Chapter Eleven

I’ve been wrong before, and this was another one of those times. The inside of the vault looked nothing like I was expecting.

At all.

We could have been inside a nice department store somewhere in Asia. The room was long and narrow and all up and down the corridor, clothes hung on organized racks. At a glance, I could tell the fabric was expensive, but the clothes were all similar: Frilly. Cute. Lolita. Tons of dresses and bows and ruffles everywhere.

Not my style. Not even close. I try to be open-minded, but this kind of fashion was totally unprofessional. I couldn’t stand all that girly stuff.

A woman bounded up to me, shaking my right hand with both of hers. “Oh hi! I’m so glad to meet you finally.”

She pumped my hand, shaking it vigorously while I stood frozen, staring at her like a total moron.

The woman peered around me to address the guys. “Is she okay? She’s kind of funny, don’t you think?” She waved her hand in my face. “Hi hi. I’m Caramel. You look sick or something. Everything okay in there?” She tapped my forehead and that snapped me out of it. I stepped back, out of her reach.

Leo shuffled his feet and put his hand on his sword, like he was embarrassed to see me acting this way. “She’s had a long day. Give her a minute. I think you’ll like her.”

“Oh yes, I’m sure that I’ll like her. She looks like so much fun. So many projects I can do with her. This is great!” She wiggled her butt like Lucky did when he was really excited, and I thought I was hallucinating. Who the hell was this person?

“I’ll be outside, watching the hallway if you need me,” Leo said and went back into the tunnels. Couldn’t blame him. After a minute I was already over-stimulated from this chick, and I lived in a damned casino. I'm used to a lot of noise.

Okay, pull it together, get a sense of the scene, find my bearings, that’s what I needed to do.

First, I took stock of Caramel, who turned out to be the living embodiment of her little store, or whatever this was. She wore a bright orange dress that was drowning in bows and ruffles. The dress came up to her upper thigh, and if she bent over, I was sure I’d get a nice show of whatever she was (or wasn’t) wearing underneath. Her hair and her eyebrows were the same color as her dress, and it was good quality—root shocked, permanently locked to that shade. It certainly made a statement, but then I noticed the rest of her.

Her hair was curled and pulled into a loose ponytail halfway down her back, making the big ringlets frame her face. To complete her intensely cute outfit, she had a series of luminescent implants embedded in her skin. All up and down her arms, big lights flashed in an alternating series of colors and patterns—hearts and stars in red, blue, purple, green—they danced around her body. Across her upper chest, a smaller line of lights blinked—just little hearts. The last I could see was a green star, glowing by the corner of her right eye, on the upper part of her cheek.

Wow.

Picking a lipstick color in the morning felt like a commitment to me. I’d never been a big fan of tattoos or anything of that nature, and the biggest change I’d ever made to my appearance was my hair color, which wasn’t really a big deal. One root shocking could last up to five years if you had a good technician, but it was easily and (mostly) painlessly reversed if you changed your mind.

Alright. This wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I could deal with this. I needed to establish a relationship with this person. Even if I wasn’t dealing with this unfortunate situation, if she was the leader of this section of the Undergrid, I should have made nice with her a long time ago already.

Like flicking a switch, I went back to being my normal self. Shoulders back, legs straight, smile on my face. “Sorry about that. I’m just a little tired is all. Thank you for welcoming me into your home. I’m Hyojin Song. You can call me Jin,” I said.

She squealed. “Ooooh! Jin, that’s such a cute name, I just love it. I can’t wait to play with you.”

I kept the smile plastered on my face, but inside, I was dying. Was this person real? Maybe Royce was right, and this was all some big brain aneurysm. Caramel’s voice certainly sounded like what I’d imagine a massive brain hemorrhage would feel like.

Gavin and Royce had conveniently backed away behind me, letting me stand there in the lead. How nice of them.

“You know Royce already, I think?” I said.

Caramel smiled, and as the green star moved closer to her eye, I noticed that her pupils were actually shaped like hearts. That had to be cosmetic, but there was a faint glowing, green outline around her pupils as well, in a different shade from the star. Maybe night vision implants? Would make sense down here where it was partially dark most of the time.

“I do. Hi Royce! You should come visit us more. We miss you,” she said.

I stared at Royce, super curious to watch his reaction. He smiled at her and came forward to give her a hug. He didn’t look annoyed at all.

What the hell?

Caramel kissed Royce’s cheek and she smiled too big, her front teeth huge and white.

“Nice to see you again. Thanks for agreeing to help us on such short notice,” he said and stepped back next to me.

Caramel bounced in place, hands behind her back. Her neon yellow tennis shoes flashed as she went up and down on her tiptoes.

This whole scene was tripping me out.

I have a good eye for clocking ages, especially with women, even if there’s been some kind of cosmetic surgery going on. There are tons of subtle signs. You just have to know where to look. Those tiny folds around the mouth and eyes, sure, but there are other spots. The hands, down under the last finger joints. The divot right between the collarbones. The soft skin along the hairline, especially near the ears. Folds around the knees. Toenails, if you can see them. All these spots are good age markers, places even the most diligent of surgeons neglect.

