Repo Virtual Page 9

  “How’s your work?” Troy asked. “Still doing repo?”

  The question hung heavy in the air between them, loaded like a cargo ship, like a gun.

  “Yeah,” JD admitted, watching Troy’s face for a reaction, but seeing nothing telegraphed there. “Mostly I’m doing machine maintenance at a warehouse on the shorefront. The pay sucks, but at least the hours are long.” JD smirked.

  “Living with your mom?”

  “No, that was strictly short-term. Living in a dorm, but I still see her every week.”

  “How is she?” Troy asked.

  “I think she misses you—” JD said, stopping himself from saying the rest: as much as I do. After a silent beat, JD nodded toward the framed posters: “This place hasn’t changed.”

  Troy carefully inspected the room, as though he didn’t see it every single day. “I suppose you’re right. I’m going to make tea—do you want anything?”

  “Hot chocolate, please, if you still have any.”

  Troy disappeared down the corridor. Alone in the living room surrounded by all the icons of memory, JD felt out of place. He got up from the couch and paced the length of the room, then walked to the kitchen.

  Troy was filling the kettle, and the shuddering noise of the substandard plumbing concealed the sound of JD’s shoes on the linoleum floor, patterned like tiles. JD went to the cupboard and found the cocoa powder, sugar, and chamomile tea where they’d always been, everything unchanged apart from the thin layer of dust that had accrued on the box of cocoa in his absence.

  JD reached past Troy and placed them down on the counter beside the kettle. Troy turned and started, then pulled away.

  “Could you just— Could you wait in the living room?”

  JD was jarred out of the false reality he had slipped into without effort—the old reality where he and Troy shared a kitchen, shared a bed, shared so much of themselves. The sad slant to Troy’s eye brought him sharply to the awkward present.

  “I’m sorry, I can go,” JD said.

  “I don’t want you to go, I just need a minute,” Troy said, with his eyes stuck fast to the ground.

  JD went back to the living room and sat on the edge of the couch, hands pressed to his knees, ready to push himself up and leave at any moment. He took out his phone and brought up his residential settings. He scrolled down to the entry marked “Our Apartment,” and uncoupled from the system with a cold stone of sadness resting in the middle of his chest. The apartment controls faded from his vision. Now he was just another guest.

  A few minutes later, Troy returned with two steaming mugs. He placed JD’s down on the coffee table and sat at the furthest end of the other couch—as far from JD as he could get without phase-shifting through the wall and into his neighbor’s apartment.

  JD blew on his hot chocolate and took a sip. It burnt the tip of his tongue, the buds there instantly rough and rigid.

  “I’m sorry,” JD said again. “I don’t know what I expected when I decided to come over.”

  Troy shook his head. “It took a long time to adjust to being alone here; maybe I’m still not used to it.”

  “I wouldn’t have come if I’d realized …” JD stopped himself, uncertain of how to finish the thought. “I still want us to be friends.”

  “So do I … in theory.”

  “Maybe next time we’ll meet on neutral territory,” JD said lightly. He smiled, but Troy’s face stayed stony.

  “What were you doing with Soo-hyun?”

  “It’s a job. If we pull it off I’ll—”

  “That’s not what I meant. How can you trust them after last time?” He nodded toward JD’s synovitic knee, as though he could see the slivers of shrapnel still embedded there, migrating further with each passing month. “Sometimes I think I’m angrier at them than you are.”

  “They’re family.”

  “And? You know how much of my family I had to cut out of my life, and they never put me in hospital.”

  “Soo-hyun doesn’t have anyone else.”

  “That’s not your fault.”

  JD didn’t respond. He sipped his cocoa, eyes stuck fast to the mug in his hands.

  “Jules, I just want you to be happy,” Troy said. “I don’t understand your repo work, but you enjoy it, and somehow it pays the bills, so that’s fine. But this ‘job’? Whatever it is; get out before you get hurt, again. Hurt or worse.” Troy scrunched up his nose and blinked, stifling tears.

