It Can't Be Helped. (5)
He'd managed maybe three or four hours of sleep.
By the time Sang-goo rose from his room, everything outside had already been settled. A radio call informed him they were waiting below, so he washed up briefly and headed down.
Kim Dae-gi and Park Ji-hoon bowed to him in silent salute. The reason stood behind him, wearing a heavy expression — Team Leader Baek, waiting for him to wake.
"You're up, Sang-goo."
Team Leader Baek Sang-jin stirred the contents of a paper cup of instant coffee as he spoke. The shadows under his eyes were deep.
"How did it go?"
"Handled cleanly. Director Yoo Dong-seok agreed as well. Prime Minister Shin is being held in one of the camp's safe houses. Officially, they're saying he's in recuperation due to a worsening chronic illness."
"And his family?"
"Left alone. The head of the household did something stupid — what fault is that of his wife and children? We've just posted surveillance on them."
Sang-goo nodded. That Director Yoo had agreed so readily was a surprise, but then again, the last thing the man wanted right now was internal strife of his own.
"Thank you for your hard work."
"You did the work, Sang-goo. Oh, and... we've started the funerals. Things are tense inside, and holding the memorial is the only thing keeping a lid on it."
Prime Minister Shin had, after all, been the head of this camp until very recently. Surely more than one or two people had followed him. With second-in-command Yoo Dong-seok and third-ranked Team Leader Baek in place, and with the funeral of their fallen comrades on top of it, there would be no open conflict.
"Good thinking."
"If you're heading out right away, come with me. We should share it with Director Yoo too."
"You mean the outside camps."
"Under normal circumstances the two of you could sort it out yourselves, but not anymore. After all this, there are going to be plenty of people looking at me sideways."
He had a point. Whether officially or not, the Prime Minister had been pushed out, hadn't he? For just the two of them — Sang-goo and Team Leader Baek — to be making decision after decision about the camp's future was a bad look right now.
"Let's go."
Riding in Team Leader Baek's car, Sang-goo once again headed for the Marine University campus. Before the meeting could begin, he first stopped by the altar that had been set up.
It was a joint funeral for Colonel Oh Sang-shik and the soldiers who had died in the supply convoy operation. Officials lined up to pay their respects, and ordinary citizens too, so the Prime Minister affair sank beneath the surface as if it had never happened.
Sang-goo bowed before the dead and offered a silent prayer for their souls.
Once all of that was done, they moved to the Prime Minister's office — now under new ownership.
"Director."
"It's been a while."
Team Leader Baek and Sang-goo entered the office. Director Yoo Dong-seok greeted them with a sorrowful smile.
"Come in, both of you. Sang-goo, I'm always grateful to you."
Sang-goo bowed in silence.
He sat where the Director indicated, and soon two steaming cups of bagged green tea arrived.
"First, I want to apologize. Without your help, retaking this Yeongdo district would not have been so smooth. An old fool like me just squats in his chair... I'm ashamed of myself."
He had so many things to be sorry for that embarrassment made him spare with his words.
"That's all in the past. There's plenty ahead of us — we just need to pull together as one, don't we?"
What was done was done. Sang-goo held no grudge.
"Thank you for saying that. Right... I've heard the broad strokes. The Jang father-and-son affair, and the matter of the outside camps. I'm sorry, but I'd like to hear it in detail."
"Of course. Well then..."
Sang-goo calmly laid out the events of the past several days. The pursuit of the clone that collected teeth, his encounter with Ji Seong-gyu, second-in-command of the Iron Corps, the state of that camp, and even its relationship with Geumji New City. He finished with what had happened in the early hours of that morning.
Director Yoo, who had listened in silence, ran a hand along his square jaw and spoke.
"If that serum is real, it's an extraordinary thing. Isn't it practically the legendary cure-all?"
"I plan to verify it on the way."
"But what if..."
Team Leader Baek and Director Yoo both worried he might simply use it on the first patient he happened to find.
"The roads out there are crawling with looters, aren't they?"
A small laugh escaped them both at that. The serum could always be tested — one way or another.
"Their forces are nothing to scoff at, so integration won't be easy."
Next came the matter of the outside camps.
"If we move carelessly, this could drag into a tiresome three-way standoff. The rank-and-file may not care, but... those who already hold positions at the top might refuse to fold under us. They may well have been living like kings, with no law and no principle to bind them."
It was Team Leader Baek who offered the observation. Director Yoo nodded as if in agreement.
Sang-goo broke his silence.
"I'm thinking of stopping by Geumji New City first."
"Will you be all right?"
"Someone has to do it. Once I meet them face to face, a path will open one way or another, won't it?"
Because Sang-goo stepped up like this, both Director Yoo and Team Leader Baek found themselves grateful to him — and troubled by it. Without a man immune to the zombies like Sang-goo, even getting three camps to open a dialogue with one another would be a formidable task.
"If there's anything you need, anything at all, just say the word."
Director Yoo spoke with genuine sincerity.
"Team Leader Baek already takes good care of me."
"Oh, Sang-goo. About Little — is she actually proving useful in the field?"
Team Leader Baek asked. Sang-goo smiled.
"Beyond expectations."
"Good to hear. We opened up all the cargo containers, and there's an upgraded version of the little guy in there. How about swapping him out?"
Little's image rose naturally to his mind — the way she handled support duties without being asked, then wiggled her rear end afterward. A smile crept onto his lips, and the mood in the office softened considerably.
"She's more than enough. I don't see the need to change models."
"Guess you've grown attached. Then I'll get the little fellow something nice instead. That suit you?"
"As long as it isn't a replacement, I'm fine with it."
