SIGNET: WRONG TURN by James Wylder

SIGNET: WRONG TURN
A Christmas Freshfields Vignette
by James WYlder

Jae-Sun had earned a break, but just as soon as relief came, it was pulled out from under him. He'd spent the morning dealing with a particularly difficult problem — a stalker who wouldn't leave one of the customers alone. Between his personal threats, the police report, and banning the man from the store, he'd done about everything he could, and the woman had been very grateful. But the paperwork had been the really atrocious part. He stretched his hands, extending and retracting his fingers, and leaned back in the cheap plastic chair. Finally.
And then his radio went off. He wanted to ignore it. If it hadn't been in the ROK Army, he probably would have ignored it, but his hand went to the device before he could finish the thought, "Maybe I can just sit this one out—" and he was already saying, "Jae-Sun, what's the problem?"
Carol's voice cut in. "We've got an issue. A girl is eating stuff in the world foods aisle, and crying."
Did that really need him? Couldn't Steve handle it?
"Steve is busy with a fight in the parking lot, and she's one of yours."
"One of mine?" Was Xana, Olivia, or Aoife in trouble? It didn't sound like them.
"You know, Korean."
"Oh," He had not actually seen that coming.



The girl in question was being scolded by a blond man by the time he hoofed it over to her. She looked embarrassed, but was still chewing the snack she'd pulled off the shelf.
It took him a second to process that the blond man was scolding her in Korean.
"You can't just eat things off the shelf! You can't even do that at home!"
"But they had Shrimp Chips!" she said, holding it up. "I've eaten nothing but gas-station food for days on this road trip. Do you know how much I've missed these?"
Jae-Sun smiled. He actually did know, all too well.
"Trust me, I felt the same way when I came here."
Both turned to look at him.
"Don't worry, sir, we'll pay for the snack,” the man said. “ Really sorry about this.”
"Yeah, my bad... hey!"
There was a look in her eyes he knew all too well. That simple relief of being somewhere filled with people who didn't look like you, who didn't speak the language you grew up with, and finally seeing someone who knew a little bit about what it was like to be your shoes.
Jae-Sun smirked. Her dialect was weird. Definitely not North Korean, but the accent was hard to place.
She paused, furrowing her brow. "...Korea? S... South Korea?" Which was a weird thing to say all around.
“Yeah, South Korea,” Jae-Sun answered simply.
"I'm Christopher Cwej, this is Jhe Sang Mi."
He recognized the name Cwej. He'd read all the documents Zoltan had given him when he joined SIGNET, and Cwej had a thicker file than most. Notably, he'd stopped an incursion of the Yssgaroth with a Korean assistant at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair in America. Presumably this same one.
Time travelers. Never any easy thing to deal with. Especially one as dangerous as Cwej was purported to be. The man in front of him had that unassuming look of a large man who was really a teddy bear inside. But if half the reports he'd read were accurate, he could bring devastation down on his enemies hotter than hellfire, and the Superiors who he used to work for were powerful in ways that Jae-Sun scoffed at when he first read Zoltan's briefing.
But there was something about this conversation, maybe just the way he was talking to the girl in Korean the whole time instead of pushing her to use English, that made him give him the benefit of the doubt.
"Well, I'm not really supposed to, but she is a minor, so if you can just pay for the goods I'll take care of the rest."
They both looked relieved.
Chris pulled out a wad of American dollar bills.
"We can't take those here."
"Oh, we can do card!" Sang Mi said, rummaging in her bag.
"No, uh, as in we can't take US Dollars here. This is York."
"How the hell did we get so off track we ended up in New York?" Chris leaned against a shelf in frustration, and then hastily scrambled back to standing as it began to lean. “Wait, New York would absolutely take US Dollars?”
"No, no not New York. York. In the United Kingdom."
The duo stared at him, the same look on their faces, and their lips pursing, the ends scrunched to the side in the same way.
Jae-Sun wasn't one to indulge their moment. "How did you manage that? You said you were on a road trip?"
"We took a wrong turn," Sang Mi answered.
"You ended up across the ocean."
"I never said I was a good driver," Chris answered without actually answering.
Sang Mi nudged him in the rib. "Well hey, at least we didn't end up in 1734 or something. Still the year of Our Lord 2025."
"It's 2024,” Jae-Sun deadpanned.
"Oh come on, seriously?" Chris threw his hands up.
A thought occurred to him. "Why didn't you notice the accents changed when you entered the store?"
"I don't know, it's not like English is my first language," Sang Mi mumbled.
"Mine either," he smirked. "Come on, we'll get this sorted.”



