Pop Planet: "The Choi"

 FAN FICTION based on the Rings of Orbis novels.

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April 11, 2063

It was just a singing competition, but 'the Choi'-- as they were referred to by fans of Pop Planet-- had become world headline news as they duked it out onstage for the prized recording contract and their national honor.

Favienne Choisil of Haiti, Kyu Bong Choi of South Korea, and David Choi Val of the Philippines had bested their international competitors and risen to the top. Some speculated that the trio had bonded over the similarity in their last names, but that their friendship only intensified the competition, since each was fixated on the others as their main obstacle to instant pop-idol fame.

But now that the competition has come down to its final three, all of them accomplished vocalists and performers, the outcome comes down to "what is Pop Planet looking for in its winner?"

All of them have been consistently flawless. All of them have huge national and international followings. All of them come from coastal or island nations who desperately need an inspirational story of 'success against the odds' to offset the natural disasters that have befallen them.

With the rising of the world's oceans and the increasing frequency and intensity of storms and earthquakes, the world's citizens are lining up for a fairy tale story-- any fairy tale story. But whose will it be?

April 26, 2063

Favienne Choisil looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She was gorgeous-- all voluptuous ebony curves, with a blinding smile.

As the only female left in the competition she felt she had an advantage. Surely the judges wanted someone with her kind of sex appeal and star power as their winning contestant? All she had to do was keep performing at the top of her abilities and maintain the upswell of fan support from Haiti, the States, French speakers worldwide and all the expatriates of the various drowned Caribbean nations and she should be able to take that crown.

Besides, she and David agreed-- Choi was the one to go. They would have to clip his wings.

He looked like a bug anyway-- with his bulgy Korean cheekbones and spiky hair. A big, shiny bug with deep, dreamy eyes.

But, she would not be distracted. No way.

Not with the prize within her sight.

She would be the crowning jewel of Planet Pop, and the world would be blinded by her brilliance. She would rise like a miraculous butterfly with outstretched iridescent wings, to rule over their hearts and fill their ears with hit singles.

April 26, 2063

A bloodthirsty civil war has broken out between the fans of Favienne Choisil and David Choi Val-- the two remaining contenders for the Pop Planet trophy.

There have been actual physical attacks on supporters of one or the other rising stars outside the Pop Planet studio located in the theater district of the floating city of New Orlando.

They have gathered in warring groups to hold up banners and chant messages of support to their favored contender during the outside filming segments. Some of these segments have captured footage of objects being thrown into the crowd, defacement of Favienne Choisil's butterfly logo and an exchange of obscenities.

Both Choisil and Choi Val have expressed their hopes for peace between their fans. The have voiced their admiration for each other and their hope that the competition can proceed without further animosity.

We can only hope that their fans listen as closely to their message as they do to their performances.

With the elimination of Kyu Bong Choi in tonight's episode, Pop Planet is headed into its finale. There are only two contestants left and all the votes will need to be tabulated before tomorrow's show, so any further disruptions at this stage could be crucial.

But there is one thing we can count on. We don't want to ruin anything for you, but whoever wins will have 'Choi' in their name! That's just the way it is folks. Even with the Departure of Kyu Bong, this years Pop Planet has been all about 'the Choi' since the beginning.

The pressure is on for the remaining two 'Choi' to put on their most fabulous performances yet. You better be voting because this is going to be a very close call!

April 27, 2063

In a new development, a cyber attack on the Pop Planet network has brought down all phone and internet lines and replaced the broadcast signal with an animation of Kyu Bong Choi with his 'wings' getting cut off by a cartoon version of Favienne Choisil on one side and David Choi Val on the other, both holding what appear to be ceremonial swords.

The Korean hacker 'Maka' has claimed credit for the attack, but since hijacking a television signal requires a transmitter positioned near Pop Planet's broadcast site, police say that the attack was aided by domestic supporters as well.

Choi himself has been unavailable for comment, but it does seem as if the good will and camaraderie between the three contestants is waning.

Rather than bowing out gracefully, Choi and his supporters have taken to the warpath.

April 27th, 2063

In an uncharacteristic outburst, a tearful Favienne Choisil appeared in front of cameras calling Choi a 'detestable insect' and blaming him for ruining her dreams of stardom.

April 27th, 2063

Favienne was in front of the cameras. Their glare made the tears in her eyes iridescent, with little rays of hexagons shooting in all directions.

Somewhere in her mind she knew that she was making things worse, but part of her power as a performer was her fire and now the flames of her temper threatened to destroy her unless she let them out.

She leaned forward against the pull of the stretch sequined material of her dress and said, 'If I ever see that big cheek-boned Korean again I will kill him! I will squash him like a bug! He is a second rate talent who never should have made it to this level of competition in the first place! It was my own and David's support and coaching that helped him get this far, but Kyu Bong made the mistake of believing that he had talent, when he doesn't even deserve to breathe, much less breathe the same air I breathe!'

