Merging Raid Teams (1)
When I arrived at the Time River Building, the thinning of the place was obvious. The document boxes that had been stacked across the office floors were gone, and so many desks had been hauled out that the rooms felt hollow and bare.
"There are far fewer people," Franc said. "Half the eighteenth-floor office is empty, isn't it?"
"They're in the middle of moving, aren't they? And a large-scale subjugation just started, so the raiders would be thinned out too."
I'd spent the past month charging every one of eighty High-GradePhase Stones and handing them over, so there ought to have been enough to buy a new building. At an average of three hundred billion won apiece, the lot came to something like twenty-four trillion.
Before I became an ability user, I'd agonized over spending a thousand won of allowance from Mom and Dad — pocket change, not even a dollar. These days money didn't even feel like money.
Money aside, I swept the building for anyone I knew and found only one. No sign of my sister, and Choi Soohan wasn't in her room. Director Lee Hyeryeong was still on the eighteenth floor, lost in her usual trance of paperwork... huh?
Hmm. I thought I'd misread it and looked her over again, but it wasn't my imagination. From Director Lee Hyeryeong came a sensation like the one I'd felt from that young mother on the subway — a bad aura.
I called the elevator and, waiting in front of it with my eyes closed, began to examine her body. Nothing looked wrong on the outside. Looking through her, though — as I'd half expected — the vertebrae of her lower spine, mid-back and lumbar both, were badly twisted. A thin, sturdy brace circled her waist, but that was only a stopgap. The warped spine was shoving her organs aside, and her intestines didn't look well either.
When I reached the nineteenth-floor office, Hwayeon was sorting documents. She saw me and waved. I hurried over, caught that hand, and pulled her along as I spoke.
"Let's go up to the twentieth."
I'd grabbed her wrist in a bit of a rush and headed for the elevator, and Hwayeon began to look thoroughly flustered. Did she think I was pent up and about to pounce? When we left the office, the secretary sisters stared after us with startled rabbit eyes.
It's not like that, all right?
The moment we reached the twentieth floor, opened the door, and stepped inside, I told Hwayeon to call Director Lee Hyeryeong. Her face went blue, then red, then white, and she spoke in a faint, dizzy voice.
"W-why? Hyeryeong is already married... she's a married woman. Destroying a home is — if there's something you want, then I..."
"That's not it?! What are you thinking!!"
The reaction was so absurd I couldn't help shouting, and a flinching Hwayeon switched on her Certifier and called Hyeryeong. In the meantime Franc asked,
"Is something the matter with Director Lee Hyeryeong?"
"Remember that young mother we saw on the subway? And the man in General Affairs, Choi Jinsik."
When I brought up how I'd suspected early-stage lung cancer and told them to go to a hospital, surprise spread across Franc's face. Hwayeon, having hung up, darkened as well, took my hand, and asked,
"What do you mean? Has something gone wrong with Director Lee's body?"
I gave her a brief account of what had happened then, and added,
"It's like that time. Director Lee doesn't seem well, so I wanted her called. Get her up here."
"I already called. She'll be up if we wait a little."
Hmm. Then... Laying her on the sofa felt a bit much. Should I have her lie face-down on the floor? I was looking around, trying to decide where to put her, when Director Lee Hyeryeong arrived at the entrance with documents tucked under her arm and pressed the doorbell.
A chirring birdsong sounded. Hwayeon hurried to the door and opened it. Director Lee's eyes went round at how fast it flew open; then she saw Hwayeon, smiled softly, and spoke.
"I happen to have documents for the boss to— oh my?!"
Hwayeon didn't listen. She scooped Hyeryeong up in a princess carry and swept over to me where I stood in front of the bed.
"B-b-boss?! Wh-what is this... aaah! N-no! I have a husband I love!!"
She was already startled by being picked up, but the moment she saw me standing before the bed her face went the color of death. She dropped the documents, clutched her collar, and began to tremble.
Unbelievable.
"You into trashy soaps too, Hyeryeong?"
"...Pardon?"
Director Lee stared at me blankly, and only when Hwayeon gently set her down did she clutch her waist and frown.