* * *



He wasn’t sure how he’d play it off, but he knew who he had to bring them to first. Thankfully the old man would start his break soon, so he led them on a walk the long way round to the break room.
He could have sworn he saw something peeking around the corners as he went. But there was always nothing there when he got to the ends of the aisles. Nerves had to be getting to him; he doubled his focus.
“Charles, I thought I might—”
“ZOLTAN!” Sang Mi said, and rushed over to him throwing her arms around him. He looked baffled, but not displeased.
“I’m sorry, do I know you young lady? Oh! Christopher, what a pleasure to see you again.”
Sang Mi frowned. “You don’t remember me?”
Chris looked around the break room. There was only Olivia and Xana over on the other side of the room. Olivia wore a mask over her eyes that said, “NAPTIME!” in big yellow letters, and Xana was on her phone.
“Don’t worry, it’s only our people here at the moment,” Jae-Sun reassured him.
Chris nodded in acknowledgment, and turned back to his pupil. “It’s 2024 here, remember? You’ve met Charles in 2025, but he hasn’t met you.”
Charles grimaced. “I don’t like knowing the future like that, Chris.”
He shrugged. “Sorry, she’s not used to this kind of thing. New to time travel. She’s still in high school — long story. Figured you could take a hit to keep her from feeling bad.”
Charles didn’t look happy, but did seem to understand, and nodded pleasantly at the girl, extending a hand. “Charles Zoltan, and who might you be?”
“Jhe Sang Mi, Kalingkata to my friends. I’m from Mars. You really helped us out in Indiana, even without your team here!”
Charles sighed. “I’ll be sure to be over there next year, and act surprised to see you. I’m glad to see I’ll leave a good impression.”
“You only saw Charles there?” Jae-Sun asked, suddenly feeling his heart pound.
“Yes?” Sang Mi answered unsure.
“This is why we don’t tell people this stuff, it gets complicated. Think about the implications, if you only know for sure Charles is alive next year.”
“But… that doesn’t mean they’re not?”
“No. And it doesn’t mean history can’t change, and Charles could die,” Chris said gently. “Knowing the future isn’t just dangerous, it’s stressful. We have to be careful. Plus, my Superiors could get involved, and we don’t want that either.”
Sang Mi, a little humbled, bowed her head. “Yeah, I understand. Sorry.”
“Not to worry!” Charles said, clearly trying to bring her spirits back up. “You’re still learning. Now, I’m afraid my break is coming to an end, so Jae-Sun, if I could trust you to figure out how they got here, and make sure they’re taken care of? It could have to do with our mystery here, yes?”
Jae-Sun nodded. “Consider it done.”
Chris and Sang Mi had gone through the door, when Charles grabbed Jae-Sun’s arm. “Cwej shouldn’t be here.”
“I understand, I’ll—”
“No, not like that. I trust him. But he shouldn’t be here. He mentioned his Superiors. Present tense.”
Jae-Sun tilted his head. He didn’t follow. Zoltan cut to the chase.
“It should be impossible he’s here right now. Something is off.”
He nodded, and followed the duo out the door. He’d figure it out. That was what he did, after all.



* * *



Jae-Sun had yet to do something he'd qualify as abusing his power as a security guard, but writing this off was something he felt no guilt about.
Chris coughed as Jae-Sun dug into the paperwork. "So... Freshfields? Doesn't seem like the place for someone who is aware of time travel."
Jae-Sun shrugged. "It's an op."
"It's always an op. What for?”
He looked them over. Well, Charles said he trusted him… “There have been disappearances. A bunch of them. We’re trying to figure out what happened to them. Hopefully bring them home.”
Chris nodded. “If what happened to us is related, we’ll do everything we can to help.”
“And if it isn't related too!” Sang Mi chimed in.
Jae-Sun smirked at that. “I’m fudging your paperwork on the incident, your welcome, it’ll all be sorted. So help me out. Let’s find out if there’s any connection between what happened to you and the Freshfields disappearances.”
“Alright, what do you want to know?” Chris asked.
"Okay," Jae-Sun said, "Why don't you start from the beginning.”
Sang Mi nodded. "I can do that."



* * *



Sang Mi was born on October 10th 2370--



* * *



"No, not—no. I mean what led up to you getting lost?"
"Right, sorry. I took that a bit literally."



