“I’ve been searching for a school to attend,” she says, wearing a red apron.
My eyes turn sharp. “School? Hera, I told you…”
“Don’t worry. No school accepted me. Not one of them.”
“They don’t accept you?”
“No.”
Why not? I want to ask but, decide not to. She better stop thinking of schooling. Once she steps inside the classroom I will lose my little smart friend because of the foods they give. Morning tea with a club sandwich, full set course lunch, and afternoon tea with sweet desserts, and free snacks are available 24 hours in the canteen. All of them contain some chemicals that make you dull and idle. Students in NTTs’ district should be too lazy to study. That’s why a student like Amelia is captured. Asking questions or participating during class is abnormal in their eyes.
“Are you bored when you can’t go to school?”
“No, I’m just too happy. I only want to explore new world,” she whispers.
I chuckle. Yes, this is the spirit of a child.
“So, where are the history’s biggest amusement park and the tallest STT tower? I heard its end reaches the last layer of atmosphere.”
A tower reaching Magnetosphere? I almost laugh at the idea. But I pause at her earnest eyes and seriously consider if I have heard of such things. No, I haven’t.
“We don’t have anything the biggest or the tallest. We have a small theme park near the Morning Market where you can learn history of time travel and we have a tall mental hospital on a hill.” Where a bony princess is locked up, I add in my mind.
“No, he said the biggest and the tallest. He even showed me the pictures but I can’t see either of them around here.”
I shut my mouth and pretend to focus on my food. I noticed it in the first day I met them that they were delivered to a wrong place and that the BTT agent was a fraud. He must shown pictures of his district, not ours. But I don’t know how to say all this while her eyes shine with hope. A false hope.
I put down my chopsticks and stand up.
“Life is a spicy thing, Hera,” I say, placing some coins on the table.
“Who said I want more buttons? Give me a clue, where are we now?” Hera says angrily and throws the buttons on the ground.
I look down at them, kneel and pick up button by button. To her, they must be valueless buttons that hang on her clothes but, we use them as money. The story tells the most popular souvenir BTTs took from time travel was the buttons. They removed all the buttons from their clothes and replaced them with the local buttons. It must be the old, used buttons or ones natives are wearing as they seem to be valuable. So if you are asked to trade buttons from your clothes, kick his ass.
“Hera! Stop acting rude!” her mother says. “Sorry, General. She has developed a short temper since she came here.”
“You, too, mom,” she talks back. “You raise your voice a lot more since you came here.”
“Hera! Who taught you to talk back to an adult?”
“I’m just telling the truth. You taught me so. Why should I keep closing my mouth here? Why can’t I make friends here? Why can’t I eat ice cream here? This world is strange. People laugh 24 hours a day. Something’s very wrong with them. I hate their laugh. I hate it here. Let me go back to Korea!”
I quickly look around to see if anyone was listening. Fortunately, no one seemed to hear her voice as it is too noisy with laughter. Well, they probably wouldn’t understand the meaning even if they heard her.
“Apologize,” says Madam Kang.
“Sorry,” says Hera immediately. “Sorry mom and to you General.”
I crouch down in front of her and put my hands on her shoulders. Her eyes are teary with shame and anger. She is a girl with pride. She cannot bear being scolded in public, especially in my presence. But it is important to feel shame. It means she is not deeply affected with the chemical they made to play our emotion.
“Hera, listen to your customers. Don’t hear those whose eyes are lifeless.” I point to people with my eyes. Hera turns her head and stares into their blank gray eyes and slightly chills her body. “Let me check if your eyes turned dead as well.”
She widens her little eyes as big as possible.
“Not yet,” we both say.
She giggles. I like her laugh.
“There are people with straight eyes. Listen to them carefully. That’s the world you belong to now.”
She nods. “I promise. Will you also promise me to please forget what you saw and heard today? I was not myself.”
I smile at her words. “I promise.”
