Please Let the Server Remember You

Kim Heesook.

Soft as she seemed, there was a real backbone underneath.

"...Yes. I think doing as you say, Ms. Kim, is the right call."

Not that I don't have shortcomings of my own, but—

A little like Lee Nahyeon, maybe?

Ah.

No.

Truthfully, Nahyeon's streak seemed to spring less from backbone than from pure vitality — a gift for forgetting anything that didn't interest her and living entirely in the moment...

Kim Heesook, on the other hand — was it seasoned experience?

The kind of wisdom that let her laugh a thing off, dipping her head just enough to spare the listener's feelings, without ever actually yielding an inch of ground.

That unbending pride of hers put me in mind, faintly, of Hwang Juyeon. Of Yu Hyeonjae, too. Different methods, same steel.

I'd rather have gone in with her.

"Understood."

Still, one thing had nagged at me: Kim Heesook hadn't checked the box.

All I'd wanted was to see what happened when someone went in without checking — nothing more — and next time, if we could go in together, then that was what I'd do.

"Take care in there."

"Oh, don't you worry. I'm just gonna have a quick look and come right back."

Fearless, I suppose, was the word for her.

Kim Heesook stepped into the darkness of the server room, from which spilled the hum of running machinery and a pale blue glow.

"..."

The moment she disappeared inside, I fixed my eyes on the monitor.

For one thing, this seemed different from last time.

No sound of anyone being hauled off somewhere, and no '403 Forbidden' error window popping up.

A few minutes passed like that, maybe.

"...No, this is, I—!"

A frantic voice, faintly audible, crying out who knew what.

Kzzt.

At the same moment, an error message surfaced through the static.

404 Not Found. Unable to be found.

Krrzzt.

Layered on top of it, another error window.

406 Not Acceptable. Refused in full.

"...What is this, why, aaagh...!"

A short scream. Then a muffled silence.

Kzzk.

One last time, an error window flickered up.

410 Gone. Vanished.

See?

Keeping the beat for them is our job, after all.

23. Please Let the Server Remember You

Kim Heesook did not come back. I, standing before the server room, turned on my heel at once.

Swish.

Clack-clack-clack...

The instant I opened the computer room door, frantic footsteps rang out — already fading, as if their owner were running away.

"Mr. Yoon?"

The corridor was long, and the HR employee, with nowhere to hide, stood behind the cleaning cart in an awkward, caught-out stance.

As I thought — hovering outside was one thing; actually daring to go in alone was clearly beyond him.

"Huh? You're out already?"

Yoon Geonmin asked, changing the subject as if to pretend ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he hadn't been loitering outside the door. Judging by the blank look in his eyes, sound must have been completely blocked on this side of the computer room door — he had no idea what had just happened in there.

"But..."

His gaze slid to the space beside me, and his brow creased slightly.

"Where's the cleaning lady? Where'd she go?"

Was he worried?

About Kim Heesook?

Or about himself?

"Ms. Kim just stepped into the server ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠room. I opened the computer room door to see whether anything had changed in there. I was curious whether you were still all right, too, Mr. Yoon."

"Me? Obviously I'm fine. The ones in real danger right now are you and that lady."

Seeing Yoon Geonmin this unscathed, it seemed the elevator hadn't come up after all.

Worth the trouble of pulling Choi Jaeha out, then.

There might be some unknown rule with nothing to do with floor numbers, but even back on the lower floors, when Choi Jaeha had died in that elevator several times, nothing like what happened earlier had ever occurred.

Above all, the same 'monster' had never shown up on multiple floors before.

"Fair enough. Then I'll be heading back in. I'm worried about Ms. Kim as well."

"Haah... tch, seriously."

Yoon Geonmin suddenly raked his hands through his hair in irritation.

"You like playing the good guy all on your own like that, huh?"

Well, that's a novel one.

"Forget worry or whatever — you should just stay here too. Leave the lady be. If you were actually worried, you'd have gone into that server room or whatever it is yourself, instead of her."

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Even people like him had their own flashes of insight, it seemed.

