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Fiction

A Small Extinction: Part 1

By Bora Chung
Translated from Korean by Anton Hur
When a new mother makes a drastic, life-changing decision, her horrified sister tries to intervene in this futuristic tale by Bora Chung.

When her little sister said she was going to become a machine, Sang was against it. This was around the time when the new billionaire fad was sending manned and unmanned spacecraft into space for fun, and the news was reporting on the possible discovery of life on other planets. The billionaires’ companies that had made them billionaires were all preparing for a transhuman era where people could exist beyond space, and were advertising the fact. The melodious voice-over on the ad would seductively whisper, “With the least invasive of procedures, you will be able to reach your full potential.” And women wearing silver armor tailored to fit their slim bodies would be holding expensive-looking phones in their hands and walking back and forth past large window-walls. The sun shining outside would change into a starry night sky and a grand voice would boom, “Beyond Humanity, to Space!”

These ads looked fancy but neglected to impart any specific information. According to her sister’s research, the options for becoming a machine ranged from surgically attaching a comms device or camera or other sensory amplifier to the body to transitioning completely and replacing the entire body with machines—the choice was up to the individual. The operation and recovery would be paid for by the technology firm, and the parts themselves, the cameras and whatnot, would be covered by the transitioner. Of course, any postsurgical upgrades or augmentations were completely by choice and up to the transitioner to pay for, but even these were sometimes covered by insurance.

This wasn’t long after Sang’s sister had given birth. Sang had also opposed her having children on her own. Not because she believed marriage should come first but because it was clear to her that raising a child on one’s own was very, very taxing. Even now her sister had a different job for every day of the week, and when home she was still on constant call for outside deliveries. Who was going to take care of the baby then? And even if she found someone, how was she ever going to coordinate time with that person when everyone is running around all over the place these days? On top of it all, even with overtime she was barely making ends meet, so how was she going to afford the child’s diapers, milk, or the occasional toy? Her pregnancy and pre- and postnatal care were also a problem. She worked on hourly contracts, which meant there was no paid maternity leave. Once she had the baby, she would have to simply take herself off the platforms for a while. And there was no guarantee she would get the same amount of work when she returned. She would have to carry the baby around with her as she looked for other work. To Sang, her sister seemed to be tilting at windmills in the face of such adversity.

“You’ve never had a baby, unni, what would you know about it?”

That was all her sister had to say to Sang. And while Sang stewed in her surprise and rage, her sister found a sperm bank and IVF clinic and got pregnant on her first attempt. When her sister joyfully showed her a snapshot of the ultrasound, Sang was still beset with worry, but there was a corner of her heart that did warm to her sister’s enthusiasm. Most importantly, the baby in her sister’s womb was growing well, and Sang tried to be optimistic and believe things would turn out well in the end. Her sister, saying the country would provide subsidies and other help she could apply for, showed her all of the relevant literature she had collected from her clinic and municipal office, expertly flicking through it at a rate much faster than Sang could take in the information. Sang tried to reassure herself that her sister was well-prepared, not just for a few days or weeks but for the next nine months, that surely she would come up with a feasible plan, and that, since Sang herself was only the aunt, after all, and not the mother, her sister must do what she felt was right. But Sang had done some research on her own, into topics such as the effect transhuman transition had on bodies that had given birth.

When she objected once more, her sister said, “But you’ve transitioned! Why can’t I?”

“Have you lost your mind?” Sang held her ground this time. “My transition is nowhere near the level of your transition!”

“What’s the big difference?” her sister shouted back. “And it’s my body, my choice!”

Before Sang could reply that that wasn’t what “my body, my choice” meant, her sister went on the offensive.

“You were the one who kept going on about my having to raise this child on my own! I’m trying to do this so I can become a better earner. Once I’m a robot, I’ll be able to take care of the baby better, and any joints that I injure can be replaced like car parts, so I can continue to hold the baby. I don’t have to worry about getting sick as much, and downtime from injuries would be much less, and my circuits would be connected to the network, which means I could manipulate my home environment directly and get information much faster than I do staring at a phone. This is the best thing for anyone raising a child alone. Why can’t you try to see things my way before getting mad at me?”

“But it makes no sense to become a robot so you can be a better parent! What is the child going to learn from a machine mother? And I told you from the start that raising a child on your own wouldn’t be a walk in the park!”

“Well, it’s not like I can put the baby back inside me, what else am I supposed to do?”

A baby’s cries drowned out her sister’s voice.

“I’m hanging up. The baby is awake thanks to you, unni.”

Before she could protest the blame for having woken the baby, her sister hung up. That was the last conversation they had. Seryu lived in a southern neighborhood and had been trying to move farther south to escape the city ever since her child was born. Sang lived in the northern part, and her work took her all over the city. The southern and northern ends were not so far apart that it was impossible for them to meet, but Sang and Seryu were hardly close even in the best of times. After that conversation, Sang left a message begging her to reconsider her decision to become a machine, and then never picked up her sister’s subsequent calls.

And today, her sister had left a puzzling voice message.

WE ARE THE INTERSTELLAR UNION’S LEVEL 2 DELEGATES ASSIGNED TO THE PLANET EARTH. WE GIVE YOU THIS INFORMATION AS WE’VE BEEN ASKED TO IDENTIFY OURSELVES. WE CANNOT DISCLOSE ANY MORE INFO.

Mystified, Sang sent a message that immediately showed as read, but her sister did not reply. She called her sister; she did not pick up. To be more precise, the tone went on for a moment before disconnecting. She called again. It disconnected again.

Sang felt more and more anxious and confused. It was times like these when it was painfully clear that they had no other family, acquaintances, or friends in common to ask after each other. After some hesitation, she called the police.

The call suddenly dropped. She tried again and it dropped again.

Sang tapped her police app. Hesitating between “REPORT” and “CONSULT,” she pressed the latter. When she told the chatbot that she was worried about her sister, the chatbot icon blinked, indicating an answer was being typed. She waited.

The chatbot finally answered.

WE ARE THE INTERSTELLAR UNION’S LEVEL 2 DELEGATES ASSIGNED TO THE PLANET EARTH. WE GIVE YOU THIS INFORMATION AS WE’VE BEEN ASKED TO IDENTIFY OURSELVES. WE CANNOT DISCLOSE ANY MORE INFO.

Sang stared at her screen.

She wanted to turn off her phone. She wanted to step on it. She wanted to throw it out the window. She was terrified of it.

She took a deep breath. The app was working, the text messages were being delivered, and while no one was answering on the other end, she could technically still call. There was no point in destroying her phone. Who knew when she would need it. Sang breathed deeply again. She decided, however, to turn the phone off at least. Once the screen went dark, her panicky heart calmed down a little. She shoved the device into her pocket, put on her coat, and walked out to the corridor. Her next gig was going to start in exactly twenty-seven minutes. She didn’t have time to think about this.