Caramel was older than me.

“Oh yes, I’m so glad that you thought of me. This is going to be a lot of work, but we can handle it. Gideon’s running a little late, but he should be here any minute. We can get started now if you want. I just restocked this room, and I can’t wait to use some of my new tools,” she said.

Tools? Tools? What exactly was involved in getting yourself totally off the grid? The idea of trying to sneak back into Korea had never seriously crossed my mind before. Now I felt stupid for never investigating this stuff before. Sure, I missed Korea sometimes, but I was happy here in L.A., and K-Town had the biggest population of Koreans outside of the actual peninsula. I’d been born there, in K-Town anyway, and it had always felt like my real home. Not getting to go back to Korea was unfortunate, but given how amazing my normal life was, that seemed like a very small price to pay.

Guess I was wrong.

And it was my life at stake here, so I had to make nice and resist the urge to run right out the front door. Facing Leonardo’s katana was starting to look appealing in comparison to getting poked at with whatever Caramel had in her tool box.

Hopefully nothing sharp.

“I must thank you for seeing us on such a short notice. Your help will be most appreciated,” I said. There. Look how courteous I was. I totally had this. I’d made hundreds of huge, international business deals, gone toe to toe with gangsters from dozens of countries without blinking an eye. How bad could this be?

Caramel dashed forward, the ruffles on her orange dress flipping up to show the white petticoat underneath. My eyes bulged, but I stood my ground.

And I regretted standing my ground.

Caramel seized me around the waist, squeezing me extra tight.

I’m not a fighter, but all my natural instincts said to smack her across the face and run away. What the heck was she doing?

“You’re just so adorable and pudgy, I could eat you up. We never get surface girls down here!”

Adorable.

Pudgy.

What?!

No no. We don’t yell at employees or service providers. We listen to their comments and make rational replies, based on the mutual interests of all stakeholders.

That didn’t mean I didn’t feel like slapping her across her neon-studded little face.

Rational responses. That’s what we needed.

I hugged her back with what felt like an appropriate amount of courtesy and tried to politely extricate myself.

“Um, well thank you. You’re also cute. However, you are definitely not pudgy. What were you saying about me?” I said. Alright. That wasn’t overtly rude. That should fly.

Caramel giggled. “I love cute things. I just mean it’s going to be hard to find anything down here that will fit you—you’re so chubby and round.”

Chubby. Round?! What the hell was she talking about? Was she purposely trying to piss me off?

I looked her up and down, blinking as the lights embedded all across her body shimmered and changed. She just stood there, smiling cheerfully like some pragmatically challenged cyborg.

No. She wasn’t trying to piss me off. She was just insane.

“Right. Hopefully that doesn’t cause too many problems? I’m a size 2. Petite.” I couldn’t believe I just said that. What I really wanted to say was smack.

“Oh yeah, that’s big. Surface girls get so fluffy. Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out,” she said, totally unconcerned. Did she even know what was going on with me?

Like a living doll, she slowly rotated her head until she was staring at Gavin, and then waved enthusiastically, as though she’d just noticed him standing there.

Nope, Gavin was not into it. He had his talents, but public relations was not one of them. He gave one curt wave, but didn’t move. I saw how it was. He would rescue me from the bloodiest of knife fights, but he wouldn’t help save me from this dollhouse terror.

“Your friend is cute. Is he your boyfriend?” Caramel said.

“No, he’s not,” I said.

She looked at Royce. “Is he your boyfriend?” she said incredulously, as though I couldn’t possibly survive without a man in my life.

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said.

She frowned. “You must be so lonely.”

“I have a dog. Trust me, that’s way less work than a boyfriend.” I was happy that Lucky was back up in Jin tower—we had the Lotus drive him home before we came down here. If anything happened to him, I’d be devastated, and the Undergrid was no place for a dog.

Gavin laughed. “Dogs are definitely less work than men.”

“You poor thing!” She pulled me into a crushing embrace again, and my whole body stiffened, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Or just didn’t care. Unbelievable. I do not like strangers touching me.

“We’ll get you fixed,” she said.

Without letting me go, she pushed me backwards, and my sore hip caught beneath me. What the hell was she doing? With my feet tangled up beneath me, I couldn’t keep my balance—she was stronger than she looked. Maybe something with implants? Before I realized it, I was sitting in a chair in the corner.

“Have a seat—welcome to the cyber salon.”

I was sitting in what looked like a beauty salon chair, but the things on the walls and counters were not exactly your typical salon items. Circuit boards, soldering irons, a pot filled with some bubbling liquid, screwdrivers, needles, a few scalpels—those things were mixed in with palettes of makeup and wigs and scissors.

Gulp.

Royce and Gavin just stood there, and I mouthed “save me” to them, but neither of them moved. Some help they were.

“Just relax,” Royce said. “Caramel is a professional.”

Professionally nuts is what she was, but I somehow managed to keep that thought from making its way out my mouth. When sitting in the underground den of a potentially psychotic Lolita doll, it’s best not to piss them off. No easy escape route. I was starting to miss the Yakuza kidnappings.

