112- The clouds in our heads
Where did you really curfew that nite? Not a seedy motel?
No. We xited the overway at xit two, then forked onto an unlit country lane. A dike of thorned pines hid an industrial field of a hundred-plus units. So close to curfew, our ford was the only vehicle in motion. We parked and crossed a windy forecourt to a concrete bloc signed HYDRA NUR- SERY CORP. Hae-Joo's Soul blinked the rollerdoor open.
Inside was not a horticulture unit but a redlit ark, roofing giant tanks. The air was uncomfortably warm and moist. The tangled, stringy broth I saw through the tanks' vi Benji windows concealed their contents, for a moment. Then individual limbs and hands came into focus, nascent, identi- cal faces.
Wombtanks?
Yes. We were in a genomics unit. I watched the clusters of embryo fabri- cants suspended in uterine gel; I was witnessing my own origin, remember. Some slept, some sucked thumbs, some scurried a hand or foot as if dig- ging or running. I asked Hae-Joo, had I been cultivated in that place? Hae- Joo said no, Papa Song's nursery in Kwangju is five times bigger. The em- bryos I was looking at had been designed to labor in uranium tunnels under the Yellow Sea. Their saucerlike eyes were genomed for darkness. In fact, they go insane if xposed to brite unfiltered daylite.
The heat soon had Hae-Joo shiny with sweat. "You must need Soap, Sonmi. Our penthouse is this way."
A penthouse? In a fabricant nursery?
The Unionman was fond of irony. Our "penthouse" was a niteman's sparse room, a concrete-walled space containing only a water shower, a single cot, a desk, a stack of chairs, a choked aircon, and a broken ping-pong ta- ble. Fat pipes throbbed hot across the ceiling. A sonypanel monitored the wombtanks, and a window overlooked the nursery. Hae-Joo suggested I take a shower now as he could not guarantee one tomorrow nite. He strung up a tarp for privacy and built a bed from chairs for himself while I washed my body. A sac of Soap was waiting on the cot with a set of new clothes.
You didn't feel vulnerable, sleeping in the middle of nowhere without even knowing Hae-Joo Im's true name?
I was too toxed. Fabricants stay awake for over twenty hours thanks to Soap, then we drop.
When I woke a few hours later, Hae-Joo was snoring on his cloak. I studied a scab of clotted blood on his cheek, scratched as we fled Taemo- san. Pureblood skin is so delicate compared to ours. His eyeballs gyred be- hind their lids; nothing else in the room moved. He may have said Xi-Li's name, or perhaps it was just noise. I wondered which "I" he was when he dreamed. Then I blinked my Soul on Hae-Joo's handsony to learn about my own alias, Yun-Ah Yoo. I was a student genomicist, born Secondmonth 30th in Naju during the Year of the Horse. Father was a Papa Song's aide; Mother a housewife; no siblings … the data onscrolled for tens of pages, hundreds. The curfew faded away. Hae-Joo woke, massaging his temples. "Ok-Kyun Pyo would love a strong cup of starbuck."
I decided the time had come to ask the question that had seized me in the disneyarium. Why had Union paid such a crippling price to protect one xperimental fabricant?
"Ah." Hae-Joo mumbled and picked sleep from his eyes. "Long answer, long journey."
More evasion?
No. He answered as we drove deeper into the country. I shall précis it for your orison, Archivist. Nea So Copros is poisoning itself to death. Its soil is polluted, its rivers lifeless, its air toxloaded, its food supplies riddled
with rogue genes. The downstrata cannot buy drugs to counter these priva- tions. Melanoma and malaria belts advance northward at forty kilometers per year. Those Production Zones of Africa and Indonesia that supply Con- sumer Zones are now 60-plus percent uninhabitable. Corpocracy's legiti- macy, its wealth, is drying up. The Juche's rounds of new Enrichment Stat- utes are sticking band-aids on hemorrhages and amputations. Corpocracy's only strategy is that long favored by bankrupt ideologies: denial. Down- strata purebloods fall into untermensch sinks. Xecs merely watch, parrot- ing Catechism Seven: "A Soul's value is the dollars therein."
But what would be the logic in allowing downstrata purebloods to … end in places like Huamdonggil? As a class? What could replace their labor?
Us. Fabricants. We cost almost nothing to manufacture and have no awkward hankerings for a better, freer life. We conveniently xpire after forty-eight hours without a specialized Soap and so cannot run away. We are perfect organic machinery. Do you still maintain there are no slaves in Nea So Copros?
**
Remember rihgt ?
"Shut up, shut up, I know what you are!" The young man had a froggish mouth and the hurt eyes then in vogue. "But you're not supposed to be here until fifthday! If those registry dildos xpect me to cancel a five-star Tai- wanese conference just because they can't read calendars, well, sorry, they can suck maggots in an ebola pit. I only came in to pick up my worksony and discs. I'm not babysitting any xperimental clone still in uniform when I could be sinning myself sticky in Taipei."
The fly hit the window again; the student picked up a pamphlet and pushed past me. The whack made me jump. He inspected the smear with a laugh of triumph. "Let that be a warning to you! Nobody double-crosses Boom-Sook Kim! Now. Don't touch anything, don't go anywhere. Soap's in the boxfridge – thank Chairman they delivered your feed early. I'll be back late on sixthday. If I don't leave for the aeroport now I'll miss my flite." He went, then reappeared in the doorway. "You can talk, can't you?"
I nodded.