No Other Choice. (4)
"Let's start with Colonel Oh Sang-shik."
Before receiving the radio transmission and moving out, Sang-goo had asked.
"Do you really know nothing about what was going on inside that aircraft carrier?"
Team Leader Baek's face hardened.
He didn't enjoy being under suspicion, but given the circumstances, he made an effort to understand Boo Sang-goo.
"Nothing. I swear on my life, nothing. We only went in to scavenge supplies. As far as I know, Colonel Oh… all he did was go in to secure supplies too."
"It was Holton. They set up a full-blown laboratory inside that carrier and built things like Jang Seok-woo. Jang Sun-woo, the man we just cut out of the ship, might be a clone himself."
"……"
Team Leader Baek's confusion looked genuine.
He had said Colonel Oh was the carrier's security chief, but he had never once mentioned Holton or a laboratory.
If this were true… then didn't it mean the President had authorized Holton to establish a foothold on the carrier?
"Let's say you didn't know, Team Leader. Then what about the people giving you your orders?"
Sang-goo's gaze drifted out the window, toward the campus of the Maritime University — the most secure place in Yeongdo District.
There, the leadership of the Republic of Korea's provisional government — Prime Minister Shin Dong-wook and NIS Director Yoo Dong-seok — were currently in residence.
Protected by the thickest walls and the most elite security personnel available.
"Then I'll have to meet them."
Team Leader Baek's eyes wavered roughly.
"You mean… you want an audience with Director Yoo and the Prime Minister. Now?"
"Yes. There are things I intend to ask and confirm directly. If they're still in contact with Holton even now — still working with them — what do you plan to do about it?"
"Well…."
"You have to think about the people of Yeongdo District, gathered here at such cost. Unless you intend to feed them to the monsters as bait."
The words struck Team Leader Baek square in the chest.
There had been exactly one reason he had risked his life to retake Yeongdo and turn it into a fortress.
To save the survivors and rebuild his crumbling country.
Not to preserve the seats and lives of the powerful.
Team Leader Baek let out a long, deep sigh, then nodded with a face that had set like stone.
"You're right, Sang-goo. If they're involved… then I can't stand with them."
There was steel in his answer.
The conversation ended there. They would act after checking the memory card.
Having settled it implicitly, the two men moved out in silence.
"Team Leader, sir."
The communications soldier rose from his seat.
A perfunctory salute, and then straight to business.
"Recovery's complete. Some of the files are corrupted, but the contents are legible. Only…."
"I'll see it myself."
Sang-goo and Team Leader Baek leaned in toward the monitor.
Colonel Oh Sang-shik's legacy flickered onto the screen.
Photos taken in haste under dim lighting — focus wobbling, documents smeared with blood.
At the top of the dense, English-language documents, a red stamp stood out sharp and clear.
Familiar words caught Sang-goo's eye.
Custom organ production facility for VIP clients
"Artificial organs?"
He flipped to the next photo. A row of massive capsules stood in perfect order.
Inside the capsules, human organs — livers, hearts, kidneys — rested in serene suspension.
Like products on a supermarket shelf, each organ bore its own tag.
[Client: Kim… — Heart]
— the name of a former President, already dead.
[Client: Shin Dong-wook]
(Prime Minister Shin Dong-wook — kidneys, corneas, liver. Cultivation complete.)
The air in the room froze.
Shin Dong-wook.
The name of the sitting Prime Minister — the de facto head of the Yeongdo camp.
"Hah…."
Team Leader Baek's lips trembled.
"They built a factory inside the ship. So that whenever the higher-ups fell ill, they could swap in a fresh part on demand — they were cultivating custom-made organs."
Sang-goo recited it coldly.
"They'd prepared this before the zombie outbreak even hit Korea. Looks like they meant to build themselves an ark exclusively for the privileged."
When the Break happened, South Korea had, by sheer luck, experienced its random seizures about a week later than the rest of the world.
In that window, instead of trying to stop the catastrophe, the elite had boarded the carrier and built their own private sanctuary.
"What do you intend to do?"
Sang-goo asked, his voice like ice.
Team Leader Baek answered without a moment's hesitation.
"We go. Face to face."
Six in the morning.
The vehicle carrying Sang-goo and Team Leader Baek passed through the Maritime University's main gate and pulled to a stop in front of the central building.
"Halt! What's your business!"
The security team blocked their way, then hesitated once they recognized the faces of Team Leader Baek and Sang-goo.
"Move. We have urgent business to report to the Prime Minister."
Faced with that overwhelming killing intent, the guards opened the way.
Shortly after.
Inside the central building, another team of security demanded they surrender their weapons.
Team Leader Baek's chest clenched, but when Sang-goo tapped his shoulder, he gritted his teeth and handed everything over.
Sang-goo likewise surrendered everything he carried on his person, then entered the interior.
BANG—!
The door to the Prime Minister's private quarters flew open hard enough to shatter.
Shin Dong-wook, who had just gotten up and was stepping out of the bathroom, went wide-eyed.
"B-Team Leader Baek? What is it? Did something happen at the camp?! Boo Sang-goo… sir?"
