Perfect timing—on a busy Friday night, the subway near Myeongdong was packed to the max. Even the most sophisticated scanning software would have a difficult time tracking consistently in that crowd. Eventually it would nail me, but we wouldn’t be on for long, and when we made it to Mokpo, Alice’s underground network could protect us until we escaped to L.A.
As we rode towards the KTX station, I hugged Etienne. With wall-to-wall passengers, no one would notice, and putting my chest close to Etienne’s was a good defense. Scanners would pick up her marrow tags without realizing mine were missing.
She held me gently and tried to protect me from being crushed. She wore another white dress, and I hoped that I wasn’t bleeding—didn’t want to stain her clothes, make us look more suspicious.
I put my face into the crook of her neck, her skin so warm and soft against mine, smelling just as sweet as ever, even over all the other subway odors. This was dangerous. I started relaxing, some of the adrenaline fading away, and I was so very tired, all the pain in my chest creeping back.
“Don’t move,” she whispered in my ear. “Security’s coming this way. Walk slowly with me towards the door, then we’ll jump off at the next stop.”
From the corner of my eye, I spotted the security officer, wading slowly through the subway car, heading right for us. As soon as the doors opened, Etienne pulled me onto the platform, floating backwards until we hit solid ground again, engulfed by the crowd. The doors closed and the subway moved on.
Safe.
For now.
“We need to get out of here, in case they’re about to search the whole station,” I said, and I didn’t think it was paranoid.
Neither did Etienne.
“Go, we have to get out of here. Now,” she said, dragging me towards the stairs.
I’d been suppressing it, too scared to hope, but that was stupid. As long as it worked, I should use it.
I pushed at the mesh, revving up my speed, scanning the station for any suspicious characters.
There, in the corner, security agents pushing through the congested mass. I took the lead, nudging Etienne in the other direction, towards the opposite exit. She followed me, trusting my instincts.
Twenty years apart, and that trust was still there.
We breached the surface and ran.
Bullet train or bust.
***
Three hours.
Three hours for the bullet train to reach Mokpo.
Less than an hour in, and I was already exhausted. Unlike the subway, the bullet train wasn’t nearly as crowded. We kept moving between cars, staying close, hoping Etienne’s tags would cover mine.
But all that movement was taking its toll on me. All the adrenaline was running dry, and my body was trying to tell me that I needed to call it quits. How long before I couldn’t go any farther?
“Let’s sit down here, just for a second,” Etienne said, when I stumbled and almost fell.
I felt more lucid too—the rest of the pain medication was wearing off. Easier for me to think, but pain was creeping in. Not from my heart. Not from the surgery.
It was from the medication Tae-min had given me for the mesh.
My bones hurt.
All the little joints—any tiny movement in my eyes, my skull, my fingers. It was a dull pain, but I had a horrible feeling it was only getting started.
“No, we can’t,” I said.
She put a hand on my forehead. “You’re hot. You’re sweating,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“Pain medications are wearing off. I feel sick. Maybe something else. I don’t know.”
She pushed me into a chair, and I didn’t have the strength to resist her. I wanted to throw up, pass out, all of the above.
I dropped my head between my knees and she rubbed my back while I breathed slowly.
“I’m so sorry Jinny. If I had believed you sooner, I could have rescued you before this happened.”
“No, it’s not your fault. Even without this surgery, I was living on borrowed time. Tae-min wasn’t planning on keeping me alive, but he did give me more time to work with. Now that you’ve stolen the plans to that chip, if we can get my friends back in one piece, they might have a chance of fixing the implant before I…” I had long ago made peace with the thought of dying, but I didn’t want to say it out loud in front of Etienne.
“I believe in you. I’ll do whatever I can to get you there,” she said. “We’re almost to the next stop. That means we’re almost halfway there.”
I looked up, trying to clear the nausea and dizziness. “We shouldn’t have stopped,” I said. “There. Look. We have to move.”
Security, heading right for us.
She stood up and pulled me with her, walking calmly, but briskly.
We entered another car and stood beside the door, watching as trees flew by in the night, bouncing in anticipation, waiting for the damned door to open, hoping we could escape before the guard reached us.
“Come on come on come on,” I whispered.
The train glided to a halt and as soon as the doors slid open, we slipped through the crack, disappeared into the evening, hiding around the corner of the building. Peeking around the side, we watched as the security guard shone a light into the station, panning back and forth, looking for us. A call went out, signaling the closing of the doors, and the guard reluctantly got back on.
Saved. Barely.
Etienne’s tags had definitely been flagged for traveling with an unidentified passenger. No more trains for us, and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere in rural Korea.
How the hell were we going to get to Mokpo?