLOCKADE REACHES CRITICAL MASS.
POT SHOTS TAKEN NEAR PHOBOS
INVASION IMMINENT
“WAR IS INEVITABLE.” –PROF. HATSU
Sang Ki sat there, his bare feet growing colder. “Already awake honey?” Phhoung stammered,
“Go back to sleep sweetie. One of us needs our rest.”
Sang Ki’s orange juice package was cold, but getting warmer; his father’s lap was warm, but getting colder. Though he didn’t know it, because he was so small, this moment was nearly prophetic. “Do you see that?” Shh, his father said, you need to make a wish. Sang Ki didn’t quite know why he was wishing, but he wished anyways, as deep as a four year old could. It was a simple wish, that he would get to eat cake later, but he meant it and the wish dispersed amongst the stars as the shooting one he had pointed out disintegrated in Gongen’s atmosphere. The corrosive nature of the gasses impacting the object, and its own momentum being accelerated by the gravity tore it into pebbles, and then sand, and then molecules, and then it became dust on the Gongen soil and would fall into the cups of passersby and Ki’s juice packet, and they would all drink a little taste of stardust.
“Wishes are for little kids.” Eun said, age five. Their father laughed, and grabbed Eun’s pouting hand, and pointed it up at the stars, and formed shapes and pictures. Sang Ki simply smiled and sipped his orange juice. A few meters away the other children in the Jhe family sat and pointed at the stars. The three of them were 14, 15, and 16, and had parceled themselves off from their younger siblings. They were all still one Jhe family, but in some ways they were two. Sang Ki wondered why they didn’t just come over and sit with them, let father point the stars out for them as well. Maybe he should have wished for that.
· * *
“Ray?” “Here” “Joshua?” “Here” “Li?” “Here” “Erino?” “Here” “Fujitaka?” “Here” “Ki” There was silence. “Ki?” Sang Ki sat silently, he hadn’t heard of any one named Ki at his school. His teacher looked at the tablet pc again, “Sang Ki?” “Here”. She lowered the tablet slowly. “Why do you disrespect me, Ki?” Sang Ki answered honestly, “I do not, Ki is not my name. My name is Sang Ki.”
“At this school we do not say our family names before our given ones.”
“My family name is Jhe.”
“So your given name is Sang Ki?” laughter ensued, Sang Ki looked behind him, and saw the room seemed to think he was ridiculous. He slumped.
“Yes, ma’am. It is Sang Ki.” She looked at him coldly.
“You should feel lucky Korean trash like you got into this prestigious school. Your name is Ki. If you want to argue that, go to one of your inbred schools where everyone can say all twenty of your names.” Most everyone laughed. Sang Ki hung his head. “Yes, ma’am,” Ki responded.
The playground was not much better. Sang Ki sat alone by the fence, which was not too far from the edge of the protective dome, and watched the red dust swirl like Cardinals in a dance. Since they had moved from the Korean slums in Ryuu thanks to his father getting a good manufacturing job in Takumi, friends were a non-existent commodity. His shoes, which were hand me downs from his older brother Jae-Sun, were too big for his feet, and his walk looked clumsy and ungainly. His shirt was from his older sister Mi Hi, and he covered it over with a sweatshirt from his other older sister Kyung Soon, as it was fairly clearly a girl’s shirt and it made him uncomfortable wearing it, while the hoodie just said “Swimming!” in Korean with a terribly cheesy image of a Hwarang riding a seahorse. At least the sweatshirt didn’t have the galloping purple pony the shirt had. If he had anything else to wear that day, he would have worn it. As the dust swirled along the cold red rock, a shadow intruded on the distant sunlight.
Sang Ki looked up to find a girl looking down at him, her hair blowing in the re-filtered air. “What do you want?” she was sure to berate him. Call him this insult or that insult. She sat down next to him, “you just transferred here right?”
“What do you care?” It was only then that Sang Ki realized she did not look Japanese at all.
“I just transferred here a week ago. My name is Moul Phhoung.” Sang Ki tumbled that around in his head and then gave up, he was only 5 after all.
“Who were your ancestors?”
“I’m Cambodian.” That made sense. He’d heard of that place before. Phhoung’s skin was darker then either his own or any of the Japanese students, and her cheek bones more pronounced. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he had seen her socializing with the other kids despite that. He felt a little more alone.
“ So what’s your name?”
“I’m Jhe Sang Ki. Korean.”
