find contact details for Mohamed. He is a professional and will assist you even after this morning’s misunderstanding.”
The tiny pixels that made up the window screen turned transparent in a ripple from the center.
“It’s been a pleasure, Ms. Lind—” Yeun stopped, smiled briefly, and continued: “Ms. Hyldahl, but I have other matters which require my attention. If you’ll please excuse me.” He raised an arm toward the doors, which swung open silently. “Annyeonghi gasipsio.”
Enda stayed put, eyes locked with Yeun for just a moment too long—a look that said, You will regret this. If Yeun got the message, he didn’t let it touch his smile.
Enda turned and walked from the opulent office, Yeun’s eyes following her the entire way. She rode the elevator down to the huge foyer, where a collection of star systems made of glass and precious metals hung suspended in the air. Crossing the open plaza, executives and corporate ladder climbers dressed in thousand-euro suits watched her in confusion, trying to guess at who this woman in workout clothes was, and who she could possibly have been meeting.
Enda left them to their questions and stepped outside. The rain had started to fall again, sidewalks slick and shiny. She began to run, knowing it would take kilometers of cement under her feet to quell the rage that burned in her core.
* * *
DEBRIEFING OF AGENT IRA LINDHOLME, CONDUCTED BY CHIEF OF STATION ALAN MORTON
PAGE 23
MORTON:
THEY WERE ALL DEAD WHEN YOU LEFT?
LINDHOLME:
MOST WERE. A FEW WERE STILL EXPIRING.
MORTON:
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?
LINDHOLME:
HOW DO YOU WANT ME TO FEEL?
MORTON:
IRA, I’M ONLY TRYING TO HELP.
LINDHOLME:
IF YOU WANT ME TO FEEL SAD, I’LL FEEL SAD. IF YOU WANT ME TO FEEL A DEEP SATISFACTION AT A JOB WELL DONE, I’LL FEEL THAT INSTEAD. YOU SENT ME IN BECAUSE YOU NEEDED THE N.K.S.O.F. NEUTRALISED. I DID THAT.
MORTON:
YOU WERE SENT TO COUNTER THEIR ACTIONS.
LINDHOLME:
AND HOW ELSE WAS ONE PERSON MEANT TO COUNTER THE ENTIRE FORCE? YOU WON’T ADMIT IT ON RECORD BECAUSE YOU HAVE A SENATE SEAT WAITING FOR YOU BACK HOME. BUT I KNOW WHAT I WAS SENT TO DO.
MORTON:
WHAT IS AMERICA TO YOU?
LINDHOLME:
I DO THE WORK, AL, DON’T MAKE ME PARROT THE FUCKING PROPAGANDA.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Enda’s leg muscles spasmed, and the soles of her feet burned like she’d been running on hot coals. A notification from her fitness monitor pulsed in the corner of her vision: New Record—15.21 kilometers. And it wasn’t even midday.
She cleared the message as she entered her apartment’s small living area. It was minimally decorated—one couch upholstered in white fabric, a wooden coffee table made from reclaimed warehouse pallets, a small glass-and-metal desk, and an authentically old record player on a stand in one corner. After relocating to Songdo, she had been forced to start over with her vinyl collection; had spent her first few months tracking down reissues of her fifteen favorite albums. Online, of course. Physical retailers no longer kept anything of value on premises. On rare occasions Enda would remember the collection she left behind in the US. She missed it more than her distant family, more than most of her friends.
The blinds were open, revealing the rain-soaked city. It stretched east, to where Songdo met Incheon, an invisible border drawn in tenement blocks and lengths of highway. Enda’s was not a penthouse apartment, but it was high enough to feel inhuman—a bird’s view of the city, or a god’s.
Even after the run, Enda felt unsettled, her nerves jangled. She ran to force a calm she could never otherwise reach, but the intrusion had shattered any hope of inner quiet. She paced the length of her living room; tension dragged across her upper back, and her jaw ached.
She flicked through her records, stopping at Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew. First LP, B side, title track. She placed it gently onto the record player, lifted the needle, and let the mechanism do the rest. Within moments the first notes played, the lonely thrum of a double bass, the cymbal crash, the organ drifting across the right side of the room as the drummer played a roll both gentle and frantic. Enda exhaled, let her mind get lost in the layers of sound.
She turned the volume up and went through to her bathroom. She turned the shower on, took the datacube from the pocket of her sweat-soaked leggings, and stripped. Her legs spasmed again when she stepped into the shower, calf muscles locked up painfully tight.
The meeting with Yeun had left a bad taste in her mouth. Not