Avatar Auction (Avatar series #1) Read online

Avatar Auction

  by Sunyoung Lee

  Copyright 2012 Sunyoung Lee

  All Rights Reserved

  Edited by

  Michael McDonald & Michael Stevens

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

  Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

  Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15

  Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20

  Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25

  Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30

  Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35

  Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40

  Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45

  Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49

  CHAPTER 1

  My name is Cine Moon, one big, fat, problematic citizen in our society. I became a General of the Ministry of Time Travel at the age of fifteen and produced a number of followers who believed I could overthrow an existing government.

  So, I am carefully watched by both Non-Time Traveler and Born Time Traveler citizens. The latter being the owners of this nation, the Society of Time Travelers.

  They nicknamed the bad citizens ‘cockroaches’ and I am called the ‘king cockroach’ because I am the ‘super wicked citizen’.

  But the title will transfer to this woman once they see her figure. She’s half way to being a zombie, is how I would describe this patient. It would be less eerie to see a plain skeleton rather than talking to this pallid woman. She is sitting on a cold steel chair across from mine, her twig-like legs stuck together, as if her ankles are cuffed and her hands folded up around her womb. Each finger is thin as a pencil. I assume she has been locked up without food at least for a few weeks in this white ward.

  “Surrender.”

  I almost spit it out. There’s a tiny chance you get starved here in STT. Our government feeds us well, the way a farmer feeds his pigs. Hungry citizens are those who know what they insert in the food.

  Tap! Tap! Tap!

  Sudden claps astound me. It’s a nurse who is standing between Amelia and I. He’s a short man with a bald head. Everyone in this hospital seems to be hairless, including poor Amelia.

  “Answer his question!” says the nurse. She slowly raises her head up and stares at him as if she had just seen him. “Could you repeat it for the patient, General?” he says, turning to me.

  “Of course,” I say and bend towards her, looking into her eyes. “Amelia, how were you brought to this hospital?”

  “Police brought me here.”

  “Why?”

  She does not answer. She doesn’t want him to hear. I catch it and look up at the nurse. “We’ll need some time, alone.”

  He gazes at the wall for a while before saying “One minute, Sir.”

  “One minute,” I repeat, forming a fake smile. How generous.

  I quickly turn back to her, once he turns his feet away. I have to hurry. I have to hear as much as possible from her.

  “I witnessed my professor being arrested. I don’t know what he did wrong. He was a good teacher,” she says, fixing her eyes on the nurse who’s walking to the door as slowly as possible to overhear us.

  “What happened to him?” I ask.

  She gives me a stare. “Why should I tell you? You are a spy.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Your uniform proves it. No NTT man wears their white uniform. You report to them what smart people talk and write.”

  Well, that’s how you understand me. I look down, discouraged to bring out more information from her. If she thinks I’m a spy, she won’t tell me anymore. It’s time to say goodbye. When I open my mouth to do so, I notice her lifeless eyes have turned sparkling with spirit. She leans forward slightly and starts talking very hurriedly, as if she is being chased by them. I have to push my ear closer to her mouth to listen to what she says in a low voice.

  “He finally left. Let me finish my story. They brought my teacher to the back of a building. There was no one but me watching them from the roof. They threw him on the ground and shot him in his head. You know the bullet that doesn’t make any blood. It is just forcibly planted in his head. He came out the next day onto the campus. He gave a lecture and blessed the government and their policies. They must have planted him something in him that made him so loyal. He never spoke positive about this before.”

  “Spoke positive about what?” I also whisper.

  “He’s supposed to teach about politics and the government but skipped it all. He didn’t want to give us a false lesson. That must be the reason. Someone in the class reported him. That person might have been attacked and shot in her brain before him.”

  “A real spy.”

  She does not answer. Her eyes ogle at the back of my head. The nurse returned after one minute as he promised. Now I know he’s not a nurse but, a warden. Amelia grips my wrist with such force that I cannot believe it comes from a born student who’s designed to have the lowest level of physical health. I try to extract my fingers from her grip, noticing what she’s going to do but she does not let them go. She forces my thumb to her mouth, places it between her teeth and takes a quick bite. Her teeth sink deep enough to penetrate my skin and draw blood. I wrinkle my eyebrow with pain and hold my lips not to moan. I stand up and look down at her with a blood stain at the edge of her lips. She used her dogtooth when she performed that short ritual.

  “I’m your devotee,” Amelia says.

  I shoot her a glare, pressing the wound with my other thumb to stop the bleeding. I don’t like those who call themselves my devotees. Most of them are dependent. They only want to follow the steps I made, not trying to make changes themselves.

  “General? Is she alright?” asks the nurse behind me.

  He cranes his neck to see her as I’m covering her face with my back. I don’t know what they will do if they find the blood on her lips. So, I quickly turn back, still covering her face and pretend to look around the room.

  “This room has no furniture except two chairs. Got no funds for a bed?”