Coming to a stop in front of the elevator, she pressed the down button.

“Eighth floor. Descending. The elevator is arriving in 136 seconds.”

Sang almost jumped out of her skin.

She pressed the down button again.

“Canceled,” said the elevator.

Sang turned and headed for the stairs. The lower floors were always dark, in the shadow of the upper floors, and even with the windows closed, the sounds and smells of the outside leaked in. The rent and utilities were cheaper, which was the point of living there, but Sang was extra glad then that she didn’t need to rely on the elevator to leave the building. Just as she got to the passage leading down to the storage units in the basement, she paused. Even if it meant being late, she suddenly did not want to ride her autoboard that day. Instead, she walked outside.

The streets were as loud and busy as ever. Various forms of transportation weaved in and out of each other’s paths, the traffic lights showing who had the right of way and when. In the middle of it was a place where the loudness and shouting were especially intense. Normally she would’ve avoided such scenes, but she found herself walking toward it this time. As if to find evidence that it wasn’t just her but the whole world that was losing control of itself.

In the middle of the road was a self-driving car apparently refusing to move. Sang could see an older woman pounding at the glass from the inside. The windows were sealed shut, which meant no one could hear her. When the woman inside the car met eyes with Sang, she pounded at the window more desperately than ever, mouthing something. Sang couldn’t hear a word. The other vehicles braked or made their way around her, becoming ensnared in jams, their passengers leaning out and screaming at the car in the middle of the road.

When Sang gestured to her to press the unlock button inside to let herself out, the woman shook her head, looking frightened.

Sang looked around them. There was a lot of traffic, but this was the only section where the vehicles slowed down. When there was a gap in their flow, Sang quickly ran to the car. The people driving around it began shouting at her as well.

Sang flattened herself against the vehicle’s side for dear life. She pressed her face to the glass and looked in. The older woman, under her gaze, pressed the unlock button several times. The red indicator light on the button did not disappear, nor did the handles automatically rise from the door. Sang gestured to the woman and maneuvered herself around the car to the other side. That door would not open, either. She could see through the window that all the dashboard lights were off. The car had essentially been bricked with its ignition turned off.

The older woman looked as if she were about to cry. She waved her phone at Sang; its screen was bright. There was a message. The woman pointed at the phone and said something urgently, but Sang still could not hear her. Thinking of the message about the Interstellar Union and its Earth delegation, she nodded.

Self-driving cars, when their ignitions were off and the doors did not open, could be exited using the emergency handle. During the barbaric times when self-driving cars had first begun to hit the road, many a passenger had asphyxiated or burned to death when their car doors for whatever reason could not open. After several people died like this under the helpless gaze of EMTs and firefighters, the manufacturers finally gave into the pressure of the expensive lawsuits and installed these emergency devices. Their locations differed: most of the triggers could be found near the bottom of the doors, but others were at the top. This was something she’d learned during her twice-weekly four-hour shifts at a self-driving taxi call center. The call center allowed her to work from home and learn a lot about self-driving cars, and while there were many customers who were awful to her, Sang didn’t mind the job at first. There would always be awful customers, and call center workers didn’t have to deal with them in the flesh, which made it a hundred times better than any job she’d had before. Sang had thought she was used to such people by now, but after about a month into the job, she had a massive headache after every shift. She tried to get over it with painkillers for a couple of months, but then the place in her side that had once been pierced by a bullet fragment began to hurt. When the headaches got worse and the painkillers were completely ineffective, she found herself unable to do anything else after her shifts but lie down and suffer for the rest of the day. Which was why she quit the call center. Her injuries still hurt, and she was not able to file for worker’s compensation or a severance fee. Her leaving before her contract was over was grounds for the company to sue her for damages, which was a battle that took half a year to resolve.

Sang stared at the car door. It was seamless, impossible to know where the door began and ended against the body of the car. The car itself looked like a large, red, shiny lump of beautifully polished metal without any kind of protrusion on its surface, much less door handles. Sang crouched down and slipped her hand underneath the body. It was just as smooth as the rest of the car. She looked around; vehicles continued to move past them. Sang gritted her teeth and quickly slid underneath the vehicle on her back. She put her hand into the machinery and felt around until her fingers landed on a button right next to the battery. With all her might, she pressed her palm against it. The car doors opened, and the older woman rushed outside, almost tripping over Sang’s legs.

“What happened?” shouted the woman in anguish as Sang got up and brushed herself off. “What’s going on? The car wouldn’t work . . . the phone wouldn’t work . . . the emergency comms only says strange things . . .” She was sobbing through her words.

Sang was about to tell her she didn’t know either when she heard sirens. The police were finally here. The stream of vehicles around the bricked car parted to allow the police car to come through. Since the woman had said her phone wasn’t working, a passerby must’ve reported the incident instead.

TRAFFIC CONTROL. TRAFFIC CONTROL.

The police car was speaking. There was no one inside it. Since no one had died or been injured, the car had evidently decided to take on the incident by itself.

PLEASE STATE THE NATURE OF YOUR ACCIDENT.

“I don’t know! My car won’t move! It’s bricked!” The older woman sobbed and wiped her eyes with both hands before standing up straight to look directly at the camera accordioning to her from the top of the police car.

WE ARE THE INTERSTELLAR UNION’S LEVEL 2 DELEGATES ASSIGNED TO THE PLANET EARTH.

Sang could feel her spine stiffen at the words coming out of the police car’s speakers.

WE GIVE YOU THIS INFORMATION AS WE’VE BEEN ASKED TO IDENTIFY OURSELVES.

“What on Earth does that mean?” The woman turned to Sang. “The car said the same—”

Sang didn’t wait to hear the rest of her sentence. She grabbed the woman’s hand and jumped into the stream of moving vehicles. The honking was deafening and the woman screamed. Sang, holding on harder than ever, dragged the woman behind her as they ran.

As they crossed the road, leaped on to the pavement, and slipped into the alleys between the buildings, the camera from the top of the police car continued to stare at them until they disappeared from view.

“I was on my way to my son,” the older woman managed to say as she tried to catch her breath in the alley. She was also, perhaps, still sobbing a little. “That trans, transis, what is it, he did that thing, something went wrong, he said he didn’t feel well . . .”

The woman rubbed her eyes and cheeks with the same hand that Sang had held captive seconds earlier, smearing them with dust and grease. Sang looked down at her own hands. Having groped around under a car, they were filthy with dust, grease, and dirt. She dusted them, but the congealed black lumps would not easily come off. Seeing the state her hands were in, she thought her back and hair must be a complete mess.