  The back of JD’s throat ached with the buildup of sympathetic tears. He put his mug back on the coffee table. “With how much the job pays, I’ll be able to get the surgery I need. I’ll be able to move Mom to a better building.”

  “They would still give you that job at the university, if you asked.”

  JD shook his head. “The university” was always Troy’s answer, even when his own job security was tenuous at best. “That’s your world, it’s not mine.”

  “But it could be.”

  “The only reason I took that job in the first place was to be close to you.” JD stood, plundering every reserve of self-control he had to stop himself wincing, to hide the pain. “I should go.”

  “Jules.”

  “I’m sorry; I should have at least called first.”

  “Jules, sit down, finish your drink.” Troy leaned forward, cup pressed between both hands, his face held over the still-steaming tea. He sighed.

  “I want to be angry at Soo-hyun, but I can’t.” JD sat and took a swig of his cocoa, and felt the sweet sediment drift over his tongue. He swallowed. “They have my dad’s lighter.”

  Troy rolled his eyes. “Hence the smoke.”

  JD chewed the inside of his mouth and nodded. “I can’t remember his face, you know. I mean, I’ve seen photos, and I remember the photos, but I don’t have any clear memory of his face. I just remember him smoking, constantly, and how cool I thought it was, how much I liked the smell of tobacco on his hands. I don’t remember him with Mum at all—I guess I was too young when he left her. But I remember him and me and Soo-hyun, and sometimes Soo-hyun’s mom, and the two of us kids fighting over who got to sit in the front of the car with Dad.

  “I hated Soo-hyun back then, blamed them for everything, like it was them who tore my family apart, not Dad. But I can’t hate them now. They’ve been trying so hard to change.”

  “Not hard enough. Look, you don’t need to hate them, just hold them accountable.”

  JD drained his mug, put it back on the coffee table, and pushed it away from the edge, pointing its handle inward. “You’re right, I just don’t know if I can.” He stood again. “Thanks for the drink.”

  “You don’t have to go, JD; stay here on the couch.”

  “Slept on Mum’s couch last night—I need to get back to my own bed.”

  Troy nodded. “We should do this again; catch up, talk.”

  “I’d like that.” JD walked to the door, and started to pull the sweatshirt up over his head but Troy stopped him.

  “Give it back to me next time; you’ll catch your death otherwise.”

  JD nodded, and retrieved his clothes from the hat rack, stuffing his wet shirt into his bag, and putting the windbreaker on over the sweatshirt.

  “When are you doing this job?” Troy asked.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Do you need me to drive you?”

  JD shook his head. “I can’t have you getting involved.”

  “Should I be worried?” Troy asked. “About the job.”

  JD sighed. “It’s basically just a repossession.”

  “But an illegal one,” Troy said pointedly.

  JD shrugged. “Legal jobs can be dangerous too. Just because you’ve got the paperwork doesn’t mean someone’s going to let you walk up and take their car.”

  The corner of Troy’s mouth twitched down, but he didn’t speak.

  “The mark is either dead or dying; we’re just taking something before his children show up to fight over the will.”

&nbs
p; Troy grunted quietly. “Still,” is all he said.

  “If it works out, it could be my last illegal job for a while,” JD said, “maybe ever. Enough of a cushion that I could go legit. I know that’s what you wanted.”

  “It’s what I wanted you to want, Jules. There’s a difference.”

  JD opened the door.

  “Stay safe,” Troy said.

  JD nodded, and pulled the door shut.

  * * *

  Massive battles played out in the sky overhead, but JD ignored them. He walked slow across town, rain soaking into his hair, the ache in his knee submerged beneath other pains, shared heartbreak.

  When he got home, his roommates were all yammering in a mix of Korean, Hindi, and English—tactical chatter and twitchy banter. They didn’t notice him arrive, their eyes masked, ears plugged with noise-canceling headphones, and hands clutched tight to VR controls.

