Reunion of the Immortals

by Melvin L. Clermont

October 4, 1999.  It began as the usual work day here at Wolsong.  The news media reported to the world that the accident was a heavy water leak.  The same as five years before.  But we gave them false information to cover up the real accident.  The same way the Tokaimura accident was covered up five days before.  The government told them only 22 of us were exposed to radiation and that we all turned out fine with a clean bill of health.  There were actually 29 of us. 

We were exposed to an experimental acidic compound.  That's what actually leaked.  We were trying to create a bomb that, when detonated, would spread the compound along with the nuclear and thermal radiation.  The desired effect was for everything to work in conjunction to instantly disintegrate and then dissolve anything within the blast radius.  Our objective was to create this weapon with a timetable of approximately five more years remaining for completion.  Six of us died due to exposure.  I lived.

I remembered the fumes surrounding me as if a storm cloud had suddenly dropped down upon me.  Eating through my protective gear.  Eating away at my skin.  It felt like I was being poked by 1,000 arthritic acupuncturists simultaneously using me as a canvas.  The pain began in my hands and spread like a wildfire breathed by an evil yong.  It seemed like hours that I was in agony but it was only a few minutes.  My own screams were drowned out by those of my colleagues.  We were hosed down and stripped like an American black.  Mainly to clean off the compound but also to quell our incessant cries.  The cleansing, which was more like a drowning in my opinion, was so intense that we all passed out. 

I would reawaken later in pain but not as bad as before.  I was placed in a dark isolation chamber where we put our workers who might have been at risk.  Not the most hospitable of dwellings but it wasn’t supposed to be.  I was the only one there and I was still naked; wet from a cold sweat.  There were no windows or light in this cramped space.  Just four walls, a door that only opened from the outside, and a large, noisy vent in the ceiling for ventilation and defumigation.  I would endure this confiscation for days with no food or drink.  I couldn’t believe my coworkers would subject me to this.  This wasn’t proper procedure.

Time would pass without notifying me.  I was barely conscious due to starvation and dehydration.  I lost total consciousness during my transport to the National Rehab Center in Seoul.  Thank the gods because my pain also subsided with my self-awareness.  After an alleged three weeks of being in a seemingly vegetative state, caretakers at the facility told me everything that had occurred and informed me that my survival was due to my AB+ blood type.  I was the only one amongst the seven with that blood type. 

It made absolutely no logical sense for if that was the case then anyone with that blood type could potentially survive a bombing.  But after some thought, that made no sense either.  I continued to question their hypothesis though.  How could these doctors come to that conclusion unless they were in the know and may have conducted some sort of experiments while I was asleep?  Probably per the orders of Dae-jung. 

It wasn’t wise to question the authority in this country and I had no reason to because they treated me well my entire life.  I was everything that everyone wanted to be.  Successful, rich, nice car, beautiful condominium, and I enjoyed my work.  I wouldn’t have traded my lifestyle for anything.  But at this juncture, I’d give it all up just to be back where I was before the accident and I was beginning to get a feeling that I had never had before: that the government that I had supported for so long was turning its back on me.  I could sense another cover up in the works.  But why me?

During the few occasions where the sedations wore off enough for me to realize where I was and what was going on around me, I scanned my environment.  I was still naked and lying on a mattress with no sheets.  Maybe they thought I would cause them to change colors like the Incredible Hulk always does to his pants in the tv show.  There were no windows or mirrors in the room where everything but my head was strapped down to the bed.  The only joint in my body with mobility was my neck.  "Why was this so?" I thought to myself. 

I glanced out of the single glass door to my right and there were several armed guards with swords and guns.  They talked and laughed while they watched me intently while smoking cigarettes like too many Koreans do; which included two people I held dear who weren’t with me anymore.  The guards were fully uniformed government issue so I knew whatever was going on with me was serious business. 

I looked up at the solid white ceiling and there were bright, uncovered fluorescent lights and cameras in every corner.  I don’t ever remember there being a room like this in the facility.  Every rare moment that I made contact with a lens was when I was bombarded and put back to sleep by the staff.  I concluded that something must have happened to me that wasn’t being said even though I was “told everything.” That would explain why I was still alive and felt better than I ever had in all of my 53 years.  Thus my lust for a mirror.

It got to the point where they gave me more drugs and strapped me down tighter with stronger material.  Whatever the fluids were that they were injecting me with silenced my hunger and thirst, but not my curiosity.  They spoke in jargon that even a nuclear technician such as myself couldn’t understand.  My confinement to viewing the colorless walls and the discomfort of the hard bed made the absence of the modern conveniences of life, especially sex, take their toll on my sanity. 

It wasn’t until that moment that I realized that I hadn’t showered since being hosed down at the plant several weeks back.  I could feel the filth in my eyes and taste my breath.  I never thought my mind was capable of thinking the way it was starting to because it never had a reason to.  But the sentiment of my less fortunate fellow citizens about our government was how I suddenly felt.  I needed to be free.

By sheer will, I broke free of the leather and cold metal straps that mummified me.  Within the blink of an eye was when the guards rushed in.  Three of them at first and then their numbers multiplied exponentially by that same number.  I was cornered in the room and there wasn’t much space to fit us all.  I disobeyed their commands to get back on the bed but none of them came close to me or even tried to shoot or cut me.  Maybe they thought I was still irradiated.  Maybe I was for all I knew. 

I took advantage of their fear and ran through them.  They cleared a path for me as if Moses himself had parted them.  I thought salvation would be on the other side of the glass door but the only thing there to welcome me was gunfire.  Unlike the last batch of guards, they had no fear.  Or they had orders but not from Moses.

There were guards on both ends of the long, dimly lit hall when I rushed out.  There were no doors of any kind that I could see except for the one I just crashed through.  My feet bled from the broken shards, but I felt no pain.  I glanced both ends but saw nothing but black steel and silver metal pointing in my direction.  Rather than panic, I simply ran.  To my surprise the hall guards ducked down and moved for me.  Thank you, Moses. 

