Saturday, September 21^st

Seoul Shakespeare Company

Park Sooyoung’s first introduction to their little ragtag group of thieves wasn’t the best. But first impressions can be deceiving. Of course try telling that to Seulgi, Wendy and Yeri, who were staring at Irene’s contact with abject horror. The woman was absolutely awful at acting.

“Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, un me here and fill me from the crown to the toe, top full of direst! Make thick my blood and—”

“She’s so bad,” Wendy whispered, unable to tear her gaze away from the performance. Her intonation was completely off and her movements on the stage were jerky and uncoordinated. Now Wendy didn’t consider herself an expert in theater by any means, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to look like this. It was no wonder they were the only people in the audience.

“—Stop up the access and passage to remorse that…no that’s not right. That no compunctious—”

“Is she injured? You know…” Yeri pointed to her head.

“Seriously Irene, this is the worst actress I’ve ever seen,” Seulgi said. This was the woman Irene was considering as the final addition to their crew?

Unlike the others, Irene sat at the edge of her seat, watching Sooyoung’s monologue intently with a small smile on her face. “Patience ladies. This isn’t Sooyoung’s stage.”

After the show ended, they followed Sooyoung out into the alley, bickering all the while about whether or not she deserved a place on their team. Seulgi was the most reluctant of them to even give her a chance. “No. No, I vote no.”

Irene shushed her as the actress left the building and began heading to her car. She hadn’t noticed them yet. “Yeri’s right, Seokjin knows us and we need a fresh face.” She started clapping loudly to get Sooyoung’s attention. The actress looked up and gave Irene a wry smile. “—I thought you were fantastic tonight.”

Sooyoung approached them. “My only fan.”

(Flashback, Paris, Seven Years Ago)  

Park Sooyoung, otherwise known as Joy to all of her underworld contacts, hummed her favorite K-pop song underneath her breath while she worked. Another plan gone perfectly. Some people were just too gullible.

She carefully cut a painting out of its frame and gently folded up the canvas and placed it in a temperature-controlled tube. Seven other tubes lay at her feet, each one filled with a piece of art. Four of these would go to her various clients but the others? Well, Joy had a bit of a thing for hoarding precious art.

Her work was interrupted however when the door behind her burst open with a loud thud and a short Korean woman strode in, gun in hand. Joy sighed. So much for her perfect plan.

“Freeze!” Irene shouted.

Joy paused as if she was going to comply with the other woman’s orders before reaching quickly for the gun she’d placed on the mantelpiece and shooting Irene in the shoulder.

Irene gasped in shock as the bullet hit and responded by doing the same thing to Joy. The two of them dropped their guns and clenched at their matching bullet wounds. Joy was the first to speak, teeth gritted against the pain burning in her shoulder.

“You little .”

(Present Day)

“I’m a citizen now, Irene. Cross my heart,” Joy raised her hands in mock surrender. She couldn’t help but notice though that Irene wasn’t alone. Now that was strange.

“I’m not,” was the simple reply, and Joy chuckled derisively. What on Earth could have possibly made the most honest woman she’d ever met suddenly have a change of heart?

“You’re playing my side,” Joy stated, waiting for the inevitable refute. But it never came. She glanced behind the shorter woman at the team behind her. “I always thought you had it in you.”

Irene laughed. “So are you in?”

Joy raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow. As if she had to ask. “With you? I wouldn’t miss it.”

Irene’s cheeks turned red and she turned around, clearly a little flustered. Addressing the team, she cleared . “All right. Let’s break the law just one more time.”

XXX

That night the five of them gathered back in Wendy’s loft for a strategy session. Now that they had Joy on the team that gave them a little bit more leeway with their planning. Seokjin had never met her and therefore wouldn’t know that she was playing for Irene and the others. Wendy caught her up to speed on their current shenanigans and displayed all the information she had on Kim Seokjin.

“Kim Seokjin, executive vice-president in charge of new technology over at BigHit Aerospace.”

Seulgi shuffled back into the living room with a tub of popcorn and squeezed herself in-between Yeri and Irene. Yeri reached over and snuck a few handfuls out of the tub.