She smiled, “I figured that out myself. Want to go swing?” Sang Ki shook his head.
“Not really.”
“I haven’t made many friends here.”
“That’s more than me.”
“You can make one. Let’s swing.” Swinging was easy in the low gravity, though neither of them would have ever thought that. Years later Sang Ki would find the gravity of swinging on earth ridiculous. As they kicked up from the ground and glided up till they could see the sky, a large freighter passed over the dome.
“That’s where I’m going to be someday Sang Ki, flying a ship like that. I’ll see the planets up close, and mechanical Mavericks, and evil Earthers. I’ll have a sword like a pirate captain and they will all salute me.”
“I don’t really care where I am, as long as I can take stuff apart. Piece it back together.”
“You fix stuff?”
“Oh yeah, I’m really good at it. If my dad would let me I could take apart and put together the car.”
“Yeah, I know what its like, I could fly the family transport if my dad would just let me.” Sang Ki stopped, “You have a transport? Like a spaceship?”
“Yeah, my parents run a small shipping company. We sell stuff to the mavericks, mostly. They always tell me how they replace their body’s with robot stuff. It sounds nasty.”
“Yeah”
“Would you replace your body with robot parts?”
“No, I want to fix stuff, not chop my arm off.” She laughed.
“So, do you want to know how I made friends around here?” He shrugged, “sure.”
“I tell everyone my name is Ouka.”
“That’s a Japanese name. And it sounds nothing at all like Phhoung!”
“So? People don’t care about who you are on the inside. All that stuff about how we are special and the things we believe matter, nope, untrue. Just tell them who they want you to be and keep being who you are. It doesn’t matter what you actually act like, nobody will notice who you are unless you tell them.”
“So you lie?”
“And you keep living.” Sang Ki nodded.
“In that case my name is Ki.”
“You’re catching on, I’m Ouka.”
Ki pasued, “but I think you can still call me Sang Ki,” Sang Ki Said.
“Right back atcha.”
*************
Li looked around the corner, “You done Ki?” Ki didn’t turn up from his work, “there anyone coming?”
“No, but I’m nervous.” Ki’s eyes glimmered with the light reflecting off the bits of metal he was playing doctor with, “stop it. No reason to be nervous. We’ve got this totally under control.” Ouka could only bite her lip and smile. “Okay, now we should all just stand back.” The thing Ki had been working on sputtered awake, its ‘eyes’ lighting up, its form coming to its feet. The old janitorial bot had been in the closet for years, and Ki, Li, and Ouka had scouted it out a month ago. The plan had taken longer to put into action then any of them had assumed it would, but it would all be worth it in a few seconds. The bit stood to its full height, and its left arm shot out an attachment that was clearly a ratty mop. “Mopping commence.” Giggling also commenced. “Okay, actually, we should probably run now.”
“What about the cameras?” Sang Ki smirked, “Who do you think I am, an amateur?” He had totally forgotten about the cameras. As they ran, getting back to the classroom before Mrs. Takahashi got back, Ki pulled out his “Learn Together Unity-Computer” and began to hack into the school’s wireless system, sending an administrator message to the wired system that kept track of the cameras that contained malicious code which embedded itself in the RAM memory of the system and photoshopped the three of them out of the video, then modified the data on the hard storage.
They slipped into their seats, and did their best to compose themselves, as Mrs. Takahashi entered the room, and began to say something about math as the robot pushed the door open, and began to utter his deadly war cry. “Mop. Mop. Mop.” The mopping attachment shot out of its arm, and began to rotate wildly, spraying water and suds across the room, and began to mop the vid screens on the walls, their touch sensitive paneling responding instantly to the swirling touch, and rearranging icons and letters into a mosaic, with a patina of soap. Mrs. Takahashi jumped in the way of it, screaming for it to stop, but the machine only gave her a thorough scrubbing. The students were sent home that day, and there was quite a bit of inquiry as to why a malfunctioning droid was kept in a school waiting to go berserk and clean everything. Ki was never caught. Sitting together in Li’s family’s yard, the three giggled about it together for hours. “Ki,” Li said, “we should do this every year.” Ki laughed, “I’m just getting started.” Phhoung put her arms around them and pulled them in towards her, “I’ll be the brains, Ki will be the hands, you can be the eyes Li. My boys, a perfect team.”
“We’re not your boys….” Li muttered. Ki just smiled up at Phhoung.