A smile would appear on my face for only a millisecond as it turned into anguish from the pain of what seemed like hundreds of bullets penetrating every pore of my body.  But I didn’t fall.  I turned around and saw the ducked down soldiers shooting along with the soldiers at the other end of the hall and from inside the room.  I recognized the stance and positions they were in.  They were in perfect formation.  This was an expected occurrence.

I stood there and watched them try to kill me and the operative word was 'try.’ The shock of being shot to pieces faded quickly as I withstood their punishment as if I was Hwanin himself.  There had to be a way out if all those men were there.  And I had to be put there somehow to begin with.  The walls and floor around me were covered in flesh and crimson.  The exposed lighting above shone like a blood moon.  I could only see out of one eye at that point since the other one had a bullet or two in it. 

I turned around and ran looking for an exit and I thought I found one.  I would never have imagined a fine facility like this that was created to help could hurt so much.  I was still in awe that I received so much lead in me and I was still alive and felt perfectly fine.  At the end of the long hallway I saw a door.  I opened it and was greeted by the largest, shiniest Dadao I had ever seen.  I was momentarily blinded by its metallic glare but when my vision came back, in both eyes this time, I could see my face if only for a few seconds.  I recognized the man that I saw.  It was me 30 years ago.

The gunfire had ended and I saw the fear on the sword-wielding soldier's face in front of me as he blocked the stairwell and my freedom.  I could hear the orders coming from his comrades behind me telling him to kill me but we were both in shock.  In my case it was from mental confusion rather than physical.  The next thing I saw was my left arm on the floor.  It was still moving even though it wasn't attached to its owner.  The soldiers were mortified by the spectacle and backed away from me as if I was a suicide bomber.  But the surgeon blocking the exit swung again.  Next thing I knew, my head was on the floor looking at my arm and a collage of red footprints.

I saw my body fall onto the man who butchered me.  Then I witnessed his bullet ridden body tumble with my own down the stairs as his cohorts filled him with lead.  I didn't know what happened to my body at that point.  I could still hear long enough to know that the ranting of the soldiers was as loud as our country’s reaction when our women won the gold at the Bangkok Asiad.  My head was grabbed by someone from behind and a soldier in front of me took off his jacket with a look of urgency on his face as if he wanted whatever was going to happen to occur quicker than a lightning strike.  And then I saw nothing but darkness for what I'd come to learn would be a period of two years. 

Other than the fact that I was still alive, one thought that repeated itself during that time was how could that possibly have been the same beautiful NRC building that my parents spent their dying days in?  Yet another lie, which would explain why it felt so dark in a place that was constructed to receive so much natural light.

The next time that I saw any source of light, my head was rested upon a large pipe and I was looking across at the flames of an incinerator.  Kim Jong-Il himself was close to it along with several heavily armed jeonsa and aptly titled wonsu.  It was either night outside or there were no windows.  In the distance, the flames assisted my vision by letting me faintly see a tattered flag of the Czech Republic that hung from the low ceiling.  I figured I was in the northern republic now as this must have been the fabled crematorium; and I was to meet the same fate as those from decades past. 

Korea as a whole had a history of cover ups and I was beginning to regret being a part of one.  Now I was part of another.  At the moment of ones death is when they repent.  My only repentance was supporting a government that turned its back on one of its good citizens.  I welcomed my impending death because I’d rather have been dead than live in my current state or in such a foul country; north or south.  I’m positive that my friends and family had been falsely notified of my death anyways.

It didn’t take me long to figure out what was going to happen for the president to disobey his reclusiveness.  During my unscheduled sabbatical, I had much time to think and I concluded that I was just like the creatures in Biozombie.  I knew this had to be the case.  It was the only explanation for me to be a literal talking head.  There was clearly more to my transformation than I knew because I knew what I saw in that Dadao.  But I would be provided no answers from the malevolent stares of my destroyers.

Jong-Il approached me as I saw Moses make a return.  From the parting, I saw my body, writhing in plastic wrap, being carried as if it were in a coffin on the shoulders of six men appropriately dressed for the occasion.  It still functioned and looked as healthy and new as freshly baked bang.  The wounds it sustained were completely healed and skinned over.  The looks on the soldiers’ faces were stiff and unfeeling, unlike my past experience.  None of them even looked surprised in the slightest that a body with no head was moving and a head with no body was blinking. 

Jong-Il put on examination gloves and grabbed me by the hair.  He hoisted me up and moved me closer to the incinerator.  I knew my end was coming soon.  He held me steady as if wanting me to witness the event first hand.  My body was laid down on a crusty rack which was slid into the flames.  Its skin peeled in unison with the plastic.  Once my body was able to move freely, it almost looked like it was trying to escape.  I was willing it to do so but obviously that was foolish of me to think I had anything left to do with its motor skills.  After all, I couldn’t speak or hear anymore.

My body was erased from existence in a matter of minutes.  The cremator must have made the flames higher and hotter the more my body resisted.  I could feel the heat on my face as Jong-Il still held me close to the flames.  Once the display was over he looked at me and said something that I guess he thought I could hear, and I was once again in the darkness.  My first thought was…what did they do with my arm?

 I suppose that they wanted to keep my existence a secret.  I would have figured that North Korea's leader would have tried to clone me or something along those lines to create a super army since he valued his military so much.  But that was just my overactive imagination.  I needed some stimulation being alone for so long.  I didn't know exactly where I was.  I didn't hear a peep out of anything for the longest time.  Food and sleep were no longer requirements for me since the accident at the plant.  I had lost my sense of time since I hadn't seen daylight in the same amount of time that I hadn't heard a peep.  Then I fell asleep.

