Seoul Survivors (38 page)

Sydney grabbed Damien's arm and tried to hoist herself up, look into his eyes. “Damien,” she babbled, “everything we did was totally true. Me and Jae Ho—it's over; I just wanted to see his painting, that's all. I'm sorry I texted I was seeing Da Mi. I don't know why I did that. I guess I didn't want to tell you about him just yet. I didn't want you
to be jealous of anyone. You're fantastic, Damien, the most incredible guy I've ever met. We sang that song and danced, and it felt like you were my brother or something. I never just had fun like that with anyone before.”

Sydney was rubbing her hand over Damien's chest. He looked down at it with disinterest. Her feverish declaration in front of these maniacs seemed in very poor taste.

He turned his head to the window. “Take a chill pill, Sydney,” he said softly, his eyes on the road. He knew where he was again now; the car was motoring past Hapchong Station, through a mass of roadworks, passing over echoing metal ramps, between long plastic cables studded with blinking red lights.

The occupants were silent as the ProxyBod swung the car out onto the expressway that ran along the river, the strong, broad Han Gang with its largely undeveloped north shore.

Damien had had a job near here at the beginning of the summer. He'd always relished the way the bus driver had floored it down this stretch, the bus rattling along before being forced by heavy traffic to inch up the ramp to the bridge. Now the car's smooth acceleration was fueled by menace. Johnny gave a grunt of satisfaction and tapped the gun barrel against his window. Damien turned away. Out on the river, lit up by the lights from the bridge, he could see a string of swan-shaped paddleboats, undulating on the water. Their unlikely presence had always charmed him on his early-morning journeys, but now, ghostly-white in the dark, they were a warning, an obedient chain of flightless, soulless birds.

Picking up speed as the traffic thinned, the Sonata passed the turn-off for the bridge, and then the Lido on the riverbank, the big pool he'd always looked down on longingly in the July heat. They were heading now for the wild end of the river, an industrial zone of construction stockyards and huge sand pits: the Pyramids of the Han, Damien had dubbed them as he'd gazed on them in the distance. Now these wastelands with their gravel mountains and building cranes loomed uncomfortably near.

Beside him, Sydney was shaking. He glanced down at her bony form and again his heart contracted. Christ.
She was just a kid
. Had she really been a prostitute? He knew some girls did sex-work or lap-dancing to pay their college fees. Somehow, in this sallow light, it seemed brave of her. Yeah,
brave
. As the streetlamps swept the car, his anger and disdain dissolved. She looked so fragile, with
those poky elbows and stray blonde hairs falling over her face, but Sydney was a chancer, a livewire, a risk machine—right now her body was twitching and tensing like a cat's about to pounce. That reckless energy, he knew, was what he had always wanted to touch in her. Jessica's energy, his buried twin . . .
like you were my brother, or something
 . . . He saw now with a twist of painful clarity that if he was going to survive he would need a bolt of her electric contempt for consequences.

But equally, if they were going to defend themselves in some desolate lot,
she
would need to be in control of her emotions. He leaned over and whispered, “I'm here,” into her hair.

Johnny reached abruptly across the backseat and jammed the piece into Damien's jawbone, wrenching his neck back so he faced the window again. “
No whispering
. Da Mi, take the next turn-off.”

“I know where I'm going,” the scientist snapped. Then her voice hardened. “Cop alert! They're breathalyzing, just ahead.”

Damien's pulse quickened. Surely the ProxyBod wasn't going to fool a cop?

“What?” Johnny barked. Tension bristling off him, he dragged his gun-hand down out of sight, around Sydney's back. At the same time he grabbed a blanket from the floor and stuffed it in between the front seats to cover the ProxyBod cable. Straightening up, he grabbed Damien by the collar, with the same arm pinning Sydney by the throat against the backseat. “Any funny stuff when the cop sticks his head in here and little Cindy here is going to be severely punished. Got that?”

Damien nodded.