"How long has your back been twisted like that? Take off the jacket and lie face-down on the bed."
"Ugh... how did you know that, Seoha?"
"Who do you think I am? More to the point, your spine is twisted at nearly a thirty-five-degree angle right now. Doesn't that hurt?"
"Well, you are an unparalleled sensory ability user... I-it's just a little sore, so I've been wearing a back brace. Is it really that bad?"
"It looks like it could snap at any moment."
At my words pain seemed to climb from her waist. She winced and set a hand there, and I watched the long straight hair — only the ends lightly tied — sway as I went on.
"That isn't the kind of thing that stops at 'a little sore.' How did it get like that?"
"A few days ago I hurt my back a little, carrying something heavy at home. It hurt, but it got better quickly, so I didn't think much of it. Since yesterday, though, it's been aching and throbbing, bit by bit..."
"What's your husband doing, letting a woman throw her back out lifting something heavy?"
With Hwayeon's support, Director Lee struggled out of her suit jacket, climbed onto Hwayeon's large bed, lay face-down, and let out a pained sigh.
"My husband is weaker than I am. He has a rare disease that even recovery abilities can't cure, so he has to receive healing from recovery ability users on a regular basis."
...Ah. So that's why she needed so much money.
"Later, I'll take a look at your husband too."
"What? You mean you, Seoha...?"
She clearly didn't understand. Rather than persuade her now, I decided to treat her first. Showing her would be better than explaining.
"Kkeung. Th-thank you, Seoha."
She seemed to have taken it not as an offer to heal him myself, but as a promise to arrange treatment. Her eyes reddened, and she sniffled softly.
"But did you learn medicine from your father, Seo— kyaak?! Agh..."
I caught the blouse at her waist and yanked it up to her chest in one motion. Director Lee startled, flailed, then clutched her waist and trembled like a frog stuck with a needle.
When I undid the brace wrapped around her, the curve of her spine showed clearly even through the skin.
How could she not have known? Franc and Hwayeon both went rigid at the sight.
"Hwayeon. Take a picture and show it to Hyeryeong. She needs to see how foolish she's been, or she'll make the same mistake again."
"All right."
Stone-faced, Hwayeon switched on her Certifier, photographed the waist, and held the image up before Hyeryeong's eyes.
"Hik?!"
She recoiled.
"How do you like the look of your spine about to snap? What's more surprising is that you only went 'ow' a little, in a state like this."
Director Lee couldn't find the words. She stared blankly at the photo, then reached a hand back and touched her own waist. How had she even been walking around like this? If I showed Dad, he'd burn with a doctor's outrage.
"Do you have some knowledge of medicine as well, Seoha?"
"No, nothing like that... just watch."
"Yes...? Ah, all right."
She hesitated, puzzled, and glanced at Hwayeon and Franc. When they stayed still, she seemed to decide it was all right and nodded.
I told her to lie comfortably face-down, set my hand on the prominently curved spine, and unleashed Healing Touch.
The moment the recovery ability manifested, a dreadful crackling rose from the warped vertebrae. I watched the S-curved spine, and the back muscles twisted along with it, draw themselves straight. The vertebrae stood properly, the skewed pelvis found its place, and I couldn't help a flicker of awe. Healing Wave could restore even Solid Snake after half its head was gone, and Healing Touch was only a downgraded version of that — and yet the healing power was staggering all over again.
"Oh my?"
Despite the dreadful sound, Hyeryeong rose with a relieved face and felt her waist. Then she noticed my gaze, hastily pulled her blouse down, and asked with a complicated expression,
"People have been fighting over the verification team's footage — whether you have a recovery ability or not... So you really could use one, Seoha?"
"Yes. Physical reinforcement, elemental, recovery, and sensory — I can use all of them."
"Good heavens, you really are..."
Grrrrrrgle.
"...B-Boss. I'm sorry, but the bathroom, if I could...!"
Hwayeon, looking embarrassed, nodded at Director Lee — who stood half-crouched, clutching her lower belly — and looked away. I'd never heard a sound that loud come out of a person's stomach.