When I woke up, on whatever day it was, I moved.  I hadn’t had an itch since that butcher carved me like a piece of meat and when I did, I scratched it…with my hands.  Two things I thought I had lost forever.  Upon this discovery, I wiggled my toes and bent my knees.  Then I felt my body and it was warm.  My heartbeat was thumping inside my ribs.  My penis was erect.  Whatever my head was in, if anything, must have been expandable or my body just burst through it.  I didn’t spring up in total disbelief and surprise.  I simply rose from the low shelf that I was on and stood up. 

It was completely dark wherever I was.  I couldn’t see a millimeter in front of me.  I guess my body didn’t cause a commotion when it decided to grow itself back which is the only logical explanation since I knew for a fact that reattachment technology didn’t exist to this level of precision.  Especially for a head.  I was more than just the living dead because even zombies couldn’t regrow limbs, much less an entirely new body.

I felt myself up from head to toe and I was whole again.  Not even a measurable percentage of shock would accompany this revelation.  I was totally calm and only wanted to be free; something I knew I hadn’t been in a long time.  I had to think of where to go since by now my existence in the real world was already erased.  I knew how my government operated when it came to those things. 

Once again, I was in the darkness with no mirrors or windows.  And it was cold but it didn’t affect me although I was naked.  My yearning for light and vision somehow enabled a new ability.  I could see, but not like a normal person.  I saw my surroundings in gray and green.  I deduced it quickly to being nocturnal and/or infrared vision and I was amazed.  Initially, I couldn’t see very far in front of me.  Such a power would be something Jong-Il would love for his soldiers to have but they stuffed me away like a Chinese baby girl.   It’s a cruel metaphor but, for this situation, their naïveté would be for the better. 

I walked around my cold quarters trying to find a way out.  There were bodies and missiles on the shelves surrounding me.  I could read some of the tags on the body bags and it was more weapons than humans, but most of these people were American, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, or Russian.  Some of the dates on these tags indicated to me that this place and these corpses must have been in existence for decades. 

None of the weapons were of the nuclear variety.  Their tags indicated a decommissioned status.  But Korea wasn’t a wasteful republic.  The resources used in the creation of these bombs and missiles would be used in some capacity in the future.  That I was sure of or they wouldn’t have kept them.  As for the bodies, I could only assume they had some importance since they weren’t cremated; even in the decades of storage that most of them had obtained.  At first, I thought they were my fallen coworkers stashed away like myself but their origins would prove that idea to be false.

After walking around the maze of aisles trying to find a way out, I finally found one.  But it wasn’t a door.  It was a wall.  And I walked right through it.  I was in a lit hallway that was very clean with a metallic ambiance like a science fiction movie.  I knew this because my eyes were able to see like that of a normal person again.  I had worn glasses and contacts my entire life and just now the thought of that entered my mind.  One thing I didn’t want was to be seen for fear of a reenactment from my time at the NRC.  Then I looked at my hands and I couldn’t see them anymore.  I couldn’t see any part of my body. 

I didn’t know how I had these abilities but I knew I was going to use them to get out of whatever place I was in.  I wasn’t hungry and I was clean.  All I needed were some clothes and shoes.  Freedom and sex were next on the list.  I walked through the halls undetected; passing by no one.  Then I came to a corner and I could see three men in business suits coming my way from that corner by means of sensing their heat through the wall.  I stood completely still as they passed me by like I didn’t even exist.  So I followed them.  Surely they knew a way out.

The three of them entered a small room with a computer in it that seemed ancient compared to what I used at home.  A home that I knew wasn’t mine anymore.  I wasn’t going to be leaving this place like I thought I was.  One of them sat down to type while the other two dictated to him.  It was going to be a press release of some sort as some of the letterheads were addressed to Yonhap and The United Nations among many others.  My tears began to flow inward so I wouldn’t give away my position to them as I cried from listening to what they had to say as opposed to what was being typed for the news media.

Finally, I had a sense of time by the text on the monitor.  Ryanggang, August 2003.  When my body was burned, the airborne particulates of my ashes drifted and contaminated the water supply of Yongjo-ri.  The report indicated no environmental effects except on humans in that area.  Men and women, but mostly children.  There were 76 of them, but the government found just that many willing candidates to pay off to assume their identities for the media.  The same thing might’ve been done in my case too, except gifts and payouts might also have been offered so that people would keep their mouths shut.  I hated to admit it, but people that I called ‘friend’ were probably among those recipients.

Jong-Il quarantined the real victims quickly into the underground base where I currently was.  He feared that they were just like me.  He tried many methods to kill them in a way that would cause no further contamination and so that their secret existence wouldn’t be leaked, but he failed at every attempt.  So he locked them away to rot but he’ll soon learn that was a failed method.  I cried for the victims but I cried more for one of the names on the descriptive list of victims: Ponk Long-lo.  My brother.

He was a highly skilled chef and owned a successful restaurant and wanted to take his business overseas to the U.S. but decided to stay in his village because he liked the country atmosphere over the bustling city life the Americas had to offer.  He also wanted to support the government but I was sure he saw things my way now.  More than once during our not-as-often-as-I-preferred conversations I told him he’d be better off going overseas.  He could make more money there and reinvest it in our homeland but he nixed the suggestion.  Our professions made it difficult to have fun, relax, or make time for each other.  Our residences also made things tough.  We were both single, so attracting a suitable mate contributed as well.  If only he would have left, he wouldn’t have been in this situation.  Then the men began talking about something else close to home.  The acid bomb.

In conjunction with the Japanese and Korean governments, my plant was contracted to create the deadliest weapon of mass destruction.  Jong-Il’s influence spread southward and we were secretly creating the bomb for Al-Queda.  Just like any government, ours had debt and Al-Queda had money.  We were quite confident that whatever they had planned wouldn’t affect or be traced back to us, so we went ahead with the project. 

Tokaimura was our competition and the accident that they had before ours was actually no accident at all.  It was sabotage to eliminate the competition.  Along those lines, I had to wonder if what happened to me was the same type of act.  We wanted to create a weapon of mass destruction and I had become that.  Was my accident a recreation?  The excuse was that my blood type allowed me to live which I still questioned the validity of that claim.  Either way, why should I have been allowed to live when so many had died or been negatively affected by my actions?  I was no better than the man I despised the most at the moment.

