Humans Are Selfish

Our nest.

On one of its walls hang some rather vicious things.

One of them is large and white. The rest are a more modest size, and black. I named them Whitey and the Blackies.

For a brief, fleeting second, I did think in a certain direction — but this is absolutely not racism.

I just wanted to say that the heads of the polar bear and the wolves that Harin and I hunted have been reborn under those names, wrapping one wall in a kind of warmth.

"Whitey."

Grrrr...

The eyes have been pierced through and are gone, but the mouth is stretched into a grin. Even with teeth vicious as hell, there's something in that face that looks like a kind heart seeping through.

"Blackies."

Grrn.

I used to pull this shit even when Harin was around. Every time I did, she'd look me over with the expression of someone staring at a bug — or like she'd just chewed a mouthful of shit.

I know. I know perfectly well this is the kind of thing a psychopath would do.

"Daddy's heading out."

Grrn...

Awooo...!

Yeah, I'm probably not normal.

A parentless orphan who got bullied his entire childhood, then ended up over a hundred million won in debt — there's no way that guy was going to turn out with a perfectly sound body and mind.

Still. I figure it's better to hang on by making imaginary friends named Blackie and Whitey than to sit there thinking you're alone when things get hard.

I think back to the early days, when I used to carry Wilson around with me. Even this kind of dumbass bullshit can be a help to someone who isn't strong enough.

The truth is, twenty kilometers is a hard walk even on a nice day with nothing but clothes on your back. Well. Everyone knows that, but anyway.

Right now, I'm walking that distance with a backpack stuffed full of food and a repeater, a K2 rifle and five magazines, grenades, smoke grenades, and even a taser.

"I'll probably be out of contact for about two or three days."

"Yes. Once I get it installed in one piece, that'll be the end of it, so it shouldn't take too long."

I put in a casual radio call as I passed Yangcheon Hyanggyo Station. Kim Min-seo must have seen it coming, because she guessed the reason before I'd even finished explaining.

"I don't know about that. I'd rather not see Harin go nuclear."

It was a kind offer, and I appreciated the concern, but going together was out of the question. If Harin heard I'd spent two or three days with another woman, she might open up with a rage-fueled spray of gunfire.

"Not a chance. We need to get the radios connected first, then take our time and plan the extraction."

I hadn't even drawn up a plan yet. I had no idea what was going on inside that place, and we weren't going to come up with a way in until we could at least talk to each other.

"Right."

That was the end of the call. I tucked the radio — already gone cold — back into my coat and started walking the subway tracks again.

Except for when she's killing people, she's a pretty decent, normal person. The psycho-bitch reputation just won't shake, though — not after those gentlemen whose heads she mounted in the company server room.

The situation was quite different from the last time I'd come this way.

Back then I hadn't run into a single person on the subway all the way to Yeomchang Station — no, all the way to National Assembly Station. Now, starting around Deungchon Station in the distance, human shapes were shimmering in the dark.

Irritating. Cheongdam-dong was still a long way off, and if I had to surface this early, there was no way I'd get every repeater installed in a mere two or three days.

And it wasn't as if I could just drop the repeaters and leave. I had to find charged UPS units or lead-acid batteries sitting unused and hook them up too. The fact that industrial-scale Large UPS units would work was a small mercy, but this was still going to be a brutal trip.

"...Hah."

The first repeater site was Sinmokdong Station, two stops past Deungchon. I'd have no choice but to surface at Jeungmi Station. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠On the map it was a straight shot down the main road, so if I moved fast I'd be fine.

That was the plan. I came up through the Jeungmi ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Station exit, followed the main road, and was passing somewhere between Deungchon and Yeomchang when it happened.

A gunshot cracked.

The report wasn't mine. Somewhere far off, someone had fired at me. A hard thunk slammed into the wall of the building I was walking past, and every stray thought in my head — radio repeaters, Blackies, Whitey — vanished in an instant.

When I saw the round buried in the wall, I had them: survivors, off to my left at about seventy degrees from my line of travel.

This time I was looking at openly hostile survivors. Looters, or murderers, armed the same as me.

I took cover immediately. The first round had luckily hit the wall. It could just as easily have punched straight through my torso.

Motherless Cha — pioneer of Marine hazing, shin-kick specialist, master of the full-body thrashing, and, on top of all that, a hater of Marine literature; the great Marine, and my eternal senior — always used to say:

Christ. Anyone listening would've thought he was a war hero. He'd dump that crap on me while chain-smoking cigarettes. A bastard full of empty swagger. I don't even know if he's still alive.

Maybe I miss him a little.

And what had been bullshit back then was, at this point, halfway decent advice.

Another shot cracked, and I used it as background music while I thought fast, the way Corporal Cha had taught me.

Single fire. Not burst, not full auto. The scar in the wall was faint. Not a K2 like mine — probably a hunting rifle, and not a particularly powerful one.

The shooter's point of aim was way off. The margin of error was more than a meter and a half. So: either they couldn't shoot, or they'd taken the shot despite the range and the lousy visibility.

