Subterrene War 03: Chimera (15 page)

With that, the colonel left. The Thai who had brought us the clothes escorted us from the bunker and up another long flight of twisting stairs until we emerged in the bright sunshine of Bangkok, our light uniforms becoming heavy with sweat. We started down a wide ramp and headed south, back toward the hotel.

“What do you think?” Jihoon asked.

“About what?”

“About the trip to the lines,” he said. “Do you think it’s a good idea?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter, Chong. Who cares
what I think? It’s the only mission we have, and Margaret is in the bad bush, so that’s where we go. You ever seen combat before?”

“Simulations, but they were realistic enough.”

“Yeah,” I said, laughing.
“Realistic.”

We made it through several roving checkpoints on our way south through the city. Jihoon had wanted to walk—to see if the protests were under control, but I didn’t know if they were “under control” as much as the military had started patrolling instead of holding fixed positions—and every once in a while we encountered a building like the one blown near the Mandarin, its roof collapsed and walls now piles of brick or concrete rubble. The aftermath of plasma strikes were everywhere, and charred bodies lay on the sidewalks since nobody had been there yet to clean up. Maybe nobody cared.

From doorways and alleys, children stared at us with huge eyes, and I could tell it was having an effect on Ji. But what effect and what did he even
know
about kids? I had Phillip, and even having experienced what it meant to be a parent, I’d seen enough eyes like those in Bangkok that it had given me an immunity to the virus they tried to throw around, a sickness that, in the weak-minded, could rot from the inside. You had to be careful about it. If you stopped to help, the overwhelming reality of it all—that there was no amount of help that could save them—would wrap you in an invisible garrote that got tighter the more you tried to give. Only the weak had an instinct to help. So I watched Jihoon, waiting for an indication that he was going under, maybe thinking of throwing them some money or food, and when I saw it on his face, another
expression, I studied it, doing my best to figure out what he was thinking. But
this
one I couldn’t identify.

“Why are you here, Jihoon?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean I don’t buy the bullshit about wanting to get in the field. They didn’t teach you to be a combat dog; they put you in the BAI, for shit’s sake.”

He shook his head, and we jumped over a stream of raw sewage. It was past noon. We’d have to shake it to get to our destination and return before sunset, after which martial law would be enforced, and in the darkness—even with the uniform—I didn’t trust the Thai Army’s identification skills.

“Yeah, they trained me for the BAI. But I also scored well in combat-suitability screens, so they gave me a double major in criminal investigation and military tactics.”

“What do you think of the job so far?”

Jihoon glanced at me. He stared for a few seconds and then looked away. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?” But I knew what he meant. We were going into the bush the next day and I needed to be sure that this guy wouldn’t fold, that he wouldn’t turn into a ball of quivering waste under fire. I knew what he was saying, but he needed to explain it out loud, so I could peek behind the words.

“Kill for a living. And how you live this life for twenty years without letting it get to you. When I worked for the Feds, we used to go to the rattiest places on earth and see people that you wouldn’t believe. It makes you wonder, you know?”

I shrugged. “You tell me.”

“Wonder if we just shouldn’t wipe a whole segment of
the population—the ones who don’t have any souls. The perpetually useless and wasted.”

“Sure. I get it. But I also see the way you look at these Thai kids. You wanna wipe them too?”

Jihoon laughed and held out his hand. “You got a cigarette?”

“I didn’t know you smoked.” I handed him one, and we stopped so I could light it. He took a deep breath and coughed before trying again.

“I don’t. But I figured if you did there must be a reason.” Ji took another puff and did better this time, blowing a cloud while talking through the coughs. “I don’t want to wipe these kids. I was just thinking that if they’re tough enough to survive this, we oughta waste all of ours and replace the academy kids with ones from Bangkok.”

And when I heard that, I figured Ji would be fine. “Yeah. Maybe.”

We walked until two in the afternoon, waving at passing Thai patrols and occasionally having to submit to identity scans, but for the most part the trip was uneventful. Forget what we’d learn in Khlong Toei. I’d just learned the most important thing so far, that Jihoon was one clinical bastard and that the look of discomfort—if it had been that—shown on his face wasn’t related to pity for the Thais, but was one of strategic recognition. Maybe he was thinking the same thing I was—that if any of these countries had developed the same technologies and capabilities as us, they’d have a much better gene pool from which to populate their forces. That we’d be screwed.

We had just reached the outskirts of Khlong Toei when Ji stopped me. “What about you, Bug? Why are you this way?”

“What way?”

Jihoon shrugged. “I’ve heard the stories about you, read the files. You’re one of the best.”

“Maybe.”

“Not
maybe,
it’s a fact. But then you go off whoring and drinking, almost jeopardizing the entire operation and acting like you’re insane. Why?”

I had to think about that one. The answer was clear; it just wasn’t easy to phrase in a way that he’d understand because he wasn’t like Wheezer, didn’t have the frame of reference yet.

“It’s like this,” I said. “I don’t fit in the peace world. I don’t think you can have someone that operates like me in the field and then instantly turn him off so he can function in civilized society—at least not anymore. At home I look crazy, maybe lose it every once in a while and go off. Out here, though?” I lit another cigarette and grinned around it. “Out here I’m at home, even though I hate the place.”

We pushed on across a wide street littered with burned-out cars, and four Thai soldiers stared from their sandbagged position, their helmets off and lined up in front of them. Jihoon waved to them and laughed.

“So you’re crazy, but on an operation, crazy is
normal
?”

“That’s it,” I said. “You’ll get it too, someday.”

We saw a gate in the middle of a high concrete wall, with an APC parked outside it and a worn plastic sign that said Khlong Toei in Thai and English. Jihoon threw his cigarette down and ground it into the asphalt.