Watching her bolt for the bathroom, I asked Hwayeon,
"I figured if it got found out, it got found out, and if not, then not, so I just left it alone. My recovery ability still hasn't been pinned down, huh?"
"It was night, and it was raining, so the ripples of your Healing Wave were barely visible. Variant physical-reinforcement aberrants include individuals with rapid regeneration limited to a set number of uses, so people are still going back and forth, arguing yes and no."
So the fans and the antis are tearing into each other. Hwayeon, mid-explanation, glanced at my face, scratched her cheek as if she'd slipped, and said,
"Seeing you, I think the madam and I made a mistake cleaning up the situation. I'll have a word with Director Lee, so hide the recovery ability if you can. If it's confirmed you have that on top of everything else, the attention will be on another level entirely. You won't even be able to move freely then."
"Yeah. Got it. I'll be careful."
Hwayeon, looking as if she'd caught her breath, walked to the sofa and sat. I settled sideways on her lap and asked,
"Hey. Compared to my Healing Touch, how strong is the healing of other close-range recovery users?"
"If the target is an ordinary person and the wound has nothing to do with Phase Power, even a small amount of TP can heal it perfectly. Recovery abilities burn so much TP because, when you're wounded by an aberrant, Phase Power spreads through the injury like poison and interferes with the healing."
She seemed unexpectedly pleased to have me on her lap. A satisfied look crossed her face, and she wrapped her arms around my waist. I'd sat there as a joke. I hadn't expected her to like it this much.
"I see. Anyway — the reason Hyeryeong couldn't quit the Hwarang raid team before was her husband?"
"Yes. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. What people usually call Lou Gehrig's disease. She needed an enormous sum for treatment."
Lou Gehrig's was a disease for which no certain cure had appeared, even now — after the Phase World opened and all sorts of incurable illnesses were being treated with medicinal herbs brought out of it. The medicine was staggeringly expensive, of course. A year, hospitalization included, was said to run about ten million won in the ordinary case, but medical costs and drug prices multiplied without end the moment you actually tried to spend. And once it became known that a recovery user's healing helped, even slightly, to ease the symptoms... well. For an ordinary person to receive healing from an ability user — a recovery type, scarce as they were — required an enormous "consultation fee" in the name of treatment.
Hmm. Director Lee helped Hwayeon in every way she could, money and otherwise. Should I help a little too?
"I wonder if my recovery ability would work on Lou Gehrig's."
"Testing it wouldn't be a bad idea. Your recovery ability has a different origin from an ordinary recovery user's healing art."
Hyeryeong came out of the bathroom with a flushed face, and I asked about her husband's condition first.
"He's in the United States right now. An opportunity came up to receive healing from a recovery ability user who can treat disease."
"Oh. If he gets that, is he fully cured?"
"No. If anyone had been fully cured, it would be widely known. There are people who've improved, but they say no patient has ever been completely cured."
She looked mentally worn. Hwayeon sighed softly and said,
"Even if something important is happening at home, you must look after your own body. To say nothing while it reached that state, suffering only in silence... What would we have done if something serious had happened?"
At the rebuke, Director Lee smiled awkwardly and nodded.
"It's because this is the most important time. I do think I need to be healthy if I'm going to work hard."
"Hyeryeong."
"Yes. Go ahead."
"If you're all right with it, I was thinking I might take a look at your husband."
Kindness for kindness, malice for malice. The help she'd given Hwayeon was as good as help given to me, so I offered — and Director Lee, moved, took my hand and showed her thanks.
"If you would, I'd be truly grateful."
"I can't promise it'll work on the disease, so don't get your hopes too high."
"Heh. Just the thought is enough to make me glad."
Treated, she bowed deeply to me once more in thanks and went down to the eighteenth floor. Franc, quiet until then, spoke with a note of admiration.
"Director Lee Hyeryeong is a strong woman."
"The husband who trusts a sister like that has a strong core himself."
"Still, even recovery users can't treat it. I wonder if I stuck my nose in for nothing."
