Agent Juche Passes The Test (The Bo Lan Mysteries #2)
Knights of the Order of Cosmopolitania Cycle 1, Series 1, Story 2
Finally, back to the Knights project and to Čínský Krumlov. Apologies, founding members, for the delay: the opportunity to work on this and serialize this on Substack was so unprecedented that only now is this long-dormant idea resurfacing. But it was a necessary delay in order to warrant your patronage. But boy oh boy, are there a lot of interesting directions in which to take this! Incredible how an idea so simple the first time one writes it down can evolve into something infinitely complex. It may not seem like that now, since this large project is just getting started. But take my word for it, this is a long-term project.
To revisit the first story in the Bo Lan Mysteries from a few months ago, titled New Monkey District 21A, click here. And click here to acquire my debut novel, Calm Before an Earthquake!
Agent Juche risked a glance both slick and shaky. Five shadowy figures in the next room. Armed. Stealth was out of the question here. There were too many. And a sneak attack posed too many risks.
In the quickest flash of a half-second, Agent Juche scanned the entirety of uploaded files comprising her “cultural resources.” She wanted to punch the wall. While Agent Juche had been the first to be cleared for cognitive repurposing due to her lifelong lack of outsourcing via smartphone - good luck finding one in North Korea! - learning how to access the installed databank had felt unnatural. And still felt unnatural.
It was not because it felt so artificial having “a library in your brain,” as her fellow agents often complained. Agent Juche hadn’t had a humanistic thought enter her brain in years. To her, culture was God precisely because it infused her thoughts with feelings she’d never felt before.
Rather, she had never known enough privacy to ever enter a contemplative state: now she had to routinely engage in an alien act. She had to accept a truth every instinct and incentive told her to oppose: I think, therefore I am. As opposed to “I breathe: therefore I belong to the Party and to the Dear Leader.”
Triggered by the wandering thought processes still unable to fixate upon her “cultural resources,” Dear Leader materialized out of nowhere. “Yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk,” he guffawed. Agent Juche’s suppressed dancing instincts began thumping in sync with her heart. As the gleam in his eyes twinkled - exactly as it did in all the posters - her body felt nubile, her form more voluptuous. She danced exactly the way he wanted, and she knew how pleased he was once his clothes started coming off…
“Concentrate!” It took everything she could muster to scream at herself without emitting a peep. She breathed in deep and concentrated. Dear Leader vanished.