“Comes from one of Seoul’s chaebol families, top college education, blah blah blah. Now BigHit is in charge of a lot of really big government contracts. Some research for Korean military, all of it very classified.”

“Can we use that?” Yeri asked, mouth full of popcorn. She had made herself at home and now had her legs resting on Seulgi’s lap. Irene wondered how she managed to do that without provoking the hitter.  

Wendy considered it for a moment before shaking her head. “No, I don’t think so, Seokjin is in charge of their commercial airline business, not the experimental tech.”

“Wendy can you pull up the very illegal copies of the designs we stole?” Irene wanted to see exactly what Seokjin wanted them to steal. If he was willing to put himself at such high risk the plans he wanted must have been worth billions of won. Wendy nodded and pulled up her copies for everyone to see.

“It’s a plane,” Seulgi stated. “We knew that.”

“It’s a short altitude domestic airliner,” Irene clarified, using a laser pointer to highlight the plane’s specs. “Usually one to four-hour flights, they’re very fuel-efficient, etc. It’s the fastest growing segment of the industry. These plans are very top-of-the-line.”

Four sets of wide eyes stared back at her. “What? You pick up a few things here and there.”

Wendy scoffed, minimizing the plans and pulling up a side-by-side comparison of BigHit and JYP Aerospace. “You pick up a lot of stuff. Check this out. Now BigHit and JYP have been rivals for decades now, and recently they’ve been racing to be the first to secure the top spot in this new industry. The winning company would make like eleventy-trillion won.”

“So JYP got there first and Seokjin took a short cut,” Yeri added.

Irene nodded. The beginnings of a plan were already brewing in her mind. It wouldn’t be easy, but with the help of these four women it just might work. “So Seokjin sees JYP as a rival. A rival that pisses him off so much that he was willing to hire us to steal the designs. This is good.”

Joy seemed to know exactly what Irene was thinking. “You’re not thinking…”

“Yeah, I’m thinking Nigerians. Nigerians will do nicely.” Irene walked off, muttering under her breath about stock holdings. As she left, Seulgi Wendy and Yeri all turned to stare at Joy. Evidently the grifter knew Irene on a deeper level and they saw Joy as the unofficial second-in-command.

“Well she hasn’t changed a bit,” Joy said, gently massaging the scar on her shoulder.

XXX

Sunday, September 22^nd

BigHit Aerospace

Kim Seokjin enjoyed feeling victorious. He’d gotten ahold of JYP’s designs and even managed to cut out the middleman by dealing with Irene and her crew of criminals. All he had to do was survive until the shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday and he’d be a very rich man. Well, richer than he had been. It was a good day.

He strolled into the lobby in front of his office to finish up the last of his presentation. Normally he wouldn’t be working on a Sunday but BigHit wanted all hands on deck for the meeting. Things had to go perfectly. His team had already begun to doctor the original plans to make it look like BigHit was the author.

Seokjin greeted his receptionist, a nice young man by the name of Jimin. Jimin stood up and bowed to him in greeting. “Good morning sir, your 9 o’clock is here.”

His nine o’clock? That wasn’t right, his schedule had been blocked out until Wednesday and he knew he didn’t have any meetings today. He turned around to where Jimin was gesturing, confusion evident on his face. “My…?”

Joy sat primly in one of the lobby chairs, dressed to the nines in a designer business suit that showed just the right amount of cleavage. She shot Seokjin a predatory smile.

“Mr. Kim Seokjin. Yoon So-rim,” Joy stood up to greet him, business card in hand. “Liason for the African Commercial Transport and Trade Initiative.”

Back in Wendy’s loft, Irene and Wendy huddled around the hacker’s row of monitors as they listened to the conversation between Joy and Seokjin.

“Here comes a mountain of ,” Wendy said. She was looking forward to this exchange. If Joy’s acting was anywhere near the quality that they had seen earlier they would be dead in the water. Irene didn’t appear to be worried though. In fact, their unofficial leader was all wired up and ready to feed information to Joy through an earpiece.

