Running Out of Time
The youth with the green-bleached hair lifted his foot again, yet he did not bring it down. He stood there for a moment with the foot stupidly raised, then finally set it on the ground.
"An older brother really is better than a younger one after all."
"Huuuh."
Seo Rin, the odd-eyed youth whose spine had been broken only moments earlier, shot to his feet, stripped off his body armor, and walked over to the gas range. Meanwhile the green-bleached youth sat before the computer and speed-read through the newspapers stacked there. Before long he stopped at the stock pages and, using the machine, began trading shares.
"Damn it. Prices really tanked after yesterday's close. I should've sold them before the final bell last night."
He finished grumbling, set a plastic pack on the blood-collection unit, and drove the needle into his own forearm. Bright-red blood began to flow through the thin vinyl tube attached to the needle.
Se-gun's blood carried a potent narcotic component along with VT—the vampiric factor—and the antibodies that fought against it, which made the stuff useful for all sorts of purposes. That was why he regularly drew his own blood and kept the packs in the refrigerator.
"Ugh…"
Seo Rin had seen the process any number of times, yet he still could not get used to it; he turned his head away. Han Se-gun continued drawing blood with complete nonchalance, finished his meal, and held out the empty rice bowl.
"One more bowl."
Seo Rin scooped more rice and handed it back. Se-gun ate another three bowls before he finally set the spoon down.
"I honestly can't force another bite."
He stood, dumped the dishes into the washbasin, and put the leftover side dishes into the refrigerator—the same refrigerator that held the blood packs. Any ordinary human would have felt their stomach turn at the thought; Se-gun did not spare a single thought for such squeamishness.
He pulled bottled water and milk from the fridge, mixed them half-and-half, then dumped in a scoop of the fitness supplement he kept on the shelf. With a physique that had long since transcended human limits, his basal metabolic rate was monstrous; he had to consume enough food that a normal person would collapse from exhaustion just trying to finish it. Let his attention slip for even a short while and his body would start wasting away, so after every meal he dutifully downed carbohydrate and protein supplements. To Seo Rin it looked like pure money-burning, but Se-gun forced the stuff down with the grim sense of duty of a man fulfilling an obligation.
"Ugh, way too sweet. Damn it. Might as well get some digestion in while I'm at it. Time to head out."
He loosened up, then layered on clothes: a mesh T-shirt, a spinal protector, elbow guards, and a racing jacket over the top. He slung a military-style rucksack packed with electronic gear onto his back and glanced at Seo Rin.
"While I'm gone, stay off the server—use only the terminal. And get yourself out of that two-finger hunt-and-peck typing. Are you seriously a kid from this century?"
"Yeah, yeah. Jeez, you nag about the weirdest things."
Seo Rin answered half-heartedly, clearly finding the lecture tiresome. Se-gun straddled his motorcycle and tore off toward Seoul at once.
"Hmm. Ah, damn it. So what am I supposed to do now?"
Once he was sure Se-gun had left, Seo Rin set down his spoon and washed the dishes. The chore took only ten minutes; then he yawned and sat in front of the computer.
Having quit school and abandoned the real-estate license exam, Seo Rin had almost nothing to occupy himself with. Se-gun had told him to prepare for the GED, but once he had walked away from school, studying simply refused to stick. When Se-gun suggested he might as well aim for the civil-service or foreign-service exams instead, the idea felt like murdering every desperate exam-prep student in Korea twice over.
"…What a strange guy."
Seo Rin powered on the computer and started surfing. Because he had always been too busy making money to learn computers properly, he watched the keys with his eyes and pressed each one with the deliberate care of someone launching a nuclear missile.
"Ugh, this really isn't my thing."
He grumbled his way through typing practice. Even with his two-finger method his reflexes were so sharp that he still managed a solid four hundred strokes a minute; Se-gun, dissatisfied, had simply hounded him until he practiced by force.
Then again, Se-gun himself lived as if something were always chasing him. He slept maybe two hours a night, trained his body, then buried himself in technical manuals and foreign-language texts, or else overhauled the motorcycle and assembled circuit boards. He would roam the component shops of Yongsan Electronics Market buying parts to build timer boards for bombs or boards that coded intercepted audio into MP3s. Watching him, it was almost impossible to believe the man had never finished high school.