Johnny let him go. The Sonata crawled toward the traffic officer, then stopped.

The ProxyBod unrolled her window.

Cold air billowed into the car and Damien shivered. Beside him, Sydney was breathing in short ragged intervals and her body was flinching. He moved to put his arm around her but Johnny shook his head so he shrank back. The cop stuck his head in the window and rattled off a few words to the ProxyBod. Da Mi replied in an apologetic tone.

Damien held his breath. Surely the man would be able to see that what he was talking to wasn't human?

But the cop didn't appear to notice. He cupped his white-gloved hands, an impromptu bowl to capture the unmistakable reek of rice vodka; the ProxyBod leaned forward and blew delicately into the
funnel. How and why did it have breath? Did the sex clients demand it as a feature?

The cop nodded, and cast a curious glance over the foreigners huddled together in the back seat. He asked the Pebbles thing a question, she responded brightly and he replied, laughed and withdrew, and waved them on with a smile. The window slid back up, sealing the car interior again.

“What did you tell him?” Johnny asked, suspiciously.

“He wanted to know why the girl was crying. I said her puppy had died and we were going to bury it. He said he thought Korean girls were sentimental over puppy-dogs and Western girls only cried about men.”

“I didn't know Cindy had it in her to shed tears over anything,” Johnny announced.

“That gun fucking hurts!” Sydney snarled. “Can you take it out of my back
now
, please.”

“Hard and stiff, is it?” Johnny cooed. “Maybe it would feel better up your cunt, hmmm? Be nice to put it there, to see how easy it slides up inside. I think all this bouncing around in the back seat is turning little Cindy on. She doesn't like to admit it, now she's a famous
model
, but Cindy's really into trashy car-sex, especially gun-car-sex. What do you think, Damien? Should I give it a try, see what kind of sounds she'd make? Would that do anything for you too, Brit-fag-boy? Hmmmm?”

“Leave her alone, Sandman.” Damien's tongue was furry with disgust, but to his private horror, the overheated interior, the lulling motions of the car and the pure adrenalin thumping like a back-beat through his veins were all conspiring to give him an erection. He twisted away from Sydney and tried to concentrate on his throbbing jaw. The car had pulled off the road now and was drawing up in front of a high metal gate. He had to stay calm.

“Johnny, this is company time—don't get carried away back there!” Da Mi sounded incensed, but Damien failed to see that Johnny gave a speck of shit.

“Johnny, you repulsive scumbag, get that gun out of my pants.” Sydney's voice was quivering now, and Damien could hear the fear behind her crumbling bravado. He caught a whiff of the tangy smell of her sweat, mixed with earthier juices. For a moment he was back in bed with her.

Johnny's voice was a low rumble, thunder on a dry horizon. “Oh no, princess, I'm real curious now. I think you like getting angry
with me. I think that gets you hot. Remember all those times I let you slap me and bite me? You're a little tiger, Cindy, and the proof is in the pudding, as the British say—isn't that right, Brit-boy?”

Damien watched with helpless fascination as Johnny slid the piece around Sydney's waist and shoved it deep toward her crotch. The button on her
nobody
jeans snapped apart with an innocent ting and her zipper tore open like a long, metallic yawn.

Johnny jerked Sydney's jeans down her legs with the gun. She clutched at Damien's hand. Her palm was soaking wet. His erection shriveled like a piece of chewed gum.

“Stop him, Damien!” she panted.

“Make one move, fag-boy, and I pull the trigger,” Johnny barked.

Damien felt dizzy. The lights from a passing car briefly flooded the vehicle. The jeans were down at Sydney's knees now, and her thighs were gleaming like fish on a slab.

“Da Mi!” Sydney shrieked as Johnny struggled to part her clenched legs.

“Sandman,” Da Mi's tone was low and controlled, “I am ordering you to stop,
now
.”

The ProxyBod met Damien's gaze in the rearview mirror, but her face was immobile, her dark eyes message-less, her weapons invisible. Sydney's white, trembling legs beside him were no match for the thrust of Johnny's arm.