I reflected upon all of the events that had transpired to date and these men were not to blame for any of it.  They were doing their jobs just like I was doing mine.  But with these new abilities, if I could save those people and my brother, I would.  But how?  I thought about a time where I met a young boy in a bookstore.  I was skimming magazines and he was skimming manga with his friends.  I couldn’t help but pay attention to the commotion they were making and how they described some of their favorite characters.  It didn’t take long before the store owner kicked them out. 

I couldn’t remember the hard-to-pronounce name but one character I did remember them talking about could obtain the memories of anyone they came in physical contact with or they could, as they called it, “phase” through them to get the same results.  So I arrogantly gave it a try.  I thought hard about getting the memories out and lightly touched one of the men’s faces, and he turned around swiftly as if touched by a ghost.  The other men laughed at him but I felt like they were laughing at my foolish attempt at being a superhero.

Since I could walk and see through walls, I was determined to find the captives on my own.  Just as I was about to leave they mentioned how the affected children would be the future of the military.  I hesitated for just a moment with the knowledge that they would try to brainwash them into servitude.  I just knew that’s what they had in mind and I couldn’t allow that to happen for the sake of the world.  I very gently removed a thin and light clip-on id card from one of the men’s clothing.  The same one who shared humiliation with me.  I was familiar with how the cards worked since the same type were used in Wolsong. 

The card might have been my key to freedom and the others, too.  My depth perception became astounding as I stood in the hallway scanning.  I could see through things and through those things and through those things.  I was about to make haste but realized that I didn’t have the card anymore.  It was on the floor in the room with what the Americans called spin doctors.  Apparently I could only phase myself through objects and for a change I was happy to be naked because I concluded that I couldn’t turn objects invisible like myself either.

This place didn’t have a lot of people in it.  Mostly guards.  I couldn’t see through one door but I knew there was something behind it.  I had assumed that the room was where the innocents were.  So I phased through everything I could to get there and when I arrived I was halted.  The large sliding door was made of steel just like the walls attached to it.  It had the same shape as a giant’s mouth laying on his side; smiling. 

I learned something new about my powers all the time and now I had discovered that there were certain things I could pass through and others that I couldn’t.  Particular metals and steel seemed to be a couple.  I didn’t have the nerve to try and do it to another person, so I placed that on the list too.  Since I couldn’t pass through the door, I questioned whether any of the captives had displayed powers similar to my own and if so, did Jong-Il know?  What other reason was there for them to be locked behind impassable walls and doors?

My hearing was augmented but not to anywhere near the degree of any of my other abilities.  I heard the steps of heeled boots and through a corner wall behind me I saw the heat signature of two men.  One of them in uniform, the other was in shackles; naked.  Was it a captive?  My heart began to beat profusely as they made the corner and were visible.

“Ponk,” I yelled as loud as I could.  It was the first time I had heard my own voice in years but it fell on deaf ears as Ponk was in the same drugged up state that I was in at what wasn’t the NRC.  But the guard heard me and began to open fire aimlessly as Ponk’s shackles began to break under my might.  Ponk tasted the gunfire in his back and I took a couple of hits in my arm as I phased through a wall to avoid any more of them.  My wound ejected the bullets and healed instantly but did the same happen for Ponk? 

Since I was able to pass through so many things but not the one thing I needed to, I just had to wonder what this place was made of since metal and steel were common construction materials.  But I didn’t have time to think about that since I was in a large empty room with colorful carpeting and chandeliers where a small troupe of soldiers were entering on the other side at the same time I was.  I couldn’t fathom such an elegant room in such a place as this.  One soldier ordered the others to open fire as if he saw me, but how? 

I was still invisible and I did the only thing I could do.  I ran; with the thought in the back of my mind to free those innocents.  Their bullets kept pace with me as I was trying to run to another corner of the room to phase out of it and for the first time in a long time I passed by a mirror.  I slowed down to take a look in it but I didn’t become visible.  What I saw was the reason why they kept pace with me.  I wasn’t invisible.  I simply blended in with my surroundings like a chameleon but my movements could still be seen.  Then their bullets shattered the image.

I wasn’t going down without a fight, so I confronted them head on.  I knew I could withstand the bullets with ease but I had to watch out for the swords.  This republic’s military was overly trained and they knew to stop firing once I was amongst them so they wouldn’t shoot themselves.  But once I was amongst them, I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t know my strength.  They hit me several times but if I were to punch one of them and kill them, my conscious would have been forever tainted.  Yet, not that many years ago, I was building a bomb that was built for the purpose of destroying millions.  Things certainly change when you die and come back to life.

My cowardice would prove my undoing yet they were just as confused as I was and lost track of me; punching and kicking at nothing.  It looked like a vocal pantomime act and I couldn’t help but laugh which was another thing I hadn’t done in years.  It felt good.  I had time to make a decision and ran away through the door that they entered through but it wasn’t a door.  It was an elevator.  There was only one direction to go and that was up, which is where I went.  They didn’t realize what I had done until it was too late.  While inside, I tried to scan through the doors but the material they were made of prevented me from looking beyond.  And more tears were shed while I headed northward. 

During the ruckus, I did something I didn’t want to do.  I phased into one of the soldiers.  Who it was, I have no idea but no one fell or passed out, so the experience must have proven to be harmless.  What I originally deduced would happen actually did happen.  I gained some of that person’s memory but my passing through him must have been brief because I only gained two pieces of information that would haunt me forever.  For this person to know the information must’ve meant that he was high-ranking or he wouldn’t have known it.

I learned about an incident in the United States that was termed 9-11 where the same people we were building a bomb for used airplanes as a replacement.  That was bad news but the other news was what bothered me the most.  They originally wanted to use the acid bomb we were building but it wasn’t ready in time and still wouldn’t be ready until September of next year.  Our original timetable was still intact and they were still going ahead with its creation.  Vengeance and fear were my primary emotions.  And my brother; I knew he was like me; because of me.  I hoped he was still alive.  I hoped those people were alive behind the mouth if they were actually in it.  I began to wish I met the same fate as the six. 