“You government?” Seokjin asked, taking the business card. He’d be polite for now, something told him that this Yoon So-rim had an interesting proposition. He turned to enter his office, inviting Joy to follow him.

“No, no. Private business consortium,” Joy’s Daegu dialect was flawless. “We are looking to encourage infrastructure development and economic renewal between Africa and Asia.”

“I have no idea what that means in layman’s terms.”

Joy smiled cordially. “We create jobs and trade in Africa. Keep the graft and stealing manageable.”

Wendy stared at her monitor in shock. “She’s…not awful.”

Irene knew what she meant. Joy’s performative acting left a lot to be desired. But that wasn’t her stage. “This is her stage. Park Sooyoung is the finest actress you’ve ever seen…when she’s breaking the law.”

Wendy turned the volume up on her computer so they could catch the ongoing conversation.

Seokjin looked at Joy with an unimpressed expression on his face. “Keep graft and stealing manageable in Africa. Good luck, but I don’t think I can help. I don’t think any human being on Earth can help you with that.”

Joy turned up the charm. She expected it, and his suspicion was all a part of the plan. “Come now, Mr. Kim. Let’s go talk somewhere a little less formal.”

“Uh, no, no. Look Miss Yoon I…”

But Joy a dime and walked out of his office, not even bothering to see if he would follow. They always did. She gave a smile to the receptionist, glancing at the mirror behind him and noticing Seokjin right on her heels.

Now that she had gotten Seokjin out of his office Irene signaled Wendy to execute the next stage of their plan. The hacker hit a few keys and remotely crashed the receptionist’s computer. The next bit relied on the maknae.

Jimin saw his computer screen flare with a Blue Screen of Death and began frantically hitting his keyboard in a panic. “Nooooo…come on, not today.”

Yeri meanwhile was curled in an interior duct in the BigHit building, patching herself into their phone systems. Right on cue, her headset buzzed with a call from Seokjin’s floor. “Hello, IT.”

Jimin’s voice greeted her, “Yeah, this is Kim Seokjin’s office, my computer just completely crashed.”

Yeri pouted sympathetically, turning her head to work on the last bit of wirework while she talked to him. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Did you try turning it on and off again?”

“Yes, nothing seems to be working.”

“That’s a computer thing. I told her to say that,” Wendy’s voice came through her headset.

“Well done.” Irene sounded pleased.

“Not to worry, we’ve got someone on your floor already. She’ll be there shortly.”

“Thank you so much.”  

Exactly thirty-seven seconds later and Seulgi walked into Seokjin’s office wearing a pair of khakis and an obnoxious plaid button-up. A pair of thin wire-rimmed glasses completed her nerd look.

“Somebody call IT?”

Joy led Seokjin to the exterior of the BigHit building, where they could talk without being overheard. “Mr. Kim, I represent a group of investors who are looking to start an airline for short tour flights in Africa.”

Seokjin seemed interested, if more than a little cautious. “In Johannesburg?”

“Okay Joy, he’s testing you. You want Bloemfontein.” Irene had to commend Seokjin, he wasn’t nearly as easily swayed as she thought he would be. She tucked away the information for later. Every bit of information she was able to get from Seokjin could prove helpful in the long run.

Joy wrinkled her nose, “No, we want to revitalize the regional airports. In South Africa we’re talking about Bloemfontein. But really our target market is Nigeria.”

“Perfect job, Joy.”

“I believe new airplanes will make people more comfortable while we renew old runways.”

Seokjin tilted his head, a fake smile on his face. His eyes betrayed his true feelings though. He seemed shocked that Joy knew more than she was letting on. The perfect back and forth. Give information to get information. “I don’t recall saying anything about new airplanes.”

“Mr. Kim, please. Both you and your chief engineer are scheduled to speak at your shareholder’s meeting. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.”

“You know I think you know more about my business than I do,” Seokjin’s guard was ever so slowly being let down, if Joy and Irene could just keep him interested long enough…

“Unnie, I’m ready to go, commence operation Ice Cream Cake.” Yeri unscrewed the grate to the vent just above Seokjin’s office and dropped down onto his desk with a soft thump. Through the window she could barely hear Seulgi flirting with Seokjin’s receptionist.