Damien could make out the blonde wisps of Sydney's pubic hair as Johnny forced her legs open. His other hand was a fist in her hair, pulling her head toward him.

“Hot and wet, eh?” he crooned, spit fizzing at the corners of his mouth. “I think you
like
it, Cindy.”

“You. Disgusting. Fuckwad.” Sydney's speech was gargled, as if her tongue had been pushed down her throat. Damien squeezed her hand and she dug her nails into his palm. He welcomed the pain.

“I'm here,” he whispered, faintly, but Johnny was in full spate.

“Thought you'd run off on us, did you, without even saying goodbye? Not to mention saying thanks for bringing you over, setting you up in your new princess life? Well, let's say
anyong hasayo
now, Cindy, a proper goodbye fuck, for old time's sake—you owe me that, you little bitch, like you fucking owe me an apology for that note you left me, don't you? Yeah, that wasn't a nice note to leave someone who made your life a million times better, was it? Don't you think you ought to tell Johnny you're sorry?”

The gun muzzle was burrowing into the cleft between Sydney's legs. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she was biting her lip so hard that Damien could see a trickle of blood on her chin.

“Huh, you gonna say sorry, Cindy? You gonna say sorry to Johnny?”

“I'm . . . sorry . . . for you, Johnny,” Sydney rasped. “I'm fucking
sorry for you
 . . . because you're a total . . . fucking . . .
loser
.”

“You bitch!” Johnny shoved the gun inside her. She made a terrible gargling sound and her hand went rigid as metal. The car stopped and Damien lurched forward.

“Hey, Doc,” Johnny shouted, “what the fuck do you think you're doing?”

The car had turned off the main road and pulled up by a tall metal gate. The ProxyBod was rummaging in the glove compartment, throwing maps, old juice bottles, sunglasses and OxyPops out onto the front seat.

“Just opening the gate.” Pebbles waved a remote control in the air.

“Okay, okay,” he growled. “Take us inside.”

The entrance gates swung open. The car pulled into a vast building site. A single floodlight was mounted on a corrugated sheet metal shack by the gate; beneath it heaps of scrap materials and tools cast mangled shadows on the ground. Strings of naked bulbs, propped up by awkwardly leaning posts, lit the rest of the site, leaving eerie yellow pools on the ground. As the car rolled slowly out of the spotlight, Damien could make out bulldozers and road-rollers, and areas of swampy land with roads that ended abruptly at the mouths of gaping pits. Beyond it all, a range of sand and gravel mountains reared up in the darkness which flowed into the river; the gleaming black water and the line of lights on the opposite bank were just visible in the distance. A high chain-link fence crested with rolls of barbed wire surrounded the site for as far as Damien could see.

The ProxyBod stopped the car again, pointed the remote back at the gate, which clanged shut with a distant echo.

“Sydney, Damien, welcome to the site of the future VirtuWorld,” Da Mi said crisply. “Johnny, you would do well to remember that you too are an employee of the park and answerable to
me
. Now put the gun in the air and let's get back to the original plan.”

“Dr. Kim?” Johnny raised his voice. “I got some unfinished business with little Cindy here, so why don't you just put a lid on it and
take us to the dug-out. You don't want to get your hands dirty, you'll just have to do things
my
way for a change.”

“You've taken far too many liberties already, Sandman,” Da Mi retorted.

“I'm the fucking expert on the ground, bitch!” Johnny yelled. His face was scarlet and his eyes were bulging out of his skull. “Now
drive
!”

Damien wanted to smash his own head against the window. Beside him, Sydney's head was rocking back and forth against the seat. A long moan escaped her.
Push
, he thought inanely, squeezing her hand again.
Just push the bastard off you
.

But what the hell could she do? Johnny's hand was shoving deep between her thighs. He watched, a helpless witness, as a tear leaked down her cheek.