* * *



2025, Pennsylvania, USA
They had been driving across the American Midwest for weeks now, and Sang Mi was beginning to get a good sense of Chris Cwej’s moods when he was driving. To the average person, Chris would have looked focused on the road. But Sang Mi knew better at this point, as he bounced the knee of the leg not operating the gas pedal. Chris Cwej looked distracted, and as Sang Mi finished her second slushie that day, she finally decided to nudge him about it.
"What's on your mind?"
"Corn maze," he said.
She gestured with her empty cup. "I don't know what that is."
"Of course you don't, you're from Gongen, where farms are underground affairs run by robots. This planet is different." Chris pointed out the window at the tall rows of corn to either side of them. "Farmers make mazes in the corn. They're a sort of fun thing people do around here, you try to make your way through the maze of maize." He looked over at her. "Maze of maize. Because maize is—"
"I got it, thanks."
He looked back at the road. "There were signs for one. Wanna stop?"
"No Chris, I'm going on this big road trip with you where we keep diverting from our destination to extend it because I really want to get it over with."
Chris looked over in silence.
"That was sarcasm," she noted.
"I figured," he laughed. "Look at you, getting snarky."
"I'm not snarky!"
He just laughed again, and pulled into the farm.



Chris paid their entry fee, and they began their way into the maze. They were greeted at the start by a funny scarecrow that had been given a suit jacket and bow-tie, as well as a smiling and well-worn comedy mask probably discarded from a high-school theater department. Their feet crunched the corn, and Sang Mi slinked her hands around Cwej's elbow like he was escorting her to a father-daughter dance as they made turn after unknown turn, trying to figure out where they were going. Every so often there would be another scarecrow — sometimes a new one in a comical pose or dressed like they were from some popular movie, or a replica of the one at the entrance, pointing their way through. It was fun, but Sang Mi began to feel that Chris had maybe been a little too enthusiastic about the experience of walking through a bunch of corn. It was, at its heart, walking through a bunch of corn.
Still, that was a novel thing for her. Forests had been a new enough thing for her here on Earth, but this was indeed unlike anything she'd experienced before.
As the walk dragged on, it didn't stop the novelty from wearing off, however, and it seemed to have worn off for Chris too. "I thought this was supposed to be short?"
Chris looked at her as though she had had a revelation, and not just been snarky. He checked his phone. "...It was. We should have finished this in maybe fifteen minutes. It's been three hours."
Sang Mi grimaced. "Are we really that bad at mazes?" And she meant it.
Chris shook his head. "Something else. Did you notice anything odd about the scarecrows?"
She thought hard. "It was weird they recreated the one at the entrance so many times."
"It was, wasn't it? Especially when the mask was damaged the same way every time. Damn it, I let my guard down. I should have known something was off."
Sang Mi frowned. "They'll get mad at us, but can't we just walk through the corn field?"
Opening his mouth to answer, Chris shut it again. You know, that might just work.
Taking a breath, he stepped right into the corn, and Sang Mi followed.
They rustled through it, and came out by the road. They walked back to the farm, where they did get yelled at as Chris pulled out probably too much money and threw it at them as they rushed into their orange Honda Element and drove away. Once they were back on the road, they let out sights of relief.
"That could have been bad," Sang Mi said, stretching out. "I'd say find a hotel, but I wanna get away from there."
"I agree, but check if there are any missing people in the area. If there are, I'd say we have a duty."
Sang Mi's eyes went wide, and she gave a nod that was entrenched in duty as the implications hit her. She pulled her phone out and began searching.
Chris turned at the next intersection.
The cornfields quickly turned to forest. Odd.
"I just lost signal?" She frowned, and looked up. "Hey, civilization!" The forest turned to houses, and the houses grew thicker. And someone was heading right for them!
Chris swerved onto the side of the road, panting, as the driver passed them, giving them a dirty look.
"You're driving on the wrong side of the road!" Sang Mi yelled out the window.
"That wasn't English you just yelled," Chris noted.
"Oh," Sang Mi deflated. "Well, yelling made me feel better at least."
"It's too dark out, I can't see shit," Chris mumbled, but got back on the road.
They were rattled, but the road was fairly empty, so when they saw a grocery store they quickly pulled in.
They stumbled through the entrance, and headed right for the snacks.