“Ki, you jerk, get over here.” The three older students, all Chinese, weren’t really leaving them much choice, it was after all an alley. Phhoung turned her eyes to Sang Ki, who looked back at her, quivering. Ki was good with machines, good with his hands, good with computers, he was however a twig. “W-What do you guys want?” The three of them laughed, and one punched another in the arm affectionately. “We’re going to turn your South-Asian scum-asses to pulp is what we’re going to do. My dad is on the City Administration board. You little chumps don’t deserve to be here. I can’t even tell you apart with how big your cheek bones both are.”
“You can’t scare me!”
“Or me!” The boys, in response seemingly, cracked their knuckles.
“Get ready for some pa-“
The boy promptly fell over, clutching his groin, and spasming. Behind him stood Jhe Eun, holding a stun stick at what had once been groin level. The other two boys tried to say something witty and rush her, but she just began to wail on them with the stick, leaving welts, bruises, and mild electrical scarring. One they were down, she began to kick them, her foot digging into ribcages until the sounds of cracking bone resonated throughout the alley. When there was no chance any of the boys was rising anytime soon, Eun walked over them shaking her head, “Sang Ki what in God’s name do you think you’re doing in an alley? Mom and Dad would be furious! You almost got beat up. And Phhoung, really, you’re smarter than this.”
“It was my idea… It was a shortcut.”
“Well Sang Ki, you’re an idiot following her. Lets go home. Come on.” They followed her, heads bowed. Sang Ki never actually got the nerves to ask where she got the stun stick.
“Phhoung is coming over for dinner tonight, if that’s okay.” Eun called into the doorway, “that’s fine Eun! Is Sang Ki with her?” Eun laughed, “obviously.” Dinner was Tang Soo Yook with some Potato Jun on the side. Phhoung hadn’t had it before, but to the rest of the family it was an old favorite. “So dad, build anything interesting at work today?” Sang Ki’s father smiled. “I’ve got a little surprise for you actually.” He reached into a bag and pulled out a strange piece of machinery that resembled a perforated cylinder on top of a box with a huge amount of connector prongs on it. Sang Ki got up and took it from his father, and began to examine it. “What is it?” Phhoung whispered.
“Gimmie a second…” He opened it and began tracing the wires inside it and where they went.
“So, Phhoung, what do your parents do?” his mother spooned another helping into her bowl.
“Oh, they’re cargo pilots. Or were, they pay other people to fly the ships now and just arrange everything.”
“Is there anything that interests you?”
“I want to be a pilot! Fly ships like we used to. I loved that.”
“Have you considered being a military pilot?” Eun chimed in. Their father laughed.
“Eun has it in her head she is going to be a Hwarang when she grows up.”
“I will be!”
“We keep trying to tell her the Gongen military doesn’t have Hwarang, they’re too…” Everyone knew she was going to say Japanese and Chinese. No one needed to finish the sentence, or the sentiment.
“I’m still going to do it.” Eun pouted.
“It’s an energy converter, it takes some sort of unusual fuel source and processes it into electricity. Not like a normal fuel though. And it doesn’t seem to quite work.”
Sang Ki’s dad grinned and stretched his machine scarred arms out, in a yawn, then rubbed his stubble. “Indeed it doesn’t. Shocho seems to want it for something, but its going to take years to perfect this technology whatever it is. Anyways, it can’t even work right. Our shift manager let us take them home to see if we could find the issue. But no one’s going to.” Sang Ki’s face was an eternity of focus.
“It’s the gas conversion chamber. It needs to be spinning at the exact right speed to get the gas fuel through the chamber and collect the energy, which I’m assuming is partly radiation.” He squinted in. “But the wiring is melting trying to pump the energy out, and as it gets hotter starts twisting with the spinning of the conversion chamber.” He pulled the casing off, and pointed at several places on the cylinder. “It’s simple really, the device doesn’t have enough chambers. If the device was divided so there were different chambers to collect energy while the fuel was at different temperatures the fuel could be cycled so it never over heated the system while still producing the same energy output.”
Everyone was just staring at him. “What?” he said. They all looked amazed. He’d only just pointed out how the dumb thing worked. It wasn’t that exciting
Three weeks later his dad got a raise.
