“Why?” Megan asked.
“Because it covers everything, conceals the true nature of things, making it all seem quiet and peaceful when there is no such thing. Snow is deception.”
I sensed, rather than saw, Megan turn toward me. For a moment she was silent. “You are not like us, Catherine. There’s something special, maybe better than us, as if you’ve been chosen for—”
But they came before she finished. First we heard, then felt, the booming of their cannon, containment shells screaming just over our heads to illuminate the rubble well to our rear with plasma. Russian APCs roared to life. Like a wave of black dots, the lines move forward, toward us, and I froze, unable to think in the face of such a massive force. Megan slapped my helmet. She had already reported the attack and I hadn’t even noticed the sound of our artillery tearing the sky above us, hurtling into their lines to explode in white hot hemispheres of plasma, turning into beautiful greens and reds as the heat dissipated.
We didn’t bother to move slowly. As we slid down the ladder several of them locked onto our movement despite
the chameleon skins, so that Russian tracer flechettes snapped past us or pinged into the tower’s structure, sending a shower of sparks over our shoulders. We ran. Several times I slipped and fell, the vibration of artillery and Russian APCs making the ground shake as we did our best to scramble over rubble and wreckage. After we made it to the airlock, I popped my helmet and tried to kiss her.
She pulled away. “Not now.”
“Why?”
“We are under attack, Catherine!” And with that she stepped into the elevator, motioning for me to follow. “Later.”
The elevator banged its way down the shaft while plasma artillery impacted on the rock above, but the motion put me to sleep because it was important to rest any time I could, and when it finally reached the bottom, Megan had to shake me—to get me to wake up.
“Catherine, wake up!” Margaret had slid the locking ring open and began to pull my helmet off when I pushed her away.
“I’m awake.”
“They’re here. The Chinese.”
I sat up and reached for my pistol before remembering it wasn’t there, and then looked where she pointed. Megan had opened the door a crack, letting in a fierce wind and making me grateful for the armor, but through it we saw a portion of the street outside where a line of Koreans stood at rigid attention. They looked cold. Zooming in I saw that some were women, and that one woman in particular wore several medals, which swung in the wind, clinking
under a flag that flapped so wildly it looked about to rip free from its wooden pole.
A line of Chinese soldiers faced them. At first I thought all of them wore armor, similar to the powered suits I had seen in the laboratory at Zeya but more sleek, and not as large, the carapace a deep green with a single red star on its shoulder and the faceplate half glass, a thick mirrored gold. But one wore nothing except a uniform and winter coat. The shoulder boards indicated he was a general, but above the collar began a horror of skin, its surface mottled by hundreds of scars that fused, one into another, making me wonder if I looked as terrifying as he did. The general approached the woman with medals, and they hugged.
“Smallpox,” Margaret whispered.
“What?”
“The scars on the Chinese general’s face. I’m guessing smallpox. All of them probably have it, a strain that everyone is worried will one day find its way out of China and into the world. It mutates incredibly fast and is resistant to all antibiotics; that’s why they imposed such a strict quarantine on China.”
“How do you know of this strain?”
Margaret turned to look at me. “They taught us this in the tanks, full training on biochemical defense and recent data on information obtained from sources inside China. You didn’t get this?”
“No,” I said. “We didn’t get that. Unless my mind has eroded to the point where everything is beginning to fade.” Which was possible, I thought. Even as I spoke I felt the threat of hallucination lurking on the edge of my mind, and I reached over to Margaret’s belt pouch, unsnapping it to remove another tranq tab, my hands shaking so badly
that it was difficult to pop my helmet. How much longer until my life became one long dream? Even my hatred of men seemed to have faded, for as I looked at these ones I felt nothing, searching the Korean faces for something that would spark it, reignite the one thing that had kept me going for the past year—maybe for as long as I had lived. But nothing came. These people were different, subdued, and what I could see of their faces, which was mostly the eyes, suggested a level of suffering that equaled mine, and none of their expressions reminded me of our creators. And the Koreans had women in their ranks. Real women, who hadn’t been manufactured and who carried weapons, their narrow eyes exuding the same resolve for which I now searched. There was nothing about these people for me to hate.
“Can you hear what they’re saying?” I asked Margaret.
“The Chinese are recounting a history of the wars in which their people have fought together, as allies.” Margaret waited until the Korean woman spoke and then continued translating. “She is saying that the Democratic People’s Republic lives, and will always come to the aid of their Chinese brothers and sisters.” Margaret turned her helmet to the side, to try to pick up more, but then she sighed. “It looks like the formalities are over, and their voices are too low for me to pick anything up now.”
Their ranks broke then, and the Koreans led the Chinese away from us, down the street and out of view.
“What are they doing, Catherine?” Margaret asked.
“I can’t see them anymore, they’ve left.”
“Not that,” she explained. “I mean with us. Why are they holding us here and will they give us to the Chinese?”
I thought for a minute, trying to swallow the fear the
question brought, and then shook my head. “Does it matter anymore? We have nothing left, Margaret, and I still believe in God. I don’t like him, but I believe in Him. Let’s see his plan unfold and decide what role we’ll play in it—decide for ourselves. This is the fog of war, and right now only He has a clear line of sight.”
We stayed in the hut for almost two weeks, watching Chinese troops and vehicles move northward through Chegdomyn, continuing their advance into Russia’s east. Every once in a while, a Korean girl visited us. Her name was Yoon-sung, and she delivered us food, and buckets to use for toilets, taking away the buckets that we had used for the previous two or three days. At first she wouldn’t look at us or speak, no matter how hard Margaret tried to engage her in conversation. But a month later Yoon-sung glanced at Margaret, who had popped her helmet to make her voice clearer, natural, instead of having it sent through helmet speakers. When she saw Yoon-sung staring, she pulled off her hood.
