Greed (1)
Sang-goo stood before the glass wall, arms crossed.
"It clings to life no matter what you throw at it, short of bleeding out. I saw it with my own eyes and still could barely believe it."
"That's a relief. Then…."
Jang Seok-woo let the words trail off, and Sang-goo knew exactly what he was afraid to ask.
"You've got four serums left, by my count."
At that, Jang Seok-woo's shoulders flinched.
"He had his injection yesterday, before Jang Sun-woo died, so you've got some breathing room for now. The problem is what comes after. Two months at the outside — probably less."
"……."
Jang Seok-woo bowed his head. A countdown to death. It was a reality he could not outrun.
Sang-goo held his silence for a moment before he went on.
"Frankly, it'd feel like a waste to just let you die. And I doubt the people upstairs are in any hurry to slit open a goose that's still laying golden eggs."
Seok-woo's head snapped up.
"I'll do anything… anything to help. Take my blood, I don't care — just please let me live."
Jang Seok-woo dropped to his knees as if they'd been broken beneath him and begged.
Nearly two meters of muscle, weeping like a child. Sang-goo found the sight pitiable.
What sin had this one ever committed? It had been the same with No. 4, and with the old man. And the other test subject he'd brought in today — born unwanted, reduced to this. Wasn't that the same story too?
An old memory rose without warning. The time they'd reached the ST lab in Seoul and caught a brief stretch of stability — and then, before long, had to fight tooth and nail all over again to keep San-i alive.
'I'm sorry I was born.'
From something so small… honestly.
When he'd heard those words, his chest had all but torn in two. It was why he'd sworn, harder than ever, that he would save San-i no matter what it took.
And yet… was this one any different? When you came down to it, San-i was a child born in a laboratory as well. The only difference was that he wore a child's shape — and stood a little closer to being 'human' than these creatures did. Wasn't that all?
No. 24, Boo San — an ST asset, born from Charles's hands. Jang Seok-woo — a Holton asset, born from Jang Sun-woo's hands, with nothing but a giant's frame to his name. Different creators, but in essence the two could not be far apart.
Sang-goo exhaled something bitter and spoke.
"I brought back one who looks like you."
"Sir…?"
"Another camp was running crooked experiments, calling them 'new humans' and God knows what. I brought one along on the off chance. Can your serum be made from him?"
Jang Seok-woo stared blankly at the floor. Thick tears slid down his cheeks, one after another. Slowly, he nodded.
"I've never tried it myself. But my father… no — Jang Sun-woo said…."
His voice shook as he went on.
"He said if I had siblings… I could survive."
"How?"
"That's…."
Jang Seok-woo knitted his brow as though groping his way through memory.
"Father… Jang Sun-woo mentioned it in passing. He said clones like us are born with our gene chains in an unstable state. The Red Stabilization Serum just forces them to hold together — nothing more than a stopgap, he said."
"And?"
"Siblings… individuals made later than me, or closer to the original prototype — he said they carry the key that steadies that broken instability."
"A key?"
"I don't know the exact medical term. Only that if you strain out a certain enzyme from their blood and inject it, my collapsing cells can be pinned back in place…."
"So the rule is: don't kill him, don't grind him up."
"Yes, sir. You draw blood on a schedule and refine out only what's needed. Though… my lifespan is around two years. The other children, he said, won't last even six months."
"So we track down the scattered ones and secure as many as we can?"
"Th-that's right. He said if we did that, my lifespan could stretch past two years. So as long as I keep getting the serum on schedule…?"
Jang Seok-woo's eyes burned with desperate hope.
Not carving open his siblings'(?) bellies or scooping out their brains — just drawing blood and refining it. If that alone would keep a man alive…
And it was Sang-goo, this camp, that he prayed would make it happen. Promise only that much, and his blood was nothing — keep him from dying, manage him, and they could take as much as they liked.
Sang-goo mulled it over. Was there anyone in this camp with that kind of skill? They had a handful of doctors, but whether any of them could pull off something like this was another question entirely. And it was far too soon to contact Charles.
When the thinking was done, one name surfaced.
"There's a man called Dr. Kim — a researcher we pulled out of Geumji New City. He's the technical sort, so I'll have him see whether he can actually build what you described. And if he can't… well, we'll hunt down another way."
"Th-thank you… truly, thank you."
Jang Seok-woo dropped into a deep, sprawling bow. It was groveling born of a desperate clinging to life — servile and utterly earnest at once.
Sang-goo looked at the Heart Sutra commentary folded neatly atop the bed as he spoke.
"Are you thinking about revenge? Against the real Jang Sun-woo — the man who made you what you are."
He didn't answer.
"Look up."
"……."
But the quiver in his cheeks and the veins standing out on his forehead made it plain: he hadn't yet grown the depth to bury what he really felt.
"Keep that decent heart of yours. Force yourself, even if it's only on the surface. That's how your chance will come to you. I'm telling you from experience — I've lived it."
Leaving him to puzzle over words he didn't fully understand, Sang-goo turned and walked out.
Back in his quarters, Sang-goo didn't step outside again. He ate lunch, rested, then worked out to loosen the body. He turned the question of Little's name over in his head, then drifted off into a short nap.
He'd dreamed of Jindol for the first time in ages and briefly considered giving the dog that name — but it didn't feel right, so he shoved the idea aside.
Then, out of nowhere, he remembered the day last year he'd first laid eyes on the child and named him 'Lucky' — and the dumbfounded looks on everyone's faces.
He'd pointedly ignored every one of those expressions saying his naming sense was flat-out abysmal. Later he'd changed it anyway, taking his own and his father's surname: Boo San.