* * *



"—And then you caught us, and now we're here," Sang Mi said, doing jazz hands. Chris was stuffing his face with curry, and nodded his agreement. After he’d gotten the paperwork done, they’d headed over to a restaurant and kept the story going. Sang Mi appreciated that he’d chosen a place that understood what spicy actually meant.
Jae-Sun stirred his own curry, trying to process it all. "Zoltan is happy you're here. You're bound to be helpful with this investigation, but I'm worried this is just another problem." He held both hands out. "We're investigating disappearances. A lot of them. Maybe it has something to do with how you disappeared. I don't really think so though. But we have to check every lead."
Sang Mi nodded, now slurping down her own spicy curry.
"We'll help however we can," Chris said. "Zoltan and I haven't always agreed on methodology, but I respect him and what he does." He gestured with his spoon a little wildly, and Sang Mi nudged him with her elbow as a bit of curry flicked onto her cheek. "Plus, Sang Mi gets to see more of York! That's exciting."
"You're... from the future? Not just 2025, but far in the future?"
"We both are," Chris answered.
"I live on Gongen, which you guys call Mars."
He had to ask. It was eating at him. "What happens to Korea? How... do things go well? I guess we help settle Mars, but..."
Sang Mi looked pained, and looked to her mentor, who shook his head.
"You can't tell him. There's no telling what we could change, and then my Superiors will have to get involved."
She took another bite of her curry, and chewed on what Chris said. "...We survive, and we go to the stars. That doesn't tell you more than you know, but... it's something good."
"It is something good," he agreed. "What did you think of Korea, when Cwej took you?"
"Oh, uh," Chris suddenly looked awkward.
Sang Mi filled her mouth with curry till she looked like a chipmunk so she wouldn't have to answer.
"I... haven't taken her there yet."
Jae-Sun had kept his face a mask through this whole insanity. But he couldn't help but keep the disappointment from his face. "Of course you haven't. I guess that wouldn't occur to you."
Sang Mi suddenly found herself chewing extra fast to break the awkward silence.
"Don't be too hard on him—" she began, but Chris cut her off.
"No, he's right. He's right and he should say it. He should say it."
Jae-Sun didn't feel bad about ruining the mood, if anything he felt completely vindicated, but it was ruined nonetheless. "I'll get you to a hotel. Then I'll meet up with you after work tomorrow."
"Sounds good," Chris agreed.
Chris paid the bill, and they had a rather silent trip to the hotel. Jae-Sun made his way home, and flopped down on his bed.
He thought of home.
"We survive, and we make it to the stars."
It was too little, and it left him with too many thoughts.
He closed his eyes hard till he too saw stars, and tried his best to dream.



* * *



The next day at Freshfields, Ellie came up to him, a little bit nervous. It was clear she was trying to make some small talk. "Did you see the new Smopsi representatives?"
Jae-Sun hadn't put much thought into Smopsi, a fifth rate cola that was supposed to have chocolate and marshmallow notes, but mostly just tasted like cola-flavoring and corn-syrup. "I hadn't." Had the others disappeared?
"They're bickering in Korean, but one of them is a teenage girl, and the other is a blonde man who could be a Rugby Union player. Everyone has been finding an excuse to steal a look."
Of course it was them. They just couldn't wait at the hotel, could they?
"I think I'm curious too. I'll let you know if they're saying anything interesting,” he said with a wink.
"Great!" Ellie nodded, and then glanced at her scanner, and began to hurry off. "Sorry, got to keep my SPIMS score up!"
He held a hand up in a terse goodbye, and marched over to the aisle for fizzy drinks. There were two people in purple jumpsuits and front-brimmed caps with Smopsi logos on them slowly and poorly unloading a cart filled with cases of the beverage.
"I'm telling you, you don't know how to stock a shelf," Cwej told his companion.
"You just put them on there, how am I doing it wrong?"
"Look at the other shelves! See how yours isn't lining up?"
"He's right, take a second look," Jae-Sun said.
Sang Mi's head whipped around, and she nodded with a bit of embarrassment, quickly adjusting the cases to match the others.
"I thought I told you to wait at the hotel."
"Well, it’s a wacky co-incidence actually," Sang Mi began.
Chris waved his hand in front of his neck, and she shut up. "We overheard a man in the lobby, the Smopsi reps who were supposed to drive the new product here went missing. Apparently they were here yesterday, and a few complaints were filed about their behavior. So their boss at the hotel was trying to fix the problem. And what do you know, a guy with twenty years industry experience was there to fill in."
More disappearances. It kept getting worse.
"That's important information. Did you learn anything else?"
"Mostly that Habib makes bad puns," Sang Mi said. "And that..." She trailed off, and raised pointing finger at the end of the aisle. Jae-Sun turned to follow her hand, and there it was.
Peeking around the corner was a scarecrow.
Jae-Sun didn't hesitate — he charged the scarecrow fullbore, his arm reaching out to grab it as it pulled back out of view.
But as he looked past the aisle to where it should have been — it was gone. He went a little further, just in case, but he already knew he wasn't going to see anything as he did.