“Do you speak Russian?” Margaret asked.
Yoon-sung nodded.
“Why are you holding us?”
The girl’s Russian was hard to understand and heavily accented, but I caught most of it—enough to follow the conversation. I wanted to say something. But I feared that if I removed my helmet, my scars might suggest that I had been infected with smallpox, and I didn’t want to do anything that might end the discussion early.
“We are not sure what to do with you,” she said. “You are Americans, the first we’ve ever seen, but you are also our sworn enemies. Devils.”
“Then you will give us to the Chinese or kill us?” Margaret asked.
“We do not know. You are…” her next word sounded like Russian for artificial, something created, but I couldn’t be sure.
Margaret nodded. “Genetically engineered. We are not your enemies, and my friend,” she pointed at me, “has killed American men.”
“That is good,” said Yoon-sung. “We need fighters. In the spring we ship our stocks into Korea and the way is difficult. Our train will come under constant attack and all our Russians are gone now.”
“I don’t understand. The Russians would protect your train? What do you ship?”
Yoon-sung glanced toward the door and shook her head. “I must go. I will tell my superiors what you told me; it may help your case. But nothing will be decided until the matter has been investigated thoroughly and until after your trial.”
“Trial?” asked Margaret.
“You are to be tried as spies.”
After Yoon-sung left, shutting the door behind her, Margaret and I looked at each other. There was nothing to say.
A week later a group of Korean soldiers motioned for us to exit the hut and pushed us into the street, and for the first time we got a view of something other than what could only be observed through cracks in the door. The streets were empty. I expected to see them filled with Chinese troops and vehicles; the relief of finding them empty
almost made me faint. Five minutes later, amid the beginnings of a heavy snowfall, we strode through the entrance of a huge building, which was also half underground, and entered a vast auditorium decorated with gold paint and colorful murals, its seats a dark red velvet. Each one held a Korean. This time, though, they wore uniforms—not the padded suits—a dark green wool with red collar tabs, and each of them stared at us blankly, their eyes following until someone forced our backs to the crowd, to face the stage.
Two men sat on either side of a table, at the head of which sat the same woman we had seen greet the Chinese. She wore no hat, and had brilliant white hair that pulled back into a tight bun to expose a worn face, its skin gouged, hardened, and tanned from having spent years in the Russian east where the cold ravaged everything with wind-born ice. The woman wore a small pistol in a shoulder holster. She reached for something and I flinched, thinking she was about to draw the pistol, but instead her hand raised a gavel, which she banged three times.
The woman spoke into a microphone, her voice amplified from every direction, and I looked over at Margaret. She popped her helmet and motioned for me to do the same. Before the woman continued, Yoon-sung appeared at my side, speaking in a soft voice as she translated what was being said.
“You are charged with spying against the Democratic People in exile, a charge which carries a death sentence. You are not here to be asked how you plead, since the evidence is almost incontrovertible, but to investigate the possibility of mitigating circumstances.”
The room fell silent except for someone who coughed
behind us, and after a few seconds it became clear that they expected us to say something, but I had trouble keeping a smile off my face despite the circumstances. Who would we be spying for?
“We are not spies,” I finally said.
The woman didn’t like the answer. She pointed at me and spoke so quickly that Yoon-sung had trouble keeping up.
“You are on our land, granted to us fifty years ago as a gift from the Chinese before Russian aggressors claimed it using nuclear weapons. The weapons of murderers. Today our Chinese brothers have returned, granting us autonomy once more, and so I say it again. You are spies.”
The insanity of it made me feel suddenly sick. How could Russia
belong
to Chinese invaders? The details of the Asian war ticked through my mind quickly, recalling the period where Chinese forces had taken over portions of Russia, but for these people to think that this was their land…
“Please,” I said, doing my best to sound reasonable. “We’re Americans. We were captured fighting the Russians, and escaped their factories in Zeya. What is it that makes us seem like spies?”
One of the men cleared his throat and looked at Yoon-sung, refusing to even glance at us.
“You wear Russian armor,” she translated, “speak Russian, have Russian weapons and supplies. And
Zeya
. You expect us to believe that you came here all the way, on foot, from Zeya? Clearly the Russians left you behind to spy on the Chinese advance. Therefore, you spy on us.”
The woman spoke again. “This discussion is a waste of time. Do you have anything to say that might mitigate your sentence?”
Margaret began speaking in Korean. She bowed her head, and Yoon-sung smiled for some reason, which confused me until I saw the surprise of the three in front of us, a visible horror that they failed to hide upon realizing that here was someone who spoke better Korean than they did, someone as different from them as the dirt from water.
Yoon-sung
, I thought while she translated,
knows the people on stage, predicted they would be shocked because she had never told them of Margaret’s language capabilities
.
“We speak many languages, Aunt, and mean no disrespect, but neither of us has met a Korean before, let alone as honorable an assembly as this. Please. We have no way of knowing what circumstances might mitigate, and so throw ourselves at your mercy.”
Now it was my turn for shock. For all I knew, Margaret had just sentenced us to death and I had to restrain myself to keep from screaming at her for having said something so stupid. But Yoon-sung looked amazed. There was no other way to describe the look she gave Margaret, and it struck me then, how unaccustomed I was to these people, since they had been able to impress me with the simple fact that I had finally seen some facial expressions, that until then I had been able to read nothing.
The three at the table huddled in conversation. At one point I glanced at Margaret to see if she caught any of the discussion, but she stared at the floor, her face just as expressionless as theirs and her eyes focused on a single spot. Finally the woman spoke again.