Loud footsteps clanged in the hallway and the door slid open wider. “Are the surface people here?” a man said as he came through the entrance.

The guy walking in the room was absolutely huge. Like, his head nearly scraped against the ceiling. Just looking at him standing next to all the petite dresses made it look as though we were standing in some miniature Wonderland.

Caramel jogged over to him, nearly bowling over the big guy with one of her enthusiastic hugs. No way that was natural— she had to be using implants to have that kind of strength.

“Hi honey! What took you so long?” she said. She stood up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, her LED implants casting rainbow shadows across his face.

The guy had muscles bigger than Royce, and his wavy brown hair came down to the base of his neck, but there was absolutely nothing feminine about him.

“I was making sure they cleaned up the revenant that Leo scrapped. Glad we finally caught that one. He bit some newbies over in Sector 8 last week,” he said.

Caramel stood back and pointed at the man. “This is Gideon. He lives here with me. He’s really smart.”

I tried to put a smile on my face and started to stand, but he held up a hand.

“No need to get up. We need to get started soon. This is an all night job, and the night’s already half over. Normally we don’t do work on such short notice,” he said.

“I understand—I wasn’t exactly expecting to need your services, but I’m grateful for you accommodating us without any warning.”

“You’re an important person in this part of the grid, so we’ll help you. But we need to work fast. Royce said there’s a time limit we’re working with here,” Gideon said.

Now I felt like an ass again for not introducing myself to people down here before. They probably thought I was some kind of elitist jerk. Then again, spending more time with Caramel did not sound appealing. I imagined having a weekly tea party or something with Caramel and shivered. No thanks.

“Big time limit,” Royce said. “Worst implant situation I’ve ever worked with. Stubborn client too.”

I glared at him. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

Gideon put his hands on his hips. “Looks like we got our work cut out for us.”

He was wearing pretty much the exact opposite of what Caramel had on—dirty jeans, filthy ripped tank top, like he’d been out working on cars all day or something. His pupils were normal shaped, but they had that same fuzzy green outline. Had to be night vision implants. Subtle, no glowing LEDs like Caramel, but I knew he had other big implants. Here and there, I noticed unusual bulges beneath his skin, metal rivets poking out behind his ear, around his neck, on his hands. He was probably riddled with technology.

“How’s that new rig working out for you?” Royce said.

Gideon rubbed his neck, fiddling with a round metal washer poking through the skin. “It’s much better—glad you talked me out of keeping that other model in there. Worth the upgrade. Sad you won't be doing that stuff anymore. Every time I go to one of these other hacks, I regret it. You have a real knack for hardware.”

Royce actually looked embarrassed. “Yeah, well, sorry about that. I’ll still work with maintenance and emergencies, I just won’t be doing any new installs. Not for a while anyway. You can still count on me to help anyone with implant sickness.”

What was all that was about? What made Royce get out of the game? From the looks of his car, he could still use the money. Weird.

Gideon closed the door behind him, easily shutting the heavy vault like it was made out of Styrofoam. Squinting, I finally saw it—little bumps under the skin on his arms, and Caramel had them too. Definitely some kind of muscle augments. I hoped for their sake it wasn’t a freaking experimental mesh. Turns out that can go sideways, real quick.

“Let me get you guys some chairs. This might take awhile, depending on what we’re dealing with here,” Gideon said to Royce and Gavin who were still standing there awkwardly.

Caramel and Gideon slid over a few big chairs for them to sit in, moving the leather armchairs out of the corners like they weighed nothing.

Caramel bounced out for a second and came back carrying two china cups filled with a steaming liquid. Not sure how she managed not to spill anything.

“Here, have some tea. It gets cold down here,” she said.

Tea parties. I freaking knew it.

Royce and Gavin took the delicate white cups and politely sipped at them.

Gideon and Caramel both advanced on me, and I gripped the arms of my chair involuntarily. I’m not easily intimidated, but this whole situation had me majorly spooked. I just wanted to get back to the surface and take a nap in my own bed and forget about all this implant stuff. Maybe play a round of psywave poker, eat some dessert, take a nap with Lucky. The Lolita cavern of doom was not doing it for me.

“Have you scanned her yet?” Gideon said.

Caramel shook her head. “No no, your scanner works better than mine. I don’t want to start building anything until you give me the readouts. It’s going to be hard to make her fit into any of the outfits down here, and we don’t have time to make anything custom. We have our work cut out for us, honey!”

I’m not sure what my face looked like, but I could tell you this much—my smile was not genuine. It got more and more pained by the second, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had melted into a full scowl. I don’t think anyone had ever called me fat before.

Gideon pulled up a stool and adjusted it down until his face was level with mine. That meant his long legs were pushed up almost to his armpits. The guy was seriously tall, his shoulders broader than Royce’s. He smelled industrial—like sweat and grease from a long day of working in a factory or a garage. His hands were so big, it looked like he could crush my entire skull with just one fist.

“Do you have any current implants?” he said.