* * *



"Do we have to meet up here?" Chris said, frustrated.
"It's good coffee?" Aoife asked, incredulous.
"Is it?" Chris replied.
"Who is this guy anyway?" Aoife said, throwing her arm out in further incredulity.
"Chris Cwej," Olivia, Xana, Charles, Sang Mi, Jae-Sun, and one of the baristas all said in an impressive unison.
"Oh, okay," she concluded, slumping in her chair. "I'm just saying, Blue Candle Coffee is underrated..." She sipped her cup.
Charles put on his most disarmingly charming smile. "Thank you for joining us, Chris, Sang Mi. Jae-Sun has already filled us in on your little adventure earlier. But do you have any theories?"
Chris shrugged. "I'm not sure. There's clearly something going on with this scarecrow. And it seems to be able to displace us in time and space. But it might just be a coincidence."
"I think it’s more likely SPIMS is doing something," Sang Mi said, causing Aoife to rise from her slump and gesture broadly at her.
"See, this one is making sense!"
Charles gave her a polite smile, and she sat back down, grumbling. "I propose we use our new friends to our advantage this evening. Chris will join me on my own investigations, and Jae-Sun and Sang Mi will go together and investigate my own suspicions."
Raising an eyebrow, Jae-Sun tilted his chin up. "And what would they be?"
"Why, you'll be taking wrong turns of course!"



* * *



"Am I centered?"
"Yeah, about."
"It's a yes or no question."
"Yes. Say kimchi."
"Kimchi!"
He snapped the picture. He'd been getting pictures of Sang Mi around some of the landmarks in York, and he'd saved the Minster for last on their tour. Sang Mi jogged back over, and took her phone back to look at it. "Great. Well, check that off my list. What now?"
He shrugged. "I'm not really sure. Charles wanted us to take wrong turns, but how can you do that unintentionally? If you know you're turning at the wrong place, you're really turning at the right place because it's still where you meant to turn."
"That makes sense," Sang Mi said, sighing. "What do you normally do this time of the evening?"
"Go to the gym."
She perked up. "I do track and field, and cross country. Plus Chris and my school have been teaching me how to fight."
"...And your school?"
"Don't worry about it," she said very fast. "You were in the army, right? Maybe you can show me a thing or two."
He grinned. "Now you're talking."



* * *



Sang Mi panted as she held her forearm in place where she'd blocked his kick till he lowered his leg.
"Nice work, you finally got it."
"Not before you kicked me for half an hour."
He clapped her on the shoulder. "That's training for you. You're doing good."
They each picked up their water bottles, and Sang Mi wiped some sweat off on a towel. "Where'd you learn all this anyway?"
"The ROK Army, then KATUSA. That was a group that trained as part of the USFK."
"The what?"
"US Armed Forces Korea. I was a rescue parajumper and combat medic," he looked off at the white wall of the gym.
"...You miss it, don't you?"
"Yeah, guess I do. Got injured. Got discharged. One thing led to another and I ended up here."
"A long way from South Korea or the USA."
He grabbed his own towel and wiped himself down. "Guess so."
"You miss home?"
"Sometimes. I'm happiest doing things, here I get the chance to. But I miss my family. Especially my sister, even if she doesn't always miss me."
"I get that. I miss my family too. I've been traveling with Chris for a while now, but... well, never mind that, where are you from?"
"Sokcho, know it?"
She shook her head. "Sorry, I'm bad enough with Gongen geography."
"It's in the North East, near the DMZ. People come there just to look across it. But I mostly remember the sea. My mom would go to the market every weekend and make us Myeongtae-hoe from freshly caught fish; you can’t get better than that.”
Sang Mi screwed her lips to the side. “We don’t really have water like that on Gongen. The planet is all dry deserts. We’ve got fish to eat of course, though I’m pretty sure most of it is 3D-Printed from vegetable proteins underground.”
“Forget what Charles said about our mission, I’m no chef but, I’m showing you what real Myeongtae-hoe tastes like.”
Her eyes lit up. "Well, I guess we better hit the showers; see you when I'm clean."
He gave a simple wave of acknowledgment, and went to do the same. When he got out, he waited on a bench in the hall between the men's and women's locker rooms and messed around on his phone.
Sang Mi was talking a while. Did she just take especially long showers? That was when he noticed it.
On the floor, by the corner, was Sang Mi's phone.
He shot up, and grabbed it. No question, this was hers. Panicked, he grabbed the arm of a passing woman heading into the locker room.
"I'm sorry, could you see if my cousin is in there? I'm worried she forgot her medicine and is having trouble. It could be serious, or nothing. Please."
The woman tensed when he grabbed her, but softened and nodded, assuring him she would after asking for a description of her.
No such person was in the locker room.
He ran to the security desk. He knew the woman on duty, Kelsa, and he was able to sweet talk her into showing him the footage from the halls there.
Sang Mi walked around the corner, dropping her phone, as if she realised she was going the wrong way and had shifted her weight too quickly turning around.
Then she vanished around the corner.
But the camera from that hallway showed no one entering it.
"That's weird," Kelsa said.
Jae-Sun used some stronger language.
He didn’t want to admit he’d screwed up, but there was no choice.
He called Charles immediately.