“Transition, you mean?” Sang murmured. The older woman rubbed her face even harder and nodded.

“Yes, that . . . Augmenting his body with devices . . .”

Sang raised her head. This wasn’t, of course, the transition she had first been thinking of.

“We used to call them cyborgs in my day,” the older woman went on, “but things change so quickly nowadays . . . His company said they would pay for part of it, almost all of it . . . That he would not get sick again, he’d work better and be stronger, that it was a good thing . . . But after the procedure, he couldn’t move his arms and legs properly . . . Sometimes they work well and sometimes they just get stuck . . . Oh wait, what is this . . .”

The woman seemed to have just realized her hand was dirty from Sang’s. She had lowered it from her face and was staring at it.

“When was this?” asked Sang.

“When was what? He called me last night. But when I called him this morning, he didn’t pick up, and when I texted him, he just kept saying strange things . . .” The woman was rambling.

Sang asked again, “When did your son have his procedure?”

“About a month ago. Headquarters paid for most of it, this was the first time I heard they were supporting him in something. His bosses and HR recommended it, if he became a better worker, maybe they would give him a permanent position, so I said, Well did those people have the procedure themselves, did they put it in writing, did they promise all those things in a contract about that trans, transistor, that cyborg thing, being free and they would hire you as a permanent worker, you have to make sure they did these things because if something were to happen . . .”

Sang had only one thought throughout the woman’s rant: she had to go to her sister. Nothing else mattered. She absolutely had to get to her. She needed to confirm with her own eyes that her sister and the baby were safe.

That her sister might already be a machine, that she might not be the sister she had known all her life—she didn’t want to think that far.

***

“If unni is allowed to do it, why aren’t I?”

“Unni is doing it so I want to do it, too.”

Sang hated it when her sister said such things. As she chose the alleys where the cameras were broken and turned the corners the lens angles could not capture, Sang wondered if the changes in her and those in her sister were the same or different. Sang had done all kinds of work, mostly deliveries. She knew which alleys she could speed through with impunity. Never again did she want to experience a police car camera staring at her and spouting those incomprehensible and ominous words.

“Where are we going now?” the older woman asked.

Sang looked up and down the alley they were in.

“I have to get to my sister. You should go to your son.”

“Can’t you come with me?”

The woman looked frightened. She repeated the questions she had asked before.

“What is going on? Why was my car the only one that stopped? What is the Interstellar Union?”

“I don’t know either,” said Sang truthfully. “But my sister also transitioned into a machine recently. I think it has something to do with that.”

The woman’s expression was tense. Sang explained as best she could. When she mentioned what had happened when she tried to talk to the police app, the woman, while still looking severe, seemed somehow calmer.

“Then the system has been taken over,” she said. “I design customer service chatbots like the one you mentioned.” She seemed to think for a moment before continuing. “Remember how the police car came when a passerby called them? These systems ignore certain numbers or connections. They must discriminate between users who make contact.”

“Who? Who is discriminating? Who is taking over the system? And why?” Sang asked desperately.

The woman shook her head.

“I wouldn’t know. But that whole thing with the Interstellar Union or whatever, I think it’s some kind of prank.” She smiled a little as if trying to calm herself.

The two headed south together. As they walked, the systems engineer kept repeating that it  was a prank. “But stealing the personal information of people who have transitioned, like their emergency contacts, that’s a crime. When I get back to my office, I’ll confirm what happened and report it to the authorities.”

“What about your son?” Sang asked.

“Once I take care of this, I’ll be able to call him again. But I have no car or phone right now, so it’s impossible to contact him. I should go back to the office and take care of this.”

This calm and sensible systems engineer seemed like a completely different person from the woman who had been crying inside her bricked car. Sang had to agree with her. Still, she suggested that it might be safer to avoid the cameras regardless, but the woman just thanked Sang, said goodbye, and quickly made her way to the main road.

Just as she got there, a sleek white car silently drove into her. She barely had enough time to scream before she was wedged between the car and a streetlamp. She trembled for a moment before the top half of her body slumped over the hood of the self-driving car, and her blood slowly spread over the hood and dripped down to the ground. Sang could see the passengers inside the car, which hadn’t moved a millimeter since it had hit the systems engineer, screaming and throwing themselves against the doors, looking terrified. Several vehicles slowed to a stop around the accident scene. Pedestrians started taking photos, holding up their devices over each other’s heads. There were sirens. Sang ran deeper into the alleys. She no longer assumed she was going back to work after seeing her sister. Because she was no longer sure she would ever be able to work again. Sang ran and ran until she felt she couldn’t breathe anymore.

***

“I don’t understand you.”

That’s what her father would say to her from time to time. It was a rare expression of emotion from him, and it was, to give him credit, some attempt at communication, but it hurt Sang whenever he said it.

Still, her father never physically hit her, so he was the better parent—that’s what Sang believed throughout her childhood. Her mother would be warm and kind and affectionate one moment and then suddenly turn cold and shout abuse before throwing things and hitting Sang. Sang had spent her entire life trying to discover what triggered her mother, but even after she had cut off contact with her parents as an adult, she could not figure it out. Much later she realized that her father—who during her mother’s manias would retreat to his room, shut the door, and pretend he didn’t notice anything—was not a good person after all. Like most children, Sang assumed she was the reason for her mother’s anger. That because Sang wasn’t “normal,” her parents were stressed, and therefore her mother would explode from time to time to let off steam. And because it was her own fault, Sang kept telling herself, she had to bear it. Sang was aware of her identity issues early on. Older students and teachers helped her and gave her information on support organizations, but she was bullied by other students for refusing to hide her feelings and the facts of her life. Her parents were called to school several times and even brought before the school administration committees. Sang had the right to be protected from the children who harmed her and from hate and discrimination. That’s what the teachers said. But when she came home and shut the door and her mother started to scream and hit her, no one protected her. When she worked at the call center and listened to her customers scream and curse over the phone, Sang thought they were just like her mother. These people who found joy and satisfaction in taking out their frustrations on strangers, they were exactly like her mother. Which was why it was so easy to leave these anonymous people calling the call center when she had already left the parents who had given birth to her and raised her.

***

Sang almost fell. She was out of breath. Her old injury was throbbing like it was about to suck her entire body into it. Doubled over, Sang rubbed the scar on her side, trying to catch her breath and waiting for the pain to subside.

When she looked up again, there was someone standing there. Surprised, she took a step back.

“Got any money?”

The man’s voice was hoarse, like the sound of metal being scratched. He wore a cap on his messily grown-out hair, so low it almost covered his eyes, and his whole body from the neck down was wrapped in a dirty and unseasonably thick blanket. He reeked.

Sang shook her head.

“You have a phone, right? Send me some credits.”

Sang could barely get her voice to start working again.