“Like standard or nonstandard ones?” I said, trying to look confident and comfortable. Not sure I succeeded on that one.

“Anything. What are you packing?”

“Did Royce tell you about my…problem?” I said.

He shook his head. “Not specifically. Just that you need to get to another country, and there’s a warrant out for your arrest there.”

Oh great, so they thought I was some kind of an outlaw too. Thanks Royce.

“I’m not a criminal,” I said.

“It’s not my business,” Gideon said. “We don’t care about surface laws down here.”

“Gambling is illegal in Korea. I got caught when I was a teenager. I’m not a bad person,” I said, cringing at my own defensiveness. I try to stay on the offensive whenever possible.

Gideon smirked. “How funny. Caramel always tells me stories about Korea. Got some strange laws that I’ll never understand. Their monitoring programs are even worse than they are in the United States. If that's where you’re going, we’re going to need to do an even more thorough job.”

I stared at Caramel. All the hair color and eye implants and LED lights distracted me, but now that I looked at her, she was definitely one of us. Except her English had no accent. Korean-American?

She was facing away from me, arranging some of the makeup on her counter. In Korean, I said to her, “Where were you born?”

Without missing a beat, in perfect Korean, she said to me, “I was born in Seoul. I miss it, but I like it down here with Gideon. The Undergrid here is much nicer.”

Well, damn. Surprising. “You have no accent,” I said. “In either language. Very impressive.”

I’d been told that my Korean and my English both sound just a bit off—consequence of growing up bicultural. I didn’t really care, but it annoyed me when someone pointed it out, like it was something I should fix.

Caramel turned around for a second, a pot of eyeshadow or some other jewel-toned cosmetic in her hand. She touched her throat. “I learned English very young, but I have also voice implant. Isn’t it cute to have perfect speech in any language?”

I didn’t even know that was a thing. Learned something new every day. I wondered if she had one of those translation units too, the ones Royce mentioned, but I’d guess not. He didn’t seem keen on installing them.

I caught Royce eyeing us, and I switched back to English, remembering how he didn’t like it when we were speaking in another language, since he wouldn't use any translation software. Truly, they didn’t work well anyway. Maybe Caramel’s accent was just a bit off and the voice implant corrected that small part that wasn’t spot on.

Why didn’t she have it correct the horrible pitch of her voice while she was at it? I already knew the answer: because she liked it that way.

“So then you both know what kind of a problem I’ve got here. Korea’s justice system is nothing to play with,” I said in English.

Gideon nodded. “Hardcore. But we’re hardcore. Between us and Royce, you’re not going to have a problem. You’ll be a ghost.”

Right. A ghost is what I was trying not to become.

“I’ll put my trust in you. So, um, what exactly are you going to do?” I said. Maybe I’d be less nervous if I knew what they were (or more accurately, what they weren’t going to do) to make me digitally invisible.

“First, we scan. Then, we make a plan. If you’re not full of implants, it should be fairly simple to put together a cloaking package. Royce will take care of anything that needs to be dug out surgically. We’ll take care of everything else—prosthetics, clothes, and so forth. As long as you don’t have any complicated issues, we should be able to customize everything on site,” Gideon said.

I swallowed. That’s what I was afraid of. I nodded and tried not to let my eyes give away the terror I had crawling up and down my spine like a centipede.

“Okay. So now what?” I said.

Gideon held up his arm and squeezed his wrist. A panel on his forearm lit up. “Hold still,” he said. “This won’t hurt.”

I’d heard that line before, but fortunately he was telling the truth. He waved the panel over my neck and chest, and it beeped twice.

“Standard collarbone marrow tags,” he said and swept his arm lower. The panel beeped again. “Looks like a biometric scanner in the chest cavity.”

“I just put that in yesterday,” Royce said.

Gideon tapped his forearm a few time, gazing at the display. “Good quality implant. Expensive.”

Well, that was good. I like quality, inside and out. I already had one massively underperforming implant to deal with—didn’t need another.

Royce scoffed. “I’ll say. The princess here would throw a fit if I put in anything that wasn’t made out of diamonds.”

“Hey, I didn’t ask you to do that” I said.

“Your old one was total crap. Had to be twenty years old,” he said.

“I don’t know, I don’t fiddle with implants normally. The Chaebol put that in there originally, not me,” I said.

Royce threw up his hands. “Even more of a reason to ditch it. For all you know, they could have been hacked into that thing this whole time.”

Yikes. I’d never thought about that.

Gideon cut him off. “I don’t know about what was in there before, but this is no problem. We’ll just make sure to put it on maximum stealth settings. I’ll leave it set up to one device, and that will be the only key, in case you want to keep using it to monitor her vitals. Just don’t lose it, or you’ll have to replace the whole sensor rig. It can’t be reset after you lose the key device.”

“Sounds good,” Royce said.

“Don’t I get a say in this?” I said.

“Nope,” Gideon and Royce said in unison.

“Great,” I said.

“Not if you want to get into Korea without getting snagged by the police. Trust me,” Gideon said. “Raise out your arms to the side.”