Alone in the quiet room, Seo Rin kept hammering the keyboard for a while, then switched on the audio system beside him. The tuner was already set; the moment the power came on, a radio broadcast spilled into the air.
The brass bell that announced a customer's arrival jangled noisily. The man who flung the door open in one cowboy-like motion was a green-haired youth in a racing jacket. Everyone seated at the tables looked up in surprise, but he ignored their stares, strode straight in, and dropped into a seat.
His appearance closely matched that of Han Se-gun, the terrorist who had blown up the multinational medical firm Flex Medical. In truth there was no "resemblance" about it—he was Han Se-gun himself—yet his face was different now. He wore a simple mask of processed ectoplasm, enough that ordinary people could not recognize his true features.
"Aaah, damn, it's hot."
Se-gun peeled off the jacket, tucked it under one arm, and surveyed the shop. Even though it was still morning the place held a fair number of people, all of them neighborhood idlers. The interior was crowded with folk masks, crystal balls, fortune-telling tools, and curse paraphernalia of a quality that barely exceeded a theme-park fortune machine. The only reason men flocked here was that the owner was an absolute beauty.
"You're here? What is it this time?"
A beauty in a pure-white blouse, black vest, and tie approached. Se-gun waved a hand dismissively.
"Just got curious about the situation."
His original plan had been to use Seo Rin as bait and lure in as many of them as possible. But the vampire overlords had already tasted fire once; they were in no hurry to stick their necks out. Only useless vampire hunters and mages kept trickling into the country.
That did not mean the vampires were completely idle. Se-gun already knew that one of the most combat-capable vampires raised by Tetra Anax—one of their so-called hitmen—had entered Korea. Yet why were they still refusing to move? Was it because Se-gun and Seo Rin were together? Even though Han Se-gun was a Jinma hunter, he did not enjoy a particularly high reputation; was that level of caution really warranted?
When one considered that the other Jinma hunter, Silvester, was a demon among demons who had already lived more than three hundred years, a mere human like Han Se-gun had no reason to be rated so highly. In reality he was living inside a constant Psychedelic high, and in the process of converting every last drop of vampire factor into Psychedelic Moon so he would never become a vampire, his body was destroying itself while antibodies against the factor formed. At this rate he could go into shock and self-destruct at any moment—yet the vampires were dragging their feet. He could not stand it.
"I feel like packing up and hitting their home base right now. I don't even know how much longer I can hold out, and these bastards are just stalling…"
"Don't do anything that reckless. No matter how strong you've become, there's a limit to what one man can do alone. If you lure them into your base and wipe them out, fine—but if you go charging into theirs, it's suicide."
The beauty sitting across from him spoke while lifting the menu.
"Anyway, you're here, so how about ordering something?"
"…Do you really have to sell me something every single time?"
"Of course."
In the end Han Se-gun ordered an ice-cream parfait and began eating it. Simply walking around made his body waste away; he needed the highest possible calories with the least possible burden on his stomach.
"Even after this I've only covered half a day's worth…"
Se-gun muttered and glanced around. Because he was having a private talk with Kim Seong-hui, the shop's owner, the men nearby were glaring at him with more than ordinary hostility.
And what are you going to do about it if you glare?
When Se-gun glared back, every one of them coughed and looked away. No human alive could win a staring contest against eyes that already belonged to a predator who hunted other humans. Even vampire hunters, without the power of Psychedelic Moon, would be caught by a vampire's gaze and slaughtered; ordinary people stood no chance.
At that moment Kim Seong-hui rapped him on the head with the menu.
"What do you think you're doing? Are you a gangster?"
"No, I just…"
I've been losing a lot of cool lately, Se-gun thought, clicking his tongue as he remembered both Seo Rin and Kim Seong-hui.
"Anyway, I'll pass on the intel we've gathered. First, the hitman who came this time is one of the Successors—Giovanni Vantero. The drug king of Central and South America. Right now he's apparently renting the presidential suite at the Ritz-Carlton… plenty of money, too."
"So it's mostly the Central and South American crowd this time."
"Central and South America have always been the homeland of mages. Haven't you even read Umberto Eco?"
"I don't usually read novels."