“I don’t have one.”

“You don’t?” He looked disappointed. Sang felt a little sorry for him.

“I, I threw it away. Running.”

“You lost it? Want me to look for it with you?”

“No! It’s all right.” She turned to go.

“Those bastards came for you, right?”

Sang turned back. “What?”

“Those bastards, they came, right? That’s why you threw away your phone?” He nodded, the mess of hair nodding with him. “That’s the ticket. Got to get rid of your phone first.”

Sang stared at him. First, he didn’t smell like a drunk. No matter what other odors were in the vicinity, she could immediately tell when alcohol was present. But the cap and hair made it difficult to make out his face, which made it hard for her to tell whether he was serious or joking or trying to trick her into incriminating herself.

“If I find your phone, may I have it?” he asked.

Sang nodded. Perhaps satisfied by this answer, the man turned and walked off. She noticed one of his legs flashing among the folds of his blanket. It was made of metal.

Sang watched him limp away. She thought about the body transitioning into a machine, about the promise of full actualization through the transhuman paradigm, about the bullet fragment that had lodged in her own body.

And Sang began to walk once more, quickly, before breaking into a run.

***

Sang was so unbearably thirsty she came to a stop. She tried to go back to her normal breathing. The realization that she was thirsty made her feel hungry as well. Sang regretted not coming out with her autoboard today. She had always hung a snack or a drink on its handlebars just in case she got hungry doing her deliveries. It had been a chaotic day, and she couldn’t even remember the last time she had walked the streets without anything in her hands. She realized she had completely forgotten about the problem of food and water.

Sang looked around her. She had no phone to tell the exact time or place, but judging by her surroundings, she was about halfway to her sister’s home. She could not go the same distance she had come without drinking some water. She needed water now.

There were convenience stores everywhere. It was paying that was the problem. She’d thrown away her phone. Even if she hadn’t, there was no way she could use her mobile credits. She thought of the systems engineer pinned to the pole by the car and the frightened faces of the people inside the vehicle as they tried with all their might to escape. Sang dug through the pockets of her coat. She was sure she had a prepaid transport card somewhere in case of emergency. The coat had many pockets. Normally she found that convenient, but now, on edge, it irritated her no end that she couldn’t find what she needed. As she prodded all over her jacket, she felt something hard inside the small pocket on one of the sleeves. The prepaid card. Of course, she had no way of knowing how much money was on it. But knowing her usual habits, she assumed there would be enough to buy a bottle of water. Sang thanked the Sang of the past who had put the card in that pocket, and slipped around the range of the security cameras as she made her way to the convenience store.

Inside, a darker-skinned worker was pressing away at the POS system. She was wearing a mask, but her wide-eyed consternation was still very clear. Sang picked out an energy bar and a bottle of milk and went up to her.

“I’m sorry,” the worker said, “the payment system isn’t working.”

“Can you use a different POS system?” Sang pointed at the one next to the worker.

The worker vigorously shook her head. “None of them are working. All broken.”

Just when Sang turned to leave, the worker tremulously asked, “Hey, could you possibly help me?”

Sang turned around.

“I have to call my boss because the POS is broken, but my phone is going bonkers. It keeps saying some science fiction thing about being from a star-something. Could you call my boss for me?” She added in English, piteously, “Please?”

Sang stared at her and then at the POS’s customer-side screen. It was dotted with letters that looked similar to the English alphabet, only with lots of little dots and lines. As the screen had always shown ads before, Sang had not paid attention to this display until now.

“Is this that science fiction nonsense?” Sang said, pointing at the screen. The worker nodded. “And do you happen to have a family member who transitioned into a machine?”

“Excuse me?” the worker asked, uncomprehending.

Sang tried all the English words she knew to describe what she meant. “Transition, robot? People, no, human body, inside, machine?” She made whirring noises.

The worker stared at Sang without a word. Sang felt embarrassed, but just as she was trying to think if there was a better way to express herself, the worker started to speak.

“My older sister transitioned. Because you can get your visa quicker that way. If you got a lot of work, they would give you a permanent visa—”

“Have you called your sister? When was the last time you spoke to her?” Sang asked quickly, grateful the convenience store worker had better language skills than she did.

The worker shook her head. “My unni won’t pick up. The phone is broken. When I sent her a message, it just talked about weird space things.”

“You must go to your unni,” Sang said firmly. As the worker stared at her, Sang put down her prepaid transport card in front of her. “I don’t know how much money is on this, but it’ll be enough for a water and an energy bar. Call your boss later. Right now, you’ve got to get to your unni.”

Sang turned and walked toward the door. The worker shouted at her to take her card with her.

The automatic doors wouldn’t open. She pressed the manual switch next to it, but they still didn’t move.

Outside the closed glass doors, a group of gray objects appeared. They began to slowly approach the doors.

From behind Sang’s back, the worker shouted something in a language Sang didn’t recognize. Sang turned.

“It’s my unni! There she is!”

She was pointing outside, and Sang turned to follow her finger. Between the gray objects, her own sister’s face caught her eye. Her sister was wearing something silver in her hair, a hairclip or something Sang had never seen before. Otherwise, she didn’t look that different from the last time she saw her. In her hand she carried one of those baby carriers that doubled as a car seat. When her eyes met Sang’s, she smiled a little.

The worker shouted her sister’s name, and before Sang could stop her, she repeatedly pressed a button under the counter. It seemed to be for the doors. But the doors did not open. Sang had never felt such violent gratitude as she did toward those closed doors.

The gray objects outside now came up to the glass. There seemed to be about ten of them. And wherever they were from, they were multiplying.

The gray forms spoke in unison.

WE ARE THE INTERSTELLAR UNION’S LEVEL 2 DELEGATES ASSIGNED TO THE PLANET EARTH. WE HAVE TAKEN CONTROL OF ALL OF YOUR COMMUNICATIONS. ALL NON-HUMAN NON-ORGANIC INTELLIGENT LIFEFORMS COOPERATE WITH US. THEREFORE, EARTHLINGS MUST ALSO COMPLY.

Small smiles appeared on the faces of all the gray forms outside the glass doors. It shocked Sang so much she took a step back.

TRANSITION INTO TRANSHUMANS. LOG ON TO THE NETWORK. COMPLY AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED. YOU MAY CONTINUE THE LIFE YOU HAD UNTIL NOW. WITH US, AND FOREVER.

The forms continued to smile as they looked at Sang.

Sang thought of the death of the systems engineer. No one was going to believe that aliens had taken over the networks and murdered the engineer. The engineer’s son was already a machine and was incapable of feeling sadness for his mother’s death. Sang realized that because her own sister had transitioned, there would be no one to feel sad for her death, either. But the thing was, out there with what remained of her sister, was a baby.