  “We will furnish her room once she accepts a meal,” he says. “We have a clock that shows meal times. Two hours left. We’ll see how long she can survive without food.”

  While he turns to see the clock, I quickly wipe the blood spot from her lips with my thumb.

  “Shall we go?” says the nurse, turning back to me. I nod yes and turn back to her. She is sitting on her chair obediently, back to the limp, inanimate student locked in a government run mental hospital.

  “Amelia! Thank you for the interview. You helped me a lot,” I say lively. She does not react. Good luck with your act, I whisper to myself.

  As I reach the door, I turn back to have the last look at her and see her mouth telling me something, soundlessly.

  “Take me.”

  No.

  It’s “Save me.”

  CHAPTER 2

  I am waiting in the nurse’s office while he’s gone for his supervisor. He offered me a cup of coffee although I poured half of it into a potted plant in the corner, once I was left alone.

  “Did she tell you what you wanted to know?” he asks, when he returns with a cup of tea.

  “Yes,” I say.

  He looks over at my half cup of coffee before he sits on his chair across the table, eyes the plant and stares back at me. As I smile, he twitches his lips nervously. He seemed to have received an order from his boss to feed me the coffee. He will be scolded by the boss but, that’s none of my business. I only hope his supervisor does not force
the coffee down my throat. Then I have no choice but to finish a bottle of it.

  So just why am I still here?

  I tried to erase Amelia’s face and the words her lips shaped. But I just failed and accepted the invitation to the nurse’s office.

  I look as the nurse stirs his tea, holding the tag of tea bag without drinking. Maybe he knows what’s in it. Maybe he put the plant in his office on purpose and that might be why he checked it after seeing my half-empty cup.

  “I just wonder,” I say, trying to sound casual. “Why is she in the mental hospital? She seems sane.”

  He looks up at me and gives me a long gaze. His eyes are conveying to me a message in silence. That’s why. That is why she’s here.

  Amelia opposed her professor when he was giving her the false lecture about the government. That proved she was one of us, the smart NTTs.

  “She’s insane enough to have a bite on you.”

  I look towards a voice and see a young man leaning on a door frame. His black double- breasted suit looks to be a perfect fit as well as his soft brown hair that reaches his shoulders. It would be yuck if I wore that hairdo but it looks good on his charming face.

  “Sir,” the middle-aged nurse quickly stands up and brings a chair for him. But he shakes his hand, showing a visible disgust as if he will be infected by some horrific virus once he steps inside an NTT’s office.

  “I was watching you and my patient in the next room,” he tells me. “I can see through walls.”

  “See-through genes,” I echo. “Useful.”

  “It’s useful to spy on my NTT employees. My work is to monitor their every moment. They act like they have no brains at all. Screwing up everything,” he says, giving a foul look at the nurse, who’s staring down at the floor, standing straight like a sinner. “Why don’t you come to my office? It’s my honor to have Cine Moon in my place. You are number one celebrity in the district.” He smirks.

  “Thank you but sorry, I have to go.” I stand up and push the chair under the table. “But I do have questions that you can answer now.”

  He gestures to go on.

  “How long are you going to keep her?”

  “We will release her after the operation.”

  “What operation?”

  “We will bleach her brain and insert new genes. Then she will be reborn as a good, docile citizen.” He grins.

  I smile back. “Thank you. That’s enough.”

  I thank the nurse and walk to the door.

  When I pass him in the doorway, he turns to me and says, “So, it’s true, you do smell like you came out of a sewer. Just as I expected coming from a ‘King cockroach’.”

  CHAPTER 3

  I enter Morning Market which is located in the center of the district. This is possibly the most crowded area with NTT citizens. BTTs don’t come here themselves but, send their robots to monitor us. So, there’s no one who can poke into my mind. We are too poor to stuff our babies with mind-reading genes.

  I walked out of the psychiatric hospital, keeping a smile to block negative thoughts that kept popping up in my mind. Some of them are genetic mind readers. It’s always good to be careful when you are with them.

  Staying in the hospital longer than planned was certainly a mistake. I could do nothing about Amelia but, only met one more psycho.

  Forget it, I talk to myself as I walk along the busy market street. Forget her and forget you. This is STT. There’s nothing you can do.

  I have to walk straight to go back to the Ministry of Time Travel where I work but, I turn my feet in the direction of my friend’s tent bar. I have to relax my brain before I enter the battle field. I work with BTTs who are always trying to bring out my real thoughts by provoking me. They want to see anger, hatred and a plan for a rebellion within me, which I find pointless, because I have none of them but, pity. I feel sympathy. They have nothing to brag about themselves except their nature to be a Born Time Traveler.

  NTTs refers to Non Time Travelers. We were once the tourists visiting STT, the Society of Time Travelers, but, later decided to move. BTTs accepted us to earn extra money from the tax but, soon realized that it opposed the original purpose of building the country. They built the domain to live by themselves, the time travelers. So, they made a domain only for the immigrants and named it NTTs’ district. Producing a ‘domain’ is BTTs’ privilege that they craft their own territory and design it as they imagine in their head. The domain does not appear on any map and no one can go in or out without the builder’s consent. Which means, we are locked up in an invisible land.