Only now did the Prime Minister register the radio crackling on the table — the transmission announcing that Team Leader Baek and Boo Sang-goo were on their way.
The atmosphere felt off, to be sure, but Baek and Sang-goo were allies beyond question.
"Everything's fine, so hold your positions."
The moment the Prime Minister radioed his guards,
thud—
Team Leader Baek hurled Colonel Oh's photographs onto the table in front of the sofa.
"Prime Minister. What is this."
His voice shook with fury.
When Shin Dong-wook saw the cultivation records for his own artificial kidneys, his face went rigid.
"Explain."
"……So Colonel Oh left a record after all."
"The nation is in crisis, and you were cutting deals with Holton, preparing all this behind our backs? While our men were dying on that ship, were you just sitting here waiting for your new organs?!"
Shin Dong-wook's eyes wavered. He swallowed dryly and looked away.
"……I didn't know."
"The evidence is right here, and you claim you didn't know?!"
"I knew about Holton! But that was before the zombie outbreak. All I heard was that the government was introducing next-generation medical technology at the national level."
Shin Dong-wook raised his voice as if protesting an injustice.
"My kidneys were failing. The President told me — even short of a transplant, they could culture my own cells and bank backup organs. That when the time came, those could extend my life. So… all I did was sign the paperwork!"
"And that's your defense?!"
"It's a world where children aren't even being born anymore! The living have to survive, don't they? Only then can humanity rebuild production, carry the species forward!"
The Prime Minister argued as though he were the righteous one.
Sang-goo had heard enough. He stepped forward.
"Then why did you never say a word? Why did you hide the fact that you were connected to Holton?"
"Th-that was… all in the past. Holton is an American pharmaceutical company, isn't it? There was nothing strange about the Korean government having ties with them. After the outbreak, we naturally had no connection or contact with them at all."
Shin Dong-wook defended himself with a face on the verge of tears.
For the sake of the nation, he claimed.
In the end, it had meant pouring taxpayer money into Holton — the only ones who knew how to extend the lives of the privileged — to build an organ factory.
"What orders did you give Colonel Oh, specifically?"
"I told him absolutely not to overexert himself. And if possible… since he was going in anyway, if possible… I asked him for a small favor."
He couldn't bring himself to say out loud that he'd asked the man to carry organs back out of that death trap.
Ashamed as he was, he had still given the order.
As if the inside of a carrier were the corner market down the street.
"Effective immediately, you are a suspect of treason. As an officer of this camp, I am placing you under arrest, and I will report afterward to my superior, Director Yoo Dong-seok of the NIS."
Team Leader Baek drew out a cable tie.
Some shred of conscience remained, at least.
Shin Dong-wook held out both arms and dropped his head. His shoulders shook, pathetic and small.
"I truly didn't know what was being loaded onto that ship, or what experiments they were running. I only heard that there was a medical facility for emergencies — never in my dreams did I imagine they were making monsters or abducting people for experiments."
"Jang Sun-woo, then? That doctor works for Holton too. Are you going to play ignorant on him as well?"
"Jang Sun-woo? Isn't he medical team? Why would he…?"
The incident had happened only hours before, at dawn — the report apparently hadn't reached him yet.
Shin Dong-wook's eyes looked genuinely bewildered.
"I don't know a single one of Holton's researchers by face. When the Break hit, I escaped here under the guards' protection, half out of my mind. How would I know whether this Jang Sun-woo character was in charge of that place, or a mole!"
"Ha…."
Sang-goo let out an empty laugh.
It didn't seem to be a lie.
Just a bureaucrat whose entire concern was his own safety and lifespan.
Nothing more than an incompetent, self-serving official who hadn't cared one whit what kind of monsters the documents he stamped would spawn.
Even in peacetime, this would be a serious offense.
For a man supposed to clean up Busan and rebuild the nation, this one fell woefully short.
For the camp's sake, this was as far as he went.
In an age of calamity, the leader must be someone fit for calamity.
"On my oath… I have never sold out my country or betrayed its people. I only… wanted to live, to reclaim this nation with a healthy body…."
Shin Dong-wook mumbled his excuses, wrists bound in the cable tie.
Sang-goo looked down at him with an expression of pure disgust.
If he'd been an outright villain, it would have been simpler — just kill him.
But given the camp's organizational character, that wasn't so easily done.
"Answer honestly. Does Director Yoo Dong-seok know about this matter as well?"
"No."
"And the NIS Director knowing nothing — does that make sense to you?"
"He wasn't Director back then. He was Deputy Director. He only became Director after the previous one died."
Given the situation, that didn't sound like a lie either.
"Whew… understood."
Watching Team Leader Baek exhale a bitter breath, Sang-goo asked.
"What will you do?"
"What can I do? He's the only one above me. I'll consult with him and handle it."
Sang-goo nodded.
There was nothing more he could do here.
"Then I'll get some rest. Once you're up, we should talk about the outside camps."
"Outside camps?"
"I just came back from meeting a man who calls himself number two of the Saha Industrial Complex camp. We'll go over the details once this matter is settled."
"Hah… right."
Team Leader Baek smiled wearily and reached for the radio.
He would have to call in his subordinates stationed outside to secure the premises — and summon Director Yoo as well.