Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 195, page 9
part #195 of Clarkesworld Series
“Space Park?”
“That was it.”
“He remembered!”
“Not just remembered, talked about it all day.” K collapsed on the sofa and laughed. “I thought for sure these were fantasies, that you had died long ago. People go a bit crazy when approaching the Compound Reaction Period. They’ll see ghosts and—”
“Why did you think he put in a PDO application?” A Xu sat in front of the computer. The blue light made her face appear even more solemn. “What did he say?”
“Everyone living here is an upstart! Why would anyone mention such a thing?” K leaned toward A Xu. He thought he could see a few similarities between A Xu and her father. “Well, since you live well, why don’t you tell me why he lived here? Don’t you have a home?”
A Xu’s tapping on the keyboard ceased. Her face retreated behind the screen, but K could sense her trembling, like the wings of an injured insect still trying to take flight. He breathed as softly as he could.
After some time, A Xu’s voice came from behind the screen. “Our home is in Caesar District.”
K was impressed. “That’s a good place.”
Caesar District was the most expensive district in the city. It had always been uninviting to upstarts. Though the PDO Resolution never stipulated that upstarts couldn’t enter certain areas, most all shops, hotels, and even buses in Caesar District refused payment from upstart accounts. Everyone knew those in Caesar were the real rich. What they hated most in this world were upstarts like K, trash draped in gold and silver.
“After Dad went on the run, the PDO sent someone to our home. For a while, I used a radio my father gave me to communicate with him. Later, the radio stopped working. One day, I skipped school because Dad had promised he would come back to take me to the opening of Space Park. I thought maybe—”
“He went on the run?” K nodded. “No wonder he chose this place. There are many temporary tenants here. No one seriously registers.”
“If only I had come earlier.”
“What happened to him exactly?” K sat up from the sofa so he could better see A Xu behind the screen.
“I don’t know, but he obviously did something to piss off the PDO. I only remember one day he came back from work and began packing his things. He told me he had to go on a long business trip and would contact me through our secret radio. Eventually, he revealed he was living here temporarily, but he didn’t allow me to tell anyone or allow me to visit.” The tapping sound of the keyboard ceased again. “Soon after that, the PDO arrived. They forced their way into our house, saying it was to protect us. They were rummaging through all our stuff, our cabinets . . . They kept asking questions I couldn’t answer. That day was the last Dad contacted me on the radio. He said it was now unsafe and he had to leave, and then . . . ”
K recalled the scene at the door of his apartment a week ago, how Zhang Heng was shouting, struggling. The uniformed PDO men in the hall appeared to have tied him up.
K walked over to A Xu.
On the computer screen were opened folders of all sizes. A stream of code popped up and A Xu’s eyes fixed on the flashing numbers and letters. K had no idea what they meant.
“Everything’s deleted.” A Xu gripped the peripheral as if she were trying to hold back her anger. “Nothing. Which is why . . . ”
Suddenly, A Xu turned her head, looked at K, and asked, “Did you say Dad brought you alcohol on his last night?”
“Yes . . . ” K looked at A Xu’s suddenly serious face. “But I’ve drunk it . . . ”
“The alcohol isn’t the point. Did he say anything special when he came to you?”
“Nothing special I don’t—”
“Quick, think. It’s important.”
“When he came that night, I had taken painkillers and was laying on the sofa. He brought the alcohol and put it into the refrigerator. Then he said he was leaving . . . I figured it was the end of his legal life and he didn’t want to suffer, so he was planning to go to the Administrative Center.” K shook his head. “We didn’t even chat really. He delivered the alcohol then said he was going back to deal with some mail and left.”
“Mail?”
K nodded. “I said I hoped he wasn’t sending out a suicide note.”
“Mail!”
A Xu turned her head, searched the outbox . . .