*************
Jhe Sang Ki felt the priest put his hands on his head, a few words, and a bit of the holy spirit, and he was confirmed as a member of the Catholic Church of Gongen. He looked back, his father, mother, sister Eun, Older siblings, and his two new younger siblings all smiled ear to ear. Sang Ki walked back to where his confirmation class was sitting, and felt a rush of joy. He prayed to God he would make the right decisions, lead a good life, make his family happy, let all the children boogie, and make a better world for the people he cared about. He prayed this in the name of Mary, all of the Saints, the Pope, the great Prophet Bowie, and his lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
* * *
The man with the gun watched all of them patiently. The sweat was already starting to drip down their bodies, and Ki tried to ignore the sting as it dripped into his eyes. The gun went off, and Ki took off. The runners from Confucius High School had taken an early lead, but Ki, Li, Joshua, Fujitaka, Erino, and Ty weren’t that far behind. Fujataka tried to make a pass but got elbowed back. The 1K was an interesting race; 2 laps around the track, long enough that you couldn’t sprint but short enough you couldn’t really take a moment to recover without being left behind. Jhe was doing alright, coasting behind the runner in 2nd place in the green uniform. He was in the lead for his team, but that wouldn’t mean much if he couldn’t move up. They finished the first 250 meters, and Ki knew he wouldn’t be able to get past this guy on the curve as they began running it, since Ki would have to pass him on the outside and he’d have a slight edge. As they hit 375 meters and headed onto the straight towards the end of the first lap, Ki began a kick, pushing his legs harder, his chest beating hard and his breath a little wheezy as he surged. The other runner tried to keep up, but his mind failed him, and when the Confucius team runner realized he was beat, he was. Ki took that moment to cut in, and began the curve right behind the leader.
Ki could only hope Li and Fujitaka had taken that opportunity to get past the same runner, but he wasn’t looking back to see where they were. He was focused on #1, who was going to try to break him. The leader began speed games, sprinting in spurts to see if he could throw off Ki’s rhythm or focus. Ki just moved into the land next to him, and surged next to him. On the next straight. There was only 250 meters left, and Ki would be running next to the guy on the straight, which was a slight disadvantage, but if Ki could psych him out he’d get him on the straight. The runner was clearly trying to outpace Ki, putting everything into the sprint on the curve. Ki followed him, and mentally got ready for the straight. When Ki hit the straight, he had won, though he didn’t know it. The former leader had focused on breaking Ki on the straight, and Ki had been focused on keeping up and out sprinting him. While the leader may have even been faster than Ki, when they hit the straight with Ki even with him, the leader lost his confidence. He still sprinted, still ran fast and hard, but Ki dogged the last straight with the narrow focus of a charging bull. Ki crossed the line, and staggered to a stop exhausted. “First,” the ref tapped him on the shoulder. It took a few moments for Ki to stop panting, staring down at the rubber track, and half hoping he would vomit, and turn his head to see how the rest of the tam had done. Fujataka had passed the lead Confucius runner, from the look on the Confucius runner’s face probably in the last few seconds of the race, and Li and Joshua had taken fourth and fifth. Overall, they had really made a mess of the other team’s distance squad this race. Fujitaka clapped a hand on Ki’s shoulder, “great race man, you really kicked their asses.” Ki smiled, “Sadly for them we’ve got two more years of this, and those guys are graduating.” Fujitaka laughed harder then he probably should have, and slapped Ki on the shoulder again, which made both of them feel close to throwing up again.
“Ki!” she yelled, and ran up to him, hugging his sweaty body and planting a sloppy kiss on him as he stood up and started his way off the track. “That was amazing Ki!” she ran her thin Japanese hands over his bicep as she walked off the track with him. “Thanks, Kiyoko.” She just kind of stood there looking up at him, then turned her eyes over to Li, as Ki drank purple sports drink. “Good race, Ki,” Phhoung said, and Ki tipped the cup in acknowledgement, Phhoung stood there for a moment, then walked off.
Later that evening, Sang Ki and Kiyoko sat watching the stars outside the city’s dome. The air was thin, but they had both spent quite a bit of time outside the walls, and the thicker air inside seemed a bit too Earth-like and foreign sometimes. “Ki, what’s that constellation.” Ki scanned the sky following her finger, and marked the points with lines in his inner eye. “Cassiopeia, the queen in her throne, joining the King in the sky. Or in Korea Hyeonmu, the Black Tortoise.” Kiyoko swirled the cola in her can and took a swig, “In Japan we called the Black Tortoise Genbu. It’s funny how these things cross cultures.” Ki smirked, “Well, Cassiopeia and the Tortoise only overlap, they aren’t quite the same thing… But everybody sees the same stars mostly. Earth and Gongen have nearly the same tilt. Nearly the same seasons, well, reversed.”