“No, it’s good to have a passion. You know, I’ve always wanted to be a dancer but my career took me here…no way, you dance too? What are the odds?”

“Shouldn’t I be playing the computer guy?” Wendy’s voice was tinged with jealousy.

“No, I need you to actually be our computer guy,” Irene was pretty sure the only reason behind Wendy’s thinking was that she wanted to flirt with the handsome receptionist.

Yeri shook her head, ignoring Wendy as she started flooding the comms with her favorite pick-up lines. Moving to Seokjin’s computer she turned it on and plugged in a flash drive. Running her hands over the keys she grabbed the files Wendy told her to and tucked the drive in her back pocket. The last thing she needed to do was plant a bug under his desk.

“All done. I’m out of here.” Going out the way she had gone in, she waited for Seulgi to finish up with the now thoroughly enamored receptionist.

“Wow, you’ve got strong arms for an IT specialist,” Jimin said in awe, reaching out to touch Seulgi’s well-defined arms. Seulgi had to crush the instinct that told her to wrench his arm out its socket. But they had a job to do and Irene would likely frown upon her resorting to unnecessary violence.  

“Why thank you, I really like to work out. So do you, judging by the way your shirt fits.” Seulgi wanted to kill herself, she was never this openly flirty in real life. She thought she could hear Wendy chuckling over the comms. The hacker was taking way too much delight in her predicament. Please hurry up guys, I don’t know how much longer I can last.

While Seulgi and Yeri finished bugging the office, Joy and Seokjin moved to a nearby stretch of the Han River to talk further.

“Miss Yoon, how about this? If we announce a new product then you and your people can order as many as your little heart desires.”

“You know what to do, Joy. Hit him.” They were reaching a very critical part of this conversation. From here on out Seokjin had to come willingly. Irene was counting on his naturally greedy personality to shine through.

“We’d also like to build the planes. More jobs, build them in Africa, fly them in Africa, sell the rest around the world.”

Joy swore she saw his eyes light up at the potential business opportunity. Just a little more… “Well that’s very ambitious. You have the facilities to do that?”

Joy waved off the idea, “Ah, we can easily raise the money to build facilities if we know for certain we’re going to get the contracts.”

“Atta girl,” Irene praised.

Seokjin seemed to think about it intently for a minute before shaking his head. “Miss Yoon I’m really sorry but I can’t help you.”

“Aw, well it was a nice try,” Wendy said .

“Not so fast, Wendy. Wait for it…” Like all good negotiations it was a battle of the mind. Each party had to work hard to make sure they wouldn’t be seen as an easy mark. Seokjin may have been well-versed in the art but Joy was a world-class master.

Joy bowed politely and made as though to leave. “I understand. I’ll take it to JYP.”

Seokjin shrugged his shoulders, trying not to make it obvious that the statement stung. “JYP? Sure, go ahead. JYP is a great company. I don’t think they can help you but…”

“They have a reputation for long-term investment, you don’t. They’re innovators…you know what it probably is a better fit for us.”

“I am well aware that you’re manipulating me, Miss Yoon.”

“Well I should hope so. Hundreds of billions of won in new contracts, a lot of good press, all of it right. At. Your. Fingertips.”

Seokjin’s confident persona faltered. A slip that Joy didn’t miss. Her manipulation was overt and she could almost see the gears turning in his head as he figured out what to say next. He was a man who liked to take risks and here she was practically dangling it in front of him. “Fine! I give up, I’ll take the meeting.”

He stepped forward to shake her hand.

Joy smiled, bowing once more to him and turning to walk away. “I’ll have my office call you. Day after tomorrow?”

“Yes, sure. Look forward to doing business with you.”

And just like that the deal was sealed. Seokjin had just unwittingly all but signed his own death warrant.

“Good girl, we’ve got him. All right everyone pack it in, we’ve got two days to set this up. Kim Seokjin will regret ever crossing us.”