* * *



Chris paced back and forth across the room, biting his knuckles. "I shouldn't have left her with you! Damn it, I told her I'd keep her safe, get her home!"
Jae-Sun clasped his hands. He didn't have a good response. It had been his responsibility after all.
Charles tapped his tea cup against the table with surprising volume, causing all eyes to turn to him. "We can assign blame and responsibility later, if at all. What's important now is finding Miss Jhe."
"The disappearances are definitely connected then?" Aoife asked.
Jae-Sun shook his head. "Nobody else disappeared outside of the area of the store that wasn't accounted for by normal means."
"So we picked up a double mystery," Xana mumbled.
"Back on task," Chris said with an authority no one but Charles seemed to expect. "We're finding her. How?"
Olivia raised her hand. "Well, she got lost right? So we all just have to get lost, don't we?"
Aoife turned in her chair to give Olivia a look. "You can't just get yourself lost."
Jae-Sun straightened up. "Yes, you can. I have a plan."
He rose from his chair, and took a deep breath.
He began to detail his plan, wiping down the white board and drawing exactly how it would work. He pointed to each member in turn, laying out their role, until finally setting the green marker down, and crossing his arms.
“Well, what do you think?” Jae-Sun asked. 
"That's a stupid plan," Xana said.
"It'll work though," Aoife admitted.
"Then let's stop waiting around," Chris said, and without a glance back went for the door.
Charles looked at Jae-Sun. They had an understanding.



* * *



The Smopsi Cola office building in York had been a bad idea. Not enough of the offices had been filled, and while the cola was doing fine, it certainly hadn't taken the UK by storm the way they'd hoped. So when a man came by and dropped a suitcase of cash (in American dollars, oddly) on their front desk that could pay the rest for the next two years to rent the building out for the whole night, they quickly decided to shut down all operations and scoot the staff out the doors.
"Why'd you pick this place?" Xana asked.
"I was here earlier, it's understaffed, most of the windows are blocked off so it doesn't look empty, and they didn't decorate the hallways much so it all looks the same," Chris answered.
"It's a maze," Charles said, his eyes sparkling with understanding.
"We turn the power off, including emergency lighting, and we all wander around, with the goal in your head of getting to the President's office."
"But I don't know where that is?" Olivia said. Everyone looked at her. "Oh! Oh, no I get it. Continue."
"Alright then, let's get lost in the dark," Chris ordered.