When I fretted aloud, more cautious than I needed to be, Hwayeon patted my shoulder and told me not to mind it.
"As she said herself, she's happy just that you care, so she won't be disappointed even if it has no effect. If anything, she'll be genuinely grateful that you made time to look at her husband."
"Then that's a relief."
"And I want to say thank you as well. For looking after what I failed to notice..."
I set my index finger against the lips of Hwayeon, who was thanking me with a warm face, and laid it on as thick as I could.
"We don't say thank you. Not between us."
Ha—! I've always wanted to say that line!
They say women like it when you talk cheesy. Was that actually true? Hwayeon's eyes went round, then heat poured out of them all at once. She sat me down on the sofa and began looking down at me from above with a burning gaze.
Th-this isn't the reaction I was thinking of.
"Is that so. Then I'll express it with actions."
"Huh?"
Hwayeon's long, soft hand slipped abruptly into my pants and began stroking Buddy awake.
When her fingers softly traced the head, a tingling current ran through me. It swelled proud in an instant and began to throb and strain in her hand. Not only that — she put her tongue in first when she kissed me. Not passive, the way she usually was, but hot, fervent, and taking the lead.
Caught off guard, I was aroused in no time. I slipped a hand under her white shirt and hesitated — up, or down?
The hesitation lasted a moment. She was wearing suit trousers, so there was only one choice.
I set my hand on the breasts cupped in a thin bra, and Hwayeon flicked the clasp between the cups. The clasp came undone, the bra slid away, and her firm breasts, yielding just slightly to gravity, pressed heavily against the front of her shirt. Already excited, perhaps — I kneaded around the nipples beginning to stand stiff, and stroked the whole of her breasts as if to crush them in my palms. Pleasure seemed to travel up through my hands.
A woman's breasts are honestly cheating. How can they be this soft?
Hwayeon's face grew redder and redder. The crowning points of that playground asserted themselves fiercely, pushing back against my palms. I pinched the nipples — firm enough now to be perfect for pinching and twisting — a little hard, pulled, and twisted. Hwayeon, still devouring my lips, groaned without a sound.
Doing this made me greedy. I wanted the cave below as well. But she was wearing trousers, so reaching it was... and I couldn't exactly tear them off.
Then a third party — not Hwayeon — pulled my hand, and at last the cave I wanted met my fingertips.
"Mmn, that's too much. Leaving only me out..."
Franc had spread her thighs and was drawing my hand up under her skirt. Hwayeon was too absorbed in the kiss, and in caressing Buddy, to spare attention for taking off her trousers or anything else.
I covered Franc's sex with my palm and stroked it slowly, the way one strokes a head, and a small nasal sound slipped from her. I raised my middle finger and pushed it in among the petals — slick, in to the second knuckle — and Franc arched her back, writhed, and moaned.
"Nnh."
When I sent my index finger in with the middle to explore the inner flesh, the place suddenly bit down harder on my fingers. As if she couldn't bear the rising pleasure, she grabbed my wrist and started to pant — and Hwayeon stopped the kiss too, nuzzled my face like a cat showing affection to its mother, slipped her own hand into her trousers, and began caressing her secret garden herself.
"Seoha."
"Seo-haa."
Ugh. We just slept yesterday, and both of them are in full heat!
My other self had gone hard under Hwayeon's cool, tingling fingers and was clamoring to explore inner flesh as soon as it could. No one was likely to come looking today, so...
I got to my feet and gave them an order.
"Both of you, bare your asses and grab the back of the sofa with both hands."
Hwayeon went silent. Franc breathed out.
"Haa..."
Red-faced, Hwayeon peeled off her trousers and the panties already growing wet, and offered her backside toward me. Franc gathered her skirt up over her waist, knotted the hem so it would stay, and bared herself in the same pose. Two full-moon-white, round bottoms swaying as if begging to be touched — it was a spectacle.
"Mmmn, Seohaa. Hurry..."
"Haaa. S-Seoha. Me too..."