On the way back to MTT, I am stuck in the middle of a crowd in the street. I can’t move forward because of people hither and thither. A flood of smiling faces gives me a feeling of disgust. Hera’s right. This world is strange. Something’s very wrong with them. I knew it already that they are fed with a “happy virus”. Not a good one but, a hysterical one.
“Move,” I say to the women in front of me. They had stopped walking and were blocking my way. One of them turns around. She is wearing ridiculously bombastic make-up.
“You are General Cine Moon, aren’t you?”
“Oh, really, it’s him!” her companion exclaims and locks her arm across my chest.
“What are you doing?” I try to separate her hands and accidentally push her down. “Sorry.”
She only smiles spookily. “You just saw my panties, right?”
“No,” I quickly say.
She discloses her skirt wide open. “You are just watching it!”
I swiftly look away to encounter another woman exposing her breasts.
“Oh, you’re looking at my tits!” she screams, shaking her bosom.
“No!”
She clasps my wrist and forces my hand to touch her breast. When I try to pull away, four women around me push my hand back, pressing against her breasts.
She yells, “Oh, he’s touching me!”
“Oh, he’s touching her!” her companion says loudly.
“Let me go!” I shout and shove them forcibly to get away. All of them fall down, uncovering their panties and begin to laugh frantically. “You’re crazy.”
“Where are you going? You should buy a drink for us! You touched me!” she shouts behind my back while I’m running away from them.
“Catch him! He’s fleeing!”
Hearing the woman’s voice, everyone in the street tries to capture me, finding it fun. I push everyone around me and see them falling down like dominos. They snicker and guffaw, tripping over on the ground.
“Get out! Don’t block my way!” I shout.
Others beg me to push them down as well. Instead I punch them and run off as fast as I can until I manage to step out of the Morning Market.
I hadn’t thought of my world and my neighbors were this creepy before hearing Hera’s words. Should I thank her for helping me realize I’m living in an abnormal world? Or curse her for arousing something I didn’t need to recall?
CHAPTER 5
My coarse breathing settles and my face muscles toughen automatically as the MTT building enters my sight. Soldiers salute as I enter the shabby gate. It’s a gate for NTTs. There is no gate for BTTs as they teleport in from anywhere.
I walk down a corridor, trying to calm my heart once more before entering my office. There is a man who I don’t want to show my weakness or fear to.
As I step into my office I see him sitting in his chair, not standing in a doorway to greet me. What happened to my loyal man?
“Cooper, I’m back.”
“Yes sir!” He says, getting up so quickly that his chair falls backward.
“Is training done?”
“Yes sir!”
“Did anyone call me?”
“No sir!”
I pause near my desk and give him a dubious look. I find his eyes not as intense as usual. And his smile looks over-excited, just like people I encountered in Morning Market.
“Did something h
appen?”
“I think I’m affected with hyperactivity, sir!”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. You certainly look affected.”
Cooper stretches his hands onto the air. “Oh, save me, General, save me from this endless affection.”
“What did you grab to eat? I’ll give you ten minutes to go back to the dormitory and puke it out,” I say seriously, sitting in my chair.
“It’s not possible sir. It’s stuck in my heart.”
“Heartworm? That’s serious!”
“It’s not a worm or food sir. It’s something more supernatural.”
“What?” I wrinkle my eyes. I don’t get what’s wrong with him today. “What are you talking about?”
He stands up, crosses the room and stands straight in front of my desk. He salutes briskly. I look up and wait for his words.
“General. I have something to report to you.”
“Tell me.”
“General,” he calls me out again in a cheesy way.
“Just spit it out!” I shout, chuckling.
He nods, breathes out and gives me an extended look before spilling the words out.
“General, I’m in love.”
I pause and my smile evaporates. What did he just say? Love? The L-O-V-E?
“General, is it this shocking? It’s good I told you inside the office.”
“Or where else?” I raise my voice, stirred up. “Did you plan to tell me this outside? To let them hear?”
