The Tortoise And The Desert Pt.2
It takes another two weeks’ sitting in on video calls, but Minho learns to trust Seungyoon not to take Jinwoo out drinking at the drop of a hat. Well, perhaps ‘trust’ is too strong a word, but when Jinwoo suggests that they go out to eat together, Minho doesn’t object.
“Hey there! Wasn’t expecting to see you for another eight months,” Seunghoon grins over the top of a wok filled with something frying vigorously, “who’s your friend?”
“This is Minho, he’s my bot,” Jinwoo laughs as Minho’s back goes very straight.
“Bot?” Seunghoon blinks, leaning forward to get a better look at Minho.
“I know, trust me though, that’s a bot,” Seungyoon collapses into a chair at the front of the cart and motions for Jinwoo and Minho to follow him.
Seunghoon sticks his nose back in his wok, sneaking furtive glances at the three of them like he expects someone to announce that they’re joking any second. “And will this bot be eating with you?”
“I can’t, got no stomach,” Minho grumbles.
Seunghoon throws vegetables and the protein infused fungus that passes for meat together with ease, and not five minutes later, Jinwoo and Seungyoon have bowls of noodles as big as their heads sitting in front of them. The Dark gives the impression of perpetual night, but Jinwoo knows from the clock behind the counter that it’s after midnight anyway - Seungyoon works late when he can, and finding an appetite is hard when you have no temporal cues to aid you. Steam rises through the warm night air, chasing the few insects that still dare to brave the city up towards the lights at the edge of the cart.
They eat, Minho’s eyes fix on something behind Seunghoon and stay there.
The chef notices of course, “something caught your eye?”
“You serve soju,” Minho snaps.
Seunghoon blinks in confusion, “of course I do, that a problem?”
“Jinwoo’s not supposed to drink.”
“And neither am I,” Seungyoon counters, “don’t worry, it’s more than his business is worth to serve to us. The police would be down here in a shot.”
Speak of the devil, no sooner has Seungyoon mentioned the police than the lights of a black Bladerunner cruiser light up what little of the street has not already succumbed to the forces of neon. They sit in silence as the vehicle rumbles down the road, all eyes fixed on the tinted windows as it passes.
“No replicants down this way! Get out of Mapo and do your damn jobs,” Seunghoon shouts after them. Like all small business owners north of the river, he’s sick of having his customers scared off by the prospect of replicants in their area. Of course, the local police offices rattle off the same lines about preventative measures whenever pressed about it, the same old bullshit about how the presence of Bladerunners doesn’t mean the presence of the things they’re sent out to catch, but no one buys that anymore.
Jinwoo almost points out that the last replicant incident was mere months ago and that Myeongdong isn’t far from here, but he sees Seunghoon’s bitter expression and thinks better of it.
The car comes to a stop just out of sight. They hear doors slamming and people shouting at each other, though it’s hard to tell if it’s on the job formalities driving up the volume of their voices, or nerves.
“Maybe we should go…” Seungyoon murmurs.
“Absolutely not,” Seunghoon snaps, “I refuse to rearrange my day to accommodate a couple of nervy Bladerunners.”
“I’m just saying-“
“Kang Seungyoon you stay in your seat and you finish your noodles.”
Jinwoo is about to turn around and continue with his own food when a movement at the top of the road, from the direction the Bladerunners had come from, catches his eye. Something moving through the few patches of shadow left, ducking into alleys, head down and trying not to be seen.
It’s a girl, short, with hair past her shoulders, clutching something to her chest. She barrels past closed shops and open bars with a single minded determination, hard heels of her shoes clattering along the pavement. She steps into a patch of light and Jinwoo sees her neat nose, her wide eyes, and he recognises her.
“Hayi!” he screams, but if she hears him she doesn’t show it.
A second later, a gun goes off, and the street erupts into activity.
First there is a bang, loud and clean with nowhere to echo in these low buildings; then Seunghoon’s reaching over the counter, tugging at Jinwoo’s collar and urging him to move. Ears still ringing from the gunshot, Jinwoo can’t hear him shout, but from the frantic hand gestures he’s supplied with, he gets the message.