With this outburst over, she knew she had handed the crown to Choi Val, but all she cared about now was crushing Choi. He was an abomination. She had come so close to ascending to her rightful place as pop-goddess, and his petty self had ruined it all.

He and his hacker friends better watch out. She wasn't all iridescent fabric and tremolos and a glittering smile. She was connected, and her people would come at him hard.

Maybe the easy road to fame wasn't for her after all. Maybe she wanted a different sort of power. Maybe she wanted to be feared more than admired.

Forget Pop Planet-- she was going to make a mark on the real planet, and she didn't need any judges to tell her she was good enough. She would be her own judge now. And her words in front of the cameras weren't hyperbole, though the media would spin it that way.

Kyu Bong was first in her docket, and he was marked for death.

May 1st, 2063

Kyu Bong desperately needed to get out of the country. But first he had to get out of the city. He had mistakenly allowed his hacker friend, Maka, to exact vengeance on his competitors for eliminating him from the competition.

They had spiked his water with diuretics that both dried out his vocal cords and made him have to go to the bathroom excessively. He knew because he had taken a sample to Maka's stateside hacker friends to have it tested.

Now Maka said that Favienne's contacts in the Haitian mob were closing in on him.

He was stuck on a floating man-made island with closely regulated ports and entry points, all of which were ideal for hit men to monitor and prevent his exit. Maka said that the rumors were that they were going to kill him.

He had to go underground-- literally underground-- an in this city that meant the network of tunnels and effluent processing areas beneath the streets.

Some of his new hacker contacts knew of some safe spots where he could not be tracked by any surveillance equipment, no matter how advanced. The mob had DNA sniffers, but even those would not work underground where the bugs, vermin, effluent and off-gassing waste would confuse its sensors.

Underground was the safest spot. He would lie low until the danger had passed.

August 20th, 2063

Favienne pounded the table in frustration. Why couldn't they find him?!

She had many loyal admirers within the mob so they provided their services for free. They assured her that no one matching Kyu Bong's description had left this city. In fact many innocent Koreans matching his description had been disappeared in their search for her former friend.

Often she liked to go with them to the secluded point where they disposed of the bodies. She had to see each prisoner to confirm that he was not Kyu Bong. But even so, she enjoyed watching the sharks that always gathered at this spot, roiling in the bloodied waters as they consumed their latest victim. It satisfied her in some way, even though they were no closer to Kyu Bong.

Another thing that satisfied her is that in her largely Haitian section of New Orlando, in the northern part of the city, they had taken to calling their district by the name of one of her more popular songs, entitled, 'Krig-ha, Bandolo,' which was one of Tarzan's war cries in the old, old movies she had enjoyed as a kid.

It started out as a playful warning song for children, telling them, 'Watch out, the enemy is near,' but had become a crowd favorite. Now the section of town housing the Haitians and their main cathedral, St. James, was known as Krig.

She had done that-- with a silly song. They hung on her every word. She was truly amazing.

Who needed to be queen of Pop Planet? She was queen in the hearts of her people.

September 3rd, 2068

In his underground hovel, Kyu Bong had grown pale and thin. He had to be careful to take the vitamin D supplements that his friends supplied him with or he would become ill. They were able to supply a lot of his food needs in pill form, but he had also become fairly skilled at catching and preparing the various rats, nutria and amphibians that could be found in his new underground world.

He wanted to become independent of them because he figured that his connections with the outside world were what would lead Favienne's men to him.

In addition, the newsfeeds he had watched informed him that in the latest exchange of hostilities between North Korea and the United States a nuclear missile had finally been launched by both sides. The Korean missile had been disarmed and detonated over the Pacific, but the U.S. missile had hit its target and left much of North Korea a wasteland. In the southeasterly prevailing winds of summer, much of the radioactive fallout had fallen on South Korea and Japan, requiring most people to take shelter in underground areas.

He didn't know if his friends or family had survived or if they were ill. Communication with Korea had been largely cut off.

In a strange way he wanted not only to live, but to survive as a representative of his people and to remain underground out of solidarity with what they must be going through right now.

In addition, he had discovered a facility for repurposing various items of discarded junk and making it into something useful. He had found some old ladders that he turned into shelving, had used old mattress springs and crib railings to create walls and store tools and random items, had been able to pirate electricity and use an old water heater to create a shower and radiant heat running through old pipes, and his hacker friends had brought him some portable devices so that he could keep in touch with the outside world. Bottles cemented together with mud made one wall, layers of construction webbing made a hammock that was suspended from existing pipes in the ceiling, and the bathroom was just the wet end of the collapsed access tunnel, where it could float away with the current.

He knew that Favienne had become more powerful and influential over time. She still performed in her own clubs to adoring audiences, but she spent most of her time running protection rackets and overseeing the drug operations. And she had not forgotten about him.