It was a strange order. Jae-Sun had been trained to make his way in the dark, but Cwej had chosen a good place to get even him lost. The hallways were all the same. He couldn't make out the room numbers in pitch darkness, and the walls and carpet all felt the same. The sound seemed to be absorbed in some spots and echo in others in a way that was completely inconsistent. It was disorienting. The dark seemed to spin around him.
He felt dizzy.
He turned a corner.
Was he supposed to turn here? He didn't even really know there had been a corner here...
And then there was light.
He ran towards it, and through a door, and fell to his hands and knees panting, relieved that there was something for his senses to connect to.
"Jae-Sun!"
He looked up. It was an odd room. The first thing he saw though was Sang Mi. She looked almost like a doll — she'd been dressed up in an elaborate ball gown, her hair done up in an equally elaborate do. She looked incredibly uncomfortable in the get up, and from her initial lazy outfit of track shorts and a hoodie, he guessed she wasn't the type to get dolled up very often.
The room was lined in human sized dolls, and sitting in a chair admiring Sang Mi was a scarecrow in a tuxedo. It wore that same comedy mask, stroking its chin with fingers of straw. Its head turned to look at Jae-Sun.
"Oh, we have another guest!"
"Are you alright?" Jae-Sun asked in Korean.
"ENGLISH please!" the scarecrow yelled.
"I'm okay," Sang Mi answered in Korean.
The scarecrow raised a hand as though he was about to strike her.
Jae-Sun made to rush the scarecrow — but as he tried to cross the floor, he found that he was lost.
He could see them, just across the room. There was nothing separating them? But as he tried to walk, he kept going in the wrong directions.
"Ever the hero, Mr. Park. Miss Jhe here thinks of herself the same way. But you should both learn a lesson."
"I don't think you have much to teach me," he spat back as he nearly ran into the back wall trying to run towards the scarecrow.
"Oh but I do. You've all been taking wrong turns. Making choices for yourself. You're even trying to prevent SPIMS from making the right choices, tsk tsk. It's up to better people, more refined people, of a better breeding and stature, to make the choices. As soon as you realize other people are your betters, the happier you'll be."
"Bullshit," Sang Mi said.
The scarecrow laughed. "You're both lost. Far from home. Mr. Park can't even fulfill his dreams in sport or the military. How is your seventh best option going?"
"I love it," he shouted. He tried to run in a straight line, and ended up exactly where he started.
"And Miss Jhe, your life was directionless until you latched onto Mr. Cwej, wasn't it? No dreams or ambitions, and the dreary feeling you'd be better off dead. Tsk tsk. Both of you could use a strong guiding hand. You should feel lucky I found you."
"What exactly are you? I mean, you're literally a strawman."
"I have transcended bodies." He gestured to the life-sized dolls lining the room. "This has been a useful form for my needs. But I’ve worn many bodies — taken many. And both of your bodies will be excellent to put on — oh don't give me that look. What were you doing with it anyway?"
"Whatever I want to," Sang Mi said, and her voice was getting more spiteful.
Jae-Sun kept himself calm and collected. Cool. But he’d had enough. He rose to his full height, and looked the scarecrow right in the eyes of its mask.
"I used to not understand why other kids would get so worked up they'd throw a punch and get into trouble in school. Until I met someone like you. Someone who had the power to torment other kids around them and get away with it. They knew they were untouchable, because everyone knew the consequences. But there's something they never expect, something that floors them everytime. Do you know what that is?"
The man laughed, shaking his head. Behind the mask they could all feel him rolling his eyes.
"Being reminded the only thing that made them feel better than other people was their money, their power. Take that away from them, even for a moment, and they're more scared than you can imagine. No, I want you to imagine it. Try."
"I won't imagine something that can't happen."
Jae-Sun looked at Sang Mi, who shrugged. "You even gave a whole speech to warn him, go off."
He looked Sang Mi in the eyes, and she seemed to know he wanted her to not look away.
“Tell me about your home,” he said.
“What?” the scarecrow said.
“My mom sometimes makes me my favorite food, its Hong Kong style Lemon Chicken. I love it. My brothers tell me it’s too sweet. My apartment building has a heating unit at the bottom that the city sometimes doesn’t fix right so my twin brother Sang Eun and I go to fix it ourselves in the winter, and Mrs. Lee down the hall gives us milk candy every time we do. I go to a school called Academy 27. I’ve bombed out of every relationship I’ve been in, but I still go to Higen Park where I had my first kiss sometimes because even though I’m alone there it makes me feel like a romantic.”
Jae-Sun smiled. “My grandma would always fuss over us at Christmas, and make us get dressed up to go to church. Most of us would rather have been playing footy in the park.”
“My grandma did the same. Though we wanted to play video games.”
“I have a twin too. We used to be really close. I didn’t like her husband. I still don’t. She still lives in Sokcho, has two kids now. I don’t see her as much as I like. I’m closer with my younger siblings now. She likes French cooking. I think it makes her feel fancy. There’s a park by where I grew up that had a rusty swingset. They finally took it out last time I visited home. It was a danger, but I felt sad it was gone.”
Sang Mi smiled. “Your home sounds like a nice place.”
“So does yours.”
The scarecrow looked between them, “What the hell was that supposed to accomplish?”
Jae-Sun took a step forward.
And he moved a step forward.
“I guess neither of us is lost anymore.”
Sang Mi didn’t wait, or say anything, she just grabbed a candlestick from a table and started beating the scarecrow with it relentlessly. Jae-Sun had sort of expected a more restrained finale, but well, he wasn’t the one who’d been forced to dress up like a living doll. So he let her let it all out.
When she was done, panting and holding the candlestick like a club, the scarecrow’s mask had tumbled away across the floor, and it stared with button eyes up at them, stuffing and straw spilled out along the floor.
“You can’t just… you can’t just… this isn’t fair.”
Jae-Sun squatted down. “If you can’t play by your own rules, no one will want to play with you, you know?”
“Well spoken.” There was a hard boot fall, and they turned their faces to see Chris Cwej. Sang Mi ran to him, and hugged him.
“That dress doesn’t suit you,” he said simply.
“I know, I fricking hate it. I can’t wait to get out of it.”
He tousled her hair, and looked down at the scarecrow, which flinched at him. “Mr. Cwej! You… you’re a man of refinement, yes? Everyone knows of your legendary prowess—”
“Shut the hell up,” he ordered.
And he did.
He looked at Jae-Sun. “I’m going to take care of the problem. Charles won’t approve, but I don’t care, and I’m not asking anyway.”
Jae-Sun shrugged. “He wanted to steal a kid’s body. I’m really not putting up an argument here.”
Chris gave him a nod, and this time there was respect in it. He grabbed the scarecrow by the nape of the neck, turned the ring on his finger, and vanished.



