The word 'beehive' is not entirely accurate to describe Incheon International Airport. Over the centuries, humans have invented a new type of swarming, unknown to all other creatures, even insects. As we head over escalators, through custom ports, over human assembly lines, everything around us is one impressionist blur of families, pickpockets, tramps that have made their homes in the countless arrival halls, and contemporary cavemen, the kind that exclusively wear Armani suits and cover their eyes in Ray Ban sunglasses, whose skin has changed into parchment as a result of a life spent in offices, taxis, and airports.
After a inestimable period we stand outside. Even the sun looks artificial in this realm of modern development. A digital clock points out it is almost midday; during our flight we have catched up with the timezones and now morning and evening have swapped places. But there is no time to give in to exhaustion. We walk towards the parade of taxis and get into one of which the driver looks relatively reliable, even though most of his teeth are absent.
"Seoul? Centre?" He has to repeat that last word three time for me to understand.
"Uhm... yeah... could you please bring us to the spot where uhm... the thylacine attack took place some days ago? You know?"
The confusion on the teethless face is of a transcedental level. I take out my iPhone (which, by the way, is no longer fictional
) and google for images of thylacines. When I show one to the taxi driver he is overtaken by a wave of child-like enthousiasm and starts an extensive treatise in which I can occassionally detect a word.
"Can you take us there?"
"Course, course sir. Half our, three quarters maybe."
And we set off. "Are you sure you'll be able to find the right building this time?" my companion in world-travelling asks, as we leave the island over a cozy steel bridge.
"Positive. It looked like a shipwreck."
"A shipwreck?"
"Metaphorically. Just as your eyes look like two gems."
A silence follows. I wonder if that last remark might have been a little inappropriate. I search for ways to explain the simile was by no means meant insolently, but she interrupts my attempts.
"You know, you are a pretty strange person. I've never heard someone say my eyes looked like gems before. According to the boys in my home village they were like drops of salt water."
"I think they are like gems more."
"Do you like gems?"
"I... uhm... well, I do not necessarily dislike them"
"You don't directly strike me as the typical gem person, you know."
"Well... perhaps I aren't, but..."
"Then why did you say my eyes were like gems?"
"It was just a simile, I... I don't know."
The buildings on both sides of the road grow higher, we are getting deeper into the steel jungle. After a long and intricate period in which only the noises from outside and the taxi driver's dissonant whistling can be heard, she finally speaks again. I wonder what it says about the relationships that she continuously is the person to set up a conversation."
"Daniel, I wonder... why did you write me into your story? When you were in the Mediterranean, you could have introduced anything to help you proceed in the plot. An American navy ship... a superhero... a giant squid... why did you choose to introduce a displaced French girl with eyes that are like gems?"
"I'm not sure... I'm not sure if I really have that much power over the story. I mean... maybe it was just meant... you know, on a higher level..."
I wonder if I should look into her eyes or out of the window. I decide in favour of a compromise and look right in front of me. In the front window, my eyes meet the taxi driver's.
"Almost there," he calls, neutralising the suspense in the taxi cabin. I look to the side of the road. A very stylish sign says 'Gangnam district'. The taxi decelerates and finally comes to a halt at the pavement near a building that unmistakenly looks like a shipwreck. I pay with the last bits of my credit card and as the taxi heads off to new customers we let the heart of Seoul consume us for a moment.
"You remember, Daniel?"
"Yeah, I remember. It was right here." And I walk through the folding doors of the shipwreck-skyscraper into the huge, dark hall that is now entirely desolate. The table around which all world leaders were previously positioned is still present, the orb is not.
"Where is the sphere?"
"It's got to be somewhere here. In this building. I am sure of it. If you'd been Mark Zuckerberg, where in the building would you have hidden the crystal orb?"
"At the very top, of course. Mark is a narcissist. Things can never be high enough for him."
We head towards the elevator in the back of the hall. The total absence of people inside this huge building slightly troubles me.
As the elevator transports us in vertical direction like a rocket, the silence is all-embracing. I feel my chest go up and down at the pace of my heart.
The doors open at floor 53. We get out into a red hall that leads to a single door. Despite the entirely different setting, the sight slightly remembers me of the palace in Atlantis. The memory of it seems so far away it makes me doubt for a moment if it wasn't just a dream. But it can't be a dream; why else would I now be silently walking through a deserted office skyscraper in the centre of Seoul with a French gem-eyed girl on my side?
The door opens without a sound. A small office oversees the entire centre of Seoul, below humans, cars and trains swarm on a micro-level. Evidently, my companion was not mistaken about Mark Zuckerberg's narcissism.
At the right wall there is a huge Vermeer-styled painting. At the left one there is a small vault.
Neither of us speak a word, we both know we are at the right spot.
The vault has a number lock.
"Do you have... do you have any idea what..."
"Give me one moment."
I focus my brains. There was another vault, earlier in the story. I close my eyes and go back.
He typed in the six-digit code -which he had modelled after his mother's birthday, so that he would be sure to never forget it...
"The code is Mark's mother's birthday," I whisper. But I have no idea what...
"I do!" the French girl calls out, so hard her voice echoes through the office, something that oddly adds to my discomfort. "He told me," she continues on a softer tone. "He said his memory was really bad, and mine was really good, so he asked me to remember it. I did, I still do, no matter how hard I tried to forget. She was born on December 12, 1956."
I type in the code - 121256 - and the vault door pops open. In the tiny niche there are two objects - a piece of paper containing hundreds of numbers, and an orb. I take out my gloves and pick up the orb, avoiding any skin contact that would, again, carry me into the deepest crypts of telepathic involuntarism. The triumphal silence is interrupted when the orb changes colour, and out of the mists the queen Azalia's marble face destillates.
"Daniel! I've tried to reach you, but... Anyway. It's Mark. He escaped."
I'd never have thought any of the queen's words would ever feel like punch in my stomache. "What do you mean... how..."
"No time to explain. The most important thing is he escaped. You are in great danger. Please..."
But she can't finish her sentence because, behind our backs, a familiar voice pierces the atmosphere.
"Exactly. And you have walked right into my trap. Now please do as I ask you, or this beautiful panorama will be the last view to reach your eyes. Please deposit the orb at your feet, and put your hands up. You have had your playtime, Daniel. It's been fun, but now it's enough. We're going to make some plot twists. This is no longer your story, Daniel."
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chantellabella
I feel honored............
............no...............maybe confused ...................... no .................... culturfied? ......... is culturfied a word? .................... no ............ enlightened? ................ inspired ............................. no, that's not it either......................hm ....................................... 
And I'm happy you guys are here with me!
That explains a lot of the plot twists. There's really two or more inside that random, yet brilliant noggin of yours, isn't there?