“Why not? They emphasize love, sir. They encourage early marriage and making a big family with love.”
“Stop! Stop saying that word.” I stand up and walk to the bathroom, feeling dizzy. “Everything but, not that.”
“Are you allergic? I didn’t know a certain word can goad a person like this. It’s not a pig or cockroach. It’s love,” he says behind me while I splash water on my face to cool down but, it was useless as I’m immediately burned up at what he just said. He just said a keyword. Cockroach. That is what we are called. That’s the nickname they made for smart NTTs.
I turn back and strongly grab his shoulders.
“That’s why you can’t have love, Cooper! Because you are a cockroach!”
He looks frightened so, I soften my voice, still carrying intensity in my eyes.
“Do you think they will only watch a happy cockroach couple? No! We are not normal NTTs. We are smart. We are only the subject to be beaten and controlled! That’s why they hire NTT employees. They want to watch us closely. Besides, you are an extreme case. You broke your fate. They are paying attention to you. This love will make both of you hard. They will find her and damage her to make you stand against them. That’s a snare to catch a cockroach!”
He looks terrified at my idea. He is carrying the same look I saw a while ago on Hera’s face. Those eyes are begging me. Don’t kill my hope…
“Don’t show a happy face outside. Don’t make them curious. Don’t meet her at least for a few days until I find some way for you two. Until then, you have to control your emotions.”
I know I’m lying. What can I do for them? I’m not the one who permits love. It’s them.
He still nods and shows me a faint smile. I almost immediately regret the words I spat out just to soothe his love spirit. There’s nothing I can do. The best solution I can think of is to take him to my friend and ask her to erase his memory and love. Just like I wiped my father out of my head.
“I’ll see you later in the dorm. I’ll be late. I have a meeting in the evening,” I tell him and leave the office.
As I walk down a white corridor, my mind automatically projects Amelia’s ashen face here and there. She looked horrible. How long will they watch her turning bony and bonier every day? They are merciless to smart NTTs. It was my first time to see someone too thin in my life. Her portrait has been etched in my brain.
Will it be that hard for her to raise a spoon? Is she misunderstanding herself as a civil rights leader? Whose fasting can arouse a global issue? She better retain her home address then. This is STT. We live in a hidden domain that does not appear in any timeline’s map and she is locked in a hospital after being declared a lunatic. No one can see her. No one can hear her. No one will know her story even if she dies of hunger. But if her intention was to irritate my nerves, she succeeded.
CHAPTER 6
I went back to my office at night after the meeting. I already told Cooper to return to the dormitory early. So, there is no one as I expected when I enter but, I find our simple desks are gone and a luxury set of furniture has replaced them.
I wonder what’s going on but, my legs move inside so naturally as if it has been my office since I joined MTT. I sit on a large sofa made of some expensive material.
Almost immediately, I hear a knock.
I gesture my door to open. There stands a stranger. She has a decent face and flawless skin just like a BTT woman. But she is too short and her clothes too shabby to be one.
I wave for her to enter.
“Welcome Nixie.” The words come out of my mouth. “I heard my co-worker has a fiancée inside MTT.”
She looks up, shocked. Her mind swirls in confusion with various thoughts. I catch all of them.
“Oh, was it you?” I say. I read her mind that she is worrying about her man. It’s not the time to worry about him. Watch out for yourself. “I won’t do anything to him. He is my friend. And friends share good things together.”
I open my legs wide and see her standing in the middle point. She knows what I want. Her face is distorted with shame. I see her mad eyes merrily.
“I’m asking you politely. Can you do as you do to him?”
The humiliation doubles up. It is shown clearly on her face. Come on, Nixie. Do it. I want her to come closer and slap me as hard as she can so, I will have a reason to punish her and do whatever I want to do with her.
“I politely refuse,” she says.
I put a fake grief look on my face. “You don’t want me? No?”
