Synopses & Reviews
"Ni-suh, Sy-duh-nee—
Omhada—look at camera—thank you—better—pro-
fesh-ional—Now, play with Hot-Cold, plea-suh!"
A shock attack of Nu Destruction beats was battering her body, the studio lights were melting her make-up—melting her face—and the scent of her own fried nerves still lingered in the air, but Sydney was on fire now and this was a war zone she never wanted to leave. Jutting her hip toward the camera, she slithered her palms up the black GrilleTex™ jacket. Beneath its slashing neckline, a tight contraption of silk, wire and pump-foam was pushing her tits out beyond maximum volume. Fuck, this outfit was a knife-free boob job: she’d never had such amazing cleavage in her life. But that wasn’t all the OhmEgo designers could do. Tossing her hair, she pinched the metal button stitched over her heart and twisted it all the way round to the left.
Big mistake.
The music hit a disco vein and she made a stab at vogueing, but as she cocked and sliced her arms at asymmetrical angles to the world, an oven of heat bloomed through the jacket.
"This is brutal, Jin Sok," she panted, fumbling for the dial.
"No!" he ordered. "Go wi-thuh. Go wi-thuh."
He was totally crazy. But so was she. She reached off-set, grabbed a bottle of water from a white designer stool and, facing front again, squirted the cool liquid down her neck and chest. Ahhh. The photographer stomped in applause and she chucked the bottle aside. Bending low enough for the camera to practically capture her navel, she pouted and traced the glossy circle of her lips with her tongue. A dark blush tingled in the pit of her stomach. Johnny would kill for her to do that at home.
Jin Sok jumped on a chair. "Loo-kuh up. Now," he commanded.
She raised her chin and he zoomed in on her chest. Beneath her mask of gold make-up her cheeks flared. For a breath-taking instant she imagined scooping her wet tits out of the bra and thrusting them into the shot.
A gush of fear soaked her panties; her bare legs trembled and she thought she might stumble. Fuck.What was she doing, getting turned on at her first major league shoot? What if she stained the OhmEgo shorts?
If Jin Sok noticed her panic, it only aroused his approval. "Okay! Ye-suh! Baby—mi-luh!" He hopped off the chair and kicked it away into the corner of his studio where it sent an orchid pot flying. She threw back her head and laughed out loud. "Beauty!" he roared. "Now kissing, Sy-duh-nee—ki-suh please!"
Crisis past, the GrilleTex™ heat now just bearable, she smacked the air noisily. Her blonde braids tipped with metal cones knocked against each other with empty precision as she strutted to the front of the set. Arms crossed, she toyed with the OhmEgo logo warped into the jacket’s left shoulder. Peeping at Jin Sok from behind a web of storm-proof mascara, she turned to display the puckered omega. What felt like a bucket of sweat sluiced down her spine.
"No, really, I’m too hot!" she complained, louder this time. Jin Sok couldn’t expect her to keep going under these blazing lights, not with the GrilleTex™ temperature cranked up to the top. No wonder her body had zoomed out of control.
Jin Sok’s shaved head gleamed above the lens and with his free hand he jabbed the air, keeping the momentum of the music moving through the room. "Cool it, baby—i-suh cream option—chill out!" he called.
Thank fuck for that. Sydney twisted the dial round to the right. An icy shiver ran through the thermo-threads embedded in the jacket and goosebumps pinged up on her arms. Shit, that was no good either. Even in a sauna of a studio, who wanted to be cold and clammy inside full-blast air-con clothes?
She shrugged off the jacket and let it slip to the floor. Her abs were still a work-in-progress—okay, non-existent—but the bra was fringed with silky black tassels that hid her puppy fat and felt lovely and swishy against her skin as she moved. Johnny hated them—"Fringes? What are you, a lampshade?" he’d sneered when she’d showed him the MoPho files—but he wasn’t here, so fuck him. Shaping her hands into pistols, she sprayed the room with bullets, picking off all-comers before merging the guns into one and pointing the barrel directly down towards the camera.
Jin Sok urged her on in Korean and as she wiggled and winked, blew kisses and blinked, her heart finally dared to dart all its little silver arrows up into the music, up up up to the high white ceiling of the studio. Was it really true? Was she really posing for a leading international techno-fashion photographer, not being told just to "look pretty" by some dork in a tacky suit? Thank fuck Jin Sok had spotted her in that cheap lipstick campaign. This was where she was supposed to be. Johnny could go find himself a new girl scout: she didn’t need to sweet-talk his stupid clients any more—maybe she didn’t even need to suck his big cock any more … Please, she silently groaned, closing her eyes, please let this never stop, let this feeling never end, set fire to my clothes, let me die now, please …
"Eye-suh open!" Jin Sok whooped, blasting the music until it rattled the roof. She hurled herself back into the room with a flying Taekwondo kick. Right now, everything was Ohm-E-Go-Girl-Go.
Synopsis
In Seoul Survivors, praised for its "impeccable plotting" by The Guardian, global warming has wreaked havoc on the planet. There is only one safe place to be: in the mountains above Seoul, glamorous Korean-American bioengineer Dr. Kim Da Mi is convinced she has found the perfect solution to save the human race. But her methods are strange and her business partner, Johnny Sandman, is a, unsavory character with many secrets.
When impetuous aspiring model Sydney flies to Seoul at the behest of her boyfriend, Johnny Sandman, and meets Dr. Kim Da Mi, she doesn't know that the scientist is engaged in a secret power struggle with Johnny that will threaten her own life.
Seduced by the visionary scientist, Sydney begins helping Kim Da Mi create a new breed of human beings to staff a revolutionary theme park: VirtuWorld. As the Winter Solstice looms, the Internet is rife with rumors that a devastating meteor called Lucifer's Hammer is heading straight toward Earth. VirtuWorld would be a haven from eco-apocalypse, but its success demands a sacrifice--just whose blood will spill is far from certain until the final pages of this tense cyber-thriller.