Soyul - Destroyer of Worlds
The next morning, the boss called a briefing for everyone at 8:30 am. Soyul was the first in the briefing room and slowly the rest began to file in. One-Wiz and Dahyun were next to arrive.
One-Wiz said, “Look! The new girl is first! She still likes her job.”
Dahyun agreed, “Don’t worry, two more days of working with you and that will end.”
One-Wiz ignored her, “Soyul, what time did you get here? Why do you look so awake this early?”
“I’ve been here for a bit… waiting… I’m used to being on the golf course very early, to make sure to hit the greens before the masses appear and clog up the fairways.”
One-Wiz asked Dahyun, “Do you have any idea what she is talking about?”
“Clearly not…”
Sihyeon was next to arrive. She happily opened and then closed the door behind her and sat in a chair, “Oh, Soyul is here!”
One-Wiz said, “She thinks she is golfing or something,”
Soyul adjusted her story, “I wasn’t sure how long it would take for me to get here during rush hour, I made sure I left plenty early.”
They chatted for a bit until Yuna finally arrived at 8:29 am.
One-Wiz said, “The Kpop girl is the one that is going to be late for every meeting?”
Yuna looked at him, “I’m not late?”
Sihyeon said, “You stayed the night, right? All that you had to do was roll out of bed, come up one flight of stairs and down the hall.”
“Yeah… I’m not late?”
One-Wiz said, “Soyul had to come all the way across town and she was here first.”
“I…. AM…. NOT… LATE….”
Sihyeon stuck up for her, “Look, during promotions we have to sometimes be ready to go at 4 am and then have 14-16 hour days. She is fine arriving ‘on time’.”
One-Wiz looked at Sihyeon, unable to contain his sarcasm, “What do YOU know about promotions?”
Sihyeon pointed at him angrily.
Yuna said, “Stop! I will bring delightful to this place! Starting now!”
As though on cue, the Boss entered the room and started the briefing. “We grabbed enough audio from yesterday’s meeting with the D-Weather CEO to disguise my voice as his with AI. I called him later yesterday and Chung was strangely still interested in supplying thrusters to them. It must have been a lucrative contract. He suggested next week, until I mentioned that my best young female engineer was available tomorrow. Then he easily agreed to meet today. The meeting is in the same warehouse where we suspected he was and Yuna ran into all of those drones last week. He must be using it as a front for his new operations.”
“Well, there were a LOT of drones there,” said Yuna.
“Soyul will be my ‘best young female engineer’, Yuna you will work your way around the back and try to get into the warehouse that way while Soyul has him distracted.
Yuna said, “But I wanna be the best hot engineer…”
“He knows you? Literally…”
“I know… just saying…”
“Okay, both of you suit up. The meeting is at 11:00. Let’s get this guy!”
The Boss, One-Wiz and Sihyeon left the room. Dahyun said, “Two naked girls! Let’s go!” She excitedly got up, expecting the girls to follow her.
Soyul did, but Yuna said, “I literally rolled out of bed and came up here. I’m going to shower while you are getting Soyul ready.”
“Okay… I like her better anyway…” said Dahyun coyly.
The two of them were just about out of the door, but hadn’t closed it yet, when Yuna said, “Hey, her favorite color is brown…”
Closing the door, Dahyun said “Well, that is a curious choice…”
***
After both girls were in their suits, they added some normal clothing on top. Yuna was wearing a tee shirt and sweatpants, Soyul a turtleneck and dress slacks, they went to the pick-up area together.
One-Wiz met them on the way out, handing Yuna a new weapon. “Hey, give me the old EMP gun.”
Yuna pulled it from her ankle and handed it to One-Wiz.
He asked, “It still has the EMP dart loaded?”
“Yes.”
One-Wiz took the EMP dart out of the old weapon and put it in the new one. “I made one more, so this now has two EMP darts again.” He showed her the hilt of the gun. “Look, I tried to make it so any excess charge goes to the base of the hilt, the grip is insulated. If you keep the hilt somewhat near your suit, it might discharge there instead of shocking you, but no promises. I’m sorry we can’t practice, I have to make these darts by hand and it AIN’T EASY!”