Grabbing Minho’s arm, Jinwoo follows Seungyoon round the back of the van and pushes himself flat against the metal wall. The structure rocks as Seunghoon packs up in a hurry, hard enough for him to convince himself that the shaking of his hands is not fear and shock. The shadows falling either side of the cart become messy and confused as people leave the restaurants and drinking holes they had been clamped up in, and as Jinwoo’s hearing begins to return he can hear the stunned silence falling over people as they realise what has happened.
“You knew her? What the fuck, why did you know her?” Seungyoon screams at him, and Jinwoo has to fight the urge not to slap him just to shut him up.
The van stops shaking and Seunghoon sticks his head round the back, “c’mon, let’s go.”
They sneak away through a back street, Seungyoon swearing profusely all the way. Jinwoo catches a glimpse of the scene all the same, the body of a girl, surrounded by photographs spilling from an open book she had been clutching to her chest as she walks, and Nam Taehyun standing over her.
Taehyun turns, his eyes lock with Jinwoo’s, and he smiles.
Seungyoon’s flat is barely big enough for the four of them to sit in a circle. His bedroom doubles as a living room and kitchen, making the bathroom the only place he has to run to, and Jinwoo wonders that he doesn’t go stir crazy cooped up in here.
Seunghoon mutters about replicants and Bladerunners and everything that’s wrong with modern society as he’s handed a mug of tea. Seungyoon joins in as best he can, punctuating particularly biting statements with as potent a profanity as he can manage.
Minho is quiet, strangely so. His spine begins to curve and he sinks into himself, wobbling for a moment before leaning over to rest his head on Jinwoo’s shoulder.
“You alright?” Jinwoo asks, prodding him in the side.
No response. Slightly alarmed, Jinwoo looks down to see that Minho’s eyes have closed and his body gone limp, as if he were asleep.
Only Minho can’t sleep.
“Is he low on power?” Seungyoon asks, stopping Seunghoon midway through a particularly vicious tirade on the injustice of funnelling public money into a highly advanced and mostly useless police division.
Jinwoo nods, cursing internally, “I only caught a few hours’ sleep last night and he’d normally be plugged in by now, he must have been running low all day. Fuck, I didn’t even think.”
“No worries,” Seungyoon gets up and goes over to a kitchen cupboard filled with cleaning supplies, “I’m pretty sure I’ve still got my cables in here from when I had my bot. These things are standard issue, they should work for him…gotcha!”
Seungyoon steps back, holding up a thick red cable in triumph. He steps over to Minho and starts searching for the socket to plug it into.
“At the back of his neck, around the hairline,” Jinwoo says, propping Minho up and feeling for the spot, “just there.”
Seungyoon leans down, pushing Minho’s head forward till it rests on his chest. At this angle, Jinwoo can see the metal socket clearly, hidden amongst the skin on Minho’s neck. It looks strange and unnatural, nestled amongst organic matter, even if he does know what lies lower down the bot’s back.
“What the fuck?” Seungyoon drops the cable and abruptly steps away from Minho, eyes wide.
Jinwoo frowns, “what’s wrong? Did you get a shock?”
“I’ll say. You ever take a look at the brand name on this thing?”
Confused, Jinwoo pushes Minho’s hair back and moves him round into the light to get a better look. Sat on the bed, Seunghoon looks from Seungyoon to the bot and back again like either one of them might explode at any moment.
Minho’s brand is written in neat letters above his power socket, small enough that no one would notice them if they weren’t looking. Jinwoo reads it out dully, failing to process what the word means until Seunghoon lets out a high pitched whine and drops his mug, covering the floor with shards of pottery.
“What the fuck is that doing here?”
“Seunghoon-“
“Jinwoo why didn’t you look at the damn thing before?”
Jinwoo has no idea. He only knows that his blood feels like it’s cooling in his veins and he wants nothing more than to not know this.
Seungyoon takes a long, shuddering breath, “I need it out of here, right now.”
“Ok,” Jinwoo nods. A very large part of him wants to stay and argue that there’s no reason for this to change anything, that everything’s been fine up till now, but the part of him that gets to act knows that would be futile. He slings one of Minho’s arms over his shoulder and hoists him into a standing position - he’s heavy, but not as heavy as he looks - and drags him to the door. “Seungyoon, I-“
“Don’t come back here till you’ve gotten rid of it.” Seungyoon’s eyes are hard and cold. Seunghoon looks like he might collapse right there.