Another report, and another round smacked into the wall of the building I was using for cover, as if it had buried itself in the concrete.

Should I just kill them?

A fair amount of time had passed since the last time I'd killed someone, and in the end the feelings had gone dull. I still believed that resolving things without killing was the best way. But I'd started to wonder whether I really needed to extend that mercy to people who came at me hostile from the first second.

Another shot rang out while I was still turning it over.

"...Hah."

We were only five kilometers from home. Not a shred of willingness to talk, and this much hostility — dealing with them was the right call.

So I took three deep breaths, and then I moved.

Inside the building, right behind me, was the cold corpse of someone who'd frozen to death. I dragged it over beside me, hoisted the body, and eased it out past the cover of the wall.

A shot cracked immediately. The round fired at my position buried itself in the wall again.

I pulled the corpse back, then pushed it out once more. Another bang, and the bullet punched into the ground, hitting nothing that mattered.

Confirmed. Their marksmanship was garbage. An unlucky round could still find me, but that was a problem for later.

"Hah... fuck."

Next I needed to know how many I was dealing with.

I flung the corpse I was holding through the blown-open entrance of the police box. It hit with a heavy thud and sprawled out right next to the wall I was using for cover. Another shot rang out — but only one. They'd figured out that what I'd thrown was a dead body.

The building was full of corpses. I threw the next one in roughly the same spot as the first, then the next, and the next, stacking them at the entrance until they started to look like something.

I wasn't trying to desecrate the dead. I just didn't have a proper fighting position, so I built a disposable one out of corpses.

"...Sorry about this."

Once enough bodies were stacked to hide me if I went prone, I gripped the K2 tight and moved in behind the corpse wall.

Bang. Bang. Bang—

Three rounds came in right away. Assuming hunting rifles, that made three of them.

These fucking idiots. They can't shoot for shit and they're burning through ammo like lunatics.

I settled into position. Keeping as much of myself hidden as I could, I put the front sight on the direction the shots had come from. Marksmanship learned while taking joint soccer-kicks from the great Marine, my eternal senior, Motherless Cha.

"Hoo... hup."

Another shot, and the round slapping into the corpse wall, made for decent tension. Thanks to that, I had a better fix on the location. Roughly twenty or thirty meters out, through the whipping blizzard, a human shape was visible inside a building.

Hold breath. Aim. Fire.

The action cycled. The shot cracked. The head of the person I'd aimed at burst apart, blood and all.

"AAAAAH! J-Jun-su!"

"Wh-what...! Jun-su is... how did...!"

Screams and noise, and a woman appeared beside the fallen body and dropped to her knees.

Complacent. If you set out to kill someone, you'd better be ready to die yourself.

Hold breath. Aim. Fire.

The action cycled. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shot cracked. The woman who'd been screaming Jun-su's name at a corpse took the round through the back and went down where she was.

"AAAAAAH!!"

"J-Joo-hee! Fuck, that son of a bitch actually—!"

One left. Unlike the woman who'd carelessly run out from behind the wall and gotten herself killed, the man still hiding behind it was shouting like he was ready to tear someone apart — and he was still back there.

He wouldn't show himself. Maybe he'd felt the gap in marksmanship, because he'd gone into full cover and wouldn't even stick a muzzle out of the building.

I thought it through fast and made the call. The second they gave up even watching me, it was over.

Close the distance.

I vaulted the corpse wall, got out of the building, and sprinted across the road. I crossed to the opposite sidewalk, put my back to the outer wall, and advanced slowly, burying my presence in the sound of the cutting wind.

When I reached the building that had been thirty meters away, groans and voices mixed together from inside.

"M-Myeong-jin... it hurts... h-help me... cough... nngh..."

"If I go over there I'll die too...! Just crawl this way a little...!"

I didn't want to hear it. I still hated the messes I made. Unlike Kim Min-seo, who actually preferred this kind of thing, it wasn't a method I had any taste for.

"Ah, nngh... i-it hurts... I..."

"Hup, hah... a-alright. Just stick your arm out. I'll pull you. Just your arm...!"

But I couldn't keep clinging to that stupid stubbornness forever. The faces of the ones I'd let go because I'd acted that way still showed up in my dreams from time to time.

I hated that too. And if I had to pick the thing I hated more, it would be losing my people.

"Hhk... aah...! It hurts...! It hurts so—!"

"Joo-hee, just hang on. I have to pull you this way, there's no other option!"

Now. No gunshots, everything gone quiet — they'd let their guard down. This was the moment.

I drew the M60 revolver from my coat and stepped forward. The man who'd been pulling the woman saw me appear out of nowhere and, with a look of pure panic, scrambled to raise his weapon. He was already far too late.

The shot punched through his head.

The man went down where he stood, and the woman who'd been sobbing that it hurt had gone silent — shock, maybe, or she'd already died.

A similar scene of carnage to last time. But my heart wasn't as unsettled as it had been then.

I still hated it.

In the end, I might be getting used to killing too.