Contract
Wail. Wail.
The police cruiser’s emergency lights strobed, flooding the alley in harsh, flashing light.
“Where is the complainant?”
“Right here.”
An officer approached at my answer.
“What’s the situation?”
“Those people thrashing around rammed our vehicle and opened fire.”
“Fire? As in guns?”
The officers’ eyes went wide as they looked at the flailing figures.
“Graaaah!”
The other officers carefully closed a perimeter around them.
“Officer Choi. Looks like they’re high on something.”
“They’re armed.”
“Subdue them!”
“Deploying taser!”
“Fire!”
ZZZT!
“Gaaahk!”
Still thrashing in their hallucinations, the attackers went down easily under the police.
“What about my security detail? One of my guards was shot.”
“Yes, sir. He’s already en route to the hospital.”
“They took something of mine. A PCB—printed circuit board. A thin green board, small.”
A short while later, an officer brought the board over.
“What is this?”
“A circuit board for computers.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. You mount RAM on it. It holds our company’s new technology. They almost certainly staged this to steal our tech.”
“Ah…”
The officer hesitated, then said,
“We’ll examine it first and return it afterward.”
The board held the video letter the people of Rodriguez had prepared.
But without the proper commands, it was nothing more than an ordinary circuit board.
I didn’t argue with the police. I simply nodded.
As the scene was more or less under control, someone shouted,
“The Minister of Science and ICT is on his way!”
“The Minister?!”
“Why would the Science Minister be coming?”
I answered that one myself.
“I had an appointment with him. This happened on my way to see the Minister.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. And please take good care of that circuit board. The technology licensing alone is worth at least a hundred billion won.”
“Holy—how much?”
“A hundred billion. That’s the item armed assailants carrying firearms tried to steal on Korean soil. If you don’t believe me, ask the Minister when he arrives.”
“……”
The officer holding the PCB seemed to have a tremor in his hands.
Then several more vehicles pulled up.
“Minister of Science and ICT. Where is CEO Kim Jiho?”
“Here.”
The Minister looked me over, saw that I was unharmed, and visibly relaxed.
“Ah—are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m fine… but one of my guards was shot.”
“Shot?”
I explained the situation. The Minister called the officers over at once.
“Officer. I’ll take responsibility. Return that circuit board to CEO Kim.”
“Yes, sir. Here it is.”
Hearing the board was worth a hundred billion, he looked more than happy to hand it back immediately.
“Hmm… CEO Kim. How many people were in your security detail?”
“Today it was two guards plus one staff member—four of us in total.”
“I see.”
The Minister made a call.
“Yes. Yes, that’s correct. There has been an attempt to seize national technology. Yes. Technology leakage and a kidnapping attempt involving firearms on Korean soil. Yes. Yes, understood. We’ll wait.”
He looked at me with a grave expression.
“First, on behalf of this country, I apologize that such a thing happened on our soil. And if they were after national technology, this is no ordinary crime. This is a matter of national security.”
“Yes. I’ll take security more seriously from now on.”
“I just spoke with VIP.”
VIP… the President?
“He has ordered special-grade security for you.”
“VIP ordered special-grade protection?”
“Yes. Once VIP’s order is in effect, personnel will be here shortly. Please wait a little.”
“Yes.”
I spent a few minutes talking with the Minister. Before long, two black vehicles glided in and stopped.
A door opened, and a man with a hard, intense face stepped out.
The Minister nodded in greeting.
“You’re here.”
The man inclined his head slightly and answered in a low voice.
“Good evening, CEO Kim Jiho. Please call me Black.”
“Black?”
Black… it didn’t sound like an ordinary name.
“We’ve already taken custody of the assailants arrested a short while ago. We’ll extract a full confession.”
“Please do. It’s possible… they may not be Korean.”
“Understood. International investigation and interrogation… that’s our specialty.”
Ah. International investigation and interrogation as a specialty.
I thought I knew where he came from.
“Would that be… Namsan?”
“Heh. I was with them, once.”
Namsan—meaning the National Intelligence Service.
The next day.
In the unsettled atmosphere, Black spoke to me first.
“The armed assailants from last night have all been identified as Chinese nationals.”
“Chinese?”
“Yes. Their objective was technology theft.”
“As expected.”
“Yes. From last night through this morning we swept the office inside and out for surveillance devices. We found a total of fifteen bugs.”
I was stunned.
“How many did you say?”
“Fifteen listening devices.”
“Mm…”
“And there was a spy among your employees.”