Read the second part of this story here.

Copyright © Bora Chung. By arrangement with the Greenbook Agency on behalf of the author. Translation © 2025 by Anton Hur. All rights reserved.

English

When her little sister said she was going to become a machine, Sang was against it. This was around the time when the new billionaire fad was sending manned and unmanned spacecraft into space for fun, and the news was reporting on the possible discovery of life on other planets. The billionaires’ companies that had made them billionaires were all preparing for a transhuman era where people could exist beyond space, and were advertising the fact. The melodious voice-over on the ad would seductively whisper, “With the least invasive of procedures, you will be able to reach your full potential.” And women wearing silver armor tailored to fit their slim bodies would be holding expensive-looking phones in their hands and walking back and forth past large window-walls. The sun shining outside would change into a starry night sky and a grand voice would boom, “Beyond Humanity, to Space!”

These ads looked fancy but neglected to impart any specific information. According to her sister’s research, the options for becoming a machine ranged from surgically attaching a comms device or camera or other sensory amplifier to the body to transitioning completely and replacing the entire body with machines—the choice was up to the individual. The operation and recovery would be paid for by the technology firm, and the parts themselves, the cameras and whatnot, would be covered by the transitioner. Of course, any postsurgical upgrades or augmentations were completely by choice and up to the transitioner to pay for, but even these were sometimes covered by insurance.

This wasn’t long after Sang’s sister had given birth. Sang had also opposed her having children on her own. Not because she believed marriage should come first but because it was clear to her that raising a child on one’s own was very, very taxing. Even now her sister had a different job for every day of the week, and when home she was still on constant call for outside deliveries. Who was going to take care of the baby then? And even if she found someone, how was she ever going to coordinate time with that person when everyone is running around all over the place these days? On top of it all, even with overtime she was barely making ends meet, so how was she going to afford the child’s diapers, milk, or the occasional toy? Her pregnancy and pre- and postnatal care were also a problem. She worked on hourly contracts, which meant there was no paid maternity leave. Once she had the baby, she would have to simply take herself off the platforms for a while. And there was no guarantee she would get the same amount of work when she returned. She would have to carry the baby around with her as she looked for other work. To Sang, her sister seemed to be tilting at windmills in the face of such adversity.

“You’ve never had a baby, unni, what would you know about it?”

That was all her sister had to say to Sang. And while Sang stewed in her surprise and rage, her sister found a sperm bank and IVF clinic and got pregnant on her first attempt. When her sister joyfully showed her a snapshot of the ultrasound, Sang was still beset with worry, but there was a corner of her heart that did warm to her sister’s enthusiasm. Most importantly, the baby in her sister’s womb was growing well, and Sang tried to be optimistic and believe things would turn out well in the end. Her sister, saying the country would provide subsidies and other help she could apply for, showed her all of the relevant literature she had collected from her clinic and municipal office, expertly flicking through it at a rate much faster than Sang could take in the information. Sang tried to reassure herself that her sister was well-prepared, not just for a few days or weeks but for the next nine months, that surely she would come up with a feasible plan, and that, since Sang herself was only the aunt, after all, and not the mother, her sister must do what she felt was right. But Sang had done some research on her own, into topics such as the effect transhuman transition had on bodies that had given birth.

When she objected once more, her sister said, “But you’ve transitioned! Why can’t I?”

“Have you lost your mind?” Sang held her ground this time. “My transition is nowhere near the level of your transition!”

“What’s the big difference?” her sister shouted back. “And it’s my body, my choice!”

Before Sang could reply that that wasn’t what “my body, my choice” meant, her sister went on the offensive.

“You were the one who kept going on about my having to raise this child on my own! I’m trying to do this so I can become a better earner. Once I’m a robot, I’ll be able to take care of the baby better, and any joints that I injure can be replaced like car parts, so I can continue to hold the baby. I don’t have to worry about getting sick as much, and downtime from injuries would be much less, and my circuits would be connected to the network, which means I could manipulate my home environment directly and get information much faster than I do staring at a phone. This is the best thing for anyone raising a child alone. Why can’t you try to see things my way before getting mad at me?”

“But it makes no sense to become a robot so you can be a better parent! What is the child going to learn from a machine mother? And I told you from the start that raising a child on your own wouldn’t be a walk in the park!”

“Well, it’s not like I can put the baby back inside me, what else am I supposed to do?”

A baby’s cries drowned out her sister’s voice.

“I’m hanging up. The baby is awake thanks to you, unni.”

Before she could protest the blame for having woken the baby, her sister hung up. That was the last conversation they had. Seryu lived in a southern neighborhood and had been trying to move farther south to escape the city ever since her child was born. Sang lived in the northern part, and her work took her all over the city. The southern and northern ends were not so far apart that it was impossible for them to meet, but Sang and Seryu were hardly close even in the best of times. After that conversation, Sang left a message begging her to reconsider her decision to become a machine, and then never picked up her sister’s subsequent calls.

And today, her sister had left a puzzling voice message.

WE ARE THE INTERSTELLAR UNION’S LEVEL 2 DELEGATES ASSIGNED TO THE PLANET EARTH. WE GIVE YOU THIS INFORMATION AS WE’VE BEEN ASKED TO IDENTIFY OURSELVES. WE CANNOT DISCLOSE ANY MORE INFO.

Mystified, Sang sent a message that immediately showed as read, but her sister did not reply. She called her sister; she did not pick up. To be more precise, the tone went on for a moment before disconnecting. She called again. It disconnected again.

Sang felt more and more anxious and confused. It was times like these when it was painfully clear that they had no other family, acquaintances, or friends in common to ask after each other. After some hesitation, she called the police.

The call suddenly dropped. She tried again and it dropped again.

Sang tapped her police app. Hesitating between “REPORT” and “CONSULT,” she pressed the latter. When she told the chatbot that she was worried about her sister, the chatbot icon blinked, indicating an answer was being typed. She waited.

The chatbot finally answered.

WE ARE THE INTERSTELLAR UNION’S LEVEL 2 DELEGATES ASSIGNED TO THE PLANET EARTH. WE GIVE YOU THIS INFORMATION AS WE’VE BEEN ASKED TO IDENTIFY OURSELVES. WE CANNOT DISCLOSE ANY MORE INFO.

Sang stared at her screen.

She wanted to turn off her phone. She wanted to step on it. She wanted to throw it out the window. She was terrified of it.

She took a deep breath. The app was working, the text messages were being delivered, and while no one was answering on the other end, she could technically still call. There was no point in destroying her phone. Who knew when she would need it. Sang breathed deeply again. She decided, however, to turn the phone off at least. Once the screen went dark, her panicky heart calmed down a little. She shoved the device into her pocket, put on her coat, and walked out to the corridor. Her next gig was going to start in exactly twenty-seven minutes. She didn’t have time to think about this.