“Reversed would make sense.”
“But still, every other set of planets in our solar system, and most others anywhere else have different ones. For all we gripe about the differences between our people’s, we are more nearly the same then any other. The same stars, the same lights, the same blackness around them, and the same chill or warmth that surrounds us as we watch… No one else.”
“That’s the best argument for a united system I’ve ever heard.”
“That’s just an argument for humanity.”
“You know what’s more human than anything else?” She edged closer, and set her chin against his shoulder. Her hand moved to his chest.
“Us. Just us being here Kiyoko. Sitting here, talking.”
“How long have we been together?”
“A few months.” She leaned up and kissed him.
“So, be human.”
“I am human.” She rolled her eyes, “just follow my lead” and she pulled him by the front of his shirt onto her, and kissed him, running her hands through his hair.
“I’ve never-“
“You’re not the only one.”
****************
Ki watched Li and Kiyoko dance, the two of them spinning on the dance floor, looking into each other’s eyes longingly. She had her hands around Li’s neck, and his were around her back. They looked as though they had been waiting to do this for years. And probably in the back of his head, Ki knew it had been coming. Kiyoko had never looked at him like that, and had always looked at Li like that, always.
“Are you okay?” Phhoung slid into the chair next to him. Just like Ki she had come here alone, or politely, solo, unlike Ki her date hadn’t dumped her three nights ago to go with their best friend.
“Not really, Phhoung, no.”
“Want to talk?”
“Its pretty obvious.”
“That was really cruel of her to dump you for him, and make you watch this tonight.”
“I shouldn’t have even come. I knew I’d be watching this… I just feel kind of dirty Phhoung.”
Her gaze wasn’t so much pained as on its brink, waiting to be pushed over an edge it knew was coming. “That’s… Silly Sang Ki. Why would she make you feel dirty?” He turned to her, and the look said it all, but he said it anyways.
“We… You know. Neither of us had before… I thought she loved me. I really did… I…” Phhoung couldn’t really hold back her tears. “I’m sorry Phhoung, I know you must be so disappointed in me… It’s a sin… and…” Phhoung shook her head.
“I just, Phhoung, I should have seen it, she always looked at Li like that. He’s always been such a womanizer, and talks about how he can’t stand innocent girls, quotes the music man ‘sadder but wiser girl’ crap… She just wanted him, and wanted to be what he wanted. Now she is.” Ki got up, and headed for the exit, the other well-dressed dance goers mumbling as the clearly upset boy headed through their midst.
“Wait. Wait!” She followed him as he walked, out the door, past the teachers who were guarding the entrance. She ran till she caught him outside the building, the cool Gongen air giving them goose bumps, the stars lined up with Turtles and Chairs.
“Sang Ki. Wait. Please.” Sang Ki turned, he’d cut the holding his emotions in crap, there was no one else around. “I just feel so used Phhoung. I bet you think I’m worthless.”
“I don’t. I love you Sang Ki. I love you. Just shut up, you’re my best friend in the whole world, we did pranks with robots together, sang songs at camp, walked your dog together. You are nothing if not kind, and maybe only too kind for your own damn good.” She stepped towards him, and nuzzled herself into his chest, “just hold me already. Like I’ve been waiting for you to. Just stay quiet Sang Ki. The night doesn’t care if you’re crying, it only cares that we’re cold.”
“I-“
“Show it who is boss.” He wrapped his arms around her, and she put hers around him.
“There, perfect. I can’t see them cause I’m busy cuddling on your stupid self, so tell me about the stars Sang Ki.”
He did. And she listened till their parents came to pick them up.
*****
Earth was amazing. It wasn’t like anyone had said, with the streets filled with shady corporate controlled scum all out to steal your inheritance, instead it seemed no more shady then Gongen. Sure, the air was thicker, which made it difficult to really breathe well, but Greece was amazing. Sang Ki, Phhoung, Li, Kiyoko, Fujitaka, Joshua and Eun had made themselves one travel group for the trip, which they all suspected might very well be the last trip off Gongen to Earth any of them would ever take judging by the news. “Crisis grows as blockade increases.” “Earthers destroy Gongen shipping—War on the Horizon?” “Unprovoked move into Earther space.” “Unprovoked move into Gongen space.” “War.” “War. “War.” There had been worries they wouldn’t be able to get off world, but at least for now they were safe. Eun and Joshua stood together on the balcony, holding hands.
“Wait- are they dating?”