I sighed and held my arms up. He ran the panel all along my shoulders and down to my fingertips, then systematically separated my fingers, scanning slowly all the way to each fingernail, before spending time hovering over my palms. Common spot for implants.

“Arms and fingers are clean,” he said.

I laughed. “Actually they’re not.”

“She’s right,” Royce said. “There’s an electromagnetic microscopic neural mesh running through her body. It’s mostly concentrated in her brain and spinal column, but there are some peripheral spindles in her limbs. There’s a lot in her fingers, actually.”

Gideon turned to stare at him. “You kidding? I’m literally getting nothing here, and this thing gets everything.” He waggled the panel in his arm. “It’s never failed. You sure about this?”

Royce nodded. “I only found it because she told me it was there. Took a lot of tricks to make it pop on imaging, but it's there. That’s what’s causing all her problems—I removed a piece of it the other day. It’s real. And it’s nasty. Beautiful too. Show them what you can do, Jin.”

“Oooh you can do tricks? I thought you were a total straight, but you’re a Circuit Breaker like us!” Caramel said, her attention suddenly torn from whatever she was doing with the makeup.

“I’m not a circus animal,” I said.

“Don’t be an ass, Jin. Just do it,” Royce said.

“Oh yes yes yes show us please!” Caramel said, wiggling again as she held onto another tub of pigment.

May as well enjoy the speed while it was still working. If we weren’t able to fix this, just moving was going to be a blessing.

“Hold out your hand,” I said to Caramel.

She was a few feet away from me, not within my reach, but that wasn’t an issue. She held out her palm with the makeup resting on top of it.

I held up an index finger and swiveled it from side to side. “Watch me,” I said, and before anyone could respond, I was up, out of my chair, sneaking past Gideon, grabbing the container from Carmel, and was back in my seat before any of them even realized I’d moved.

“Holy shit,” Gideon said. “That’s amazing. She’s faster than any of the off-label juicers that are out there now.”

I couldn’t help but smile. It was amazing, I had to admit. Fun, too, when I actually got to show off without being afraid of people finding out my secret. Too bad it was also killing me in the process.

I tossed the container back at Caramel. “Pretty good, right?” I said.

“You’re so cool!” Caramel said and turned to Gideon. “Can I have one too?”

“No,” Royce and I said together.

“It’s killing her,” Royce said. “That’s why we need to go to Korea. I can’t remove the stuff, so we need to neutralize it.”

“Aw, that’s no fun,” Caramel said.

“You’re telling me,” I said, trying not to think about what it was going to feel like having some industrial plastic jammed all into my nerves.

“That is some shit,” Gideon said. “Who invented it? I’ve never seen a basically untraceable implant like that.”

Royce shrugged. “Some big evil company, naturally.”

“Well, it’s not going to be a problem for cloaking. No one will ever find that without dissecting her first,” Gideon said.

I rubbed my low back. “Yeah, that’s how Royce did it—dissecting my spine. Still stings,” I said.

“Hey, at least I didn’t nick any nerves in the process, and I figured out how to solve your problem. You’re welcome,” Royce said.

“Incredible,” Gideon said. “Okay, let me finish scanning her and see if anything else pops up.”

He ran that same wrist panel over the rest of my body, stopping in a few spots that tended to be favorite spots for implants. I thought he was done when he frowned as he picked up my left foot and scanned it. Nothing beeped, but he kept making that face.

“What is it?” I said.

Royce perked up too. “You’re not picking up mesh down there, are you? There’s a lot in her feet, but the coating looked more intact than other places. That definitely shouldn’t show up on anything.”

Gideon shook his head. “No, it’s not that. Take off your shoes. Both of them.”

I squinted at him, but did what he asked, taking off my shoes and wiggling my toes. My feet were instantly cold.

“You don’t ever remember getting anything else done to your feet?” he said.

I shook my head. “Other than the mesh implantation, no. That’s it. I’ve never had anything surgical done to my feet. If you look very close, you might be able to see some scars from the mesh, but that’s it.”

Gideon frowned and flexed his fingers. “Hold still,” he said and started feeling around my feet slowly, pressing with his fingertips. It felt weird, and then I realized his fingertips were hard.

Magnets. He had magnets in his fingers. Should have guessed. That’s an old school mod. He’d been at this game for a long time.

“I need to press really hard for a second. Sorry.”

I cocked my head. What the heck? “Okay,” I said. What choice did I have? If there was something else weird in my body, I wanted to now.

I inhaled sharply when his hard fingers dug into my anklebone, pinching like he was trying to isolate something deep between his fingertips.

He let go. “There’s definitely something in there, but I’m having a hard time picking it up. Whatever it is, it’s old, and it’s buried.”

“Excuse me? You’re saying there’s something in my ankles?” I looked at Royce. “Did you put something else inside me while I was unconscious?”

“Didn't you just hear him? He said that it’s old. You’d have open wounds on your ankles if I installed something there, you dimwit.”

Gideon got up for a second and retrieved a stainless steel stand that looked like something out of Royce’s clinic. I looked around at the not so sterile environment.

