Chapter Text
“Following the failure of the cure for the Nerve Attenuation Syndrome, public outrage has attained an all-time high. The Neo-Luddite group, Church of Moebius, is taking advantage of the conflict to declare…”
Yu Junghyeok turned off the TV. The logo of the Neo-Next City News remained on the screen, a prompt to resume watching underneath. The electronics didn’t sleep and neither did the city, or its news.
Most people watched the news from their cyberbrain, but Junghyeok, while not a Neo-Luddite, did not like the risk of the Internet. He did not trust people and even less a tool that connected people.
It was a surprise to himself that he married the playful hacker Kim Dokja.
“Did the news tire you, darling?”
Kim Dokja retracted his mechanical fingers. Much like Yu Junghyeok, he distrusted the Internet. But he didn’t dislike technology or the augmentations he could buy.
Han Suyeong, who was sitting on the other side of the partner's desk, continued her typing but lifted her head to watch them.
“You bet,” Yu Junghyeok replied, walking toward the kitchen. “Black shakes, Church of Moebius…”
Kim Dokja resumed typing, though slowly. “The scandal concerning the vaccine for Cyberbrain Sclerosis. Isn’t it great that it’s unveiled and the proper vaccine is released just in time for Mia’s surgery?”
“I don’t think she should get a cyberbrain,” came the answer from the kitchen.
“Are you becoming a Luddite?” Han Suyeong teased. Her mind was still mostly focused on the laptop before her, her fingers typing and clicking in slowing intervals. “No, are you going to make Mia a Luddite?”
“No way.”
“Didn’t you used to date the leader?”
“Shut up.”
Han Suyeong laughed. She knew that he didn’t, but the leader of the Neo-Luddites, Nirvana Moebius, was rather fixated on Yu Junghyeok.
“What’s for dinner today, Junghyeok-ah?” Dokja closed his laptop.
“Jellyfish salad, bamboo stir-fry and cold somen noodles.”
“No meat?” Dokja complained.
“I don’t trust meat. Remember that scandal?”
Meat that turned out to be from dead replicant humans.
“But you do trust lobsters.”
Yu Sangah entered the unit with a bag of saltwater and four live lobsters. Han Suyeong cheered.
Following the great anthropocene extinction, the only animals that did not die off and become replaced by replicants were the domesticated species and those once considered pests. Lobsters, crabs and jellyfish were few of the affordable ones.
Yu Junghyeok accepted the lobsters while Han Suyeong took the coat from her wife.
“How’s work today?” The women kissed. “You didn’t ruin another man?” Suyeong grinned.
“Oh, please.” Yu Sangah hugged her wife. “I’m not Kim Dokja.”
“Hey.” The man let out a faint protest.
Yu Sangah released her wife and walked over to Kim Dokja. “I’m not kidding, Public Security Section 6 would greatly benefit from your presence, Kim Dokja.”
“Yet they fired me in the first year.”
“They let you go.”
“I’m not fit for the job if you’re not my partner.”
Yu Sangah’s expression was solemn.
Yu Junghyeok’s face, meanwhile, was murderous.
“Junghyeok,” said Sangah without looking away from Kim Dokja, “you cannot monopolise Kim Dokja forever.”
“I cannot let him risk his life working for a Public Security Section.”
Silence permeated the condo unit. Slowly, Han Suyeong broke it by unwrapping a candy.
“...I can go in his stead.”
“Suyeong?”
“My specs and abilities are similar to his. No, I’m superior.”
Yu Sangah nodded. “I’ll tell that to my superiors. In the meantime…”
She looked like she was about to say something. Her lips twitched, yet only silence came out.
“I knew it. The censor is that strong. Dokja, can you hack me?”
“I don’t want to touch the firewall of a Public Security Section.”
“Dokja.”
“Send me a copy and I’ll hack it later.”
She grabbed a blank flash drive from the desk and plugged it to the back of her neck. After a while, she handed him the drive.
“Keep it well.”
“Thanks…?”
“Yu Junghyeok, if you can, don’t let Mia have the surgery. The cyberbrain is already both a blessing and a curse, but in the future…”
She eyed the lobsters in the pot. Then, she eyed the scenery outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The sprawl of a great city loomed outside, the horizon invisible.
Rather, there was no horizon for a cyclical station-city.
“...They may be the only ones surviving as humans.”
Yu Sangah laughed as if she just told a joke.
“No, what am I doing, I’m too dramatic. The stress of office life is getting to me. Let's eat!”
After the meal, Han Suyeong and Yu Sangah left the condo in a hurry, mumbling about having a rendez-vous.
Neither Kim Dokja nor Yu Junghyeok saw them again after that night. Kim Dokja tried to hack the file Yu Sangah left behind, but the firewall was too strong.
On the 8th day of their disappearance, the file hatched.
“Hail the Jewel of the Holy Lotus.”
At the same time, the world ended.