Sang Ki looked as though someone had challenged him to a staring contest with their clasped hands.
“Apparently so.”
“Lets leave them be then.”
Phhoung led him by the hand away from the pair, and back into the Hotel lobby, where there were several of their classmates including Li, Kiyoko, and Fujitaka as well as some businessmen lounging it what Sang Ki guessed was expensive clothing. Whether or not it was expensive, it was definitely gaudy. “So, we get the last educational trip to Earth ever, and we spend the end of it in Larissa, Greece. Somehow it doesn’t quite seem fair. I wanted to go to Rome.”
“You can’t get everything you want Phhoung, just be glad you’re here,” Fujitaka said in between a pastry. Kiyoko was clasping Li pretty close, and the darting eyes of the Earthers towards them summed up the whole trip. In LondonPlex they had been spit at, their first stop and the last major city they had been to. Since then they had visited a lot of small towns, parks, and large but strategically unimportant cities. Wherever they went they were followed by Dave, their handy bodyguard/clearly a CGC operative, who was at this time drinking Coffee while reading a magazine that probably wasn’t suitable for kids.
“Dave?”
“Hmn?”
“We’re going to go out shopping.” He got up and stuffed the magazine sloppily into his jacket. “Well, get the other two, I can’t leave you kids alone.” From the red in his eyes, Dave wasn’t drinking his coffee black.
“I’ve got it,” murmured Fujitaka, the only one in the group who wasn’t busy holding hands or cuddling. “I was wondering, Dave,” Sang Ki began, “what’s going to happen to us if war breaks out while we’re here?” Dave paused, and let his eyes drift up to the ceiling where the pictures of Greek Heroes that were not at all period looked down upon them. “You ever hear of Achilles?” Kiyoko gave him a look that looked far more condescending on Gongen, “We’ve been to school.”
“I’ve never been to your commie schools. Achilles was born in Larissa, at least that’s what’s been passed down, who really knows, but anyways Larissa allied with Troy, while Achilles became Troy’s sworn enemy.” They all waited for Dave to say more. He sipped his coffee.
“What’s your point?” Li said, more because Kiyoko looked like she wanted him to say it then anything.
“Don’t think that the place your born means everything about you. Ah, there’s your lovebirds, lets go.”
Sang Ki turned to see his sister and Joshua, who seemed to have faint lipstick the same shade as his sisters on his mouth. “Ew.” He muttered, Phhoung nudged him in the ribs, ”cute.”
They followed Dave through the snowy streets, leaving icy footprints on earth that they would never walk again, that had been walked for thousands of years before them. Their feet seemed older with every step. Dave took them to a shop run by a young couple, Isora and Kozmo. Earther fashions littered the walls, and Sang Ki, Li, and Fujitaka mainly just watched the girl’s smiles as they tried things on.
“Slow business day?” Sangi Ki asked the owner.
“You guys are from Gongen right, the field trippers?”
“Yeah,” Li cut in. Kozmo pulled out a tablet, and brought up the day’s headlines, “you’re on the news as you can see.”
CHILD SCHOLORS/SOCIALIST SPIES – OUR JOURNALISTS WEED OUT THE TRUTH.
GONGEN SENDS CHILD SPIES IN HOSTILE INTRUSTION
WHEN WILL THE FIRST BOMB STRIKE? ARE SCHOOL TRIP GONGEN HUMAN EXPLOSIVES?
GONGEN CHILDREN TRY EARTH CAPITALISM – WILL THEY BE EXECUTED UPON THEIR RETURN?
PARENTS GROUP DEMANDS GONGEN CHILDREN BE DEPROGRAMMED, CALLS GONGEN GOVERNMENT “CULT”
PROTESTS ARISE AT FAILURE OF CGC TO SAVE BRAINWASHED GONGEN CHILDREN FROM GOING “HOME”
PROTESTS ARISE AT CGC’S WILLINGNESS TO ALLOW GONGEN SPIES ON EARTH
“Ah.” Sang Ki sat the tablet down. “Well, I can assure you the military industrial complex will delight that we discovered whatever kind of hat Phhoung is wearing over there.”
“That’s about what I figured, the cops are keeping people off the streets mostly, though they are having trouble with some of the more violent protests.”
“Violent protests?” Fujitaka looked downright distraught.
“Two dead in LondonPlex, two days after you left.”
“But… We’d left.”
