Eden's Solitary Way [Archive] - TheHolo.Net Forums

Dragon

Oct 24th, 2008, 10:23:54 PM

They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,
Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate
With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes:
Som natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
Through Eden took thir solitarie way.

Paradise Lost, Book XII

Chunggang, North Korea, 9 April 1998

The Asian constellations burned bright in the absence of city lights, but try as he might, John Rhee could not get them to come into focus or to stop bouncing across the sky. His head jostled back and forth between the rubber braces; they were too tight for him to turn his neck, but not tight enough to keep him from banging his head with every jarring bump the gurney took, and there were many. He had a vague sensation of pain, but he couldn't localize it.

He could only make out shadows around him. Every now and then the flashlight beams would swing around, and he would see the green uniforms and the black assault rifles. Once he saw the faces of the two men wheeling the gurney. They were smooth faces, children's faces. They were afraid.

He heard a growling engine behind him, the direction they were heading. He coughed and tried to force words from his parched throat in his native Korean. "Water."

One of the boys signaled to someone outside his field of vision, and a canteen was dangled over his mouth. Water fell out, no more than a tablespoon, and John hungrily licked it off his cracked and bloody lips.

From somewhere else, he felt a needleprick. And then his vision left him entirely.

"I don't like this, John. I don't like it at all."

"Ethan, it's something I have to do. Jin-Ae was more than a comrade. She was like a sister to me. She was the one who protected me when I was first brought into the Mutant Development Program. If there's even a chance..."

"If there's a chance, we need to confirm it through our own channels. How do you know someone else isn't using her name, or that she didn't send this message under coercion?"

"I know, Ethan. We were trained not to break under torture. Even Dr. Maeng couldn't undo his own programming."

"And that's what concerns me the most. She was in the program longer than you were. Why after all these years would she suddenly want to defect?"

"Maybe it took her longer to see what Dr. Maeng was doing to us. I know it's a risk, Ethan. You took a risk when you recruited me. I owe her the same consideration."

"You realize we can't offer you support on this one? The X-Men are too scattered right now, especially after Dr. Cullen... Maybe if you waited. Just one month."

"One month may be too late. I have to go, Ethan. Look, I understand. I've worked alone before. And anyway, this is a personal matter. The X-Men don't need to be involved."

"I still don't like it. ...All right, John. I know I can't persuade you. Just be careful. We've lost too many good people lately."

"I don't mean to be lost, Ethan. I promise I'll come back."

When John came to, there was a roaring in his ears and the sound of fluttering canvas above him. The gurney had been collapsed and clamped into the bed of a military transport, which was speeding down an uneven jungle road, and a lantern was swinging crazily from one of the roll bars. It took him a few moments to adjust to the light. Around him sat a dozen armed soldiers, talking and joking with one another, resting their boots against the side of the gurney.

Only one of them was silent, a woman with an alabaster face like a Joseon ink painting. She was jostled about between the other green uniforms, but she sat passively, lifelessly, as if all her spirit had left her. She was staring into John's eyes with a wistfulness he couldn't name.

His mind clawed its way up out of the haze of the drugs as he stared back, and he mouthed the word Why?

She didn't answer. Slowly, she turned away. And then he heard Jin-Ae's voice in his mind: If only I were able, I would weep for you, Jin-Sang.

The truck rumbled on through the Korean night.

Chartis

Oct 28th, 2008, 01:31:45 PM

<o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com<img src=" forum="" images="" smilies="" blush.gif="" border="0" alt="" title="Blush" smilieid="2" class="inlineimg"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com<img src=" forum="" images="" smilies="" blush.gif="" border="0" alt="" title="Blush" smilieid="2" class="inlineimg"></o:smarttagtype> An hour earlier in the lobby of Des Bergues, a concierge had kindly offered to arrange for a travel companion to accompany her home. The fact that home was nearly four thousand miles away was of no consideration whatsoever. What mattered was that she was the only child of a diplomat, and she had come with controversial intergovernmental business and no entourage.

In <st1><st1:city w:st="on">Geneva</st1:city></st1>, that was nothing short of scandalous.

For a full twenty minutes the point had politely been argued. The concierge had intoned with real distress in his voice, that it simply wasn't [I]safe for a single woman to travel alone. Much to his confusion and dismay, Clarity had continued to refute his claims. Finally, after a particularly compelling plea on his part, the young woman had smiled benignly and canted her head to one side, clear blue eyes sparkling with unexplained amusement.

"Monsieur Baertschi," She'd said, her pronunciation curling softly around an iron-plated <st1><st1:city w:st="on">Zurich</st1:city></st1> accent, "I can promise you with absolute confidence that it would be far more dangerous for someone to come with me."

Nothing more he said could dissuade her. Finally, in a state of general anxiety, he'd pursed his lips together and retreated to his desk to summon for her things. Clarity had excused herself to the ladies room.