“Um, you’re not planning on trying to cut it out of me, are you?” I said.

“Oh no, not something weird like this. I just need to figure out what it is, digitally. Heating it up will help my scanner get a better signature on it—this may be a little uncomfortable, but it should only take a minute.”

Great. “Okay, I guess.”

I let Gideon put my bare foot up on the stand. He rubbed his palm, and a glowing infrared circle appeared in the center. He slapped it over my ankle, and instant, deep heat penetrated my foot. I tried not to squirm, but it burned in a really strange way. With his other hand, he used those magnetic fingertips to pinch something again, then stopped applying heat long enough to swipe his forearm scanner over the area.

I let out a big lungful of air when released my foot. His eyes were big, excited. That couldn’t be good.

“Well, I’ll be damned. You’ve got two extra marrow tags in your angle bones. That’s one crazy spot to have a tag implanted. That had to hurt like hell. You don’t remember that?” Gideon said.

More mystery items in my body? That’s not good. Suddenly, I was extremely mad about all the unauthorized crap people had been doing to my body. I’d had something stuck in me for decades and never had any idea.

“I suppose they could have done it when they implanted the mesh. And yes, that was excruciating, worse than anything you can imagine. Most people didn’t even survive the initial surgeries,” I said, trying not to get nauseous just thinking about it.

“Damn. I might have picked those up if you hadn’t ruined my imaging study the other day,” Royce said.

“Those will have to come out,” Gideon said. “They might not come up on a standard scan, but like we just found out, they’re definitely detectable. And if they’re keyed to anything specific, they could track you once you’re in range. They’d know as soon as you set foot in the country.”

“Oh, shit. Four different marrow excavation procedures at the same time isn’t a good idea,” Royce said.

“What?” I said. Felt like I was suddenly sitting on an iceberg. My fingers dug into my palms while I literally held my breath.

Royce cleared his throat. “Well, your standard collarbone tags need to be removed anyway—no way you’ll even get past regular monitoring in stores and hotels with those in there.”

“You’re going to saw into my collarbones and suck the tags out of my marrow?” I said.

Everyone got a set of marrow tags implanted when they were born, one in each collarbone. Most people don’t lose both collarbones in their lifetime, so it was a good spot for a standard monitoring and tracking device.

And they weren’t ever meant to be removed.

“Temporarily, since you’ll have to put them back once you return to Los Angeles. You’ll get busted wandering around without your tags. That is, unless you’d like to permanently move to the Undergrid,” Royce said.

Caramel came forward and gave me another hug. I was so devastated that it was actually comforting, in an odd way this time. That’s how bad it was.

“Oh, I’m sorry honey, really is painful. All of us down here remember what it was like to pull those tags out. But you’ll be okay! Royce has done that surgery hundreds of times for us. He’s the best,” she said.

“So I’ve heard,” I said. “The best at torture, if you ask me.”

“Do you want my help with this, or not?” Royce said.

I looked at Gideon and Caramel. “There isn’t some other way to, I don’t know, hide or cloak these tracking tags without having to saw them out of my bones?”

They all shook their heads.

“I’m afraid not,” Gideon said. “That’s one thing we can’t do anything about. Most people only have the collarbone tags to worry about. You’ve got that, and those things in your ankles. No way around it. They need to be surgically removed, or you’re toast.”

I wanted to cry. But Hyojin Song doesn’t cry in front of strangers. Or anyone, for that matter. I only cried in front of my dog.

“You’ll be totally knocked out when I do it, though, and I’ll give you really good drugs. Really good. We’re going off the grid anyway, so you can have the stuff I’m not allowed to use legally. And I’ll jam the incision sites with a bunch of catalyst stem cells, so they should heal up quickly. The first day out will be rough, I won’t lie, but I’ll try to keep you sedated through most of that,” Royce said. “You’ll be fine.”

“Easy for you to say,” I said. I probably looked like a living storm cloud—wouldn’t be surprised if little lightening bolts were coming off my head.

Gideon put my foot back on the floor and scooted close to me again. “Have you ever had your retinas altered?” he said.

“No,” I said.

“Not even cosmetically?” he said.

I looked at Caramel, with her glowing heart-shaped irises and wondered what else she’d had done to her eyes.

“No. Eye surgery creeps me out,” I said. “Please tell me that’s not in my future.”

Gideon held up a finger and watched me tracking it.

“No, I don’t think so. As long as you haven’t done any unusual mods, I think we can get away with surface measures,” he said. “I’m not picking anything up. Your retinas look clean.”

Then I remembered. “Well, there’s mesh in there, and on my ocular cortex, actually. I’m fast perceptually, too. I can see things that are too quick for others to notice.”

Gideon nodded. “I thought so. Your eyes track too rapidly not to be augmented. I’m surprised you’ve never been caught before.”

“I’m very careful anytime I’m in public, and I’m selective about the doctors I’ll see. And yet somehow, I still ended up working with Royce,” I said.

“Hey now,” Royce said. “Watch it, or I’m not giving you the good stuff after your surgery. I could lose my license doing this for you.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” I said to Gideon.