The door closes behind them and Minho’s head lolls forward once again. Jinwoo pauses to rearrange him before they move on, tipping back his head till the metal at the base of his skull is no longer visible, and he can try to pretend that the words “Nexus One” are not written next to Minho’s serial number.
He doesn’t bother turning on the lights when he gets home. The glare from the office block is bright enough for now, lighting up the photo frames on the mantlepiece like his own private constellation, and the space is small enough and familiar enough that his hands will find the way even if he can’t see it. The cables Minho uses to charge himself are still plugged in, so once the bot has been deposited on the couch, it’s the work of a moment to pull them over and plug them into the socket at the back of his neck.
The cables hit home, a dull blue glow pulses through Minho’s shirt. Jinwoo supposes this will take a while.
In the kitchen, Jinwoo throws instant coffee and milk powder together as hurriedly as he can. He scrambles for mugs as the kettle boils and almost drops one on his head, only then does he think to turn the light on.
He walks back through to the living room with two cups of coffee, scalding against his knuckles. He sets them down on the floor and allows himself to become entranced by the swirl of lights in Minho’s belly as they flicker back to life.
Jinwoo’s not sure how long it takes, but eventually Minho’s eyes open, blinking groggily around the room like he doesn’t recognise it.
“I thought we were at Seungyoon’s” he drawls.
Jinwoo nods, “we were. Then we left.”
“Is everything ok?”
Jinwoo doesn’t know what to say to that, so he passes Minho his mug off coffee (still lukewarm) and says nothing.
The silence is incomplete, punctuated by the sounds of cars outside and the elevator rattling through the building out in the corridor. Jinwoo thinks of Yunhyeong and tries to remember when the last time was they saw each other.
Next to him, Minho holds the coffee to his mouth like he might take a sip at any moment, breathing deep through his nose to catch the steam. He’s still sluggish and his inner workings have yet to light up completely, but his grip is firm.
“Can you smell it?” Jinwoo asks for the hundredth time.
Minho hums, “I think I can.”
“You think you can, or you can?”
“I can smell it.” Minho says, very quietly. Jinwoo doesn’t know why he didn’t say as much in the first place.
“After you powered down at Seungyoon’s, he tried to charge you up with some old cables. But he couldn’t,” Jinwoo stares at Minho, “do you know why?”
“No idea.”
“He saw your brand.”
“Oh? Was there something wrong with it?”
“You’re a Nexus One”
Minho’s head snaps up, his eyes wide in the dark and expression stony, “you’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“If I was a…if I was a Nexus I would know.”
Jinwoo has to agree with him there, or at least, he agrees that Minho should know. The whole reason the Nexus series is so dangerous is because they know that they are Other. He holds Minho’s gaze helplessly, wondering how on earth he doesn’t know what he is.
“I’m sorry,” Jinwoo whispers.
This time, when emotion breaks over Minho’s face, Jinwoo doesn’t stop to wonder at the realism of it. Where there is a brain and flesh, emotion isn’t far behind. The way his mouth falls open, aghast, the way his eyes suck in light like a chasm has opened up within him, this time Jinwoo knows Minho’s programming doesn’t stretch that far.
Something that sounds like a sob escapes Minho’s mouth, “so I’m a replicant.”
Jinwoo nods. He has no idea how something so simple evaded the people who brought him back from Bellatrix. Out among the stars, the Nexus are legal, but any craft coming to Earth must be thoroughly searched to ensure the offworlders never make it back. With his metal bones and electronic heart on full display, maybe they simply never thought to look any deeper. Maybe it’s just a glitch in the system.
“I have to leave, don’t I?”
Jinwoo reaches over and pulls one of Minho’s hands into this, “yeah, I think so.”
“Can I have five more minutes?” Minho’s eyes flick around the room, like he’s drinking it in, like he doesn’t want to forget what it looks like in the dark.
“Sure you can.” Jinwoo squeezes his hand, and Minho squeezes back.
"You have a lot of photographs," Minho whispers.
Jinwoo doesn't say a word, just stares into his coffee cup and drinks deep.