Seconds later she was in <st1><st1:city w:st="on">Westchester</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">New York</st1:state></st1>.

* * *

The minutes immediately after Clarity Cleine opened her eyes in the foyer of Cullen's Institute weren't so much a blur as a series of disconnected scenes.

Sounds melted together in a jumble of pitch and volume. Her eyes registered the bustling movement of students and staff alike in stop animation, each frame bleeding into the next. Everything was just a little [I]off, and it made her dizzy. With a groan, Clarity closed her eyelids tightly and pressed a steadying hand against the wall.

Oh, that plate of eggs hollandaise was coming back to haunt her now.

When she was mildly certain that her lunch wouldn't be reappearing, the mutant stumbled drunkenly across the entrance hall and hauled herself up the wide staircase. Clarity didn't stop until she'd reached Ethan's office. She knocked once on the door before staggering through and collapsing into one of the cozy chairs.

"I'm getting better at these international jumps." Clarity said in way of greeting. Thumb and forefinger pressed against her eyelids. "Haven't thrown up once."

"Yet." Ethan's wry voice replied. Clarity snorted. "How'd it go?"

She made a face and shrugged. "Alright. A lot better than it did in <st1><st1:state w:st="on">Washington</st1:state></st1> ." A stray bit of blond hair escaped from behind her ear, and the woman began to twirl it idly between her fingers. "I've got to talk to John though - bounce some ideas about education programs off him. I sent him a message a few days ago but he never answered."

A distinct pause followed before Ethan said, "John's not here."

There was enough significance in his tone to perk Clarity's attention. It was the same inflection they all used in public situations to privately alert one another about important situations. An expression of puzzled curiosity crossed the European's face, and she frowned. "Oh. Well, is he coming back soon?"

"I don't know."

"What does that mean?"

"He's in <st1><st1:country-region w:st="on">Korea</st1:country-region></st1>."

Now that had her attention. "What's going on in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1>Korea</st1></st1:country-region>? I didn't know we were--"

"We're not. John's flying solo." Ethan sighed and the look on his face set Clarity on edge. "It's a personal thing. Someone he cares about might need help."

"Might need help? Okay. You're worried."

Ethan's brow furrowed and he weighed his words carefully before answering. "It just... didn't seem entirely secure. There were a lot of questions that needed answering, but there wasn't time to work them out. I tried to convince him to wait but..."

Clarity nodded; once John made up his mind, there was no un-making it. Still, she felt like she was trying to keep pace in the dark and Ethan's obvious discomfort with the circumstances only ratcheted up her own growing concern. What was so important that John would ignore potential warning signs and go ahead all by his lonesome?

"E, what's going on?" The helpless lilt in her voice was somewhere between a plea and a demand. Meeting his eyes with unfailing attention, Clarity waited while Ethan haltingly filled in the blanks. She listened raptly, without interrupting, and when he was finished the woman leaned back deeply into her chair. Her hands twined together in her lap, heavy.

“And he’s alone?” At Ethan’s nod, Clarity made a little strangling noise. “Hell.”

“Clar.” She glanced up and something nasty twisted in her stomach at the look on Ethan’s face. He didn’t say anything for a beat, and then, “It’s been a week and we haven’t heard from him. It could mean nothing but…”

They locked eyes. “But you think it does.”

“Yes. I do.”

Clarity gave a short nod and then stood up, swaying only slightly now. She was aware of Ethan getting up behind her and coming around his desk to follow her to the door. “Where are you going?”

“To find out everything I can about John Rhee and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1>Korea</st1></st1:country-region>.” Clarity answered shortly. She spun quickly and shook her head against his already-rising protest. “If he’s in trouble we’ll need some idea of what we’re dealing with.”

**<o>*

</o>
<o> </o>An hour later Clarity surfaced from the sub-basement and briskly excused herself to her room.

Seconds later she was in Chagang province, North Korea.

Dragon

Nov 1st, 2008, 03:00:45 AM

The fevered dreams gave way to a blinding light. At first John thought he was still dreaming - his arms and legs would not move, and he could hear nothing but a dull roar in his eardrums, but gradually the roar faded, and he realized he was lying bound to a table and naked from the waist up. As he breathed he could feel medical tape pulling at his chest.

"Welcome home, Heart of Dragon."

The voice was a dry and toneless rasp, just as he remembered it. It was a voice he'd hoped he'd never hear again. For one, horrifying second, it felt as though he had never left, as if his years of freedom with the X-Men were nothing but dreams, and he'd been here all along in the care of Dr. Maeng and the Korean Mutant Development Program.

Slowly his eyes adjusted to the brash light and the room drifted into focus. He saw a pane of fluorescent light guarded by a metal cage and riveted in a cement ceiling. A spider's web of wires ran from machines along the dirty concrete walls to diodes taped to his chest and head. His wrists and ankles were fastened with iron manacles to the table. He could see no doors or windows, but hanging from the ceiling was a black, reflective globe that he knew concealed a camera.