“Your retinal stamp looks natural, and that’s the most important part. We have a few options for dealing with that,” he said.

“Such as?” I said.

“The best option would be retinal injections to temporarily change their shape. Those are uncomfortable, but it’s a one time deal—lasts for a few weeks and then slowly returns to its normal state. We could also use eye drops and contacts to help blur out your retinal print. I think the lenses are actually more uncomfortable, and the eye drops burn, but you only need to wear them when you’re out in public. So it’s your choice—one time discomfort with the injections, or some constant irritation with the lens and drop combo,” Gideon said. “Royce might be able to help you with that choice. We’d take care of fitting the lenses, but he would deal with the injections.”

“Oh great, two fantastic choices. Another needle through my eye,” I said.

Royce cleared his throat. “You kind of need another ocular steroid injection anyway—it’s a convenient way to breach the neural space. I could do them at the same time. One injection, just change the syringes out with your head stabilized. I say we just go that way.”

“Sounds logical,” Gideon said.

Royce smirked. “Knowing Jin, she won’t like the contacts, then lie about wearing them, and we’ll all get busted.”

“What do you think I am, stupid?” I said. “Don’t answer that.”

“I’ll let you two figure out what you’re going to do about the retina situation—I’ll just assume Royce will take care of it until I hear otherwise. If not, we’ll need to fit the lenses before you leave. I tweak the circuits, and Caramel paints the surface, so they take awhile to finish.”

“So the painful scary eye injections are faster too, how fantastic,” I said. “What else?”

“The rest is really simple, since you’re such a low-tech. We’ll need to make a thin prosthetic to cover your face to scramble any facial recognition software you might encounter. I make the microcircuitry, and Caramel does all the surface work. Caramel will set you up with some clothes that will help reflect body morphology recognition programs too. No time to make something custom.” He pointed to the racks of clothes. “You’ll just have to wear some of Caramel’s private stash.”

I looked at the racks and racks full of frilly Lolita dresses, and thought about what I’d look like wearing them.

The needle in my eye sounded more pleasant.

“We’ll have to do another set of prosthetics for your fingerprints, and I think we can get away with jewelry for your temporary collar tag replacements. Caramel has some pieces that we can modify quickly,” he said.

“At least you’re not implanting other tags. I’d rather not dig into my bone marrow anymore than necessary,” I said.

“It’s not the best solution, but as long as you’re not planning on spending a lot of time in public places, it should be good enough, combined with the other measures. If you’re careful about the clothes and facial prosthetics, that should scramble most of the tracking software. The tag jewelry is an extra measure, just in case,” he said.

“How long is this all going to take? Sounds really complicated,” I said.

“We’ll get it taken care of in twenty four hours or less. While Caramel’s finishing all the cosmetic touches, I’ll crack into the databases, create a fake tag profile, and link it to the hardware—we’ll grab a quick retinal scan to add it dataset once you decide how to deal with that part.”

“I’ll do it surgically. Much better option. I’ll take a new imprint once I complete the injections,” Royce said.

Caramel pranced over, finished with whatever she was preparing on the counter. She put her hands in my hair, fluffing it and ruining whatever semblance of a style I had going on.

Keeping my mouth shut was a struggle.

“I can’t wait to do your hair, this is going to be great,” she said.

“Um, what’s wrong with my hair? This already isn’t my natural color—whatever’s in Korea’s database is the color I was born with.”

“Oh, it’s not for cloaking purposes. It just looks horrible—I’ll make sure you leave looking great all around.”

This hairdo cost several thousand dollars, done by a famous stylist down in West Hollywood. No one’s ever insulted my hairstyle before. I jerked my head out of her reach. Speed has its advantages. “Let’s just stick with the necessities. We don't have much time,” I said.

Caramel frowned. “No fun. Maybe when you come back again, you can have tea and play dress up with me. Looks like you don’t have many clothes at home.”

I closed my eyes. Okay yes, my clothes were not in good shape right now, but they were still expensive, designer pieces.

“Sounds like a great idea,” I forced myself to say. “So what’s next?”

Caramel picked up the bubbling pot of liquid plastic from the table. “We get started! I’ll make the prosthetic mask so that Gideon can start making all the cloaking circuits while I paint it to look natural. This is my favorite part,” she said.

Molten plastic. Crazy Lolita doll. My face. That was a combo I never would want to put together, but look somehow I ended up in this bizarre situation. Remind me not to get sold to evil Korean companies for medical experiments in the future.

The fallout was less than desirable.

I looked to Gideon, partly to escape the gleeful look in Caramel’s eyes. She just couldn’t wait to smear hot plastic all over me.

“How did you want us to pay for this? My apologies, but I’m not sure about preferred currencies down here.” Money. The other thing giving me anxiety right now. This was going to cost a fortune.

“Ask her baby, ask her!” Caramel said.

Gideon rolled his eyes. “Just one thing. We want your car.”

I cocked my head. “I beg your pardon? Which one?”