Lately the rumors on the net were that she was dabbling in genetic engineering. Her ubiquitous butterfly symbol was already enough to strike fear in the hearts of many a law abiding citizen of New Orlando, but rumor had it she wanted to go one step further-- she wanted to actually have butterfly wings.

Maybe that's what happens when you go mad with fame and wealth-- you come up with the craziest, most dangerous ways to spend your cash.

The odd thing was, it might be possible.

He had seen footage of the 'bird men' of the swamps. They had shown up within the last couple of years, walking through the shallows with their long, heron-like legs, sporting odd tufts of feathers on their shoulders and backs and looking oddly reminiscent of drag queens perched on stilts with their faintly iridescent skin colorations and finely-boned facial features.

Rumor was, a rogue biotech outfit had experimented on former convicts  by capturing them and placing them in full-body biotanks that first dissolved and then reassembled their tissues using customized genetic information based on their own DNA mixed with heron DNA.

The tanks were in actuality an organism themselves-- one based on a silkworm, albeit of a much greater size, 'programmed' to produce a custom life-form within its chrysalis, rather than a mature butterfly.

There was abundant evidence for these theories, including an abandoned lab on an old casino boat in the former Everglades, tissue samples from some of the 'bird men' themselves, and reports from the rare bird man who retained memories of his former life and could describe his abduction and horrific transformation.

If she had located some of those scientists, she could get them to customize a tank to give her a set of wings. But would she be that crazy? What had become of that self-confident and cheerful young woman he had known? She seemed to have become her image, her symbol-- and had lost her soul in the process.

She still sent out regular diatribes against him and his part in stealing the Pop Planet crown from out of her hands. He knew she was satisfied with the power and influence she had found in the mob, but her desire for vengeance was unwavering and hard to ignore. He thought her hatred of him had done far more to hurt her than anything he had done.

But he lived in a hole under ground, surrounded by trash and vermin, so what did he know?

He knew she would kill him if he was caught above ground-- this was for certain. And likely she would enjoy it, too.

December 21st, 2068

Favienne emerged from her tank rejuvenated, renewed. She felt like a child again! Everything had been made new!

As she turned and perused her unclothed form she knew that the scientists had lived up to their boasts, and more. There was a shimmering iridescence to her supple skin, everything was smooth and unblemished and she retained her beautiful form. The only addition were the limbs that unfurled from just below her scapulas. Still damp, they slowly uncrinkled in the humid air and gradually unfurled into miraculous, transparent wings. She beheld herself and caught her breath in awe. They were perfect. She found the muscles in her back and slowly stretched them out, spreading the wings into an ecstatic arc above her shoulders and then letting them fall. She stretched them directly backwards and folded them together against her body, the way she would do if she wanted to conceal them. They had fitted her with less dense bone, but she knew she could not fly. These wings were for show. They would make her spectacular on stage. She was a living embodiment of her symbol-- she was beauty, grace, the power of metamorphosis, the hope of a displaced people, in the flesh.

She had made sure they worked out all that brain scrambling nonsense, testing it on a few subjects before she went in herself, so she retained her full memories and her head was unaffected by the transformation. They kept her on supplemental brain oxygenation while she was enduring the process, which also renewed her lungs, so she retained her full faculties. It was truly marvelous.

The only thing more satisfying than this miracle of transformation was revenge.

She turned to observe technicians removing the subject from the remaining tank. He, too, had been fitted with wings, but his were not colorful like hers. They were clumsy and dull. She had them alter his skin as well, so he was scaled, bug-like, with a gaunt, hunched-over posture.

'Well, Choi,' she said. 'How do you like it?'

Kyung Bong looked up at her and tried to speak. His voice was raspy, but it was still him. Pitiful second-rate talent. She had found him by trailing one of his contacts back to his underground nest. Well, her man Pierre had trailed him, but it was her idea.

'You look... amazing, Favienne,' he said, coughing as his throat tried to adapt once again to breathing air.

'I know,' she purred, 'but I meant you. How do you like your new look?'

Kyung Bong looked into the mirror and gasped in horror. He looked for all the world like a huge, human-sized bug.

'What?! Why?!!' he cried, turning to her in confusion.

'So I could do this,' she said. And with that, she took a sword from a nearby rack and hacked off his wings, leaving bloodied stumps in their place.

Kyung Bong Choi collapsed in arms of the technicians who had restrained him while she amputated his new appendages. He felt one of the strangest sensations he had ever felt, both intense pain and a strange disorienting confusion as his brain tried to process the absence of limbs that he had never learned to use.

Favienne spat on his bloodied stumps and gave him these last words:

'I will let you live, but you will wish you had died today. You may never return to this city and wherever you go, people will see you as I do. As a bug, an abomination, less than human, a disgusting monster! Now get out of my sight!!'

And Choi was ushered out of the compound to a private mob helicopter that was to deposit him in the wastelands of what remained of Georgia, there to live out his monstrous existence alone.

But the spark of life that lived in his altered anatomy had different ideas....