There was only an up and down button in the elevator but the ride was a long one.  The building I was in must have been huge.  What would await me at the top, I wasn’t sure but I could be assured that the soldiers let whoever was above know I was coming.  I was prepared for the worst: tanks, jets, grenades…the works.  Instead, when the doors slid open, I emerged into a small room with a dim light and a small staircase leading to the low ceiling.  I walked up it and opened what had to be a camouflaged shed door and I saw that I was in the middle of the woods. 

No one was waiting for me.  I saw that the shed door was covered in grass as I ran to hide behind a tree.  There was a dirt road not far away where a man was putting a tarp over a missile transport trailer.  His truck looked like it could hold about twelve people so at least I knew where those soldiers came from.  The man got back in his truck and started driving away.  I ran faster than I ever did to hop on the back of the trailer with the small-scale missiles and the tension in my body was released but continued to build in my mind. 

I laid on my back on the top missile rack and looked up at the stars.  The driver and his two cute female passengers, probably his kids since they couldn’t have been any more than 11 or 12 years old, had no idea I was a stowaway.  I hadn’t seen the outdoors and enjoyed the view that this wonderful planet provided in years.  The lush green trees dancing in the wind.  The quaint deer stopping to stare at the vehicle with shining eyes.  The birds welcoming the rising sun with a melody.  It was dawn and I hadn’t seen the sun rise in ages.  Even with all the worry surrounding me, I welcomed my vacation and my accommodations.  And I damned myself for ever wanting to destroy such beauty.

I had never left my country but I knew I was leaving it for a good amount of time.  I had to leave to devise a plan to free my brother and his neighbors regardless if they were really there or not.  We had traveled a great distance already and I looked at the sun frequently to make sure the driver didn’t veer off of his western path which was the direction I wanted to go in. 

I needed to get to a reliable media source to blow the whistle on all that I had been through.  I wanted to get to London.  The driver’s constant complaints told me that the heat was apparently unbearable.  Not a surprise since we mostly traveled in the dessert.  But I felt fine and was unaffected.  I felt clean.  Always clean.  Even during a break to relieve themselves, I purposely rubbed my invisible self with dirt to see what would happen.  The dirt never stayed on or in the pores of my youthful skin.  It just fell off.

We made three stops along the way.  One in what had to be somewhere in India because off in the far distance I could see architecture that could only come from that country.  In a large grassy field is where the driver stopped next to a briefcase and he left the girls there.  As he drove off far from the dropsite, I could see him playing with the money in the passengers seat.  Perhaps they weren’t his daughters after all. 

Far behind us I could see someone, an older man, in a car picking up the girls.  I knew instantly the type of transaction that had just occurred.  How fitting for young Korean girls, probably orphaned, to be dumped here of all places where their hair and skin would allow them to fit in easily.  I had only heard about human trafficking and adolescent prostitution in the newspapers and tv but to see it before my very eyes made me lose some faith in humanity even more so than I lost faith in my government.

Our next stop was in the middle of the dessert.  I had no idea what country we were in but I knew it wasn’t India.  The driver pulled up next to a vehicle similar to his own which had three people in it.  Everyone got out of their vehicles and exchanged pleasantries like they all knew each other.  My Korean driver couldn’t have been an unintelligent man because he spoke the tongue of the three men whose heads were wrapped in turbans and they wore middle eastern clothing.  I thought we were in Iran or something but by listening to their conversation, I learned a lot more than our current location.

One man’s name was Osama Bin-Laden and he did all the talking for the other two.  My Korean driver’s name was Luk Lan-Ling Yoi and I could only understand what he had to say.  Osama gave him a briefcase and a set of keys.  They talked about the 9-11 incident and how Osama was responsible for the death of thousands and even that body count wasn’t high enough for him.  I couldn’t believe I was looking at my former financier and a murderer.  He looked like a peaceful man but he was pure evil to have led such an act.  Him and Jong-Il were of the same breed. 

They laughed about it and then talked about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan started by president Bush as a direct result of the New York bombings.  I didn’t know about either of those wars and I thought Clinton was still the U.S. president.  I had much to learn.  The missiles were for Osama.  I couldn’t tell what kind of weapons these were because of their casings and there were no tags, but they couldn’t have been any good coming from the republic into the hands of this devil.

Luk unloaded some personal items from his truck onto Osama’s and vice versa.  Then they switched vehicles.  He was going to Iraq for a weapons pickup and Osama was going to Pakistan.  I needed to stay with Luk for a while longer so he could get me closer to my destination but I didn’t know how to do that without making an imprint in the sand.  So I jumped into the other truck bed and tried to make it as quiet as possible.  The other truck had a stiff suspension so it didn’t shake all that much but it did make a small thud.  Not loud enough that they noticed it since they were standing in the front of the other one. 

After a few more minutes, everyone left.  Luk had two briefcases full of money the amount of which I didn’t know a person could possess.  And I got the impression this was his regular profession.  So much evil in this world and I had contributed to it years ago.  The acid bomb was still in progress and it was going to be given to this madman.  God only knew what his intentions were.

Our travels must have encompassed several more days.  Never once did he stop to eat because he brought his own rations.  He never stopped for gas because there was a storage of gas tanks in the back seat that Osama had for him the same way he left some gas tanks in a separate storage compartment on the missile transport for Osama.  Clearly this was nothing new to them.  The truck bed had gaps between its wooden floor and gas fumes and exhaust passed through them which was nauseous; even for me no matter where I stood.  A heightened sense of smell must be another ability because I almost passed out. 