“Thank you for trying, sir! I will take good care of them!” She holstered the new weapon back on her ankle.
One-Wiz left and as the car arrived to pick them up, Soyul said, “Awww, Kitty Cat shoots darts… How cute.”
Yuna shot her with laser beams from her eyes. “What weapon do you prefer?”
“Whatever is around…” answered Soyul.
“What the fuck does that mean?” asked Yuna.
“Oh, and this big-assed gun.” Soyul pulled it from her belt holster.
“Fits your personality.”
Soyul ignored her as they piled into the car.
Yuna asked, “How are you today, Mr. Driver?”
“Fine…” he answered.
Yuna turned to look at Soyul.
Soyul asked, “Did you have breakfast today?”
“Of course, Miss Soyul, you don’t think I would drive you around on an empty stomach!”
Yuna asked, “Cereal?”
“Yup…”
Soyul said, “Come on… what did you really have?”
“American-style! Scrambled eggs and bacon! You don’t think I would drive you around only running on cereal…”
Yuna said, “You said ‘yup’…”
“Never been lied to by your driver before?”
“HE SAID A SENTENCE TO ME! GREAT SUCCESS!”
Soyul giggled, very pleased that her relationship with the driver was clearly better than her partner’s.
They arrived at the industrial park a few minutes before the meeting was scheduled. This time they didn’t have the advantage of darkness as a cover. Soyul would be going in in open sight and Yuna would have to be careful not to be seen.
As Soyul was expected, the driver didn’t even try to conceal the vehicle he dropped her off right at the warehouse door. Yuna carefully skirted around the outside; she was going to look for that back door to the main warehouse area.
Sihyeon checked the comms, “You two ready?”
“Kitty Cat ready!” said Yuna cheerfully.
“Yes pirate, ‘Fearsome Adult Cat’ ready, also.”
Sihyeon said, “We need to get you a name… I’ll try out some things.”
Yuna said, “I’m already around back at the door, give me a second to get this lock open before you go inside the front, ‘yet to be named girl’.”
Yuna pulled out her lockpicks. The lock was just like the one on the front. It took her about ten seconds to open. “Not shy, not shy, Itzy,” she hummed as she entered the warehouse.
“It is like working with a humming child,” said Soyul.
“I’m older than you…” said Yuna.
Soyul knocked on the front door.
To her surprise, two very large and well-armed security guards greeted her and escorted her inside. They seemed like typical rent-for-hire security guards, but looked prepared for some serious trouble, with sizable hand guns and body armor. They opened the door to Chung’s office, ushered her inside, closed the door and stood outside.
Sihyeon was watching Soyul’s feed on her necklace cam. He said, “Wow Kitty Cat, Lynx has two well-armed guards keeping her in that office.”
Yuna pulled a flashlight from her belt and looked around the warehouse. There were still lots of drones, but none flying, most sitting on various shipping crates. The spotlights had also been taken down. She made her way around the warehouse and noticed there was a loft area, with a rickety wooden staircase to the ground level. There were two more guards up there. One of them must have heard her and they both turned in her direction. She managed to duck behind a crate, but now couldn’t really go forward or backward.
Chung greeted Soyul warmly and asked her to sit down. “So, who might you be?” he asked charmingly.
“Lee Kaeun. Nice to meet you Mr. Chung. We are very impressed by your thruster system, but there are a few challenges, I was hoping we could talk about them before we invest millions in your new lighter technology.”
At the words ‘millions’ and ‘new lighter technology’ Chung simply smiled. He then got the characteristic sound that he received a text message. He took a second to check his phone.
He smiled again and said, “I don’t know who you are? But your Itzy friend, is it Yuna? …seems to have made her way into the warehouse.” He pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Soyul.
Hurriedly, Sihyeon shouted into their ears “Panther’s been made, they know you are there, Kitty Cat.”
Chung said, “You’re breathtaking though. I’ll fuck you later.” He pressed a button under his desk and a burst of gas shot up from Soyul’s chair into her face. She collapsed into a heap, rolling off the chair onto the ground.