"How do your accommodations suit you?" The voice came from everywhere at once. John couldn't see the speakers.

He flexed his hands but could not budge the restraints. "Why don't you come in and find out?" he asked.

"No need," said Dr. Maeng. "I can see you fine from here. I can see the function of every organ in your body. The bloodflow to your muscles. How you've been eating in the past month. The synapses firing as you try to plan your escape. You have no secrets from me, Li Jin-Sang."

There was the hiss of an airtight seal behind John, and a heavy iron door groaned open. An orderly entered with a pouch of water and a rubber tube. He fed the tube to John's mouth, and John's lips closed around it. He drank as much as he was allowed before the orderly pulled the pouch away and left him again.

"You deserted your country, Li Jin-Sang. After we welcomed you. Trained you. Made you into what you are today."

"Am I supposed to thank you?"

"You are supposed to honor your duty to the state and people of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea."

"My duty is to my own soul. And you cannot bind that."

"Can't I?" John knew the tone of voice, and he could imagine Dr. Maeng's pinched face as he said it. "Can't I? Perhaps you do not know your own soul as well as you think. Tell me, how are your friends at your American school for mutants?"

John said nothing. He silently began setting his ch'i to work against the manacles, trying to test just how much give they would allow him.

"Do you think they're coming to rescue you?"

"No need," John replied. "I'll escape you on my own just like I did years ago."

"They're not coming," Dr. Maeng said. "You see, we shot down an American jet over the Sea of Japan. It was carrying six mutants. Your friends. They're all dead now."

John ignored him and continued to twist at the manacles.

"Of course you don't believe me," Dr. Maeng said. "You doubt that they are coming for you, and even if they were, you doubt that we could identify their aircraft, much less shoot it down. The mind is eager to doubt. But the soul is eager to believe. And believe me when I say that all your friends are dead."

Suddenly, something broke over John like a wave of ice-cold water, and he felt all his muscles go limp. There was a weight on his chest that left him gasping for breath, and a hollow pit had opened in his stomach. It took him a moment to realize what he was feeling - shock, fear, grief, loss. Faces flew by his mind's eye - Ethan, Francoise, Johnathan, Maxine, Clarity...

"No," he said feebly, and then he ground his jaws together and rasped, "You're lying."

"You don't sound so sure of yourself," Dr. Maeng replied. "Could it be that your emotions are betraying you?"

Angered, John's mouth came open to fire off a retort, but all at once the searing anguish was gone. "What..." he gasped, and then he forced the question away. He refused to give his captor any satisfaction.

But the triumph in Dr. Maeng's voice was unmistakeable. "Man, whether human or mutant, is an animal like any other. A chemical machine. Your passions, your loyalties, your will... they are nothing more than a collection of chemical reactions and electrical impulses. Say I were to tell you again: your friends are dead..."

John felt the shock again, seizing him with an almost painful suddenness, only this time it was different, expanding rather than contracting, heady and overwhelming, and before he realized it, he was laughing, his bruised body aching and his lungs burning as his mind flooded with images of the X-Jet tumbling to the sea in flames.

And then the feeling was gone again, and John shuddered and tried to burn the images from his mind. He stared numbly at the dark globe on the ceiling.

"You see, Jin-Sang, you are valuable to the state for what you are, while I am valuable for what I can do. If you disappear, my superiors want you back no matter the cost. They wish to stockpile mutants like nuclear weapons. But if I stop inventing, discovering, achieving results, I can be replaced.

"What you experienced was my latest innovation. I have created a series of microscopic machines capable of manipulating the brain with minute electrical discharges. The control is rudimentary - I can only manipulate the most primal sectors of the brain. Instinct. Emotion. But even that is enough. Where the passions go, so go the mind and the will.

"Are you afraid?"

John felt every muscle in his body seize up, and he gasped, trembling in his restraints.

"Angry?"

His breath shortened, and he could feel rage sweltering inside him - the tips of his fingers began to glow with the force of his ch'i.

"Or sorry?"

The glow disappeared, and he felt the emptiness in his stomach again. His throat tightened, and he gave a dry, strangled sob.

"You, like Jin-Ae, are whatever I tell you to be. In a few weeks, you will be as loyal as I demand. My methods are foolproof."

A projected image appeared on the wall in front of John, so large he couldn't turn his face away from it. It was war footage - soldiers marching, weapons firing, burning homes and ruined villages, swollen bodies mangled and piled like firewood.

As he watched, a warmth began to swell in his chest, satisfaction, a sense of justice, of pride, then glee, and then laughter - his chest spasmed painfully as he tried to hold it back, but it was a futile fight.