I stand up, pretending to look serious to frighten her. She starts as I stand in front of her.
“Then how about this?”
She bites her lips tightly, believing I’d slap her face.
Wrong. She got me wrong. I am a brave man who is willing to court a woman I want, even if she’s a woman of humble origin.
I kneel on the floor. She steps back, startled. I grip her leg with my hand. My other hand slowly slides underneath her skirt. I close my eyes and feel her warmth for a moment. She clenches her fists, ready to hit me. I wrinkle my eyes as I cannot hold my hand on her skin anymore. It’s too hot for me to keep my hand on. I admit it was a stupid trick.
I draw my hand back and pull out a blue rose from behind my back.
“You will live a perfect life with me if you accept this.”
I bring out a ring hidden in the flower. It’s a large moonstone dyed with my blood. What an honor.
I look up at her, holding the ring and rose like a good pet looking up at its master.
“Tame me as you want. If only you accept my love. Touch it. It’s containing my blood. Feel how hot it is. I’ve been carrying this hotness, here, in my heart secretly but, I couldn’t keep it inside anymore once I heard you and Cooper were engaged.”
She looks upset rather than being pleased to hear my confession. That is the right reaction. I grin inside with satisfaction.
“Take this ring. Then it’s win-win, Nixie. Or you want me to lose my mind and die over sorrow?”
She does not answer. She still is not sure if I am telling the truth. Of course not.
“And you know I won’t die alone, Nixie,” I say darkly.
“Don’t touch him,” she says, looking directly into my eyes. She looks rigid, even strong when she says this. “Please.” Ironical. Women are mysterious.
“Him? Who do you mean? Your fiancé or your father?” I see her face go warped and say with naïve eyes, “Or both?”
Her eyes lose the strength and her mind
begins pouring curses on me. It’s not so pleasing to hear them even if I love her. I think of a way to penalize her and to deliver my respect at the same time and grip her hand. I let my palm face hers. I touch and feel the softness of each of her fingers with mine. It’s like touching a doll’s fingers. Too easy to break.
I bring her hand to my cheek and rub against it. Closing my eyes, I feel the warmth. It’s warm, so warm and I hate this warmth.
“You are shivering, Nixie. Forgive me if I irritated you. You know my nature. I am fair. I’ve lived in pain because of you. It’s your turn to ache. A heartache. It’s severe.”
I bring her hand to my mouth and let my teeth sink into her thumb. It is as easy as biting into a squashy tomato. I taste her blood. Fishy, it’s so strongly fishy that I feel I’d spew over her any second. Stop tolerating. React. I want you to roar up and provoke him. I nip my teeth into her thumb even deeper. She finally opens her mouth and rumbles her anger out.
With her screech, I wake up in my nothing-like-luxury dorm room. I see Cooper across my bed, deep in sleep in his sleeveless. He wrinkles his closed eyes as if in a nightmare as well.
Mine was a horrible one. I threatened his woman and even molested her. And finally tortured her with the ritual my devotees practice on me.
I look down at my right thumb. The wound Amelia left feels more painful than when she nibbled on it. She must have infected me with a certain virus through her dogtooth that makes me keep thinking of her, and my body chills over whenever I recall her face mumbling the soundless words. No one made me feel this guilty. I didn’t feel a thing when I arrested the smart NTTs and inserted the bullet into their heads myself.
That’s why there are no people who call themselves my devotees in the street. I shot them all myself. It is tiring to see the disappointed look on their faces which makes me feel as if I turned into a betrayer. They just don’t know that from the very beginning we did not share the same scheme. I have concern for my survival, not anybody else’s.
This was not only visible until the project began. The Cockroach Hunting. I was standing between two choices. To hunt cockroaches or to be hunted. And you know my answer.
Since then I triggered my gun to every devotee I encountered. I shot them while they bent forward to perform the ritual. When they fainted on my chest I moved them to a near bench where they woke up smiling after a few hours.