Yuna stood up from the crate she was hiding behind and the two guards repositioned themselves on the top of the stairs, pointing their weapons at her.
Chung left the office and said to the guards, “Make sure the girl in that room doesn’t go anywhere.”
The one guard said, “We didn’t sign up for drugging females to assault them later.”
Chung said, “You signed up for whatever I’m paying you for!”
He moved into the main warehouse and spotted Yuna, standing with her arms up. “You don’t listen, do you?” he taunted.
Yuna shrugged.
“Your friend is very hot. I’m going to kill you and then make her my slave and make sure she suffers a lot.”
“That’s okay, I kinda hate her,” said Yuna.
Back in the office. Soyul lifted her head and checked if the guards were paying attention. They seemed to be more attentive to what was happening in the warehouse. Luckily Sihyeon had foreseen this and Dahyun gave Soyul a dose of the antidote after she got into her suit. She faked being unconscious after seeing the gas. She heard Sihyeon in her ear, “Cheetah, I hope you’re okay, Kitty Cat needs you RIGHT NOW.”
She had a clear shot at one guard, but was worried the other would be on top of her before she could shoot them both. They were also clearly wearing body armor, so the easy chest shot wasn’t available. Instead, she crawled forward to just under the window out to the hallway. It didn’t take long for one guard to see that she had moved.
Just before he pointed it out to his buddy, she shot the window, resulting in a huge explosion of broken safety glass. Both guards covered their faces from the flying glass which gave Soyul enough time to stand up and grab two of the bigger pieces still sticking to the window frame. She then jumped through the broken window in a cascade of glass shards. She landed next to one guard and cut his neck in a gruesome spray of blood. The other guard was shocked at what he just witnessed and could do nothing to prevent meeting the same fate. She sliced his neck with the shard in her other hand and he slumped to the hallway in a growing pool of blood.
In the warehouse, Chung heard the shot and shattering glass. “Well shit, I think my guards might have killed my new toy, I guess you’ll have to do after all.”
Soyul sprinted into the warehouse. “Not dead,” she screamed.
Chung turned to her, both of the guards on the loft shot her, one missed and the other hit her in the upper left side of her chest, but her suit protected her. She was thrown about two meters, hard, onto the ground, however.
The distraction gave Yuna an opening to shoot Chung with a dart. She watched him collapse and then jumped behind some crates for cover.
Both guards stayed on the loft, trying to get a clear shot at Yuna, occasionally shooting in her general direction.
“OWWWW,” moaned Soyul, trying to get her breath back after having it knocked out of her by the bullet and fall. She saw Yuna was pinned. She ran around under the loft so they couldn’t see her. Yuna would occasionally pop her head out to distract them, and they would shoot towards her.
Soyul noticed that the loft wasn’t particularly well constructed. She shot the joint of two supports at the front of the structure, hoping it would do enough damage. She then charged the support, putting her entire shoulder into it and knocking it forward. As the loft started to lean, the guards were off balance and she hit the other support with her gun, running at it and jumping at it with her hip, causing a catastrophic collapse. She fell to the ground and rolled to the side and the entire loft and two guards fell in a cloud of wood and drone parts.
After they fell, Yuna shot them both with darts. “Pirate, we’ll need medical assistance. At least 4 serious injuries.”
Soyul somehow managed to get to her feet and staggered out from around the side of where the loft fell. Her turtleneck was blood-soaked and her dress pants were in tatters.
Yuna stood over Chung. She wasn’t taking her eyes off that man until backup arrived.
When the authorities arrived, Chung and the guards were taken into custody. Yuna helped Soyul make her way to the entrance, Soyul was leaning on her heavily. Yuna saw the other two guards… and the glass… and the blood… She nearly vomited.
“Dear lord, you are terrifying!” was all she could say, trying not to tear up.
***
After returning to headquarters, Dahyun took one look at Soyul and said, “She took a direct hit with a big weapon, in the clavicle, there are almost certainly broken things under there, she needs to go to the hospital.”