Either way, it seemed right to stop calling him Little and hang something with real warmth on him instead. And who knew — maybe someday the pup would even become friends(?) with Jujube, the brown poodle waiting on the island. The thought brought a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Just then, the window he'd left open for fresh air grew a little noisy beyond the glass. He looked out: the latest batch of people transferred from Geumji New City was filing toward the quarters they'd been assigned. Their faces were a tangle — fear of a strange place mixed with relief.
Staring too long would drag his own mood down after theirs.
Sang-goo drew the curtain and lay back on the bed. Today's agenda: eat around the clock and sleep like the dead.
The next day.
From before dawn, the waters off Yeongdo-gu and its roads were bustling. What remained of Geumji New City's supplies poured across without a break. All of the roughly 2,800 survivors had come in the day before, and trailing behind them came the final shipment — food enough for dozens of trucks, and weapons.
"Waaaaah—!!"
By afternoon, a roar of cheers erupted from the university athletic field inside Yeongdo Camp. It was the Lunar New Year holiday — and the day of a grand unity festival thrown to celebrate the arrival of so many new people.
Longtime Yeongdo residents and the newcomers from Geumji New City had been mixed together into teams. At one end of the field a soccer match was in full swing; beneath the basketball hoop the air pulsed with the heat of sweating young men. And at the center, two lines heaved on a thick rope, heave-ho, heave-ho, in a tug-of-war.
"Go, Blue team, go!"
"Go, White team, go!"
Every age group was jumbled together, yet not a single face had lost its smile. That grand integration across generations and sexes that everyone had sworn would never come — in this moment, all of them were one.
Gongbeats and cheering stabbed at the sky. It was a scene that smelled of living people, the first in a long, long while — peaceful and alive enough to make you forget, just for a moment, that the world beyond was still a war.
Sang-goo, however, was nowhere in that roar.
He was in the Grand Hotel's underground parking garage, servicing the Dark Knight and his gear — topping off the fuel, checking the chains, tending to his weapons.
—Kzzt.
A signal crackled from the radio he'd set beside his helmet.
―…Boo Sang-goo, sir. Can you hear me?
A voice he knew well. Ji Seong-gyu — the Iron Corps' search commander.
Sang-goo stripped off his oil-stained gloves and picked up the handset.
"I read you."
―Haah… I went back and forth on whether to call you first, I'll admit. Honestly, part of me worried you'd been hurt. Word reached us either way. Geumji New City… they say those crows got blown off the map overnight.
Ji Seong-gyu's voice was heavy and leaden.
A rival warlord that had glared across no-man's-land at the Iron Corps for months — erased from the map in a single day. The shock had to be beyond imagining.
―Could we… have a talk? The Legion Commander wants to meet you too.
Sang-goo smirked. With the balance of power broken, they were getting jittery. It hadn't been the plan, but the next step might just come easier now.
"I'll head over shortly."
He cut the transmission and put on his helmet. Little Dog hopped up into the sidecar like he'd done it a thousand times.
As Sang-goo fired the engine and rolled out of the garage, Team Leader Baek Sang-jin — standing in front of the hotel lobby — came over. He, too, wore tactical gear rather than workout clothes. He'd arrived a short while before to wait for Sang-goo. And, of course, he hadn't come alone.
"You're going?"
"Yes. Ji Seong-gyu called in. They want to talk."
"Then I'm coming with you. I've got a chopper on standby." Baek jerked his chin toward the men behind him. A fully armed platoon stood ready to deploy.
"The holiday field day is for building internal bonds — it's not there so we can play. I can't stomach sending you into enemy lines alone, Sang-goo."
Sang-goo shook his head. "With respect, no. I'll go alone."
"Why? It's dangerous."
"Geumji New City vanished in half a day. They're terrified over there right now."
Sang-goo looked up at the sky hanging over Saha-gu.
"So what happens if we come flying in with a helicopter and a wall of armed troops? 'Oh, they've come to finish us off' — they'll throw themselves at us fighting for their lives. There's no sense scratching a boil until it's an abscess."
Baek fell silent. It made sense. A cornered rat bites the cat. Overwhelming force could just as easily become a wall that shut down conversation — because the final goal was not to destroy them, but to absorb them and forge them into a foundation stone of the nation.
"I'll untangle it through talk. Don't worry. Ji Seong-gyu is a man you can reason with."
"Then take me along too. That much is fair, no?"
Sang-goo considered it a moment, then shook his head.
"You've only got the Director above you, Team Leader. The momentum's already swung our way, so there's no need to stand on ceremony."
He skirted around saying the rest outright: if things went wrong, he worked better alone — fruitlessly straining to shield Baek Sang-jin would get nothing done.
"Is there anything else you want out of it? There's a chance they won't come over peacefully a hundred percent of the way."
"We're not some ordinary outfit. Weak as we may be right now, we're people who've banded together to rebuild a nation. Letting them keep their own private force playing subcontractor is absolutely out of the question. For the sake of our own cohesion too, every gun has to answer to one place and one place only."
"I understand your concern perfectly. I'll talk them into folding their arms and their productivity into the state without a hitch."
"Sang-goo. Can you… actually manage that?"
"Ji Seong-gyu, their number two, was fine. The ones above him — I'll know when I meet them."
At Sang-goo's confidence, Baek let out a long breath and nodded.
"All right. I trust your judgment. Short of that, I'm open to hearing out most of what they ask for."
Baek clapped him on the shoulder.
"We'll hold at five-minute standby. Engine pre-warmed, every man with a radio in his ear."
Baek's eyes gleamed hard.
"Just give the signal. If it comes to that, I'll turn all of Saha-gu into a sea of fire before I leave you behind."
Cheesy as it was, the sincerity from him and his people rang true.
"That's reassuring."
Sang-goo grinned and pulled his goggles down.
"I'm off."