* * *



Chris dropped the scarecrow on the ground. It pushed itself up on its straw arms. It turned its button eyes up at Cwej.
"If you're wondering where we are, we're in Sweden in 1966. Do you know why I brought you here?"
"To try to kill me again?"
Chris didn't smile. Didn't pretend he was enjoying this. Didn't react at all. "No. I know that's not possible. You’re a body swapper. I'm here to send a message." He squatted down, to look him right in the buttons. "I've given a lot of people second chances lately. Even some exes. But what I can't tolerate is you trying to hurt my friend like you did."
"I just—"
"Shut up." He didn't raise his voice. He didn't get angry. That made it worse. "She's still a child. On the cusp of adulthood, but people like you prey on 'almost'. Almost made the right turn, almost old enough, almost survived. So today I'm done with second chances, because you're going to send a message for me."
The scarecrow nodded. "Of course, of course! I can say whatever you need me to."
"It's not a message you'll be saying. You always come into a new form after you're destroyed, as long as that form will appear. It's why you're a scarecrow. There's always new scarecrows in the fall, even if they're just there for farm tourists and not for the crows at all. So I've found you a new home. Are you familiar with Gävle, Sweden?"
He shook his straw head.
"Every year they build a straw goat here. And nearly every year someone burns it. Sometimes it's pecked apart by Jackdaws. And even if it survives they'll rip it apart and dispose of all the straw guts. But the metal frame will still be there as they pull them out. Out of you."
If buttons could grow wide, his would have.
"No, NO! You can't—"
"But I can, and I will. You'll burn, over and over. And trust me, this festival goes on for a long time. Even after the Earth is dust and wind, you will burn. And everyone will know that you don't mess with my friends."
He snapped his fingers, and the scarecrow went still.
And behind its false eyes, the great statue of the Gävle goat awakened.
Chris walked away. He didn't look back, even as the flames rose high into the night.



* * *



Sang Mi got out of her dress and into her normal clothes fast, and gave the dress to Olivia, who was far more excited about it. Jae-Sun brought Sang Mi and Chris back to his home, and made them fresh Myeongtae-hoe. Not quite as fresh as it would have been in Sokcho, but Freshfields stock of pollock wasn’t bad. “It’s damn good,” Sang Mi said, and Jae-Sun felt a lot of pride.
“Thanks. I learned from the best…”
Once they’d finished dinner, everyone gathered in the Freshfields carpark by the orange Honda Element the pair had ridden in on. Hugs were exchanged. Handshakes were given.
“You’re sure you can’t stay to help finish the investigation?” Charles asked.
Chris shook his head. “The effect that the scarecrow had is wearing off. We’ve got to hit the road, and follow our path back before it closes, it should take us back to when and where we came from. I’m sorry we can’t. I certainly wish you all the luck in solving this mess.”
Charles shook his hand, and Sang Mi turned to Jae-Sun.
“Call your sister.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But you’ll regret it if you don’t.”
He didn’t want to say out loud that she was absolutely right, so he just gave the slightest nod.
She got in the Honda.
“Hey, Sang Mi?”
She rolled down the window. “Yeah?”
He slipped her a piece of paper. “That’s how you make my mom’s Myeongtae-hoe. You’re the first outside the family to get this, so keep it secret.”
She put her finger to her lips. “You got it. Thanks for everything, Jae-Sun. See you in the stars.”
“See you in the stars,” he said.
They watched the Honda drive down the road, and make a turn at a lamppost.
The car didn’t come out the other side of the pole, like a magic trick.
“Well, back to work,” Xana sighed. “You coming, Jae-Sun?”
He smiled at her. “One second. I’ll be right there.”
Jae-Sun walked over to the river, and pulled out his phone, scrolling through contacts. He pulled up a number he hadn’t dialed in longer than he’d like to admit. He waited, expecting to get voicemail.
“Hey there stupid, why are you calling, it’s not even Christmas yet.”
He wasn’t a man who cried often. But he felt the tears welling up. “Well, you know. Sometimes you realise you just put something off too long.”
There was a pause, and he felt his heart beat fast, before she replied, her voice touched by her own tears. “Well at least you finally did it, you dummy.”
And they laughed.
He looked up at the stars.
They’d always find their way home.