“All deleted. And according to the log, it was my father who deleted it.” A Xu smiled. “He knew they were coming . . . ”
K’s eyes shifted from the screen to the girl so familiar with the keyboard. “Is there any way to—”
“According to his settings, if I reload his mail account, it should show the last sent address as the default, so . . . ” A Xu created the new mail and set recipient and subject to default.
The apartment fell back into silence as K and A Xu stared at the results:
Recipient: User3
Subject: Result of Synthesis of PDO Preparation Antibody 142: Success
: Now, for the second part, Mr. Li.
: Everything we discussed up to now was just the first part?
: The first part was about the rights you must surrender. The second part is about the duties you must fulfill. This part concerns your life and health, Mr. Li.
: If I cared about my health, I wouldn’t be here . . . This is becoming a hassle, you know?
: Mr. Li, the most important duty you need to fulfill is legal death. But you also need to abide by the rules stipulated in the PDO Resolution, especially the second and fourth items on page 45.
: Let’s see . . . Article 4: Exclusivity of Medical and Scientific Services . . . What is this exactly?
: Unless permitted by the PDO Administrative Center or a qualified scientific medical research institution recognized by the PDO Administrative Center, you are strictly prohibited from using your own blood, organs, or body tissues in any surgical operation, medical research, or genetic engineering project of Level-2 or higher. The appendix of the very complete instruction manual itemizes the specifics of all that is prohibited. Mr. Li, the PDO Compound is a high-precision genetically targeted formula. Any biological experimentation, even when seemingly harmless, may lead to a chain reaction that disrupts the genetic sequence. The PDO cannot predict the consequences. Please honor your body and legal life by not listening to any third-party rumors or participating in any experimental research that violates the PDO Resolution.
: I can’t even get surgery?
: Not by an unapproved third party. Mr. Li, this policy prevents phenomena that could be harmful to your health. You likely heard that two years ago in Argentina, there was an organ trafficking organization purporting to inhibit PDO Compound efficacy via the removal of a part of the pancreas. Applicants who pursued the promise of that surgery met with unnecessary tragedy. The PDO Compound does not exist in any organ in your body and no surgery on any organ will inhibit its efficacy.
: I’ve heard of cases. A few months back, there was someone selling a quick-freeze needle on Manila’s black market, saying it put applicants in frozen stasis to avoid death.
: Such methods should not be trusted, I assure you. This is why we remind you even though it’s too early for you to worry about such things.
: Too early? [laughter] But if there’s an antidote available when it’s my time to die, what could you do about it?
: Mr. Li, the PDO Compound is not a poison, so there is no antidote. Everyone’s genetic sequence contains a threshold life expectancy for their normal aging and according to the current human benchmark, that averages from 104 to 127 years. The PDO Compound merely compresses this threshold. The implanted code is top secret. It is irreversible but completely safe prior to the Reaction Period. It is your obligation to die before the end of your legal life. The PDO Compound is the most efficient coercive measure we have at present to ensure that happens. But it is the means, not the end.
The car stopped in front of an abandoned factory.
“Is this the place?” K opened the window and looked out. Cold wind rushed into the car, making him shiver.
On the trip from the apartment, the driver had been constantly glancing through the rearview at his two oddball passengers. A middle-aged man with red eyes and a teenage girl wrapped in a baggy denim coat. The oddest thing wasn’t their look, but their destination: the Dirt District. Before it became the Dirt District, this area had been a mining town. When the mines closed, the area became overrun by drug gangs and developed a reputation for every breed of illegal activity. Drugs, gambling, and weapons trades were in full swing. Then, a few years back, a landslide buried half the town. The thugs abandoned it for some new outlaw paradise. The area was now believed to be deserted.
“The IP address and Dad’s radio signal both came from here.” A Xu said as she pushed open the door and stared at the factory’s rusted gate.
“Wait for us here.” K glanced at the driver. The real-time fare was still displayed on the counter. K raised his hand and after beeping a prompt, the counter read “complete” and flashed a portrait of K.
