Humans Wait
Draw up the operation, revise the plan, run the simulations.
For days at the Officetel Safehouse, several of them had put their heads together, tweaking and re-tweaking, and this was the best they'd come up with.
Five smoke grenades in the starring role — a so-called limited-visibility brawl. The idea was to lean on the one advantage I had: even in smoke so thick you couldn't see a damn thing, I could still beat the hell out of whoever I ran into. Stun baton, taser, and Corporal Cha's signature one-two straight. All of it.
"Copy."
Subduing the remaining eight without killing them before Harin made it up to B2 was going to be brutally hard. But if I'd been the type to skip a thing just because it was hard, I wouldn't have come this far in the first place.
With that thought, I confirmed my next target.
A female guard, scrambling in the sudden chaos. For someone who worked private security, she looked terrified, groping around in the murky smoke. I charged her with the stun baton. Our eyes met, but her reaction was sluggish — she stammered, like she couldn't even think to raise her weapon.
"H-here— over here…!"
"Get some rest."
A sharp crackle.
"KYAAAAAH!! AAAH!! Nngh, ghhh—!"
I'd never used a stun baton on a person before, but it didn't look any different from a taser. She went down shrieking, body convulsing.
Seven left.
I pulled another smoke grenade from my coat, yanked the pin, and rolled it across the floor. A hiss, and a fresh wall of smoke billowed out. It was everything I had left, which made it a shame to burn them — but I was going to use every last one today. Hold back and you're liable to get screwed.
And then—
"Everyone out of the smoke! We'll put a volley into it from outside!"
"Yes, sir!"
The Guard Captain's voice. Not a bad call, all things considered. If I'd come here alone, that would have been the right answer, no question. He was refusing the brawl in the smoke, and the scream of the first man to break out of it rang out almost immediately.
"I'm out! Preparing to fi— AAAGH!! S-sniper— nngh…!"
"Son of a bitch…"
I'd gotten a curse out of the captain. That was half a win right there.
Ah. Of course, nobody was dying. They were rubber rounds — just hurt like hell, enough to rip a scream out of you on the spot. From their side, though, every screaming, collapsing comrade might as well have been dead.
Anyway. Six left.
"Copy."
Time was running short. I drew the taser. From here on, the moment I so much as glimpsed a silhouette wavering in the smoke, I needed to fire.
"Sound off!"
"One!"
"Two!"
"Three!"
Ah, I really couldn't let that one slide.
A wild, whirling, dizzying day in the life of Shin-chan.
Our Shin-chan really is incorrigible.
"Hey!"
A shot.
"Four… AAAGH!! GAAAH, GHHK—!!"
Five left.
I hugged the bunker wall and reloaded the taser cartridge. In the brief silence that followed the scream, the next number rang out.
"…Five!"
"Confirmed. One more just went down — five total. The four of you besides me, get out of the smoke and take cover behind the pillars, fast! Then radio for backup!"
Close, but no. I'd wanted two more out of the smoke, at least, but this captain of theirs kept making sharp calls even in a mess like this.
"I'll handle the enemy in the smoke. You four pin down the snipers outside until backup arrives!"
"Yes, sir!"
Four sets of footsteps pattered away, putting distance between themselves and the smoke. Our two opened up — bang, bang — but only one scream came back.
Four left.
At this point, I had to end it before their backup arrived. So I pulled another smoke grenade and yanked the pin.
A shot cracked out.
"Over that way, are you."
Sharp-eared bastard. He'd fired in roughly the right direction off the sound of the pin alone. I rolled the grenade toward a spot a little off from me, and with a hiss the smoke grew thicker still.
I dropped low and pressed myself against the bunker wall. Outside the smoke, gunfire kept hammering away. Another scream drifted in — from the guards' side, naturally. Private security in Korea doesn't exactly hire for marksmanship, so our people's shooting was the better of the two. The one thing I had to remember: a scream from our side was absolutely not allowed to happen.
Three left.
Think. Given the Guard Captain's build, and the fact that he did this for a living, a straight-up brawl was a fight I was likely to lose. My advantages were a gift for sowing chaos, and two excellent snipers who could put rounds into this room from outside. Which meant chaos was still the right answer.
A shot. A clang.
"The radio. So the inside job was you lot as well."
The round hit the steel plate wrapped around my forearm before I could even answer.
"…Nngh. Copy."
It didn't punch through, but it hurt like a bitch. It hadn't been a clean hit, which was the only reason I managed to swallow the scream. I pulled a dagger from my coat and threw it toward the voice. A clash of steel — he was moving.
My footsteps cut across the smoke, and the Guard Captain's kept pace right with them. I shouted.
"Plan C! Sniper fire into the smoke!"
"What…? You crazy son of a—!"
A shot, a ricochet. The round that followed my voice missed by a hair and slammed into the bunker wall.
Whatever. I'd confirmed he was better than expected, so friend-or-foe was off the table — welcome to a luck-based shitshow. Even if I caught one, I wouldn't die.
I pumped a breath into my lungs, drew another dagger, and reloaded the taser cartridge still pressed to the wall. Rubber rounds came punching into the smoke. The whole world was a blind white, and I had no idea which direction they were coming from.
"Nngh…!"
The Guard Captain's voice. I fired the taser toward it on instinct. A click, a crack.
"Ghk… gaaah…!"
Ah, fuck. Not the captain — someone already on the ground. I'd just zapped a man who was already down, for nothing.
I yanked the pin on the last smoke grenade, threw it roughly, and reloaded the taser. Rounds kept coming even then.
"Nngh…!"
Caught one after all. It hit the body armor this time, but the impact was still ugly. I took a slow breath and counted myself lucky the round hadn't gone through.
