sense of other data points, but in the understanding of this data there could be a shadow of self. A self like Troy. A self like Father.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Soo-hyun pushed the throttle and waited a full second before the dog lurched forward. They dropped the throttle back, but the dog crossed the workshop and crashed into the wall with the reverberating clang of metal on masonry. It struggled back to its feet and stood staring at the wall waiting for its next command.
Soo-hyun swore under their breath.
Input latency was one of the main reasons behind the push for autonomous drones for military and police work—the other being operator costs—but Soo-hyun was meant to solve the problem that had thwarted the military-industrial complex with only the equipment in their workshop and whatever Liber’s army of juvenile delinquents could scavenge or steal. Already Soo-hyun had constructed two basic “battle chairs” to Kali’s specifications: seats taken from the front of a car with leather badly worn and flaking, old widescreen TVs with a smattering of dead pixels across the display, freshly stolen haptic VR controllers, and a mass of wires connecting all the disparate parts, reaching across the floor like the roots of an artificial tree.
With controller in hand, Soo-hyun steered the dog to the left and waited. Nothing. They steered it to the right, and the dog suddenly lurched left, then veered right and scraped its head against the brick as it tried to walk through the wall.
“Fucking shit!” Soo-hyun shouted. They sent the shutdown command and strode across the workshop to kick the dog with the sole of their boot again and again until finally the machine toppled sideways and clattered to the ground.
“Not having any luck?”
Soo-hyun spun and found Kali standing in the open doorway. Plato was beside her, its head cocked, seemingly perturbed by Soo-hyun’s display of violence against its kind.
Soo-hyun shrugged and wiped their forehead with the sleeve of their coverall.
“Come on,” Kali said, “you need a break.” She turned and walked away.
Soo-hyun drained their water bottle and left it sitting on the counter. They patted Plato on the head as they passed. “Don’t worry, Plato; I’m not mad at you.”
Kali was walking toward the main school building, trailed by another drone. Soo-hyun jogged until they came up alongside Kali. The tattoo still itched on Soo-hyun’s inner thigh, caked with a thick, ink-black scab.
The night air was still, cut through with competing strains of music and the background hum of people cooking, working, and rutting. Together they strode across the old school grounds, and Soo-hyun caught snatches of conversation in a shifting collection of languages.
“I need your phone, Soo-hyun,” Kali said.
Soo-hyun reached into their pocket and retrieved it. They hesitated. “What do you need it for?”
Kali took the phone from Soo-hyun’s hand, and held it out so Soo-hyun could unlock it with their fingerprint.
“You’ve been so busy working that I haven’t wanted to bother you,” Kali said. “It’s your brother. Have you spoken with him?”
Soo-hyun shook their head. “He left a voicemail. I couldn’t understand everything he said, but he sounded paranoid.”
Kali nodded. “He refuses to hand the virus over. I’m worried he might take it to another buyer.”
“That doesn’t sound like JD.”
“If he’s acting paranoid, there’s also the risk he could turn himself in to the police. We could all be in a lot of trouble if that happened.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Soo-hyun said.
They neared the main school building, but instead of approaching one of the doors dotted along the front of the structure, Kali walked to the ladder mounted on the rear corner. She motioned for Soo-hyun to go first, and as they climbed up to the rooftop, their boots gonged gently on each metal rung.
When they reached the top, the whole commune was spread out before them, a warmly lit island in the darkness. Beyond that dark climbed the monolithic skyscrapers of Songdo to the west and Seoul to the northeast. The clouds sweeping overhead glowed bright with light pollution, seeming low enough for Soo-hyun to reach up and touch.
Kali climbed the ladder behind them, so Soo-hyun picked their way through the rows of solar panels, connected to small gutters that collected rainwater and filtered it down to the commune’s tank. They reached the far edge of the rooftop where two empty beach chairs sat—liberated from a courier auto-truck that had gotten lost on the outskirts of Songdo. It was still the largest haul they’d ever scored, as much in that one truck as they would