“Of course, sir.” The driver nodded respectfully. Then the driver turned his head and stared at K with trepidation. He nervously read the operator screen. “Sir, when settling your account, the system received a message from PDO asking me to remind you that your legal life is forty-six days overdue. In order to avoid discomfort triggered by the PDO Compound Reaction Period, you are requested to please—”
“I spent 800 bucks.” K pushed open the door without waiting for him to finish. “So shut up and wait.”
When K caught up with A Xu, she was nearing the side door. It was marked with a sign reading High Pressure Workshop. Faded graffiti of naked girls could be seen through the dust on the factory walls. The largest graffiti work illustrated a supine blonde dancer in mesh stockings. The factory door was between her legs. K wondered whether he should cover A Xu’s eyes.
She unexpectedly turned toward him with a look of complete resolve. “Before I knocked on your door last night, I prepared myself psychologically for whatever might happen. Fortunately, it was you on the other side of the door.” She placed her right hand on the door. “Hopefully this will have an equally positive result.”
K smiled. “Let’s hope you don’t get pushed down again.”
After several knocks, the door did not open.
But soon, the second-floor window above them did scrape open. Covered in graffiti, the glass window was opaque except for one thin glint of sunlight reflecting at the base of the glass. A black gun barrel protruded from beneath.
K didn’t think but quickly gripped A Xu and brought her to the ground, his body shielding hers.
“Gun,” K gasped. He curled and covered A Xu’s whole body under his arms and torso. “Don’t be afraid. I know that make of gun from the casino where I used to work . . . Once it’s fired, it needs to be reloaded.”
“Whu . . . what . . . ”
“If you hear a shot, you immediately run. You hear me, run.”
He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes as if all his senses were waiting for that one crisp shot.
But instead of a gunshot, they heard a delicate female voice.
“You get the chance to tell me three things before I shoot.” The woman kept the gun aimed at K’s body. She tapped a beat with the gun against the window and said: “One.”
“Please, I’m a friend of Zhang Heng.” K clenched his teeth and stood hands up, eyes fixed on the gun. He felt the hurried breaths of A Xu, who clung to his back.
“Friend?” She burst into laughter, tapped the gun against the window again. “Why didn’t I know he had such a friend?”
“I am his friend. I live next door to him.”
“That the second thing you want to say?” She sneered from the window. “Guess you don’t care about your life. Now, your third and final point before we finish this?”
“I . . . ”
K raised his hands above his head unconsciously. Countless images of Zhang Heng passed through his mind like a film edited at random. He racked his brain for anything that would convince her but thought of nothing.
“Me!” A Xu cried.
A Xu stepped to K’s side, still clinging to the corner of his coat. She too stared at the gun. “I’m Zhang Heng’s daughter. My father has been missing for some time . . . I found this place in his last email after he was taken by the PDO.”
This time, the woman with the gun did not respond. K pushed A Xu back behind him.
“No, look.” A Xu pointed to the side door now half ajar.
There was the harsh screech of the rusty door opening. K bowed and put his hands over his ears. When he turned he saw an old man in a white coat and goggles in the doorway. The man studied A Xu for some time. Then he removed his goggles to reveal deep sunken eyes.
“I was at your tenth birthday party.” The old man coughed. “Your father prepared a fireworks show for you in To . . . To . . . ”
A Xu nodded. “Tottori Prefecture.”
The gun withdrew from the window. A young woman wearing a peach camisole peered down at them. Neon lit her pale face, setting off her sweet red lips.
“At last, you said something useful!” The woman yelled.
“Diana,” the old man shouted in a hoarse voice, “call everyone over.”
Moments later, A Xu and K were joined by the few remaining residents of the Dirt District at a long rusty table at the heart of the factory. There was no doubt that these people knew Zhang Heng. The table was covered with every kind of document and five computers blinking with the same blue lights and red chemical formula patterns he had seen in Zhang Heng’s apartment.