Kozmo shrugged, “Doesn’t stop people from being dumb.” Isora walked over with the other two girls, “I think the governments footing their shopping bill has not been good for these girls,” she said, all smiles. They were still bagging the purchases when the brick went through the window. The glass sprinkled the floor like glitter, Dave yelled into his com, and the two dark silouettes fading into the distance as they fled were soon followed by others, these ones with helmets. Dave’s boots crunched the glass to dust as he stepped over to the brick, and picked up the brick, he turned it over, and his eyes glanced at it like he was reading it. Sang Ki tiptoed through the shining glass, towards Dave, and read the words himself.
“Go home… what’s that last word mean Dave?” Dave threw the brick to the ground, and pulled out a bottle of something noxious, which began sizzling on the brick as soon as he poured it on it. “Nothing. Lets go.” He turned to the shop owners, “we’ll transfer you the money.” They rushed to gather up their purchases, and followed Dave across the glass.
Joshua tapped Sang Ki on the Shoulder, “What’d it say?”
“Go home, then some word I didn’t know, started with a C.”
“Shut up back there, we’re going back to the Hotel.”
They were quiet, until they got to the Hotel.
“Hello, Dave.
The man stood, with eight other men, in a long beige coat. He wore spectacles, which seemed unnecessary these days, the others were wearing armor. They had guns.
“What seems to be the problem, Clem?”
“You know damn well what it is. The CGC never should have authorized this project. We’re doing a hostile takeover of it, get some use out of it.”
Dave sighed, “you aren’t getting the kids, you balding lame brained moron of an unenlightened disenfranchised rotoscope of your own ambition.”
Sam just blinked for a moment, the Gongen all formed a clump behind Dave. Sang Ki reached into the pocket of Dave’s coat. Dave reached for his holster.
“What?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
“Move out of the way or we shoot you. We don’t need all of the kids, we can spare missing.”
“Try me.”
“Fine, kill him.”
“Sir?” One of the soldiers said, “I appear to be stuck in flash reduction mode.”
“Same here sir.” The echo resounded from all the troops.
“Flash reduction?” Phhoung muttered.
“Blacks the helmet visor to minimize flashbang grenades effectiveness.” Sang Ki muttered back.
“How do you know that?” She looked down to see Sang Ki, Dave’s tablet in hand.
“Get your helmets off!”
“The mechanism is locked sir!”
Sam yelled and raised his gun. Dave already had his up. Shooting nine times isn’t hard, and it’s even easier when your targets are scratching at their helmets rather then looking to their rifles. Still, even though its easy, the amount of blood there is is never easy. Several of the Gongen teens threw up, several cried, Sang Ki just stared. Dave looked behind him, and grabbed the tablet from his limp hand.
“Fucking CISyn. Thanks for the assist, if this war goes sour for you guys, you call me for a job afterwards.” Sang Ki just looked at the trails of brain and blood leaking out the back of the helmets.
“You killed them. They’re dead.”
“Yeah, and we’re getting you kids off planet tonight. This won’t be on the news, I promise. Its CISyn, so I don’t think there’s any chance it would be. Go inside and pack your bags.”
It wasn’t on the news.
* ** * *
Sang Ki and Eun were eating breakfast when they heard the news. It wasn’t hard to find the news out, there wasn’t a channel that wasn’t covering it. Sang Ki’s memory was still soaked with the blood of his trip to Earth, he hadn’t slept well, no one had. The propaganda coup both sides were hoping to gain from the visit vanished as they returned home early with no official explanation of why. Though he hoped that Shocho got some use out of the knowledge the CGC was willing to shoot CISyn agents dead if they got in their way, but that wasn’t exactly a surprise to anyone. It was just a surprise seeing it.
“The Earther oppressors have finally made their intentions clear. While an attack is not guaranteed, it is evident that war is now at hand. Sang Ki looked over at Eun, she hadn’t turned her eyes away. “You’re enlisting aren’t you.”
“I already did. I just didn’t want to tell mom and dad till it got serious.” Should have told me, he thought.
“I don’t know if I will.”
“You should Sang Ki, there’s a lot at stake here. Our families, our lives, our freedom. What would happen to me, or Ouka if we got occupied? You know what happens when invading armies come. It won’t be pretty. You saw those Earthers, willing to kill each other at a moment’s notice. Just think what they’ll do to us.” Jhe Sang Ki didn’t want to admit she was right, but he knew she was, “I’m going to call Ouka.”
He rung her up on the vid screen. “Phhoung?”