“I hope not,” he said. “I hope I’m never as psycho as you are.”

I almost voiced out loud what the conversation made
me realize but figured it was better left unsaid: I had lied; the fact was that Bea had broken me seven years ago, and now I cared about a kid that wasn’t even mine and couldn’t explain it. The way Jihoon described me was no longer accurate—once but not anymore, not now that caring had wormed its way inside and started laying eggs, because caring was a killer, worse even than fear, and the mantra of “He’s not really my kid” wasn’t a fix anymore. So I kept quiet, and we ducked through the entrance, letting Khlong Toei swallow us.

Twin smells assaulted my nostrils. An odor of cooking, spices, and fish came first as vendors prepared for the dinner rush, and as soon as we entered, people pressed from every side in a hurry to get from one place to another. That was the second smell’s source: unwashed humanity. But it wasn’t like in the States when someone failed to put on deodorant, and I’d forgotten that during operations the last time, I’d eaten local food so I would blend in. The locals smelled woody, like a dresser drawer that hadn’t been opened in a century. What surprised me the most, though, were the signs written in Japanese; the ghetto wasn’t Thai at all. You saw the difference in their faces and the way these people carried themselves, refugees of a war in which Japan and her allies had opted to take out North Korea before it had a chance to attack, while China loomed in the background and drooled for Japanese resources. The people of Khlong Toei were survivors—maybe the last Japanese on earth beside the ones in Australia, the only ones who had bailed before the Chinese nukes fell. A knot of children grew around us, and Ji let
me know that they were asking for money in a mixture of Thai and English, so I told him to make it clear that if they didn’t leave we’d kill them, and they scattered, disappearing into the crowds.

Nobody had protested here. The buildings showed no sign of damage from tanks or other weaponry, and they had been built out of cargo containers and any other material at hand, barely ten feet from one another so we had to squeeze through the narrow alleyways, fighting to breathe as we made our way deeper into the ghetto. The farther we got from the entrance, the darker it became. We couldn’t see the river, but above the walls and buildings the towering outlines of cargo cranes loomed, getting closer, and the smell of dirty water grew. Somehow, we wound our way through the maze and stepped into a courtyard of sorts, empty of people except for an ancient man sitting on a bench. His hair was white, and he grinned at us, nodding as he said something.

“What language is that?” I asked.

“Japanese. He’s saying that we’ve come to the right place.”

I shrugged, feeling uneasy. Why did the crowd avoid the courtyard? We hadn’t seen any signs labeling it—nothing that would suggest the area was special.

“What place?” I asked.

Jihoon was about to speak when they came from behind. Five men in their twenties pushed past and stood by the old man, bowing before turning to face us, and what struck me first was the fact that they had all been maimed in some way, including scars resembling mine, skin melted by thermal gel. They wore primitive jungle camouflage. Stuff from the history books. But it intimidated
anyway, maybe because the men had a look on their faces like they didn’t need combat suits—empty stares that I recognized for having seen it in the mirror every day.
Killers.

Jihoon asked and waited for the man’s answer. “He says there’s no name for this part of the neighborhood but asked if we’re American. When Americans come to Khlong Toei, it’s for one reason: to look for Sister Margaret. This is her city, so we’re in the right place.”

“Ask him if anyone else has been here. Looking for her.”

The man grinned and told us that on two previous occasions, men like Jihoon and me had been there to try and find her, to kill her, but that in every case Margaret had taken them first. He was just sorry that Margaret was gone or he would have enjoyed the show. She would be gone for a long time, he assured us.

“Ask him if there are others here,” I said. “Like Margaret. Other genetics.”

“There are,” a girl said. We hadn’t noticed her approach either, and before I could go for my pistol, she had leveled a Maxwell carbine at my chest, so fast that her movement had been invisible.

I stared in disbelief. This one also had blonde hair, but her face was empty of tattoos, and since Margaret was in the field, it couldn’t have been her anyway, and she didn’t confuse me the same way Margaret had; this one was pure machine. The girl’s combat armor was muddy, cracked in places, and the helmet hanging from her webbing looked so scarred and pitted that I wondered why she hadn’t replaced it.

“We’re not here to kill anyone,” I said. But my hand almost had a mind of its own, wanting to draw and cut her
down. It angered me to see one close-up and with no sign of spoil.

“Not anymore anyway,” she said, and the others laughed at her joke.

“You all speak English?” I asked.

The girl nodded. “All of Margaret’s human followers volunteer for the tanks. To submit to a procedure meant for the young is their initiation, a test of courage. Some die, others go crazy, but the ones that make it and live are admitted to the
Gra Jaai.
”

“What the hell did she just say?” I asked.

Jihoon stared at her as he spoke. “The tanks are what we call the simulators. You’re suspended in a fluid-filled tank or vat so you can move while practicing the scenarios they pipe into your head. They also teach languages that way because it’s infinitely faster than trying to learn in a standard classroom.” He addressed the girl then. “How old are the men you put in the tanks?”

“The youngest was sixteen, the oldest forty.”

Jihoon whistled. “That’s crazy. You’re talking about a mortality rate of more than ten percent once you pass twenty-two, just by having the procedure to get your brain wired. Neuron structure is pretty well-defined by that point. The risk of insanity is about three times that.”

“The insane we dispatch out of mercy.” The girl looked at Jihoon then and cocked her head. “You have been in the tank?”

He nodded. “Humans train this way. We have since the first of you began using the method in the production facilities and proved it could work.”

“If you didn’t come here to kill us, why?” She had turned her attention back to me, and the girl’s eyes stared
through everything, with the same deep blue that had warned me of the attack in Sydney, an ocean of color that didn’t care if anyone lived or died.

“We need some information.”