“A spy?”
“Yes. Given the way the attackers operated, there was a high probability of an inside collaborator. Our investigation confirmed it.”
“Who is it?”
Black glanced toward the door.
“Bring her in.”
Another guard escorted a female employee into the room.
“No…”
It was Deputy Ju from sales.
She had been diligent, sharp, good at her job… and she was a spy.
“We’ll investigate her thoroughly.”
“Yes. Understood.”
Watching Deputy Ju being led away left a strange taste in my mouth.
Looking back, I remembered how she used to act.
Pretty face always hovering close, asking about this and that—not foxlike charm. Spy work.
After Black left, I called Chief of Staff Jang and the security team in.
Jang looked all right on the surface. One of the guards had a bandaged leg and was on crutches.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Fortunately the bullet missed anything vital.”
This was the man who had left the vehicle and fought hand-to-hand while the assailants were still active.
“Director Cha Kang-jin.”
The guard’s eyes went round.
“Sir? Director?”
“From this moment, Cha Kang-jin is Head of Security. You took a bullet for me. A title is the least I can do.”
“Ah… thank you.”
“Honestly, when you snapped open that expandable baton and charged out, I was genuinely moved.”
“It was nothing, sir. Only what I should have done.”
“All of you went through a great deal. Have you met the man called Black?”
“Yes. We have.”
“Chief Jang. Coordinate with him and raise our security level.”
“Yes. We’re increasing close-protection personnel on our side, and Black’s people will handle external security. We’ll run it as a dual system—close protection and outer perimeter.”
“Ah, and I want security reinforced around my mother as well.”
“Yes. We’ll assign additional personnel there too. One option is placing a covert bodyguard under cover as a dedicated caregiver.”
“I’ll leave it to you.”
“We’ll handle it properly.”
“Oh—Chief Jang. Deposit bonuses for the three of them, including the newly appointed Head of Security Cha Kang-jin.”
“Understood.”
Once the orders were given, I dismissed the guards and kept only Chief of Staff Jang Dae-shik.
Jang asked carefully,
“Are you all right, sir?”
I nodded and forced a smile.
“Yes. I’m fine. Truthfully, they never posed a serious physical threat to me.”
Jang’s face looked tired, but his eyes were still sharp and clear.
With a heavy heart, I asked him,
“Kidnapping… did it really have to go this far?”
Jang took a quiet breath, then answered evenly.
“Because JH’s technology is the best in the world. What you hold is something any nation would salivate over.”
I nodded.
“Honestly, I thought two bodyguards would be enough. I never imagined someone would open fire and attempt a kidnapping in Korea.”
Jang, the former lawyer, gave a bitter little smile of his own.
“Neither did I. It was hard to even imagine.”
A short silence settled between us.
I asked again, almost without thinking,
“Will something like this… happen again?”
Jang’s expression hardened.
“If JH remains the world’s foremost technology, I can’t guarantee it won’t.”
“Hoo. Then what do we do from here?”
“You saw Prince Abdul’s security last time, didn’t you?”
I remembered CES—Abdul moving with a wall of bodyguards, or rather buried inside it.
Was that how I would have to live now?
Jang hesitated a moment, then said,
“To be frank, the fact that everything at JH is concentrated in you is both a strength… and a weakness.”
“A strength and a weakness?”
“Yes.”
“The staff here are essentially salespeople for whatever you bring in. In simple terms, a sales team. And the source of the auction items is something only you know, isn’t it?”
The core semiconductors came from the Nano World.
So he was right.
“The place that actually produces the real goods is known only to you. If that were made public, attention would scatter. If the core technology didn’t sit solely with the CEO, there would be less reason to target you personally.”
I slowly shook my head.
“That… I can’t make public.”
Jang nodded as if he had expected the answer.
“Then the only option is to strengthen your security even further. We’re already riding the tiger.”
His voice was heavy, but firm.
“If we hold world-class technology, more spies will come. And the only place they can aim is you.”
“Mm…”
Jang’s eyes sharpened.
“Sir.”
“Yes.”
“The enemy came armed and tried to kidnap you.”
“They did.”
“At this point, it isn’t business. It’s war.”
“Mm… you’re right.”
“We can’t fall back now. The only path is to become a far stronger company.”
“A stronger company?”
“Yes. Our technology ranks first, but we have only twenty employees. With Black’s support for security, we’ll soon have more bodyguards than staff.”
Even to me, the company structure looked anything but ordinary.
“What if we scale the company up?”
