A State of Future Existing

Chapter 2

The emergency sirens hadn't faded before the hum of another engine rumbled into the square. The market's silence was split by feet thumping on the pavement and then someone spitting commands. Someone else's guttural response.

Slinging his messenger bag across his back, Hyunjin crept across the dusty floor of his booth and pushed past the tablecloth that draped over his work desk. He slipped his fingers into the gap of light beneath the door and inched it open. Pressing his cheek to the warm, gritty pavement, he was able to make out three sets of yellow boots across the square. And emergency crew. He peeled open the door farther and watched the men- all wearing has masks- as they doused the interior of the booth with liquid from a yellow can. Even across the square, Hyunjin wrinkled his nose from the stench.

"What's happening?" Iko asked from behind him.

"They're going to burn Bong-Cha's booth." Hyunjin's eyes swept along the square, noting the pristine white hover planted near the corner. Other than the three men, the square was abandoned. Rolling onto his back, Hyunjin peered up into Iko's sensor, still glowing faintly in the dark. "We'll leave when the flames start, when they're distracted."

"Are we in trouble?"

"No. I just can't be bothered with a trip to the quarantines today."

One of the men spouted an order, followed by the shuffling of feet. Hyunjin turned his head and squinted through the gap. A flame was thrown into the booth. The smell of gasoline was soon met with that of burned toast. The men stood back; their uniforms silhouetted against the growing flames.

Reaching up, Hyunjin grabbed Prince Felix's android around its neck and pulled it down beside him. Tucking it under one arm, he slid the door open enough to crawl through, keeping his eyes on the men's backs. Iko followed, scooting against the next booth as Hyunjin lowered the door. They darted along the storefronts- most left wide open during the mass exodus- and turned into the first skinny alley between shops. Black smoke blotted the sky above them. Seconds later, a horde of news hovers buzzed over the buildings on their way to the market square.

Hyunjin slowed when they'd put enough distance between them and the market, emerging from the maze of alleys. The sun had passed overhead and was descending behind the skyscrapers to the west. The air sweated with August heat, but an occasional warm breeze was funneled between the buildings, picking up whirlwinds of garbage from the gutters. Four blocks from the market, signs of life appeared again on the streets- pedestrians pooling on the sidewalks and gossiping about the plague outbreak in the city center. Netscreens implanted into the building walls showed live feeds of fire and smoke in downtown Seoul and panicked headlines in which the toll of infected mounted by the second-hand even though only one person had been confirmed sick as far as Hyunjin could tell.

"All those sticky buns," Iko said as they passed by a close-up shot of the blackened booth.

Hyunjin bit the inside corner of his cheek. Neither of them had ever sampled the acclaimed sweets of the market bakery. Iko didn't have tastebuds, and Bong-Cha didn't serve cyborgs.

Towering offices and shopping centers gradually melded with a messy assortment of apartment buildings, built so close that they became an unending stretch of glass and concrete. Apartments in this corner of the city had once been spacious and desirable but had been so subdivided and remodeled over time- always trying to cram more people into the same square footage- that the buildings had become labyrinths of corridors and stairwells.

But all the crowded ugliness was briefly forgotten as Hyunjin turned the corner onto his own street. For half a step, South Korea Palace could be glimpsed between complexes, sprawling and serene on the cliff that overlooked the city. The palace's pointed gold roofs sparkled orange beneath the sun, the windows glinting the light back at the city. The ornate gables, the tiered pavilions that teetered dangerously close to the cliffs edge, the rounded temples stretching to the heavens. Hyunjin paused longer than usual to look up at it, thinking about someone who lived beyond those walls, who was up there perhaps this very second.