We finally stopped in the outskirts of a town called Al Kut.  He stopped the truck in a field and walked towards a group of shanties; possibly a village.  I assumed this was the last stop, so I looked up to see the position of the sun.  It was high noon and I needed to go northwest which lucky for me was the opposite direction that he was walking in.  I remembered it was war times so I was careful.  Especially where I walked since long ago I helped develop land mines for this country.  Something else not to be proud of.

There was a river that I took a swim in and it was refreshing.  I didn’t need to shower or bathe but the natural flowing water soothed my nerves.  And it was the closest thing to a mirror that I had.  There was no one around for miles so I became visible and my reflection revealed what I had figured out long before.  I was young again.  In my prime years when I was in my mid-to-late twenties.  Scars that I had were no longer there.  My body was in better shape than it had ever been but I was no Arnold Schwarzenegger.  I was disappointed that my height didn’t increase from my 1.6 meter frame. 

The few fish that swam beside me looked tasty but I would not harm them since I didn’t require food anymore.  Yet some looked sickly and others were dead.  The people that I passed along the river on my journey to London were disrespectful to this planet.  The color of the water turned from clear to brown the further north I went along it to inhabited areas.  Some people bathed in the water.  Others washed clothes in it.  Those acts were fine.  But others urinated and defecated in it.  Poured chemicals into it.  Dumped trash into it.  I didn’t know what kind of progress I was making but I had to get out of that water because it was depressing me.  My life back home afforded me many luxuries but never of time to enjoy nature like I just did.  But I could see that many people weren’t appreciative of it.  Or of life itself.  I was one of those people but not anymore.

The signs of war made themselves known as I was on the far outskirts looking in at a battle in what looked like Baghdad.  It was beginning to get dark and although I could cloak myself, I didn’t want to take the chance of getting detected by any kind of radar.  And my footprints were always on my mind.  So I stopped myself in a town called Abu Ghraib.  I took a break on the outside of what looked like a prison.  Surely there were more important things than me going on there.  I would stay there until daylight and continue walking until I found a ride.  I reflected back and felt gracious that I didn’t step on anything that would have harmed me.  I was amongst the Americans and they had no idea I was there.  For some reason, I felt safe.  I wanted to somehow pass along the information to them about Osama but events would transpire to change my mind.

I was in the back of the prison lying in the dirt where I thought no one would find me since no one had passed by there for hours.  The lookout towers were on the far corners and the lighting wasn’t directly on the building, leaving a dark area which was where I laid.  I heard voices coming towards me.  I stood up and saw two female soldiers with no weapons which was a huge surprise to me.  They were pulling a thickly lined, covered steel drum behind them by a rope on a dolly with 4 large wheels.  They actually came to my location and stopped.  I thought they had seen me even as I was invisible but that idea went out the window when I saw that these girls were severely intoxicated. 

One of them called the other one by what seemed to be her name: Lynndie.  Then she passed out.  Lynndie was laughing for no reason and could barely stand as she removed the lid from the drum.  The stench of its contents were enough to make anyone pass out like her friend.  I don’t think they knew what they had in that barrel but since I did what I did for a living, I knew it was a decent concentration of hydrochloric acid.  And Lynndie almost dipped her hand into it, ignoring the vapors and dangers, as if she was going to splash it around like water but I stopped her and revealed myself.

She didn’t overreact in the slightest and no one else was coming.  Her friend was of no assistance to her as she put her arms around me like she knew I was a man although I was invisible.  Then she vomited on me but the chunks of whatever it was slid right off of me.  I became visible to her but it was a dark area so she couldn’t see me either way.  She spoke but I couldn’t understand her.  Then she kissed me with her vomit mouth.  Normally I would have been repulsed by such an act but I already had my freedom and sex was still next on the list.

She was practically unconscious for the whole duration of our sin but it didn’t matter to me.  The level of temptation was too great to resist and I needed to relieve years of tension.  It was clear while I was inside of her that she had fornicated earlier with others before me but that didn’t stop me either.  When I was done with her, I put her pants back on her but I still had enough energy left for her friend, who was much more attractive, but I had already acted out of character and didn’t want to do so twice.

I turned invisible again and left them lying away from the barrel and tried to phase through a wall to see just what kind of place I was at but these walls must have had some kind of metal in them.  I could still see through them faintly but not pass through them.  It was a prison after all.  I learned before that I could jump a good distance across but I was going to find out if I could do the same jumping up.

I managed to jump over the wall instead of on it and I was fortunate that no one was on the other side because the sand made a scene as I landed.  I walked around and it was quiet and empty for the most part.  A few Americans here and there but not many.  I listened in on some conversations and the only things that were mentioned the most that I could pronounce were “motherfucker,” “shit,” and “fuck” amongst a certain group of soldiers, and “Copper Green,” “1B,” and “1A” amongst others.  I had no idea what any of the words meant. 

I followed some of them and I was led to a place where I heard screams of absolute terror and the repetitive mention of “1A,” “piece of shit,” “bitch,” and “motherfucker.” Those words couldn’t have had any good meaning the way they were said this time.  What I heard turned into what I saw and I was repulsed to the point of doing what Lynndie did on me.  But there was nothing inside of me to come out.  The horrors that these Americans that the world worshipped could commit onto other humans was atrocious. 

A young girl and boy were being raped by three soldiers in front of the cell of a man, probably their father, who was crying profusely; the children doing the same.  A man got his hands and feet hacked off with a machete.  Another was anally sodomized with the tip of a just fired machine gun which was used to execute three other naked men with bags on their heads.  The whole time, one soldier was taking pictures of all this; smiling and laughing as if it was fun. 

I wanted to leave and bear witness no further but I couldn’t take my eyes off of the spectacle and I made sure not to make a sound although it would probably go unrecognized with the bloodcurdling shrieks around me.  I wanted to help these men but my cowardice controlled my actions and I felt I could only bring them more harm if I tried.  Then I heard the name Lynndie being yelled by one of the soldiers.

