Writer’s Log: 2773
“Isn’t this like the fifth container ship full of North Koreans this summer?” I stood on the newly renovated docks of Bella Coola, British Columbia my chin lifted toward the rust-stained ship drifting up the fjord—a deep gash in the landscape left by a long gone glacier.
Rhee Park, one of the bus drivers who schlepped refugees over The Hill, Highway 20 that snaked along the Bella Coola river heading inland over the mountains, corrected me. “Six, two more coming, close out season.”
“Eight o’ these son-a-bitches?” I said, my voice taut. “How the hell can this possibly work? How is this even working…”
“What you know?” Park’s rebuttal had that familiar edge. I’d met him twice before during my float plane trips up from Vancouver. My indignation came out blatant, his defensive yet cautious position shifted between shame and thankfulness. He’d been one of the original immigrants allowed in by the Canadian government after the nuclear disaster in his home country. He pushed a stubby finger into my down vest. “Everyone of us, we grateful to be here. We work hard. We making Canannan…” he stumbled on the name. I watched him take a breath and pace his enunciation. “Ca-na-da strong. Gwrow food and make tech and robot pahts.”
“Easy there, Rhee. I’m not complaining about you guys being here.” Although I knew they had little choice, I agreed with Canada’s policy. When the time came, Canada stood up and invited them in. And everything he said was true. The North Koreans were a boon to the Canadian economy. “What I meant was, that makes it 80,000 refugees in just three months. How are you managing such instant growth?”
Park didn’t just drive a bus. He’d learned English as a child and became one of the liaisons who’d gathered the community leaders to organize and distribute his people out into the Canadian wilderness. Instant Korea-towns had sprung up, popup cities built from spruce and fir and stone—plentiful resources from within the interior. Industry had quickly followed.
This would mark the third summer after the accident. The exodus continued as the situation, the humanitarian catastrophe worsened. The world, initially sympathetic, had eventually shut its borders, Canada and Australia, alone, remained open.
“You should visit. You see how clever Koreans can be.”
“That’s not a bad idea. You’ve got Charlotte Lake over there.”
“Nimpo Lake closer to us in New Nampo City.”
“Oh, that’s right, Nimpo-Nampo. The North Korean Lake Town.”
“Just Korean. No North.”
“Right.” The ever lingering rejection of two Koreas. This one, it seems, finally sticking. “I tell you what. I’ll meet you in New Nampo tonight after your third?”
“Yes. I make three trips today.”
“Cool. It’ll take me less than an hour to hop over The Hill. I’ll buzz the town when I get there. You see me, come down to the float-plane docks. I assume they have docks there?”
“I see other planes land on water. I will watch for your arrival.”
I shook Rhee Park’s hand and made my way past the line of busses, back to the floating docks to where my de Havilland Otter sat empty. Earlier, staff from the clinic had relieved it of its cargo, supplies for the local medical clinic and sundries for the shops that catered to the new arrivals. This trip I’d be returning with a load of native Nuxalk carvings bound for the trendy shops of Vancouver and Seattle. Sure, automatically carved knockoffs polluted the market, but a discerning eye could tell the difference. That was my bet anyway.
Down south, in the States, unemployment continued to reek havoc. The gulf between the wealthy and the poor stretched wider each year as automation ate away at jobs once thought immune but now, with AI and robotics, were easy prey for the tech-rich. Yet up here, bespoke-made folk-art remained in demand. Vestiges of our human, tribal past, I guess.
I looked up from inspecting my plane to find Dooley, her N-98 radiation mask consuming her face, staring at me with those incredulous green eyes of hers. “What?” I said.
She held out a pocket-sized Geiger counter, it ticked from time to time. “The crisis is not over, Ran-dall.” She spoke my last name as two distinct syllables. “And with those idiots in the Sino-Russo war using tactical nukes. It’s only going to get worse.”
I’d heard the Russians had used a battlefield nuke against the PLA. The fools. Why Russia even cared about the eastern third of itself… And the odds? One hundred and thirty million Russians against one point three billion Chinese? The People’s Republic only wanted a million square miles. Russia would still have five million left. I guess it’s a good thing Putin was assassinated four years ago. I doubt there would have been anything left of Beijing, otherwise.
Kath Dooligan swung down her pack and pulled out a spare mask. “Wear it. For me, Andy.” If she were to check she’d find the prior two masks she’d forced me to wear under my plane’s pilot seat.
“Fine.” I accepted and donned the cleverly camouflaged mask, its filter discs oddly shaped to resemble the leaves of a tree. I turned back, closed the cowling, dogged it tight and asked her, “I’m flying over to Nampo City this evening. You wanna come?”
“Nimpo-Nampo? Why? It’s like like a busy boom town. And you hate busy.”
She had me there. Rarely did I stay in Vancouver for more than an hour during pickup and drop-offs. And in Seattle I barely let my floats get wet. “Rhee Park invited me. And I’m inviting you. Should be some good food. And I know you like sake.” I watched the wheels turning in her head. At the mention of food and wine her left eyebrow twitched invitingly.
“And accommodations?”
“We’ll work it out.”
“‘We’ll work it out’, yeah, right.”
“It’ll be a diplomatic trip. Ease the East/West tensions that are starting to strain.”
“Hmm. Since when…”
“Great. Be here at seven-thirty. Plenty of light to get us over The Hill.”
“But, I didn’t say…”
“Come on, Kath. I know you need a break from the clinic. Think of all the refugees you’re gonna have to treat today. You’ll be crying for a bit of R&R.”
“You have to bring me back in the morning, you know, after.” She pulled down her mask and gave me a mischievous smile.
“Or, you could catch a ride on Rhee’s bus as he returns to pick up stragglers.”
“Prick,” she said, letting the mask snap back up. “But, OK. I’ll be here. What are you going to do all day?”
“I’ve got hours of haggling to do with Vinn and Teekwa. Seems they’ve got a growing online presence and think their scrimshaw and wood carvings have earned some sort of heritage prize.”
“Ha. You’re gonna get thrashed. Teekwa’s savvy now that she’s got satellite internet.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, shit.” She turned to leave but called over her shoulder, “Keep that mask on, Ran-dall. It’ll save your miserable life.”
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 