They, of course, had a protocol for such things, she would be taken in a back entrance of the hospital and seen by a doctor who wouldn’t ask questions about her suit and why she got injured.
After seeing her off to the hospital, Yuna, Sihyeon, and the Boss sat together in the briefing room. The atmosphere was heavy. All three of them took turns looking at each other, but no one spoke. Each knew exactly what the other was thinking, even though Yuna was somewhat new, picking up people’s reactions was her specialty and she also had difficulty hiding her own.
Finally, Sihyeon was the first to admit this silent meeting was just tedious and they were wasting time, she just got up and opened the door. Before stepping out, she looked back into the room and said, “I’m confident Yuna can tame her.”
Yuna looked at her and smiled at her confidence in her, but shook her head ‘no’ in exasperation, tears coming to her eyes.
Sihyeon left and the Boss got up as well. “If she is confident, then I am too.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you two? She killed two innocent men with shards of glass… What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Figure it out. The mission was accomplished tonight. And don’t worry… if her recklessness is a continued problem, we will find her another line of work. Please stay here at headquarters one more night until we make sure this Chung problem is over.”
***
After Yuna and Soyul returned, it seemed obvious that One-Wiz wouldn't be needed for anything related to the operation, so he went to visit a friend. Although he made it look, to the Boss, as though turning his voice into the voice of the D-Weather CEO in real time was trivial, it was not and he spent many hours and many sleepless nights over the past month preparing that to work.
He took the bus from headquarters to a rather seedy looking bar in Itaewon, even in the middle of the afternoon. He found his friend and sat down at his table. "How's it going, Panda-P?"
"I'm doing well, how about you, One-Wiz? Still working for the Emperor?"
Luckily, Yuna would never find out about ‘Panda-P’ and further make fun of their names. Panda-P didn't know exactly what One-Wiz did, but talented hackers usually end up one of two places, working for a government, or working against a government.
One-Wiz was blessed, or cursed, to being doing both simultaneously, most days... "Something like that..."
"Well, you aren't exactly a social butterfly and it isn't every day you contact an old college buddy, so clearly you want something?"
"Yeah, you know I wouldn't ask you for a favor if it wasn't, very... necessary... for me..."
"Go on, ask away. Trading favors is something I do almost daily."
"I heard that you have recently gotten into large language models."
"Sad, isn't it? AI is replacing a lot of jobs, it is ironic that ours isn't too far behind, since it can now write code. It can hack whatever it wants without our assistance."
One-Wiz and Panda-P both shuddered at the thought of a mindless computer being able to hack anything, at any time. "Horrific..."
"I decided that the best way to stay on top of things was to design my own LLMs, to make sure they still know who is boss..."
"I know your talents, I assume any LLM built by Panda-P is highly modular and customizable?"
"Of course..."
"I'm trying to do things with the AIs that are out there… you know, that everyone is using… but getting them to do something even a slight bit off task can take hours of repurposing. I'm over it."
"You try the new Chinese one?"
One-Wiz glared at Panda-P, "Obviously not..."
"It can do what you want, I guarantee it..."
"Obviously not... I can't even watch my girl on Tik-Tok without alarms going off..."
"I understand. Look, I'm happy to give you my blanket LLM that I built around a well-known AI. It will simplify your life, you are probably replacing one voice with another, or something like that?"
"In real time... I mean... nothing..."
"Oh... I see... Well, it will do that for sure, it can easily adapt the commercial systems that can make it sound like Taeyeon is singing your demo tracks. But..."
"You will require something in return..."
"Yeah... Why would I give you my life's... well last 6 month’s... work for nothing in return?"
"I wouldn't expect that. What can I help you with?"
“I ran into some trouble with some folks in Venezuela.”
“Venezuela?”
“Yeah… I just need a quick alteration to a government record. Should be trivial for someone of your talents, and think how much time my help is going to save you.”
“Okay, write the details on a napkin. I’ll destroy it when I’m finished and text you that it has been done.”
Panda-P pulled out a pen and started writing.
***
When One-Wiz got back to headquarters, he immediately went to the Bosses office and knocked on the door. He motioned for One-Wiz to come in.