I was on the second floor of this grouping of cells and at the end was an open window.  More like an opening in the wall that led to the outside world two stories below.  I saw a soldier holding a man whose head was completely wrapped in duck tape and his feet were bound by a long rope.  Another soldier was looking down outside of the opening and yelling for Lynndie and the other woman whose name I guess was Sabrina since they were yelling that too.  Then they threw the man out the window and lowered him from the rope.  Why else would they yell for Lynndie and Sabrina unless they did what I thought they did?

  It must have been dark in the cells before and the carnage must have started after I left to take a tour of the prison because there was no indication any of this was going on.  I hadn’t known such cruelty could exist in the world.  Ever since I became what I am I had bared witness to and experienced the worst of what humans had to offer.  And I thought we were better than all of this.  Especially the Americans.  How could I tell them anything of Osama’s plans when in my mind it seemed like they deserved what they got and what was coming if they were all really like that?

I only wanted one thing: the camera.  I couldn’t save my own people; my own brother, from what was sure to be a similar fate.  With the exception of my sexual encounter which I was starting to regret, I feared that using my body for anything other than to help myself and my loved ones would expose me to the world and I would be used in the same manner as the airplanes, the guns, the swords, the missiles.  In other words, as a weapon. 

The affected Korean children…if it was true what they said, then the world only had dark days ahead of it.  But at this moment in time, if I could do nothing else, I could help these men, women, and children by letting the world know of what was happening to them.  The stars above had blessed me.  A celebration with the chant of “Copper Green” and gunfire erupted and the man holding the camera had put it down.  Everyone was too busy torturing someone to notice that I had taken the camera away.  Everyone except for one woman who was holding her three children closely behind bars.  Their blank expressions told me that they had seen this happen before and were now desensitized to it.  I was invisible but somehow she saw me, looked at me directly in my eyes, and spoke to me.  I didn’t know what it meant, but she said, “Shukran.”

Getting out was going to be a problem.  If anyone in the world saw a camera moving in the air with no one holding it, that would be an alarm.  So I did the most logical thing any thief with my abilities would do.  An anal insertion was out of the question so I took out the film and put it in my mouth.  I hoped that my saliva wouldn’t deteriorate the film in any way because I didn’t know the power of my own spit either.  I managed to get out the same way I came in and ran away as far as I could.  I didn’t trip any mines and no military personnel or rogue militants detected me as I walked along the side of a highway.  It was night and I didn’t know where I was or what direction I was going so I scanned the area.  I could see for miles away.  Next to the highway were some woods and on the other side of it was Baghdad.  But what would I do if I went there?  There was no one there that could help me.  Most certainly not the yang nom.   Or maybe they could.

I just happened to have scanned deep enough to see the parking lot of a place called the Palestine Hotel.  Talking in the parking lot was a man of dignity.  I knew this because I had to study his work on the My Lai massacre when I was earning my engineering degree.  If anyone could expose what I had just seen and do it right, it was him.  I ran and phased through everything I could to make the trip quick before he went inside the hotel or left in his car.  There weren’t many cars on the roads so getting hit wasn’t a worry.  A land mine still was though.

I had reached my destination.  There was an unusually high amount of security at the hotel but that didn’t stop me.  I was fortunate that there was nothing on the ground to give away my movements.  I was standing right next to him as he was talking to Christiane Amanpour.  I’d have never thought I would see her in person.  She was just as attractive up close and personal as she was on tv.  The energy I had reserved for Sabrina was starting to make itself known. 

I controlled my hormones and had to decide on who to give the film to.  I needed to make sure it got processed and both people in front of me were reputable.  I made my decision and placed it in the backpack of the person I felt would do the job right.  I had a strong feeling that the pictures would be seen and the lives of the people who died and were tortured in that prison would be avenged.

I didn’t need to go to London anymore.  I felt a sense of relief after my deed.  I was still upset over what the future may hold for the world if Jong-Il did what I hoped he wouldn’t do.  But I still only based that feeling on what I heard the spin doctors say.  I made myself believe none of it was true because I didn’t want that weight on my shoulders.  It was time for my second repentance.

Brother, I’m sorry.  I hope you can understand why things turned out the way they did.  Our government wanted to create a super weapon and they did just that and I am that weapon.  All my years in the field of nuclear technology were for naught.  I didn’t even realize that weapons were strictly made for destruction and death and I have seen a lifetime’s worth of it in a few short years.  I saw you shot down in front of me.  You bled and the bleeding didn’t stop as mine did.  And your age wasn’t decreased as mine was.  You are alive in my heart always.  The heart of a man who potentially has the power to destroy the world, or save it.  I choose neither.  Weapons don’t belong in the hands of man unless they are used as tools.  Man isn’t capable of using me in that way.  I wish I could join you in heaven brother, but it seems I’m forever stuck in this hell on earth.  Please forgive me.

 

One year later

I was now a man with no purpose but the look in the Iraqi woman’s eyes told me otherwise.  My purpose was to keep the greatest weapon of mass destruction out of the hands of man.  So I decided to live in seclusion which was a fine decision.  But I needed to be punished for my past abandonment.  So I secluded myself in the country I hated more than my own: the United States.  The Pacific Northwest.  The mountains and forests of Washington State where only one such as myself could tolerate the weather extremes.  With all the time spent there, there was lots of time to reminisce.  I still wondered what happened to my arm.  Was my blood splatter collected for experiments?  Was anything else contaminated from my ashes?

Mr. Hersh didn’t let me down and justice prevailed in the end.  But Lynndie…I had to wonder: who was the real father of her child?  Even though the baby didn’t resemble me, my dna was in her with the others.  Did I pass anything along to her?  Or the offspring? 

Osama.  I could have stopped him from committing other heinous crimes but I didn’t.  I could have done the same for my brother and his neighbors because they were all alive the whole time.  After what the soldiers at Abu Ghraib did to the soldier they threw out the window I knew right then and there the one thing that could stop me: acid.  It leaves nothing behind.  With the right mixture; the right concentration, it can completely dissolve anything.  Too bad I didn’t realize that sooner because today was September 10.  One day after the Yanggang explosion. 