Se-gun answered while folding his arms. The name Giovanni Vantero was one he already knew well. After toppling the Cuna-Daston family and crowning himself the new drug king, the man had executed more than fifty CIA agents who had infiltrated South America as an example and cemented his position as the new monarch. The United States was desperate to kill him, yet he brazenly never refused interviews with reporters, making both the CIA and NSA look like fools. If he was a vampire, of course that made perfect sense. Send a reporter as an assassin and the human would simply end up dead; no human was a match for a vampire.
"The Ritz-Carlton… a raid would be awkward."
"Don't."
Kim Seong-hui clicked her tongue at Se-gun's terrifying mutter. Flex Medical had been Tetra Anax's stronghold and a pure nest of vampires, so that was one thing. A hotel, however, was still ordinary everyday space, not the world of the moonless night. An open assault would only inflate his notoriety as a terrorist. Se-gun had already crossed a river of no return, yet she could not simply stand by and watch him keep destroying himself.
"Honestly."
Se-gun understood her concern perfectly well and fell silent. Unlike Seo Rin, he had no intention of returning to the human world even if the crisis vanished. As long as he could keep burning hatred until his body finally broke, that was enough. Yet this woman, for a mage, was overflowing with soft-hearted meddling; she interfered and lectured at every turn.
Se-gun rose from his seat.
"Fifteen minutes spent at Arjuna. Time to move."
"Fine. Just in case—don't do anything pointless. Got it? And maintenance is in a week; don't skip it."
"Got it."
Se-gun answered half-heartedly and left the shop.
Se-gun rode the bike home. After checking the bugs and surveillance cameras he had planted everywhere, buying the books and parts he needed, he returned straight to the hideout without any further wandering. For a young man in his prime it was a dry, flavorless life, but Se-gun had long grown used to it.
"Hmm?"
He suddenly sensed a presence inside the house. A second later he remembered Seo Rin. Having lived alone for so long, he sometimes completely forgot about this bizarre roommate.
"Hmm, not bad. Improving?"
The sound of keyboard strokes reached him even from outside—well beyond the range of ordinary human hearing. Looking satisfied, Se-gun stowed the motorcycle in the warehouse and stepped inside.
"Oh, you're back?"
Odd-eyed Seo Rin greeted him with bloodshot veins standing out even in the other eye. Se-gun noticed that Seo Rin was already hammering the keys with practiced ease and felt quietly pleased. The training Se-gun himself had undergone after resolving to become a vampire hunter had been meticulous. Perfect time management that left not even a needle's gap of waste—Se-gun loved that sort of thing. Watching Seo Rin finish the typing lessons far ahead of schedule filled him with a sense of pride.
"Your skill's come a long way. You cut the expected time by a lot."
"Ah, it's nothing. Just my natural talent showing through."
The words were a little off, but the swagger was unmistakable. Se-gun rapped him on the head with his knuckles.
"Brat, don't get full of yourself over mere typing! Next is the technician certification inside a month. And you're going to learn at least Visual Basic! But why are your eyes bloodshot? Your heart rate's also running about twenty percent higher than usual."
Se-gun looked at him in puzzlement, then shifted his gaze to the monitor. There sat the post Seo Rin had just been writing—clear traces of someone working himself into a rage while trashing someone else.
"…Wasting your life like some shut-in."
"No, but seriously. I really don't understand kids these days, you know? I'd heard there were fan cafes for serial killers and for pro-Japanese collaborators, but seeing it for real made my blood boil."
Seo Rin waved his hands and feet as he protested. Se-gun found it so absurd he could only snort a laugh.
"Drop it. Is now really the time for you to care about that crap? You've got way too much free time. A big shot like Giovanni Vantero just rolled into the country."
"Giovanni Vantero? Is he a mixed-martial-arts fighter?"
"No."
When conversation was impossible, silence was the best policy. Se-gun shut his mouth and stripped off his clothes. The muscles stimulated during morning training had already fully regenerated; it was time for the afternoon session.
"You should be training too, Seo Rin."
"What's this all of a sudden? Hyung, you always say you're going to settle things with me one day. Doesn't making me stronger just make more trouble for yourself?"
Is this brat trying to talk back to me? The words were oddly grating. Se-gun reined in his temper and answered quietly.
"I know perfectly well how stupid this is. But with your current skill you're just begging to die. Like I keep saying—if you throw out bait for a carp and a minnow takes it, that feels pretty damn filthy."
"Fine. Let me just finish this."
"What the hell is it, anyway?"