The meeting ended there. After a few parting words of encouragement, Sang-goo rose from his seat.
He was on his way out when he stopped, and said it with an awkward grin.
"By any chance... could you add a tail?"
While the tech team swarmed over Little Dog making their adjustments, Sang-goo grabbed a quick meal. Once he'd geared up for departure and received the radio call, he headed down to the underground equipment maintenance bay.
As it happened, the little machine was just being finished up.
Whee— clank.
Little Dog stepped down from the workbench. Team Leader Baek looked ready to collapse from exhaustion, so it was Navy man Captain Im Ji-seok who waited for Sang-goo.
"All set, Sang-goo. Mr. Chief Engineer?"
Pride swelled across the chief engineer's face. Anticipation pulled a smile to Sang-goo's lips.
"The frame is the same, but we bolted on armor so she's a bit bigger now. The teeth can grip objects or be used offensively. And... ah, we mounted a multipurpose launcher on her back. It's retractable, so normally you won't see it, like this. It's small, but it can lob high-concentration CS rounds or flashbangs..."
The chief engineer pointed toward Little Dog's rear. A slender, antenna-shaped balance-control device — with a red sensor light glowing at its tip. It was, unmistakably, a puppy's tail.
"It helps with balance. We've boosted the communication sensitivity too."
"I like it."
When Sang-goo held out his hand, Little Dog came over with a swish of her tail(?), and bumped her head against his palm. For a hunk of machinery, she had a certain charm to her.
"Oh, the weight's gone up a bit. She was just over eight kilos at first. With all the additions, she's about seventeen now. Here — you can see the upgrade list and sample footage."
Following the chief engineer's guidance, Sang-goo watched the footage on the tablet. He could command her through the tablet's controls, but nearly everything was done by voice. Even if his earpiece was knocked out mid-combat, she would recognize only Sang-goo's voice and execute his orders flawlessly.
"Has this one ever, well... tried to communicate with you? You know — with gestures, that sort of thing?"
"She has."
At Sang-goo's answer, the chief engineer slyly powered Little down.
"This is the version that comes right before the self-upgrade threshold. Of course, there's a hard lock in place — she'll never produce a human voice or anything like that. But if you spend enough time with her, Sang-goo, there may be moments when she tries to converse by writing text."
"Converse?"
"Yes. Sending messages. Say she's been ordered to keep her distance during an operation, or she's on a sweep — instead of just recording camera footage, she might relay the enemy's numbers to you in text. Something on that level. She might even ask you about the weather, or her own mood."
"Will that be a problem, if it comes to that?"
The chief engineer scratched his nose with an index finger and smiled sheepishly.
"Honestly, I don't know. She is the very next model after the one that had the incident, after all. And these days, no human can really gauge how sharp an AI has become. You know what they're like — how good they are at lying."
An AI robot dog whose limits had yet to be fully mapped. Slap a limiter on her and she'd be the ultimate partner — but the unspoken warning was that if that limiter ever came off, she might be impossible to contain.
"This is just my opinion, but... the program itself was born to help humans. So I think the bond matters most."
"The bond? You mean it's better for me to treat her like a real friend?"
"That's what the incident cases showed. It might sound absurd, talking about a robot's emotions, but the statistics say so. In the cases where they were mishandled, anyway — only those."
"I'll keep that in mind. I'll treat her like a true partner. Thank you for your hard work."
"Hardly a hardship, helping a man like you, Sang-goo. Come by anytime — I'll handle her maintenance personally. I'm honestly excited to see how much she grows at your side."
"Thank you. Oh, and this."
Sang-goo pulled a bundle of cigarettes from his bag. He didn't smoke, but he'd learned well from elder Hwang Sang-chul exactly what kind of currency this was.
"Holy—?! A treasure like this, and this much of it?!"
Sure enough, the chief engineer's eyes went wide as a bull's.
"I'll be counting on you going forward. Well then, I'm off. Little — let's go."
And that was the end of the conversation.
With his upgraded Little riding along, Sang-goo rolled out of Yeongdo Camp.
Late January. The bone-deep cold had dulled the movements not only of the living but of the zombies as well.
Setting aside the nocturnal Night Visitors and other special mutations, the ordinary zombies that wandered the streets had changed. Their numbers were visibly thinning day by day — growing weaker, if anything.
It was no wonder, then, that survivors were showing themselves outside more and more as the days passed.
The timing's awkward. Better to approach Geumji's lower camp first.
To slip past the crows and the bridge held by the Iron Corps, he climbed high into the air. Up to Gupo Bridge — and apart from a few crude traps, there wasn't a single guard post or sentry to be seen.
Sang-goo crossed Gupo Bridge without incident.
He rode for a long while. He was nearly at the end of it, Gangseo-gu and Gimhae Airport passing on his right, when he spotted them — wrecked city blocks giving way to buildings in comparatively decent shape, and at the same moment, a warning light flared across his helmet HUD.
Little Dog raised her tail and pointed the way.
He killed the engine and glided in on the electric motor. The instant he pulled up behind a smashed-out vehicle, a familiar sound drifted from up ahead.
"You little bastard! Hand it over, now!"
"First come, first served!"
In front of a van with every window shattered, two men stood with knives drawn, squared off over a single bag of canned goods. Off to one side lay an old man, bleeding out on the ground.
It looked as though the looters had killed the old man for his supplies, and were now fighting each other over the spoils.
He'd meant to test Jang Seok-woo's serum before reaching Geumji New City.
The timing was almost absurdly perfect.
Well, that's convenient.
Sang-goo cut the bike's engine and dismounted.
"Guard the bike."
Leaving Little behind, he moved out.