Coming to a stop in front of the elevator, she pressed the down button.

“Eighth floor. Descending. The elevator is arriving in 136 seconds.”

Sang almost jumped out of her skin.

She pressed the down button again.

“Canceled,” said the elevator.

Sang turned and headed for the stairs. The lower floors were always dark, in the shadow of the upper floors, and even with the windows closed, the sounds and smells of the outside leaked in. The rent and utilities were cheaper, which was the point of living there, but Sang was extra glad then that she didn’t need to rely on the elevator to leave the building. Just as she got to the passage leading down to the storage units in the basement, she paused. Even if it meant being late, she suddenly did not want to ride her autoboard that day. Instead, she walked outside.

The streets were as loud and busy as ever. Various forms of transportation weaved in and out of each other’s paths, the traffic lights showing who had the right of way and when. In the middle of it was a place where the loudness and shouting were especially intense. Normally she would’ve avoided such scenes, but she found herself walking toward it this time. As if to find evidence that it wasn’t just her but the whole world that was losing control of itself.

In the middle of the road was a self-driving car apparently refusing to move. Sang could see an older woman pounding at the glass from the inside. The windows were sealed shut, which meant no one could hear her. When the woman inside the car met eyes with Sang, she pounded at the window more desperately than ever, mouthing something. Sang couldn’t hear a word. The other vehicles braked or made their way around her, becoming ensnared in jams, their passengers leaning out and screaming at the car in the middle of the road.

When Sang gestured to her to press the unlock button inside to let herself out, the woman shook her head, looking frightened.

Sang looked around them. There was a lot of traffic, but this was the only section where the vehicles slowed down. When there was a gap in their flow, Sang quickly ran to the car. The people driving around it began shouting at her as well.

Sang flattened herself against the vehicle’s side for dear life. She pressed her face to the glass and looked in. The older woman, under her gaze, pressed the unlock button several times. The red indicator light on the button did not disappear, nor did the handles automatically rise from the door. Sang gestured to the woman and maneuvered herself around the car to the other side. That door would not open, either. She could see through the window that all the dashboard lights were off. The car had essentially been bricked with its ignition turned off.

The older woman looked as if she were about to cry. She waved her phone at Sang; its screen was bright. There was a message. The woman pointed at the phone and said something urgently, but Sang still could not hear her. Thinking of the message about the Interstellar Union and its Earth delegation, she nodded.

Self-driving cars, when their ignitions were off and the doors did not open, could be exited using the emergency handle. During the barbaric times when self-driving cars had first begun to hit the road, many a passenger had asphyxiated or burned to death when their car doors for whatever reason could not open. After several people died like this under the helpless gaze of EMTs and firefighters, the manufacturers finally gave into the pressure of the expensive lawsuits and installed these emergency devices. Their locations differed: most of the triggers could be found near the bottom of the doors, but others were at the top. This was something she’d learned during her twice-weekly four-hour shifts at a self-driving taxi call center. The call center allowed her to work from home and learn a lot about self-driving cars, and while there were many customers who were awful to her, Sang didn’t mind the job at first. There would always be awful customers, and call center workers didn’t have to deal with them in the flesh, which made it a hundred times better than any job she’d had before. Sang had thought she was used to such people by now, but after about a month into the job, she had a massive headache after every shift. She tried to get over it with painkillers for a couple of months, but then the place in her side that had once been pierced by a bullet fragment began to hurt. When the headaches got worse and the painkillers were completely ineffective, she found herself unable to do anything else after her shifts but lie down and suffer for the rest of the day. Which was why she quit the call center. Her injuries still hurt, and she was not able to file for worker’s compensation or a severance fee. Her leaving before her contract was over was grounds for the company to sue her for damages, which was a battle that took half a year to resolve.

Sang stared at the car door. It was seamless, impossible to know where the door began and ended against the body of the car. The car itself looked like a large, red, shiny lump of beautifully polished metal without any kind of protrusion on its surface, much less door handles. Sang crouched down and slipped her hand underneath the body. It was just as smooth as the rest of the car. She looked around; vehicles continued to move past them. Sang gritted her teeth and quickly slid underneath the vehicle on her back. She put her hand into the machinery and felt around until her fingers landed on a button right next to the battery. With all her might, she pressed her palm against it. The car doors opened, and the older woman rushed outside, almost tripping over Sang’s legs.

“What happened?” shouted the woman in anguish as Sang got up and brushed herself off. “What’s going on? The car wouldn’t work . . . the phone wouldn’t work . . . the emergency comms only says strange things . . .” She was sobbing through her words.

Sang was about to tell her she didn’t know either when she heard sirens. The police were finally here. The stream of vehicles around the bricked car parted to allow the police car to come through. Since the woman had said her phone wasn’t working, a passerby must’ve reported the incident instead.

TRAFFIC CONTROL. TRAFFIC CONTROL.

The police car was speaking. There was no one inside it. Since no one had died or been injured, the car had evidently decided to take on the incident by itself.

PLEASE STATE THE NATURE OF YOUR ACCIDENT.

“I don’t know! My car won’t move! It’s bricked!” The older woman sobbed and wiped her eyes with both hands before standing up straight to look directly at the camera accordioning to her from the top of the police car.

WE ARE THE INTERSTELLAR UNION’S LEVEL 2 DELEGATES ASSIGNED TO THE PLANET EARTH.

Sang could feel her spine stiffen at the words coming out of the police car’s speakers.

WE GIVE YOU THIS INFORMATION AS WE’VE BEEN ASKED TO IDENTIFY OURSELVES.

“What on Earth does that mean?” The woman turned to Sang. “The car said the same—”

Sang didn’t wait to hear the rest of her sentence. She grabbed the woman’s hand and jumped into the stream of moving vehicles. The honking was deafening and the woman screamed. Sang, holding on harder than ever, dragged the woman behind her as they ran.

As they crossed the road, leaped on to the pavement, and slipped into the alleys between the buildings, the camera from the top of the police car continued to stare at them until they disappeared from view.

“I was on my way to my son,” the older woman managed to say as she tried to catch her breath in the alley. She was also, perhaps, still sobbing a little. “That trans, transis, what is it, he did that thing, something went wrong, he said he didn’t feel well . . .”

The woman rubbed her eyes and cheeks with the same hand that Sang had held captive seconds earlier, smearing them with dust and grease. Sang looked down at her own hands. Having groped around under a car, they were filthy with dust, grease, and dirt. She dusted them, but the congealed black lumps would not easily come off. Seeing the state her hands were in, she thought her back and hair must be a complete mess.

“Transition, you mean?” Sang murmured. The older woman rubbed her face even harder and nodded.