  He left the pilfered kimchi in the communal refrigerator as a sacrifice to the god of sharehousing, but stashed the leftover chicken and calamari in the small fridge beneath his bed—resting beside his main rig, accompanied by dust bunnies and assorted detritus. His rig still hummed steadily, creating the new system for VOIDWAR’s servers, but JD didn’t bother logging in to check its progress. Instead he crashed out, with Troy’s sweatshirt bundled up on the pillow beside his head.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The afternoon sun peeked between gaps in the heavy cloud cover, drawing sweat from JD’s skin. He gave himself three hours to make the two-hour journey to the cleaner’s apartment—wary of the surveillance apparatus floating over the city, disguised by AR vision but ever-present. He mixed up his gait, using his natural limp to a corner, then crossing the street walking as “normally” as possible until he reached the corner of the next block, hoping the city’s algorithms would lose him each time in the crowd of pedestrians. He couldn’t risk following a map, having his every step tagged by GPS, so he silently repeated a mantra of street names and directions to guide him.

  When he was just a few blocks from the apartment, JD ducked into a convenience store for a bottle of water, and stood on the sidewalk drinking it. Absently he watched advertisements crawl across the building opposite—the color and motion catching his eyes even if their contents didn’t make an impression on his conscious mind.

  JD reached a hand into his rucksack and mentally inventoried the gear he needed for the job, careful not to reveal anything to the network of cameras that nested on lamp poles, streetlights, gutters, and awnings. He checked everything by touch:

  Rough canvas fabric of his coveralls;

  Rigid brim of his baseball cap;

  Scratchy poly-blend wool scarf in South Korean soccer red;

  Smooth vinyl pouch of his lockpick set;

  Bundle of plastic zip ties;

  Rubbery feel of latex gloves;

  Hard, flat casing of two datacubes—the one from inside the police dog’s skull, the other holding all the details of the job.

  Satisfied, JD carried on. It was still early, but already the roads were congested with auto-cars and ride-shares crossing the city toward Songdo Stadium. He turned a corner and walked through stalled traffic—the street becoming an impromptu car park watched over by two glowing red eyes. The footpaths on both sides of the road surged with crowds dressed in red and blue, broken up by pockets of Brazilian bright green. At street corners, ubiquitous advertising gave way to stadium directions and mealy-mouthed suggestions for good behavior, as though some focus-tested slogans would stop people from rioting if the mood took them, or if the game didn’t pan out the way they wanted.

  Traffic passed in fits and starts, cars and vans decorated with the red, blue, and white of the South Korean soccer team—scarves and streamers hanging from windows, stickers adorning bumpers, glass paint on rear windows.

  The light turned and he kept walking. He rounded a corner and spotted Soo-hyun and Khoder waiting up ahead on the other side of the road, wearing matching coveralls and baseball caps. Khoder was still trying to affect cool with a cigarette pinched between two fingers; Soo-hyun wore knockoff Ray-Ban aviators, reflections of the street where their eyes should be. JD guessed Soo-hyun was trying to look inconspicuous, but with their arms crossed over their chest and their lips twisted in a snarl they looked like a low-level gangster, resting up between extortion visits.

  As JD waited to cross the street, a cloud front moved to block the sun. He shivered. He didn’t need to see the clouds to know that more rain was coming; he just had to listen to the whisper of his knee as it swelled and ached with the shifting air pressure. He ambled quickly between cars, stepping up onto the sidewalk to join Soo-hyun and Khoder.

  “You ready?” he asked Soo-hyun, two of him caught in the lenses, staring back at the real one.

  “Born ready,” they said, deadpan.

  Khoder passed JD a small bundle of black wire—AR projectors attached to clips for his cap. “Mike Tyson, bro. Heavyweight champion.”

  “You calling me fat?” JD said. He took the hat from his bag and clipped the device to the brim. He put it on and looked to Khoder—the kid held up his phone, camera lens shifting with a minute whir as it focused on his face.

  Khoder nodded. “Bro,” he said, the single word telling JD that the hacked-together piece of counter-surveillance tech was working properly.

  “Who’s Soo-hyun?” JD asked.

  “Needed to be someone cool,” Khoder said, “so I went with Chow Yun-fat, in his prime.”

  “Now who are you calling fat?” Soo-hyun said with a smirk.

