End of Women: Part Five

Jaesu

The place Kindra was looking at did not officially exist.

At least, not according to the CSSRCS. They would have him believe that there was no such thing as a Seoul ghetto. Not any more.

The sonyeo binminga seemed pretty real to Kindra. He estimated about fifty-four blocks on the opposite side of a tributary river to the artificial canals of the city proper. The entire place was surrounded by a chain-link fence which cleverly scattered light during the day, making it difficult to make out from the city, and after nightfall there was a blackout curfew. Men in green tex-leather suits patrolled sentry towers with what looked like sniper rifles. There appeared to be only one actual entrance or exit to the place, and it was a small gate at the foot of one of the towers.

Kindra lowered his binoculars and nodded, brushing his face thoughtfully.

"You see?" Anika asked nervously, checking around herself, her sleek black hair flying over her shoulders like the wings of a bird.

"Yeah. Now that I see it, I don't get how anyone doesn't see it."

He did, though. From within the city limits the girl-ghetto was nothing but a faint heat mirage. He had looked this way a hundred times since arriving, even flown over it, and never once noticed the gigantic sprawling slum. It was only when Anika mentioned the place - after some encouragement - and agreed to take him all the way out here to an abandoned docklands that he actually saw it. As much as Kindra hated liars, he had to respect the CSSRCS for their outstanding commitment to the pantomime they had created for Seoul. 

"Alright." Kindra breathed steadily, looking Anika dead in the eyes. "You get back to the hotel. They ask you where you've been you tell them I asked you out, we went to a restaurant and I got drunk, so you came back. Tell them it was barbecue."

Anika bobbed her head respectfully and then took off, pattering her feet daintily down the wooden gangplank back to dry land. She whipped her head back to look his way, uttering before she left, "Jaesu!"

Kindra turned back to the task at hand. How was he going to get inside a place the City's authorities wanted to deny even existed? On top of that, how would he go unnoticed long enough to see or hear anything inciminating? And even more than these... just mentioning Korean barbecue had made him hungry. 

He fished a chow-bar out of his pocket and wolfed it down. There was no time for anything else.

Kindra looked through his binoculars again, checking out the single gate. He crouched down, hoping to look like a pile of rags on a warped and rotten old pontoon. A large vehicle was pulling up to the gate.

Five men got out of the front of the land-cruiser and opened up the rear panel. A steady flow of females jumped down onto the dry grass beneath, each one of them unbound, and started to chatter and mingle with each other while the humans deliberated about something. 

Kindra lowered his binoculars and looked at the dirt, blowing slowly out of his nostrils and closing his eyes. His heart was hammering against his ribs like an impending bodily jailbreak. He had learned just enough Korean in three days to get by in a restaurant or at the hyperloop station, but this was another level.

Six o'clock. He put away his TabPhone and tried to read the lips of the men who were now ushering the women through the sentry tower gate. The sun was slipping behind a thick bank of cloud on the horizon, and behind him city beats were thumping and the hyperloop train zipping back and forth taking workers to play-town. 

An hour later the men reappeared at the truck, bringing in tow a different group of women. These ones were nude, still unbound, and were handed civilian clothing; pretty dresses, little flowery skirts and some traditional garb. They busied themselves fixing their hair, applying make-up and bothering each other for opinions on how they looked. Within half an hour they were loaded up onto the truck and it drove off, running parallel to the endless hyperloop line, and to Kindra's best guess entering the city via a concealed or limited-access subway tunnel that fed onto the main road.

Surely, someone would notice that, thought Kindra. There were no petroleum-fuelled cars anywhere in the city. Someone is going to notice a fucking land cruiser pulling up outside a night club and unloading a batch of women fresh served to some rich tycoons. 

Whatever. The sentry tower was now empty and there were no guards on the gate. Kindra pulled up his ILUVSEOUL hoodie and jumped down into the dried-up riverbed, crossing quickly. As he climbed up the other side he scanned the flat expanse between himself and the twenty-metre-tall perimeter fence, estimating it to be at least a third of a kilometre dash. 

The sentry tower was still empty.

Taking a deep gulp of air Kindra bolted out from cover and ran with everything he had, temples pulsing, wind rushing over his shoulders and across his torso, blood pumping in his ears. 

"Come on!" He yelled at the sentry tower inside his head, jerking his eyes upwards every few moments. "Come ON!"

He flew at top speed, and the wall still didn't seem to be any closer. two hundred metres. One hundred seventy. One hundred forty. One hundred ten.

There were g-mods for speed available in the city. Why hadn't he gotten one yet? 

Kindra blinked upwards at the tower one more time and saw a figure appear in the birds' nest. The flash of his weapon burned in Kindra's eye at the same moment that the sun truly vanished behind the clouds and everything was dark.

Ninety. Sixty. Thirty.

Kindra had to start skidding to a halt ten metres from the wall, almost colliding with the solid chain-link when he got to it. Only now could he see through it. The chain-links were like fish scales, reflective in all directions, but up close he could look in between them. Through the fence he could only see the back of a building with no windows - the spot he had chosen to run for - and could hear voices beyond the fence. Not many, but some of them distinctly female. 

Nice job, he said to himself, laying his back to the chain link and catching his breath. Now what, you idiot?

Kindra thought about it. There were two ways inside, and neither were great options. One was to wait for the gate to be opened and try to slip in unnoticed. Bad plan. Aside from being a black man in korea, he was pretty sure this place was, to but it mildly, invite-only, and they keep good tabs on who comes and goes. The second was to be up-front, tell them who he was and why he was there, and use the CSSRCS name to get through. Also a bad plan, since there was no way this place wasn't theirs to hide and even the dumbest security guard was going to know they wouldn't send a Bluenorth man in just like that.

The sane options were, then, bad ones. Which left him with nothing but an insane one. He hung his head. 

Yes, the rifles looked like pulse rounders to him. Yes, there was little chance they would shoot to kill with a human in their sights. Yes, this was still going to hurt like all Hell.

Kindra walked out onto the plain, held up his hands and turned to face the sentry tower. It was three seconds before the man in the nest spotted him, one second for him to zero his sights and exactly zero-point-six-five seconds for the pulse round to leave the gun and hit Kindra square in the chest.