"Good night, Jin-Sang, said Dr. Maeng. "I will check on you in the morning."

The overhead light winked out, leaving John lying and laughing helplessly at the scenes of carnage on the wall.

Chartis

Dec 2nd, 2008, 01:33:59 AM

'Port lag was a bitch.

Crossing three time zones in less than twenty-four hours was doing a number on Clarity. Nevermind the fact that her mutation was barely classed as predictable for such long jumps, her biological clock was going haywire trying to adjust. She felt sluggish as she emerged from behind a squat factory that sat on the bank of an icy river; it was not a reassuring state to start an exploratory mission in.

There was a buzzing sound coming from the building and Clarity rubbed at her ears, still ringing from the travel. A moment later a sturdy truck, the back covered with a tarp, pulled up to a side door. Clarity watched as the door was opened and a slew of female workers emerged, giant spools of tightly-wrapped thread carried between them.

Silk. It was a silk factory, she realized. Clarity watched with interest for a moment and offered a smile when one of them glanced her way. The woman's eyes widened, and she pointed at Clarity and whispered to a companion. Soon they were all staring.

Sudden realization washed over her, and Clarity glanced down at the uniform she wore. It was a little more... fitted, than anything the other women were wearing. She'd have to find something to pull over it if she wanted to be inconspicuous.

Huichon was a surprisingly bustling city and after making a quick stop to purchase a plain durumagi to drape over herself, Clarity began to discreetly look around.

It became abundtly clear very quickly that she had no idea what she was doing.

"Where are you, John?" The woman sighed and glanced up at the mountainous expanse of the Osudok Forest. It stretched on endlessly.

Bullet-like shouts drew her attention away from the view, and Clarity turned to find a pair of men in military attire, yelling at a shopkeeper who was keeping his gaze down and raising his hands apologetically. One of the soldiers - she assumed that's what they were - boomed something in Korean and pointed emphatically at the mountain range. From the way the shopkeeper paled, it appeared he'd been threatened.

Clarity's instincts went on alert. She glanced back up at the range where the uniformed man had pointed. It was staggered and had a thick treeline; it would be very easy to get lost. Or to hide.

The men were still busy screaming. With one last glance around her, Clarity quietly circled around them to their unattended off-road vehicle. There was a small space between the cab and the cargo area, shielded by the excess tarp draped over the back.

"You had better be alive, Rhee." Clarity muttered as she slipped into the space and tugged the canvas down over her. "Because I'm going to kill you when I find you."

Dragon

Dec 23rd, 2008, 12:45:18 AM

The lights switched on violently, burning John Rhee's eyes through his tightly closed eyelids. For a moment he couldn't even open them; his eyes were crusted over with sandy residue.

He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, or how long it had been before the projector finally shut off and left him in relative peace. It was hard to mark the passing of time in captivity; there was no discernible past or future, only an oppressive, unrelenting present.

John had been in worse traps before, in greater pain, in greater danger. Yet already he felt exhausted from the onslaught of artificial emotions, and he couldn't find the inner peace he was accustomed to. Never, since the X-Men had helped him escape Maeng's clutches for the first time, had he felt so exposed, so vulnerable.

The door behind him opened with a mechanical clang, and his eyes fluttered open, his vision still blurry. But he didn't need to see to know who had just entered. He recognized that ch'i.

Jin-Ae slowly circled around the front of the table. John saw her slender form as a blur against the blinding light.

"You understand, now, what he can do," she said. "You know the power he wields."

John opened his cracked lips, coughed, and swallowed to squeeze some moisture into his parched throat. "The power to make you a pawn?" he croaked. "I don't believe it."

"You build resistance after a time," Jin-Ae continued. "Your natural emotions will not be not strong enough to move you. You will feel nothing at all except what he wishes you to feel."

"And what did you feel that made you betray me?" John couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. At least he knew it was genuine. "I know the message wasn't forged. It was in code. Our code."

"You are right, Jin-Sang," she replied. "You have every right to hate me for it. Cling to it. While it lasts."

John's eyes snapped open, and he threw his muscles against his restraints, his aura flashing like a signal flare. The force rattled the whole table and echoed through the cell, but it wasn't nearly enough to break free.

With a monumental effort, he calmed himself and looked imploringly into Jin-Ae's lifeless eyes. "Help me," he said. "We can still escape together. I have powerful friends - we can help you. Undo what he did to you."

Jin-Ae shook her head. "There is no cure, Jin-Sang. Dr. Maeng has made sure of that. Even if the machines were removed, I could never be as I was before. A week, maybe two, and you will be the same."

John's eyes narrowed. "And you want me to share in you misery?"

Jin-Ae leaned down, and, with unexpected tenderness, brushed the residue of tears away from John's eyes.

And once again he heard her voice inside his head.

"No. I want you to avenge me, Heart of Dragon."