“Just a minute—I'm losing connection. Just a minute . . .” Da Mi's voice was tinnier than before.

Damien's last pinpoint of hope pinged into non-existence.

“Reload.
Reload!
” Johnny screamed. “We're too close to the road!” But the ProxyBod was inert as a crash-test dummy. “
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
” Johnny slammed the side of his fist against the car roof. “Do I have to fucking do
everything
around here?”

With a gliding head motion, Pebbles returned to life, or her version of it, anyway. “Please excuse my temporary absence. Bugs in the program.”

Johnny was breathing like he'd just run a marathon. He smoothed back his hair. “Don't give me your bullshit, Kim; just move.”

The car had stalled. Pebbles restarted the ignition and drove slowly down a sparsely lit passage between two towering loads of sand.

“Brit-boy, you see these sandpits?” Johnny crooked his free elbow round Sydney's neck, dragging her closer. His gun was still digging into her. “They're going to be a beautiful beach one day; too bad neither of you Royals are going to lie on it, but you can blame this little slut for that.”

“Don't think
you're
ever going to see it, either, Sandman.” Da Mi's voice was a serrated knife blade. “You've had your last chance to stay on board and you've blown it. I'm not having my authority undermined by your personal vendettas.”

“Whatever, Doc. What. Ever. Don't think you're the only one with friends in high places. A lotta people on this project owe Johnny Sandman a favor, and they don't all like taking orders from a slant-eyed nun.”

Damien was only half-listening. The dark outline of something like a plan was forming in his mind. If he could distract Sandman, get him to wave the gun around, maybe he could knock it away and Sydney could poke his eyes out. Or something. Whatever happened, it was better to die trying to escape than wait to get shot at this dug-out, wherever it was.

“Hey Johnny, man,” he said softly, “why don't you take it easy a minute? If you just put the gun away, Sydney and I will leave the country and you can have VirtuWorld all to yourself.”

“Don't fucking tell me what to do, or the next trigger I pull won't be Cindy's clit!” Johnny jammed the gun harder into Sydney and she gave another unbearable cry, a cat being skinned alive, until Johnny clamped his hand over her mouth.

“Okay, okay.” Damien shrank back against the car door.

Johnny's eyes were glazed over now, his arm working methodically to hurt Sydney. “Now pay attention, boys and girls,” he hissed. “On the left, you will see the Global Village. Snack booths and souvenir shops will line the road, while on the right you can visit the Stock Market Roller-Coaster and the Eyeful Tower. Everything's all set to be erected. Johnny Sandman has paid all the contractors and got the best deals. Johnny Sandman has priced the flood-control banks and sourced all the finest eco-material. Isn't that right, Da Mi?”

They had reached the back of the lot. The chain-link fence continued into the river, which shone blackly in front of them. Da Mi said nothing as Pebbles drove the car along the road that curved along the shore, past a few straggly bushes and a long stretch of sand. Bits of scrap-metal pronged and coiled out of the ditch by the side of the road as if the earth were a mattress that had sprung all its springs.

But as sinister as the lot looked, it was a vision of paradise compared with the interior of the car. He and Sydney had to get outside somehow. If they could turn on Johnny, maybe they could count on Da Mi not to intervene? There obviously wasn't much love lost between her and the psycho bastard. But how to catch the fucker off-guard?

“The main attraction, the Peony Palace, is coming right up,” Johnny crowed, “right round the bend there, nestled in the center of the spiral, surrounding the Fountain of
Luuurve
.” Drawing out the last word, he plunged his gun hand deeper into Sydney's groin.

Beside Damien, Sydney's body was juddering, her eyes screwed shut, her breathing rapid and shallow. She seemed a million miles away, but her hand was still tucked inside his. As inconspicuously as he
could, he hooked her little finger in his and gripped it tight.
Please don't believe a word I'm going to say
, he begged her in his mind.
Please
.

Lowering his voice, he said to Johnny, “You've worked pretty hard to get this all going, I know. I can see how you'd be upset at Sydney, really.”