“Sang Ki.” Tears were running down her cheeks.
“I see you saw the news.”
“I’m joining up.”
“I am to,” He decided, he then decided something else. “I’m coming over in a few minutes.”
“I’m still in my pajamas…”
“Doesn’t matter.”
He cut her off, and went to withdraw his savings.
His father stared at him, as did his mother, as did Phhoung’s mother and father.
“What did you just say?”
“We’re getting married. And we’re enlisting.”
“And we’re enlisting.” She repeated.
“This is all so sudden, Sang Ki you can’t just rush into these things.”
“Yes, yes I can. Phhoung is my oldest friend. I love her mom, and if we don’t fight we’ll never have a chance at a future. And I don’t want to die knowing we didn’t take this chance.”
His father looked into his eyes, and looked down at his hands. His father had lost more than one fingertip in his time, and his arms were littered with the scars of an accidental machine cut.
“You have my blessing, son.”
“Jh-“
“Your son’s grown up. He can make these choices. We weren’t that much older when we got married.”
“Phhoung, you have our blessing as well. Your father and I couldn’t be happier.”
Phhoung and Sang Ki looked at each other. They didn’t speak, but “finally” was all over their eyes.
“So you want to enlist as a pilot?” Phhoung nodded, “I’ve written up my experience here.” She hit a key on her data pad and the data shot over to the recruiter’s computer. “So I see…. Very impressive. I’ll forward you, you’ll still have to go through the normal tests, but I think you’ll be able to skip basic flight.” There were several smirks. The recruiter looked over at Sang Ki, “and you’re enlisting as…?”
“Technical Division, technician or Comp Ops. Which ever you need more of.” Sang Ki tapped his computer, and transferred his qualifications. The man frowned.
“Look, I see you’re more than qualified, but we don’t have any positions open there. The technical division does its own recruitment through the party.”
“So would I have to join the party and send my files through them?”
“I’m saying after you did that, you’d have to spend several years interning and sucking up to party members.” Ki gritted his teeth.
“Fine,” Ki spat out, “I guess I’ll be a grunt then.”
Ouka looked over at him, “You’ll be right in the middle of it!”
“So will you. I’m not staying out of this fight if you’re in it.”
The recruiter shrugged, “you can’t always get what you wanted.”
“I didn’t ask for your aphorisms.”
The recruiter was silent, and filled out Ki’s admission forms. It wasn’t that Ki had shamed him, but he didn’t know what an aphorism was.
Sang Ki opened his eye lids. Behind those were his eyes, specifically the iris and pupils, and behind those were lenses corneas optic nerves and a brain. In front of him was Phhoung. She was curled up, one of her arms clutching his chest, gently breathing in and out. It was their third night living together in the cramped apartment just outside the military base, they’d be married in just a few weeks, and they hadn’t seen any point in waiting to live together, neither had their families. His muscles were sore from the accelerated training the army had been putting him through, not to mention the previous night’s activities, his hair cut short, and his soon to be wife sleeping next to him. She was flying daily, getting familiarized with the other pilots in her squadron and their tactics.
That sounded great compared to the mud crawling Ki was doing, learning to assemble a plasma rifle and clean it, getting accustomed to the armor, and learning how to work in a squadron. But it was all worth it, because she was right there with him, Phhoung, brilliant Phhoung. He kissed her Forehead. Everything was going to be okay. The Earthers might not even show up, or if they did, Gongen would be ready. All of his friends had joined up, his sister had first, and had been transferred into some sort of special training program. He was proud of Eun, only a handful of other women were chosen for the project. He stroked Phhoung’s face, all the strong women in his life taking up arms and rising up while he was the grunt. At the very least they would be safe. Carefully, Sang Ki slipped out of the covers, and pulled a robe on over his cold skin. Naturally, he checked the news feed.
Every eye has a brain behind it, filled with all sorts of parts in between. When light goes into our eye, we aren’t really seeing what’s there; our brain just takes a bunch of information and makes a picture out of it. So, maybe what Sang Ki saw wasn’t real.
“DIPLOMATIC TALKS FALL THROUGH.
EARTHER BLOCKADE REACHES CRITICAL MASS.
POT SHOTS TAKEN NEAR PHOBOS
INVASION IMMINENT
“WAR IS INEVITABLE.” –PROF. HATSU
Sang Ki sat there, his bare feet growing colder. “Already awake honey?” Phhoung stammered,
“Go back to sleep sweetie. One of us needs our rest.”