And I could feel footsteps closing in on me.
"What's the reason for all this."
The reason, huh. That's a simple story.
"I mean it. You had an insider cut the bunker's power and you're pulling a stunt like this. What for."
"…Trying to take back a few things that got stolen."
The world's already gone to shit, and I'm not the type who can sit still after the few precious things I had left got taken from me. I just wanted them back, and maybe to air a little grievance while I was at it. I threw the answer out and kicked off the floor.
A shot. It missed.
The downside of a shotgun is that you have to work the bolt to reload, and the tube doesn't hold many rounds. Five, usually. Mine were the same. The slug that had just gone past me was the fifth and last — I'd been counting every round he spent, so I was sure.
I drove toward the voice, and a silhouette took shape in the smoke.
"Hup!"
It would've been nice if he'd been sloppy, swapping out his mag. Instead the Guard Captain had already set the shotgun down and settled into a stance with a dagger, same as me.
At this point I had to fight him like I meant to kill him. If we didn't finish this before their backup arrived, we were the ones who'd actually die.
A clash of steel. I caught the dagger he threw at me on my forearm and shouted.
"Change point of aim! Engage the guards behind cover!"
Gunfire answered at once, and the screams came with it.
Two left.
We cut at each other. Steel rang on steel.
"Nngh…!"
"Surrender and I'll end it in one stroke."
I was getting overpowered, and it wasn't even subtle. This crazy bastard was filthy strong, every bit as much as his size suggested. I'd never been one to get called weak, wherever I went — if Corporal Cha heard I'd gotten my ass handed to me in a strength contest, he'd throw a fucking fit.
I gave three steps of ground and threw the dagger. A light, useless clink. Unlike a bullet, it didn't punch through the padding; it just dropped to the floor with no force behind it.
"Hah… can't we just call it here and look the other way?"
"As this bunker's Guard Captain, that's out of the question."
"I haven't killed anyone, you dumbass."
"I know. The rounds coming in from outside were rubber, and the taser too. I'm surprised you've survived this long in a world like this, being that soft."
The smoke was already running out of time. And he reached down and picked up another shotgun lying right beside him.
"You son of a—! If you know that, then wrap it up already…!"
"That's not happening. If I let a terrorist walk, the people upstairs will have my head."
I kicked off again, put distance between us, and took cover behind the wall. Then I aimed the taser toward the voice.
Shots from outside the smoke.
"Guards behind the pillars — sniping complete!"
The all-clear from Lim Ju-cheol, the Imaginary KATUSA Warrior.
One left. Just the Guard Captain, in here with me.
"Terrorism aside, I'm grateful you didn't kill my people."
A click — the sound of a shotgun being fed another round. So I set the radio up on the wall, eased myself down, and went prone.
I waited for the silhouette.
Footsteps, slow and even, coming closer. I held my breath and killed every sound I had.
"You've also shown us where our problems are."
Not yet. Not yet. Everything has its perfect moment.
"But I hope you'll understand we don't have a choice either. If you came here to take back what was stolen, you should have come prepared to kill us."
The moment I'd been waiting for was almost here.
Right now.
The radio pulled his eyes and his point of aim upward. That was the moment.
A shot. Just as I'd figured, the Guard Captain's round went into the wall above, toward the sound. Still prone, I put the taser into the silhouette's legs. A click, a crack.
"Nnnngh…!!"
I was on my feet and on him in the same breath. He was convulsing but still hadn't gone down, so I kicked his legs out, dropped him, and tore the shotgun out of his hands.
"You, you— nngh…!"
"Must be the size of you. Current's not getting through so well. Hyah. Hyah."
"Nnnnngh! AAAAAGH…!!"
I stowed the taser, gave him a few more kisses with the stun baton, got him under control, and snapped the cuffs on as I shouted.
"Situation clear!"
Zero left.
As if on cue, the smoke began to thin, and right on time Harin came running from beyond the security gate.
"Oppa!"
"Man, getting a look at your face is a real ordeal…"
She ran straight at me. Behind her, Jeong Su-yeon stood frozen, staring in horror at the wreckage around the security gate.
A radio. The voice drifted quietly through the bunker.
At the end of waiting, there is the light you've been hoping for. On any other day I would've called that bullshit, but coming at a moment this perfectly timed, that not-quite-a-sermon sounded almost convincing.
"…I missed you."
"It's been a while."
Harin, after two months, already had a shine in her eyes — glistening, glittering, every bit as much as the wait had been.
"I'm sorry."
"Forget it. Let's go. We need to bounce before their backup gets here."
Maybe this was the light I'd been waiting for.
I turned around with that thought in my head.
Outside was cold.
"Oppa. Oppa."
"What now."
A knife-wind, past cold and into a sting that felt like it would peel the skin right off you, kept coming without a break. On top of that, we still had a long way to go, which was enough to pull a sigh out of me all by itself.
"Did you thaw the fish? We were supposed to have sashimi."
"You think? Just getting here and back takes over a week."
"Oh. Right."
Still, it felt a little warmer than the trip out here. Or maybe that was just me.
"So the sashimi matters more than the guy who risked his neck to come get you, is that it?"
"Come on, no. I meant I'm looking forward to having sashimi with the oppa who risked his neck to come get me!"
That bright little grin of hers was a pretty good look. Just watching it put me at ease. It felt like everything that had frozen over was quietly thawing out.
"Yeah. I'm going to eat it all myself while you're asleep."
"Hey, hey, hey!"
"Don't know. Not my problem."
The corner of my mouth, hidden behind the mask, curled up in spite of itself. Good thing I was bundled up to the eyes.
Humans wait.
Someday, the moment they've been waiting for will surely come.
That's true for everyone.