“You can, can you?” The tone was menacing, sarcastic, but the hand stopped moving. “Sure,” Damien continued. Another part of his mind flashed into action and he began to rhythmically squeeze Sydney's pinkie. Three long squeezes. Then three short. “I mean, she lied to you like she lied to me. I'm pretty pissed off at her myself—I can't say she doesn't deserve everything she's going to get.”

“Oh, you don't say?” Johnny's tone was spiced with a pinch of contempt, but perhaps curiosity too. Still squeezing SOS, or OSO, he had no fucking idea which, Damien took the plunge. “Maybe we could take it in turns. Think about it: we're too crammed in here. I could keep that Game Boy fantasy under guard while you were seeing to Sydney, and vice versa. I've always wanted to rough up a bird with another bloke.”

“Full of surprises, aren't you, Brit-boy?” Johnny sounded amused. Was that good or bad?

Ahead of the car, a cable hung loosely from a tilting post. It thwacked the windshield as they passed and, as if startled, the ProxyBod stepped on the gas. Little pieces of gravel tinged off the metalwork like bits of stone and glass sucked up a vacuum cleaner nozzle. Then the car revved through a puddle beneath a string of colored lights, smattering the windows with a high, shimmering, rainbow of water.

Damien held his breath as the droplets clung to the windows.

“Take it easy, Kim!” Johnny screamed. “I'm
working
back here!”

She couldn't feel her feet. That was something—something beautiful: she couldn't feel her feet. If she tried hard, shut everything out, let Johnny's tsunami of hatred just crash over her, let the furnace between her thighs rage until it consumed her, then maybe soon she wouldn't feel anything at all, wouldn't hear anything but a dull black roar, or see anything except stars in her head, burning lights . . . so pretty . . . like fireworks . . . celebrations . . . tiny Tinker Bell lights . . . the glowing eyes of cats . . . or fairy children . . . yes, fairy children . . . shrieking silently to each other inside her head, their little faces framed by spiky orange petals, their little mouths kissing her, biting her, fierce little fairies . . .
crowding together to pull at her pinky, pull her away from the man who was hurting her, mounting and hurting, shouting and snarling, scraping and shooting fear and pain right up inside her like arrows, like knives, like . . .

The car hit a puddle.

Sydney's eyes sprang open.

A wall of water sprayed over the car in a bleary light-streaked fan.

At last she came, or something like it, a splintered, fractured, neon explosion that ripped her out of her body, out of the vision-world, into darkness and silence and then, at last, into a hurtling, white-hot scream, not of terror, but of fury.

Sydney's scream reverberated down an endless corridor in his mind: a corridor that ended in a door he never, ever wanted to open: a door behind which Jessica died every day, all alone, small and naked, while he played with sand castles and didn't care where she'd gone. That door was swiftly growing larger as he was sucked toward it by a searing, high-pitched blast of sound, it was waiting to swing open and slam him inside to a place full of maggots and rot and the smell of stale semen, the desolate howls of his mother and the empty eyes of his dad, and the high, sputtering laughter of someone who had taken Jessica away forever, someone Damien wanted to kill but never would, because Damien was weak and stupid and frightened and worthless, and should be dead himself, should be dead, should be dead,
should be dead
—

With a huge effort of will, Damien wrenched himself back into the car. Beneath his layers of winter clothing he was cold and damp and shaking, and his tongue was a mossy slab in his mouth. It felt like a year since he'd last drawn breath.

Sydney had gone limp. Her hand was like a piece of plasticine in his; a string of saliva hung from her lower, blooded lip. Outside, the river had disappeared into darkness. Inside the car was completely still. Even Sandman's elbow had stopped moving. The psycho was humming now—some weird, off-key tune, punctuated by fizzles of spit. Christ, was it “My Way”?

Ahead, the road made one final curve into a large round clearing lit by a single lamppost. Beneath the light, a spade was planted between a mound of earth.