Guardians of the Four Shields: A Lost Origins Novel by A. D. Davies

Author:A. D. Davies [Davies, A. D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crater of the North Publishing
Published: 2021-05-27T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Dragon’s Pit, North Korea

The shield, which Ah Dae-Sun delivered last night on his way to his next mission, reflected the Executive’s face, distorting his fingertips as he reached for it. Hanging in the cradle that would deliver it to the matrix and seal Korea’s safety forever, it was truly a marvel; a surface that shone golden at first glance, but on closer inspection it shimmered and swirled like a liquid yet was solid to the touch. Alone, surrounded by all he’d achieved, this was as close to isolation as he ever came. And he had never been closer to immortality than this moment.

Ryom Jung-Hwan had spent his life enveloped in security. Constantly. There was no telling when an enemy from abroad or a jealous rival from within the Republic might strike. The Party tolerated Executive Ryom more than accepted him, largely because he exemplified an economic success story admired in the West. This led many ultra-loyalists to believe his company should be nationalized, owned, and controlled by the ruling government. However, he’d taken precautions that made a hostile act all but futile and would serve no one.

Because of his company’s sprawling nature, Ryom had sunk tentacles in every continent and in every country with a GDP sufficient to benefit his profits. He’d started with state-sanctioned partnerships via friendly Chinese companies, learning about numbered accounts and how to hide behind shell corporations. It was a facility their enemies used to fleece the rest of the world, so why shouldn’t Koreans take advantage of this? Especially when it enhanced his people’s lives.

Indirectly, of course.

The ruling party were clear that they didn’t like Ryom Jung-Hwan operating with such impunity, in pronounced contradiction to their founding principles. But the wealth he brought in, the respect he commanded with foreign powers thanks to his under-the-radar leaps in research and development, made up for a compromise in philosophy. The only condition for allowing him to work this way was absolute secrecy; no one in the country, nor within enemy states, could know of their agreement.

Enquiries and assaults on his Antipodean holdings by Tane Wiremu and his infernal NZSIS colleagues had almost brought about Ryom Jung-Hwan’s downfall. If it weren’t for the Dragon’s Pit and the ultimate defensive weapon he had promised the party, he would most certainly be wearing the baggy, gray coveralls of the people digging and constructing this place rather than the genuine Armani suit he sported—and which he had to present as a very good counterfeit.

This secret arrangement had one major downside: there were many brainwashed idiots out there who believed in the deification of the country’s rulers and worshipped at their feet with religious zeal. Which was ironic considering religion was banned, and rightfully so. But those fools who idolized out of love and blinkered obedience rather than fraught co-existence pondered in secret if Executive Ryom held something over the party, and if doing away with him might somehow benefit the greater glory of the Republic.

They were almost as big a threat as the aggressive saber-rattling of western countries.

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