But not just any explosion.  It was an underground acid bomb explosion.  Jong-Il figured it out and covered it up like everything else.  Osama would be upset but I’m sure it was worth the time for him to eliminate all traces of his mistakes.  But did he eliminate them from the media or from me for fear that I would expose him?  If that was the case, were the victims moved and still alive?  For months, I’ve had too many questions and no answers.  And now I had to live with the possibility of even more death on my head.  And the children.  I still didn’t know the truth and probably never would.  I earned this miserable lifestyle that I had now.

I discovered even more new abilities.  Flight was the most amazing of them all.  I used it to confirm my fears that it was indeed the underground base at Yanggang that exploded.  I scanned far into the planet and all of the intended signs of its detonation were there.  Not a trace of anything was left in the large hole that was already filled in with tons of new earth.  Still, what environmental effect did it have?  The north republic must have drastically reduced the bomb’s scale and range to deal with their mistake as quietly as possible.  If it was a full scale bomb then the entire province wouldn’t even exist anymore. 

My flight almost caused a problem because I had a moment of stupidity that might have cost me my identity.  Rather than fly over naked at night high in the air, I was fully clothed and visible in the day low to the ground.  A photographer captured me on film while I was in the sky on my return flight.  He made a lot of money from the tabloids but his story joined the ranks of Bigfoot as myth.  But the legend of the flying Washingtonian would remain just as I have remained.  And I would remain forever by my own decision.

 

300 years later

It took the natural death of Jong-Il to unite the two Koreas into one and I am proud of our new democratic government.  With the exception of China and Russia, it is a democratic world government.  One world.  No one ever thought such a thing like this could happen but two years ago when the United Nations and the people of the planet selected their cabinet, it became a reality.  My fears of there being others left in the world like me have all either been proven false or haven’t happened yet.

Many wars and coups happened during the transition.  But the good guys always won.  The media contributed the streak of victories to what they dubbed “the Invisible Hand.” Events always ended in the favor of the United Nations’ military called the Coalition.  Little did they know that what they used to sell stories and merchandise was actually a reality.  I was the Invisible Hand.  I couldn’t sit idly by and watch the world stay stagnant.  I decided to use my powers for good to right the wrongs that I didn’t prevent and helped create centuries before.

I have learned to turn other objects invisible by maintaining contact with them.  Now I can fly fully clothed to Seattle to access the public library to get online to find out what’s going on in the world.  The Unicode protocol has helped out foreigners like me tremendously.  I am still living in the stone age with other technology though.  I had to learn just enough English to convince someone to make me a fake identification to prove my residence and citizenship to get a state identification which seconded as a library card.  In return?  I had to help him steal something.  From that loathsome but necessary experience I learned that my strength still isn’t as great as I thought it would be.  And that there were still scoundrels left in the world.

I’m one of the old-fashioned ones left in the world that still preferred physical money to purchase goods instead of credit like most people these days.  When I’m in the city, I wear clothes I obtain from outdoor thrift store collection bins.  When I’m not in the city, I’m naked atop the mountains, Mount Olympus being my preferred spot since it has the least amount of tourists.  I find money using my vision from high above to locate lost change or bills.  I’m amazed at how much people are willing to forget.  My credit account has amassed a large sum but I haven’t much use for it if any at all.  I still have no need for food or shower or anything else except information but I was willing to make an exception one day.  I’ve learned that change is good sometimes.

I never took the initiative to learn the native language here because I was still punishing myself, so I’ve never really asked anyone else a question other than myself since the accident.  I very rarely spoke to or interacted with anyone because I would just outlive them all and suffer more mental anguish.  I had no reason to smile here.  Death is a fact of life for everyone around me except me.  I was truly alone and that was my original ambition.  But other than the need for sex which masturbation could easily control, I needed human contact.  I was through punishing myself.  If I truly wanted to end it all, I could just find the right ingredients to fully dissolve myself and end this curse.  But without me, the world wouldn’t be what it is and that’s what keeps me going.

On this exceptional day, I search for a place to eat.  The need for modern conveniences reawakens within me.  It wouldn’t do me any good to have that feeling of being full, if it was even possible, but I still want to eat something.  To taste again.  To drink again.  To use the bathroom again.  I want to feel those sensations again if only for one day.

There are no Korean restaurants in Seattle and I miss my home food.  I could easily go back home to Korea as it’s called now, as it always should have been called, but I feel the need to remain here.  Subconsciously, I am still punishing myself.  One of my fellow countrymen would be wise to open a place here, which could’ve been my brother centuries ago, because these Americans don’t know what good food is until they’ve tried some good kimchi with soju.  I’m one to talk since I haven’t eaten in over 3 centuries.

I decided to walk to the downtown core today and that’s a long walk.  My walking and running speed has drastically increased so it wasn’t much of a problem.  I always try to avoid touching or bumping into anyone, and there’s lots of people walking around today like every day, because my phasing ability is going through some changes and I don’t want to hurt anyone. 

Just when I thought there were no Korean restaurants around, I see a small restaurant called Korean Bistro with all of their signage written in Korean and English and they’re hiring.  I had a confident feeling that it was an authentic establishment.  It’s been ages since I spoke my own language to anyone else and I wasn’t going to pass on this opportunity.  I walked in and instead of having a conversation, all I could do was cry uncontrollably. 

I put my phasing fear aside and embraced a man who finally took the suggestion I gave him so long ago.  His coworkers emerged wondering what was going on and even they started to cry along with us and the job applicants.  My tears were of joy and of shame.  I had cursed my brother to a life everlasting that wasn’t his choice to have, but I wasn’t alone anymore.  I had someone like me to talk to which regardless of the circumstances isn’t a bad thing right now.  Someone to ask questions to and there were too many conjuring in my head to verbalize.  But I did think of one as I wiped away my tears and looked at his face which was in better wears than the last time I had seen him.

“So are you going to give me an application or what?”

The End

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