“Yes, that . . . Augmenting his body with devices . . .”

Sang raised her head. This wasn’t, of course, the transition she had first been thinking of.

“We used to call them cyborgs in my day,” the older woman went on, “but things change so quickly nowadays . . . His company said they would pay for part of it, almost all of it . . . That he would not get sick again, he’d work better and be stronger, that it was a good thing . . . But after the procedure, he couldn’t move his arms and legs properly . . . Sometimes they work well and sometimes they just get stuck . . . Oh wait, what is this . . .”

The woman seemed to have just realized her hand was dirty from Sang’s. She had lowered it from her face and was staring at it.

“When was this?” asked Sang.

“When was what? He called me last night. But when I called him this morning, he didn’t pick up, and when I texted him, he just kept saying strange things . . .” The woman was rambling.

Sang asked again, “When did your son have his procedure?”

“About a month ago. Headquarters paid for most of it, this was the first time I heard they were supporting him in something. His bosses and HR recommended it, if he became a better worker, maybe they would give him a permanent position, so I said, Well did those people have the procedure themselves, did they put it in writing, did they promise all those things in a contract about that trans, transistor, that cyborg thing, being free and they would hire you as a permanent worker, you have to make sure they did these things because if something were to happen . . .”

Sang had only one thought throughout the woman’s rant: she had to go to her sister. Nothing else mattered. She absolutely had to get to her. She needed to confirm with her own eyes that her sister and the baby were safe.

That her sister might already be a machine, that she might not be the sister she had known all her life—she didn’t want to think that far.

***

“If unni is allowed to do it, why aren’t I?”

“Unni is doing it so I want to do it, too.”

Sang hated it when her sister said such things. As she chose the alleys where the cameras were broken and turned the corners the lens angles could not capture, Sang wondered if the changes in her and those in her sister were the same or different. Sang had done all kinds of work, mostly deliveries. She knew which alleys she could speed through with impunity. Never again did she want to experience a police car camera staring at her and spouting those incomprehensible and ominous words.

“Where are we going now?” the older woman asked.

Sang looked up and down the alley they were in.

“I have to get to my sister. You should go to your son.”

“Can’t you come with me?”

The woman looked frightened. She repeated the questions she had asked before.

“What is going on? Why was my car the only one that stopped? What is the Interstellar Union?”

“I don’t know either,” said Sang truthfully. “But my sister also transitioned into a machine recently. I think it has something to do with that.”

The woman’s expression was tense. Sang explained as best she could. When she mentioned what had happened when she tried to talk to the police app, the woman, while still looking severe, seemed somehow calmer.

“Then the system has been taken over,” she said. “I design customer service chatbots like the one you mentioned.” She seemed to think for a moment before continuing. “Remember how the police car came when a passerby called them? These systems ignore certain numbers or connections. They must discriminate between users who make contact.”

“Who? Who is discriminating? Who is taking over the system? And why?” Sang asked desperately.

The woman shook her head.

“I wouldn’t know. But that whole thing with the Interstellar Union or whatever, I think it’s some kind of prank.” She smiled a little as if trying to calm herself.

The two headed south together. As they walked, the systems engineer kept repeating that it  was a prank. “But stealing the personal information of people who have transitioned, like their emergency contacts, that’s a crime. When I get back to my office, I’ll confirm what happened and report it to the authorities.”

“What about your son?” Sang asked.

“Once I take care of this, I’ll be able to call him again. But I have no car or phone right now, so it’s impossible to contact him. I should go back to the office and take care of this.”

This calm and sensible systems engineer seemed like a completely different person from the woman who had been crying inside her bricked car. Sang had to agree with her. Still, she suggested that it might be safer to avoid the cameras regardless, but the woman just thanked Sang, said goodbye, and quickly made her way to the main road.

Just as she got there, a sleek white car silently drove into her. She barely had enough time to scream before she was wedged between the car and a streetlamp. She trembled for a moment before the top half of her body slumped over the hood of the self-driving car, and her blood slowly spread over the hood and dripped down to the ground. Sang could see the passengers inside the car, which hadn’t moved a millimeter since it had hit the systems engineer, screaming and throwing themselves against the doors, looking terrified. Several vehicles slowed to a stop around the accident scene. Pedestrians started taking photos, holding up their devices over each other’s heads. There were sirens. Sang ran deeper into the alleys. She no longer assumed she was going back to work after seeing her sister. Because she was no longer sure she would ever be able to work again. Sang ran and ran until she felt she couldn’t breathe anymore.

***

“I don’t understand you.”

That’s what her father would say to her from time to time. It was a rare expression of emotion from him, and it was, to give him credit, some attempt at communication, but it hurt Sang whenever he said it.

Still, her father never physically hit her, so he was the better parent—that’s what Sang believed throughout her childhood. Her mother would be warm and kind and affectionate one moment and then suddenly turn cold and shout abuse before throwing things and hitting Sang. Sang had spent her entire life trying to discover what triggered her mother, but even after she had cut off contact with her parents as an adult, she could not figure it out. Much later she realized that her father—who during her mother’s manias would retreat to his room, shut the door, and pretend he didn’t notice anything—was not a good person after all. Like most children, Sang assumed she was the reason for her mother’s anger. That because Sang wasn’t “normal,” her parents were stressed, and therefore her mother would explode from time to time to let off steam. And because it was her own fault, Sang kept telling herself, she had to bear it. Sang was aware of her identity issues early on. Older students and teachers helped her and gave her information on support organizations, but she was bullied by other students for refusing to hide her feelings and the facts of her life. Her parents were called to school several times and even brought before the school administration committees. Sang had the right to be protected from the children who harmed her and from hate and discrimination. That’s what the teachers said. But when she came home and shut the door and her mother started to scream and hit her, no one protected her. When she worked at the call center and listened to her customers scream and curse over the phone, Sang thought they were just like her mother. These people who found joy and satisfaction in taking out their frustrations on strangers, they were exactly like her mother. Which was why it was so easy to leave these anonymous people calling the call center when she had already left the parents who had given birth to her and raised her.

***

Sang almost fell. She was out of breath. Her old injury was throbbing like it was about to suck her entire body into it. Doubled over, Sang rubbed the scar on her side, trying to catch her breath and waiting for the pain to subside.

When she looked up again, there was someone standing there. Surprised, she took a step back.

“Got any money?”

The man’s voice was hoarse, like the sound of metal being scratched. He wore a cap on his messily grown-out hair, so low it almost covered his eyes, and his whole body from the neck down was wrapped in a dirty and unseasonably thick blanket. He reeked.

Sang shook her head.

“You have a phone, right? Send me some credits.”

Sang could barely get her voice to start working again.

“I don’t have one.”