I approached like a conqueror — Franc humming through her nose as if begging me to start, Hwayeon shy and yet hoping to be touched — and undid my belt. Buddy, nothing to be ashamed of anywhere it was shown, surged up like a dragon drawing breath and began to nod. Bliss settled in both their eyes, and nectar began to flow from their petals.
Yes. Today, I become a conqueror.
My school uniform was a little rumpled, but it was fine cloth; a few brushes and it smoothed out clean. Hwayeon had climaxed again and again, and gone to the shower to wash off the sweat, the slick, and the semen gathered in her womb. Franc had followed, and through Spatial Perception I could see her taking Hwayeon to task — their voices arriving without a sound.
Franc's face had gone red with the force of it. Hwayeon floundered into a rebuttal.
...Enough. I don't need to watch any more.
Washed and changed, Hwayeon and I came down to the office. Passing the secretary sisters, I saw their eyes turn hawkish — they'd noticed her clothes had changed — and they smiled in that way that knew and pretended not to. They'd figured it out, hadn't they?
Back in the office, Hwayeon resumed the documents she'd left off. I perched on the edge of her large work desk, switched on my Certifier, and asked,
"What's happening with the company? Looks like more than half the people have cleared out of the office."
"Starting today, we've begun an event-style subjugation, to coordinate with Hwarang's raid team and get faces familiar. It's an adjustment period, so we're running it in safe places and in zones one rank below the average. The profits won't go to Time River or Hwarang. They'll be counted under Grand Blue. For that, half the office staff and business support from both teams have already moved to the new building."
"A new building? You bought one?"
"Mm. In the heart of Irwonbon-dong, next to Daemosan, some upstart rich man built a huge building trying to make a leisure park. Construction was finished and they were decorating the interior when his corruption came out, his assets were seized, and the theme-park building — a mountain of debt in itself — sat abandoned for half a year."
"Ah, I saw that on the news. He was the defense contractor who led the military supply graft, right?"
"Yes. The government meant to cover the losses the corruption exposed by auctioning off his fixed assets, but the building was so large that no buyer came forward. The sale kept being postponed — until we bought it."
Hwayeon finished the few documents that remained, switched on her Certifier, and brought up a photograph of the building.
The shape was unusual. Floors one through six were a commercial complex, and above that two twenty-four-story apartment towers stood tall. Perhaps because it had been meant as a leisure theme park, the commercial building was finished with considerable sophistication. On the sixth-floor roof — where the residential section began — a sky garden had been beautifully laid out, a stream running through it. Someone had put a great deal of care into the place.
"The land alone is fifteen thousand square meters, close to four acres. Buying the buildings on top of it used up half the cash and Phase Stones Time River held."
Half. I couldn't even guess what that came to.
"Is it all right to spend that much?"
"It came out of available assets, so it's fine. And thanks to you, our Phase Stone reserves have become enormous. Hwarang will be bringing a dowry as well."
She answered with a small smile, then pointed at the photo and went on.
"We're thinking of leasing one tower to ability users and staff who belong to the raid team, and using the rest for offices. On the commercial side we can secure space for employee welfare, and your training ground is right next door, which made it even better."
"Then everyone will be moving there soon?"
Franc seemed to like the new building a great deal. She pressed against my back, studying the place that would become a new nest as if to carve it into her eyes, and asked.
"We'll finish settling the rest within five days, when the teams that left today return."
"Doesn't that deadline seem a little tight?"
"We've been preparing for a month, so five days will be enough."
Hwayeon said it was enough, and Franc nodded.
"What was decided for the new team name? I rather liked Grand Blue. It calls Seoha's color to mind."
"Yes. Everyone felt Grand Blue fit Seoha's symbolism so well that we decided, unanimously, to use Grand Blue as the raid team name."
So it isn't provisional anymore... I'll just let it go. Grand Blue has been used all over the place for a long time anyway.
I watched Hwayeon gather the documents and stand, and asked,
"Calling it a day?"
"Not yet. Today we'll stop by the Grand Blue Building on the way. Siha is there."
No wonder I hadn't seen my sister — she'd gone ahead. We took each other's hands, amicably enough, and left the Time River Building.