They decide to do it on the roof, with all of Seoul spread out below them. All the Earth that Minho has ever known. The elevator ride to the top floor is treacherous, the cage rattling around them and threatening to drop them into the abyss right then and there. Jinwoo remembers holding onto the bars like the ground could swallow him up and wonders how he keeps his cool with two hundred floors between him and the lobby.
The door to the roof is open to all residents but Jinwoo’s never taken advantage of it before. The moment that they step through it he feels his breath slip away from him and he vows to do better on that count. Under the Dark, the city burns bright before them, the screaming neon of company advertisements, the distant fires from factories on the edge of the city pulsating through the night.
Myeongdong is a beacon to the east, garish and colourful and defiantly, wonderfully bright. Jinwoo doesn’t squint to pick out specific brands amongst the clutter, just lets his eyes glaze over as the distant lights blur into a single entity. A flash of green erupts from somewhere in the centre of the market and he is reminded of Bom, daring the Dark to take her sun.
Next to him, Minho looks up. Their fingers are still interlocked, the metal of Minho’s bones hard beneath Jinwoo’s skin. He has to wonder if human bones feel this strange to replicants, or if they were designed not to notice the gulf between them and their creators.
Jinwoo remembers Hayi, smiling like she could make herself believe she was happy and hoarding her family photos where her money should be. He wonders if the space between himself and Minho has not been greatly exaggerated.
“I would have liked to have seen it, one last time ya know?” Minho smiles sadly, eyes still trained on the clouds above their head. Jinwoo leans into him, trying to see what he sees, and is of the opinion that if there were any justice in the world the skies would split and underneath all that doom and gloom the stars would shine out across Seoul to join the throng of lights.
Not possible, he knows. Even on clear nights, neon drowns out red giants. It’s a crying shame, but it doesn’t hurt to wish. Minho spent most of his life - however much of it he had been given - circulating a ball of burning gas billions of miles away, there’s no harm in wanting to take one last look.
“I’ll miss you, I promise.”
Minho’s fingers tighten over his, “you don’t have to.”
“I know, but I will.”
The office block is two stories taller than Jinwoo’s building, but as they peer over the edge, the two of them can see that the lights don’t extend any further than the fiftieth floor. From where they stand, the building looks dark and lifeless, a black blot on a shining horizon. Minho’s face falls a little further with every moment he stares at it, “they were always so alive.”
“They still are, just not up here,” Jinwoo says, “you have to remember that the empty floors are only half the story.”
“Half the truth.”
“Exactly.”
There’s nothing more Jinwoo can think to say. His hand grips ever tighter around Minho’s like strength alone can withhold the inevitable.
“Well then, I guess I should go.”
Minho takes the final step to edge of the rooftop, nowhere to go but down. His hand loosens in Jinwoo’s, but Jinwoo doesn’t let go. This is so unfair, so unnecessary, “you didn’t get to live,” he chokes out.
“Who does?” Minho shrugs. He peels Jinwoo’s hand off his, then takes his head in both hands and kisses him. Just once, dry and warm, and the lips that press against his feel as real as anything to Jinwoo.
By the time he opens his eyes, Minho is gone.
It’s only on the way down that Jinwoo starts to wonder if Minho had felt pain, if he had been scared. Not that it matters anymore, but they feel like questions he should have asked.
He gets to his floor, but he doesn’t get off. Glancing down the corridor, Jinwoo sees Nam Taehyun standing outside his apartment - face passive and a hand on his gun. For the briefest moment, their eyes lock, and Taehyun is shrewd and calculating in a way that sets Jinwoo’s nerves on the edge of a knife.
Taehyun has the face of a man who knows everything, a man who knows too much.
The moment passes, the cage rumbles on. Jinwoo knows with dull certainty that Taehyun will follow him as soon as he can. Because Jinwoo was in Myeongdong that night, and Jinwoo knew Hayi, and Jinwoo hid Minho without even realising it.
Jinwoo doesn’t know how he came to sit at the centre of a problem like that, but he knows it can’t be coincidence. He flees the building as fast as he might, running short on breath before he reaches the end of the second block. It’s only then that he realises it’s raining, acidic and putrid, stinging his skin where it lands and desperately trying to burn out his eyes.
His tears are lost in the rain, like moments slipping back into time. In the morning, the sun will rise over Seoul for the first time in months, and Taehyun will waltz into Mapo Police Station to announce that the replicant threat has been dealt with.