  JD took the tight bundle of latex gloves from his bag, gave a pair each to Soo-hyun and Khoder, then pulled his own pair on. “Alright, let’s go.”

  JD pushed forward, taking the lead, as though this one piece of initiative would give him control over the rest of the job, and stop Soo-hyun’s urges from sending them violently off course. They walked around the block to the target building and climbed three cement steps to the entrance—a glass-and-metal door attached to an old-style intercom and buzzer system.

  “Gonna pick the lock, bro?”

  “Nope,” JD said, “just a little social engineering.”

  He approached the intercom and hit a button at random—only checking that he wasn’t accidentally buzzing their target. Excuse me, sir, sorry to bother you. Mind letting us upstairs so we can steal your van and infiltrate your place of work? He tried four apartments before someone answered.

  “What?” A man’s voice, noise in the background like children playing, TV blaring loud. Perfect.

  “Plumber. Need to get up to 4A, but nobody’s responding.”

  “Sorry, I can’t let you in.”

  Soo-hyun’s eyebrows peered up over the rim of their sunglasses, amused.

  “I understand, of course,” JD said quickly, before the man could hang up. “Maybe you could just run upstairs and knock on his door for me?”

  There was a long pause, then a raucous buzz as the door unlocked.

  “Thank you, sir,” JD said as he yanked the door open, but the impatient father had already signed off.

  “Social engineering,” Soo-hyun said. “Next time I’ll engineer a broken window.” They stole ahead, taking the stairs two at a time, clinks and clanks emanating from their backpack with every step.

  Trash had accrued on the stairwell and the landings, food rubbish mostly, rustling with cockroaches and other wildlife. Graffiti marked the walls—children’s crayon scribbles, inelegant spray-painted tags, and municipal markings from the last time city health came through and condemned an apartment or cleared out a dead body.

  On the fourth-floor landing, JD glanced back. Khoder was leaning against the railing, bent forward with a hand pressed to his side.

  “Come on,” JD said. “Just two more levels.”

  “Bro? What happened to the fourth floor?”

  “I only said that to get us in the building.”

  Khoder’s eyes widened in slow realization. “Brainy s
hit, bro.”

  “I have my moments.”

  When they reached the sixth floor, Soo-hyun was already waiting outside apartment 6E—home of Omar Garang, owner of Angel Angles Cleaning Service, and their ticket into Zero Lee’s apartment.

  “I haven’t walked this many steps in fucking ever, bro.”

  “Dagchyeo,” Soo-hyun spat. “This is it.”

  “What are we going to say to him?” JD asked.

  “I’ll let Señor Sting do the talking.” They reached into their backpack and retrieved a small taser cased in black and yellow. On one side of the weapon was a cartoon bee with a bolt of lightning where its stinger should be.

  “Wait a minute,” JD said. “I’ve got money; we can pay him off.”

  Soo-hyun ignored him. “Khoder, I need you here,” they said. “Take off the hat, muss up your hair, and try and look innocent.”

  Khoder’s best version of innocence was tearful sobbing, so he frowned, scrunched up his eyes, and made his chest jerk and shudder.

  “Shit,” Soo-hyun said, jutting out their lower lip. “Kid’s a natural.”

  “Soo-hyun,” JD whispered. “We don’t have to do it like this. What happened to calm?”

  “We don’t have time for calm.” They shoved JD back, knocked on the door, and stood out of sight so that a destitute-looking Khoder was the only one visible through the door’s spy hole.

  After a few seconds, Soo-hyun knocked again. The three of them listened carefully, trying to pick footsteps out from the ambient noise of the building.

  The door opened with a quiet squeak, revealing a thin-framed Sudanese man, wearing a towel tied at his waist, held in place with one hand. “What’s wrong, boy?”

  Before Khoder could respond, Soo-hyun leaped forward, knocking Omar back and slamming the door open with their shoulder. The taser pulsed and crackled in their hand, spitting an inch of blue electricity which they stuck against the man’s throat. He collapsed, hitting the floor a split second after his towel did.