“Scale it up?”
“Yes. Capital isn’t the problem. Beyond security, we should grow headcount, operations—and if possible, production capacity as well.”
“That would disperse attention. Other companies, no matter how strong their technology, don’t usually see their CEOs kidnapped for it. Because the technology is distributed.”
“I see.”
Listened to carefully, it made sense.
A lab that had twice delivered world-leading technology from nowhere.
Only twenty employees, and if you looked closer, not a single true researcher among them.
I gave a small laugh.
“Thank you. If we’re already on the tiger’s back, we have no choice but to keep going forward.”
Jang bowed his head briefly.
“Forgive me for overstepping with advice.”
“Not at all. You’ve been a great help, Chief.”
When Jang left, the office fell quiet for a while.
I leaned back in the chair and let out a long breath.
“So this is what happens to me.”
Guns. Kidnapping. Spies. Black.
I felt myself being pulled into a vast vortex I had never wanted.
And I realized how complacent I had been.
I took out the circuit board that held the Rodriguez residents’ video.
Without this… what would have happened?
I didn’t want to imagine the situation I might have fallen into.
I looked down at the empty space where my legs should have been.
Until now, that absence below the knee had defined my life.
A life without two legs.
I had always been the one being looked after.
I had thought giving up was only natural.
War? A life of leading?
Growing aggressively in scale?
Honestly, I had never even imagined it.
But now I had to change.
I could no longer hide.
For myself.
And to protect the people around me who were trying to help.
It was time to step forward in earnest.
Nano World.
Rodriguez Castle.
Illys paced back and forth in her room.
“Ah… what will the Constellation think of us?”
She had handed the Constellation a gift filled with the greetings of the Rodriguez people, then cut the connection.
From the moment she severed the link, her heart had been pounding, her mind flooded with every possible scenario.
“He isn’t offended, is he?”
Illys chewed on a fingernail.
“Maybe I should have just prostrated myself flat. It feels like I was playing hard to get for no reason… What if he simply leaves? Aaah… I should have made the video better.”
Knock, knock.
“Who is it?”
—My lady. It’s the chief maid.
“Mm. Adeline. Come in.”
Illys fretted and fidgeted. Adeline looked at her with a touch of pity.
“Haa… Adeline. Should I just have gone flat on the floor in front of the Constellation like always? What if he’s upset that I cut the connection first?”
“Didn’t you say the Constellation is a tsundere and would like that sort of thing?”
“It does seem that way. The council agreed, too. But we could still be wrong.”
“You did your utmost, my lady. How hard you worked on that video letter. The Constellation will understand the heart behind it.”
“Haa… will he? I’m just afraid it looked rude. He has sponsored us so generously, after all. Everyone is happy because of it.”
“Yes.”
“But Adeline… honestly, I was anxious. Our relationship with the Constellation is… vague. He sponsors us a lot and acts like a tsundere, but ‘tsundere’ also means it isn’t a defined relationship.”
Illys’s shoulders sagged.
“A tsundere says, ‘I just picked this up on the way!’ and gives you food. But if they don’t pick anything up, they don’t give you anything. Not a special relationship—just something that makes them give when they can. Whether it’s sincere or not. Haa… how does the Constellation see our domain? As something he gives to if he happens to have it, and skips if he doesn’t?”
“I’m certain the Constellation regards our domain as special.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. Without a doubt.”
“Eugh.”
“Adeline, stand behind the Holy Relic for a moment.”
“Like this?”
“Mm. The Constellation said the angle he sees me from is exactly that direction.”
“Oh, I see.”
Illys turned her head left, then right.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Is my left side prettier, or my right?”
“Hmm. The left is faintly better. But don’t turn your head too far. Just let the left side show subtly.”
“Heh. Got it.”
Vmmm.
At that moment the mirror-shaped Holy Relic vibrated.
A signal from the Constellation.
“Kyaa! Adeline! What do I do?! It’s the Constellation!”
“My lady. Your prayer dress.”
“Right!”
Rustle.
Illys’s clothes shifted into a pure white dress.
Then, with a trembling heart, she carefully accepted the connection.
Illys?
The Constellation’s voice rang out.
Illys spread her skirt like petals and sank to one knee.
In a graceful, demure voice, she answered,
“Yes, Constellation. I am listening.”
Shall we… form a formal contract?
At the Constellation’s proposal, emotion surged up so hard Illys nearly choked on it.
Tears gathered in her eyes.
“Constellation… those words… I have been waiting for them.”