  MTT the Ministry of Time Travel has two branches. One in BTTs’ the other in NTTs’. MTT in their district accepts tourists, runs the time travel train and studies side effects of time travel. On the other hand, MTT in my district practically performs like a government and controls NTT citizens in this hidden domain.

  MTT sometimes sends us to wars as secret warriors. I’ve been to several battles and wars of different timelines and countries. We apply gel that makes our body invisible to local soldiers and assault them so easily. When there is no time travel mission, I go out on patrol around my district to see people’s well-being.

  “General Moon!” says a man sitting in a pub terrace, raising his glass. “Come here and join us. Morning isn’t that long. You have to begin drinking now! Wait there, I’ll go to you.” He walks forward to pass me the glass, not noticing he’s on the third floor. The wooden terrace breaks down and he falls over. I only watch him in the distance. His friends come out on the terrace and burst out laughing, looking down at the bleeding man.

  Good. They are doing well.

  This is the well-being they want from us. Being irrational. Being stupid. Being lazy and dull. Being happy without knowing what is really happening to us.

  * * *

  “Good morning,” I say, entering into a street bar, rolling up a tent around it.

  “Good morning, General Moon!” greets Mr. Lee.

  I sit in front of him, order my food and look around. His tent bar grew fast in just a few months. He started with two tables but, he now has eight, all full with customers. He’s using the whole alley.

  I see bottles arranged on a stone shelf behind him each containing something that looks like a ribboned snake.

  “We’re selling Kimchi. Want to try some?” Mr. Lee asks me.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “You look like us but, can’t eat Kimchi?”

  “Sorry.”

  That’s all I can say.

  He thought I came from the same country he came from because of my Korean look. I met his family three months ago in Morning Market. It was an early afternoon when all the shops had closed. Morning Market closes at noon sharp.

  A young girl, who was scanning a few pedestrians, grabbed me with her tiny hand before calling out her parents.

  “Mom and dad, hurry! I found a Korean!”

  Her parents rushed to us, saw my face, and smiled so happily that even a selfish brat like me could not just ignore and leave them.

  Sadly, I was not a Korean.

  “But you’re speaking,” the mother said.

  “It’s not me. It’s a machine. It’s an automatic translator.”

  “That’s enough! We can communicate!” the daughter said.

  “I have to go. I have work now,” I said coolly. I did not want to be involved with anyone suspicious. Their eyes, those bright eyes, showed that they were not ordinary NTTs.

  “We are new here. We need a home and work. Our agent suddenly disappeared. He’s holding our money,” she went on.

  “Agent?” I asked, curiously.

  “The agent who helped us to transfer to STT,” her father said, “He was with us until we signed a contract in Ministry of Time Travel.”

  “Describe the person,” I said, taking out my notebook and a pen.

  “He’s tall. Like 190cm or higher,” he said.

  “He looks fantastic, like a model or an actor,” the daugh
ter added.

  “That’s a BTT,” I said, putting back my notebook and pen and held up my hands, “Out of my control.”

  But why would a BTT bring foreigners to our district? That in itself was a mystery.

  “Anyway, welcome to our pigpen,” I said, opening my arms. “You don’t need to bother yourself finding work here. You will be fed like pigs anyway.”

  “What?” they said.

  “Don’t eat cheap foods in the public market. Don’t trust supermarkets, either, except the All Timelines Market. That’s where BTTs shop. If you want more advice, meet me tonight at nine.”

  When I went back to that place in the evening, they were not there. Maybe the BTT agent took them back to their district if they were tourists. I thought so and kept walking until I heard a familiar voice.

  “No, dad! Customers cannot see the sign in that direction. Yes, just a little bit to the left…”

  It was the Korean girl. In a narrow alley, the father and daughter were installing a sign on a tent.

  “You came back?”

  I turned back to where the voice came from. The mother stood there, holding plastic bags.

  “I bought some ingredients to practice before opening tomorrow. Come here, you taste for me. I don’t know your people’s taste.”

  Since then, I kept visiting their tent bar. This family made me interested in how long they could make it here. An innocent curiosity. How long will they keep them before selling them out?

  But look at me. I’m visiting them daily, being worried if that really happens. Ah, I’m a helplessly good man.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Can’t you breathe?”

  When I come back to reality, I feel nothing in my tongue as if paralyzed. And the Korean girl is worriedly massaging my heart. She stuffed the thing into my mouth. I swallow it without chewing once. First taste of Kimchi is brutal. It burns my throat as it passes by.

  “You’re so cruel,” I say after gulping a small glass of soju but, it only helps burning my throat. I stick out my tongue for her to put ice on it.

  “Where have you been?” I ask her, munching the ice.