One-Wiz asked, “Do you have a minute?”
“No, I have several situations I’m dealing with.”
“I’m not going to claim I’m that important, but it is time sensitive.”
The Boss knew One-Wiz wouldn’t just randomly come to his office to waste his time, “Okay, come in and sit.”
One-Wiz nervously sat down. “I might have lied to you about a problem, and now I want to make sure I’m honest with you about the solution.”
“Go on…”
“Replacing your voice with the D-Weather CEO’s voice in real time was not trivial, is was quite difficult. Luckily, I had been preparing for such a thing for several weeks, but…”
“But?”
“I’m actually quite bad at interacting with these AIs, and it is the ‘new thing’ and I’m getting left behind.”
“I want you to have access to all of the things you need to do your job to the fullest, but no pressure to use AIs if you have another way.”
“I don’t, there is no way around it, or no way to deny it is the only path forward.”
“I see… so what did you do?”
“I asked an old hacker friend from school for some help.”
“And old hacker friends from school never give help freely…”
“Of course not.”
“Imagine having old spy friends from school…”
“I cannot.”
“Well, what is it?”
“He wants me to hack a Venezuelan government server.”
“Jeez.”
“Very simple, really, with our connections.”
“And whatever you get in return is going to help you?”
“I’ll be able to turn your voice into Taeyeon whenever you wish to karaoke.”
“I’m happy our boss/employee relationship is strong enough to have these conversations.”
“Yeah…”
“Do it, but I’m going to watch over your shoulder, just so I’m aware what is actually happening. In case I have to throw you under the bus later.”
One-Wiz looked at him, totally unsure whether he was kidding or not. “Give me thirty minutes or so, then come up to the computer lab and I will do it.”
The Boss nodded and One-Wiz left his office.
***
Yuna got herself cleaned up and a well-behaved and slightly somber Dahyun helped her out of her suit. She then had a very long shower because she was caked in blood, just from helping Soyul to the car. Then she headed to her room and laid on the bed to relax a bit, and put on some music.
After three songs, there was a knock on her door. She turned off the music and opened the door. Soyul said, “Listening to IU?”
Yuna nodded, “of course. I thought you didn’t know Kpop.”
“IU is not Kpop…”
Yuna was in no mood to begin to debate IU’s genre, this particular year.
“Can I come in? You can say no, I understand.” asked Soyul.
“Of course you can come in,” said Yuna.
Soyul sat on the side of the bed, Yuna sat up and flipped her legs off of the bed and sat next to her.
Yuna looked at her expectantly.
“Look, I just didn’t know where else to go.”
Yuna sensed she was clearly hurting, both physically and emotionally. “How is your chest? Is anything broken?”
“They did a lot of X-rays and ultrasound, nothing is broken or too badly damaged.”
“The suit is amazing, but…”
Soyul cut her off “…It hurts so bad. But why am I so sad. We got the guy.”
“You got shot and also killed two mostly innocent men, messily at that…” said Yuna honestly.
“I’ve never done that before… I can’t get it out of my head. I don’t know what to do. All I see is blood…”
Yuna was sympathetic, but had no intention of going easy on her, “Why DID you do it?”
“You were in trouble. They were between me and you. I did what I had to, to get to you.”
Yuna put her head down, feeling worse about judging her.
“That’s what a partner is supposed to do, right?”
“Yeah, but I can take care of myself,” countered Yuna.
“Could you?”
“No, you totally saved my life in there.”
Soyul looked at her for a few seconds. “Can you rub my shoulder?” she asked.
Yuna helped her take off her sweater. She was wearing a tank top underneath, no bra. She had a massive bruise just above her left breast where the bullet hit her and also had large bruises on each shoulder.
“Damn girl…” said Yuna.
Yuna gently rubbed the shoulder bruise. “Does it hurt for me to touch?”
Soyul looked at her directly in the eyes. “Yes.” She put her hand on top of Yuna’s, on her shoulder.
To Yuna’s surprise, Soyul put her other hand around Yuna’s head and pulled their lips together, just like Yuna did to her in the janitor’s closet.