Gideon hit a button on his neck and a monitor appeared on the back wall. So ironic that they were using that much surveillance. They had a camera set up near Leo’s taco truck, and the Lotus was in view.

“That one. Caramel really wants that car,” he said.

“I have a dozen other cars. You can have any of those. That one is…special to me,” I said.

“No no, I want that one! I won’t take anything else. I want it I want it!” Caramel said.

“What could you possibly want with a car down here?” I said.

Gideon exhaled. “Caramel likes drag racing. There’s a race strip in the southwest part of the Undergrid. It’s big money if you can win the yearly championship. It’s coming up in a few weeks, and she’s been eyeing your car.”

“And there’s nothing else you’ll take in return?” I said. The thought of losing my Lotus was like being asked to chop off my arm. Which, at this rate, I was fortunate wasn’t actually part of the process.

“No no, I want that one!” Caramel said.

Gideon shrugged. “I can’t reason with her. So what will it be?”

I frowned and stared at my Lotus on the flickering security footage.

“If that’s really the only option, I guess don’t really have a choice here.”

“Yay! I’m so excited—I’m going to smoke those bastards at the next tournament. Okay, get ready!” Caramel snagged the bubbling plastic from the counter and grabbed a big wooden spoon.

Death by neural mesh was looking more appealing every minute.

 

***

Back in the parking lot again, standing there just like we had a few hours before, but now everything felt totally different. My car, gone. My face, blotchy from hours of molten latex. My clothes, stained with makeup and other pigments.

My soul, melted from Caramel’s piercing voice ringing in my ears, right up in my business all night.

And my car.

Gone.

That car represented something else. Not just a simple machine, or even a symbol of all my wealth. Freedom. It meant freedom to me, and now I was lacking in wheels, money, and my precious freedom.

So what was left?

Gavin put his arm around my shoulders, and I rested my head in the crook of his neck. Not usually big on touching, I got the feeling Gavin wanted comfort himself as much as he wanted make me feel better.

“Now what?” I said. I felt absolutely drained, like I could sleep for a thousand years. “I’ll send for another car,” Gavin said.

“Don’t bother, just ride back with me,” Royce said. “We don’t have time to wait.”

I stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“You need to come back to the clinic so we can get started. I want us off the ground in twenty-four hours, and that’s not a lot of time for you to heal from a surgery that big before getting shoved into an airplane. And Gavin’s going to need that much time to unravel the rest of the logistics of actually getting into this place.”

I froze. “You want to do the surgery tonight? Both of them?” I looked down at my collarbones and my ankles, dreading what they were going to look like after Royce got through mauling my bones.

“What part of ‘time limit’ did you not understand?” he said. “There’s a finite period you can tolerate those steroids before your other systems start shutting down too. Once we get to Korea, we’ll still have traveling to do, and you need to be strong enough to go through another round of procedures. Time is of the essence. We do the surgery tonight.”

“Gavin, tell him this is crazy. He hasn’t slept. You really want a half dead surgeon slicing into my bones?” I said.

Gavin, his arm still around me, stiffened. “You both have valid points. Both are equally troubling. There’s no clear path for us to follow here.”

And I wasn’t kidding—I knew I was a total wreck, but Royce looked almost as bad. Who the hell wanted an impaired physician ripping them open in the middle of the night? Not I.

“I have this insane idea. It’s called compromise,” I said.

Gavin leaned to the side. The expression on his face told me how awful I looked. He brushed hair away from my forehead and picked off a shred of latex, softly kissing the raw spot underneath.

“Compromise it is,” Gavin said and turned to Royce. “You take a nap. And I don’t mean like a five-minute catnap. Real sleep. I don’t care where you do it—it can be in your clinic or back at Jin Tower. Either way, I mean several hours of uninterrupted sleep. And you’re going to eat something real too—I’ll have it delivered to you, either out here or to your suite at the tower. You don't touch Jin until you’re feeling fresh as a daisy. Got it? A few hours isn’t going to make a real difference at this point, and you know it.”

Royce sighed. “Fine. But we’re going to the clinic where I can get Jin back on meds. She needs to be monitored. Trying to deal with her condition in the tower is too dangerous,” he said.

Gavin nodded. “You take care of her,” he said, the unspoken threat hanging heavy in the air.

“Look, I know you think I’m reckless, but I don’t lose. I never lose. I’m not letting this thing beat Jin,” he said.

“I’ll go back to the clinic with you, then once Jin’s settled in I’ll head back to the tower and make sure food is sent over for you. I’ll finish up my investigations, take care of all the travel details, and then come back. I want to be there for the surgery,” Gavin said.

And it meant the world to me. I wasn’t doing this alone.

“That’s reasonable,” he said quickly. “Let’s go.” He started walking towards his car.

“I’m not getting in that sad excuse for a vehicle,” I said.

Royce laughed. “You know what, right now it’s better than what you got for a car, which is jack squat.”

“Right, I got it. I’m still not getting in that sloppy jalopy. I’ll probably get scabies or something.”

“Just get in the car, it’s not that bad. It’s even got power steering,” he said.

“Fine,” I said. “But I call shotgun.”