In her camisole and stockings, Diana leaned seductively against a battered column. She gestured at the old man seated opposite K. “Dr. Imai was Zhang Heng’s teacher at the Department of Medicine at Tokyo University. He was also a genetic medicine consultant for PDO.”
With her cigarette, Diana pointed at the next man. “Chris used to work in the Network Security Department of the PDO Administrative Center in Seoul.”
She glanced at a burly bald man wearing a vest and too-tight jeans. He looked like some kung fu star from a classic comic, thick arms and clenched fists ready for a kill. “That’s Shaji. I was using his gun just now. He’s from the PDO Bangkok Freight Department, which is responsible for the transportation of raw materials used in the PDO Compound.”
“Raw materials?” K shivered. “What are you . . . planning here exactly?”
“First we need to know how much Zhang Heng told you.” The old man named Imai glared at K and A Xu. “How could you find this place knowing so little?”
“Just . . . I had the address of the mail receiver. Other than that, Dad hardly told me anything.” Since they had come in, A Xu’s eyes hadn’t left the old man. K surmised she really did remember him from Japan. “As for Mr. Li, he was my father’s neighbor.”
“We meet here for our experiments. Each of us has a role to play.” Imai looked at A Xu with a forlorn look in his eyes. “Zhang Heng was supposed to have met us last week but never showed. The PDO must have been watching him for some time.”
“We were worried his disappearance was related to PDO. You may have confirmed that,” Shaji said. His muscles rippled as he lifted a heavy steel pipe from the old assembly line.
“Chris is hacking into the PDO cloud now,” Diana said.
“Done,” said Chris. He stood with a proud smile. “Security Department of the Administrative Center. Arrest files from last week.”
“You’re quick.” Diana hurried to Chris’ computer and looked at the file. They both turned to K.
Realizing something was wrong, A Xu walked over to Chris’s computer screen and looked at the screen’s cracked file.
PDO Security Archive . . . Investigation Records . . . An expeditor from the PDO Administrative Center discovered the target while planning to expedite a legal life in Reaction Period on the same floor . . . The security department has issued an arrest notice . . .
“Metadata can’t be decoded but it coincides with the time they were seen by K.” Chris turned and nodded to Imai. “Dr. Zhang was indeed taken by PDO.”
“So . . . ” Diana sneered as she stared down K. “Who was the person on the same floor they were sent to expedite?”
That night came back to K, all he had seen through the peephole. The moment Zhang Heng was taken. His cry. His struggle. Every detail of that night burned in his memory.
“The expeditor came to see you . . . ” A Xu looked at a stunned K. “You said, you never open the door to those people . . . ”
K raised his hands. “It wasn’t like . . . ”
“The expeditor met the same resistance I did when I came to your door yesterday. He couldn’t open your door, so he knocked . . . on my father’s door.” A Xu scowled. “He never imagined PDO would come to the door at that time . . . So when he realized he might have been recognized . . . ”
“Then, he thought it was me saying goodbye.” K couldn’t stop shaking. His mind flooded with fear and the images of that night.
“And you watched him get taken away, too afraid to open the door because you didn’t want to answer to the PDO.” A Xu shook her head.
“I—” K tried to think of an explanation, but his body was lifted up from behind. His coat was pulled up above his shoulders. The joints in his arm cracked.
“You upstarts are only out for yourselves!” Shaji held K with his left hand and slapped him with the right. “Our gang lives in this awful place to save your lives and you treat us like this!”
“Let him go, Shaji!” Diana yelled at the enraged Shaji. “He has reached phase two of the Reaction Period. He could die!”
“He’s already a dead man. I’m just assisting law enforcement. PDO will thank me!” Shaji gripped K’s neck with terrible strength. “Why don’t you just go to the Administrative Center and die, you coward!”
“Enough, Shaji!” Imai stood up. “He might still help us!”