Yuna didn’t see it coming. She couldn’t even comprehend the kiss, she was too busy thinking, ‘Why is everything I do a failure around this girl?’
Then she realized someone’s tongue was feeling around in her mouth and got a burst of hormones.
Yuna broke the kiss and gently pulled Soyul’s tank top over her head. She had been wanting to touch her breasts since the moment she saw them and finally got the opportunity, gently feeling them while resetting the kiss.
This time Soyul broke the kiss and was much less gentle removing Yuna’s hoodie and bra. They each pulled off their own sweatpants. Yuna laid down on the bed and Soyul climbed on top of her, they pulled each other as close together as possible, chests together, panties together and kissed again.
Yuna saw the massive bruise forming on her hip as well. Somehow Soyul acted like she wasn’t in pain.
Soyul asked, “Think I can make you cum faster than that machine?”
“Yuna goals.”
“Think you can make ME cum faster than that machine?” asked Soyul.
“How long do you have?”
“10 hours or so.”
“Maybe.”
They kissed, enjoying falling into each other for an hour. Finally, Yuna felt a hand moving down her stomach under her panties. Soyul whispered, “I want you screaming like you were on that machine.”
Yuna said, “Oh, you have to earn that…”
There was no screaming, but Soyul made her moan and purr for several hours. It was nearly morning before Yuna finally climbed on top of Soyul, spread her legs and ate her out until she finally had an orgasm as well.
Soyul gave Yuna one more as well and they fell asleep naked on top of each other for about two hours before Yuna’s alarm went off.
***
Yuna’s alarm woke her from the little bit of sleep she got and she instinctually threw Soyul off of her as though she were covers and turned off the alarm. Soyul made a loud “OUCH”, landing awkwardly on her shoulder bruise.
Yuna snapped out of being barely awake, “Oh Hon! I’m so sorry.” She gave her a huge hug and rubbed her shoulders. Soyul sat up. Yuna stared at her chest.
“I don’t appreciate being objectified like this,” joked Soyul.
Yuna threw her clothes at her. “Easy to fix!”
The pair of them climbed into the clothes they discarded last night. Yuna helped Soyul put her hoodie on, raising both arms was quite painful for her. “Let’s go separately, but we can’t be late.”
Soyul gave her a thumbs up and headed off to the briefing. Yuna stayed in her room for five more minutes and then followed her.
She saw Soyul talking to Sihyeon, but Soyul walked away when Yuna approached.
“You two good?” asked Sihyeon.
“No, I hate her. She’s worse than Jennie and not half as cool.”
Sihyeon looked in Yuna’s eyes and lingered there.
“Did you two have sex?” she asked.
“NOO, what???” acted Yuna.
Sihyeon just sighed as the Boss came in the room and started the briefing.
“Our talks with Chung have been informative. But not really in a good way. He claims that he is low man in the hierarchy, and whatever or whoever he works for also knows Yuna’s secrets. Unfortunately, the threat is far from over. Itzy is going to continue to have personal security, but I think we should cancel all events for a while. Yuna, you need to stay here, when you aren’t on a mission.”
Yuna nodded, rolled her eyes, and sighed. “So, what’s the plan for getting them?”
“Obviously we didn’t realize the depth of this. We are going to put a lot more resources into tracking down who or what is running this. Some good news, the sexual assault seems to be limited to Chung, he is quite the creep. Side effect of the drugs they were testing and he used it for his own ‘fun’. At least we can put that whole thing to rest. That’s all I have. We are working hard on this, be patient.”
“Can I speak with Sihyeon alone please?” asked the Boss.
Yuna, Soyul, Dahyun, and One-wiz left the room, chatting in the hallway.
“You gave me the signal?”
“Yuna and Soyul were intimate last night.”
“Yuna told you that?”
“No, I just can tell.”
“Well, this is unexpected.”
“For Yuna’s safety, AND for this new partnership to figure itself out… do you know where I’m going with this?”
“… yeah, I see where you are going with this. Give me an hour. I’ll contact my North Korean buddy in LA.”