“You don’t?” He looked disappointed. Sang felt a little sorry for him.

“I, I threw it away. Running.”

“You lost it? Want me to look for it with you?”

“No! It’s all right.” She turned to go.

“Those bastards came for you, right?”

Sang turned back. “What?”

“Those bastards, they came, right? That’s why you threw away your phone?” He nodded, the mess of hair nodding with him. “That’s the ticket. Got to get rid of your phone first.”

Sang stared at him. First, he didn’t smell like a drunk. No matter what other odors were in the vicinity, she could immediately tell when alcohol was present. But the cap and hair made it difficult to make out his face, which made it hard for her to tell whether he was serious or joking or trying to trick her into incriminating herself.

“If I find your phone, may I have it?” he asked.

Sang nodded. Perhaps satisfied by this answer, the man turned and walked off. She noticed one of his legs flashing among the folds of his blanket. It was made of metal.

Sang watched him limp away. She thought about the body transitioning into a machine, about the promise of full actualization through the transhuman paradigm, about the bullet fragment that had lodged in her own body.

And Sang began to walk once more, quickly, before breaking into a run.

***

Sang was so unbearably thirsty she came to a stop. She tried to go back to her normal breathing. The realization that she was thirsty made her feel hungry as well. Sang regretted not coming out with her autoboard today. She had always hung a snack or a drink on its handlebars just in case she got hungry doing her deliveries. It had been a chaotic day, and she couldn’t even remember the last time she had walked the streets without anything in her hands. She realized she had completely forgotten about the problem of food and water.

Sang looked around her. She had no phone to tell the exact time or place, but judging by her surroundings, she was about halfway to her sister’s home. She could not go the same distance she had come without drinking some water. She needed water now.

There were convenience stores everywhere. It was paying that was the problem. She’d thrown away her phone. Even if she hadn’t, there was no way she could use her mobile credits. She thought of the systems engineer pinned to the pole by the car and the frightened faces of the people inside the vehicle as they tried with all their might to escape. Sang dug through the pockets of her coat. She was sure she had a prepaid transport card somewhere in case of emergency. The coat had many pockets. Normally she found that convenient, but now, on edge, it irritated her no end that she couldn’t find what she needed. As she prodded all over her jacket, she felt something hard inside the small pocket on one of the sleeves. The prepaid card. Of course, she had no way of knowing how much money was on it. But knowing her usual habits, she assumed there would be enough to buy a bottle of water. Sang thanked the Sang of the past who had put the card in that pocket, and slipped around the range of the security cameras as she made her way to the convenience store.

Inside, a darker-skinned worker was pressing away at the POS system. She was wearing a mask, but her wide-eyed consternation was still very clear. Sang picked out an energy bar and a bottle of milk and went up to her.

“I’m sorry,” the worker said, “the payment system isn’t working.”

“Can you use a different POS system?” Sang pointed at the one next to the worker.

The worker vigorously shook her head. “None of them are working. All broken.”

Just when Sang turned to leave, the worker tremulously asked, “Hey, could you possibly help me?”

Sang turned around.

“I have to call my boss because the POS is broken, but my phone is going bonkers. It keeps saying some science fiction thing about being from a star-something. Could you call my boss for me?” She added in English, piteously, “Please?”

Sang stared at her and then at the POS’s customer-side screen. It was dotted with letters that looked similar to the English alphabet, only with lots of little dots and lines. As the screen had always shown ads before, Sang had not paid attention to this display until now.

“Is this that science fiction nonsense?” Sang said, pointing at the screen. The worker nodded. “And do you happen to have a family member who transitioned into a machine?”

“Excuse me?” the worker asked, uncomprehending.

Sang tried all the English words she knew to describe what she meant. “Transition, robot? People, no, human body, inside, machine?” She made whirring noises.

The worker stared at Sang without a word. Sang felt embarrassed, but just as she was trying to think if there was a better way to express herself, the worker started to speak.

“My older sister transitioned. Because you can get your visa quicker that way. If you got a lot of work, they would give you a permanent visa—”

“Have you called your sister? When was the last time you spoke to her?” Sang asked quickly, grateful the convenience store worker had better language skills than she did.

The worker shook her head. “My unni won’t pick up. The phone is broken. When I sent her a message, it just talked about weird space things.”

“You must go to your unni,” Sang said firmly. As the worker stared at her, Sang put down her prepaid transport card in front of her. “I don’t know how much money is on this, but it’ll be enough for a water and an energy bar. Call your boss later. Right now, you’ve got to get to your unni.”

Sang turned and walked toward the door. The worker shouted at her to take her card with her.

The automatic doors wouldn’t open. She pressed the manual switch next to it, but they still didn’t move.

Outside the closed glass doors, a group of gray objects appeared. They began to slowly approach the doors.

From behind Sang’s back, the worker shouted something in a language Sang didn’t recognize. Sang turned.

“It’s my unni! There she is!”

She was pointing outside, and Sang turned to follow her finger. Between the gray objects, her own sister’s face caught her eye. Her sister was wearing something silver in her hair, a hairclip or something Sang had never seen before. Otherwise, she didn’t look that different from the last time she saw her. In her hand she carried one of those baby carriers that doubled as a car seat. When her eyes met Sang’s, she smiled a little.

The worker shouted her sister’s name, and before Sang could stop her, she repeatedly pressed a button under the counter. It seemed to be for the doors. But the doors did not open. Sang had never felt such violent gratitude as she did toward those closed doors.

The gray objects outside now came up to the glass. There seemed to be about ten of them. And wherever they were from, they were multiplying.

The gray forms spoke in unison.

WE ARE THE INTERSTELLAR UNION’S LEVEL 2 DELEGATES ASSIGNED TO THE PLANET EARTH. WE HAVE TAKEN CONTROL OF ALL OF YOUR COMMUNICATIONS. ALL NON-HUMAN NON-ORGANIC INTELLIGENT LIFEFORMS COOPERATE WITH US. THEREFORE, EARTHLINGS MUST ALSO COMPLY.

Small smiles appeared on the faces of all the gray forms outside the glass doors. It shocked Sang so much she took a step back.

TRANSITION INTO TRANSHUMANS. LOG ON TO THE NETWORK. COMPLY AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED. YOU MAY CONTINUE THE LIFE YOU HAD UNTIL NOW. WITH US, AND FOREVER.

The forms continued to smile as they looked at Sang.

Sang thought of the death of the systems engineer. No one was going to believe that aliens had taken over the networks and murdered the engineer. The engineer’s son was already a machine and was incapable of feeling sadness for his mother’s death. Sang realized that because her own sister had transitioned, there would be no one to feel sad for her death, either. But the thing was, out there with what remained of her sister, was a baby.

Read the second part of this story here.

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