"See? I'm right, aren't I? I can tell from the silence. So just wait here in the hallway a while. With a labyrinth, stay still long enough and it'll come to you — halfway, at least."

"I intend to go all the way."

"Huh? What was that?"

"I said I have to go to the end. Not halfway."

What good was going halfway into a labyrinth?

Stopping halfway would only mean, in the end, that I was still trapped in its depths.

"What the... no, hey—!"

Click.

I had no time to spare for a man who didn't even have the nerve to follow me inside.

I sat down before the monitor and entered Kim Heesook's details.

Every last blank, filled. Remember me.

Clack.

In that instant—

Kzzt.

After a sliver of time as brief as a blink, a new window sprang up at once.

On top of the 'Welcome back!', one more sinister line had been added.

"..."

I gazed quietly into the darkness of the server room, where black wires sprawled out, ravenous.

The roar of the great machines, never ceasing.

I knew that it had called my name.

The pale blue glow that never went out.

I know that it is watching me.

It has been, for a very long time.

The moment I crossed the threshold, the first thing I felt was the chill. Cold air grazed my cheek and burrowed into my clothes. I stopped dead where I stood and let my eyes wander, dazed, over the server room.

It was like a library that had no use for people. Black shelves rose nearly to the ceiling, lined up like bookcases, and on every one, black server units sat packed tight as books, each one glowing. Thousands of lights, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠evenly spaced, uniformly sized, pricking through the jet-black dark — the sight struck me as strangely unreal.

Tap. Tap...

I walked slowly between the shelves of black machines.

Some servers were half-ruined, others smashed apart entirely, their guts laid bare, spitting wires. Those wires, branching out like roots and limbs, carried a vitality so eerie they seemed ready to writhe at any moment.

"..."

The deeper I went, the more wreckage there was.

Black wires had surged out in a tide, carpeting the floor.

"Ah."

At last — the deepest point.

Among the ruined shelves, a single one stood alone.

On the floor beside it lay something large and bulging, shrouded in black wire.

Judging by the outline: Kim Heesook.

Kim Heesook's corpse.

It meant that if things went wrong for me, that would be me.

Wearing wires for a shroud, becoming nourishment for the machines.

I straightened up and checked the monitor set into the shelf at chest height.

Well, obviously...

But how was I supposed to answer?

Out loud? Through the keyboard?

The answer to that question arrived at once, and it was this: my deliberation had been utterly pointless.

Shrrk—!

"Ha, seriously..."

Before I could so much as resist, my whole body went rigid, rooted to the spot.

I knew it. I knew you'd do this.

I knew you could move, you demented wires.

Shunk!

"Ah—ugh...!"

A searing jolt flared up from my back.

Twisting my neck — the only part of me still unbound — I looked behind me. A thick wire had been driven in precisely along the line of my spine.

Slipping past the cervical vertebrae between my shoulder blades, ending exactly where the thoracic began.

With the distinct feeling that my body had just become a component of these black machines, I turned my head back and bored my eyes into the monitor.

Kzzt.

Krrzzt.

Kzzt.

"Ugh, nngh..."

It felt like being plunged alternately into boiling water and ice-skimmed cold.

The only reason I wasn't crumpling to the floor was that the wires wound around me like a mummy's wrappings held me upright by force.

Struggling to still my trembling body, I looked at the monitor.

If this was how it would answer, it shouldn't have asked.

And here I'd let myself hope.

In any case — 'Unlock'...

I took that to mean the General Affairs office that had been locked up.

Choosing it, apparently, would open General Affairs.

'Access Floor 3' meant exactly what it said: entering the 3rd floor.

And given that the floor directly beneath this 12th floor was the 3rd, the option 'Access Floor 4' implied two things.

First — that the 4th floor lay directly above the 12th.

Second — that the locked General Affairs office was a space unrelated to escaping the 12th floor.

Which meant there was something in General Affairs that wasn't as crucial as escape, but that the labyrinth had no intention of handing over for free?

Which only made me more curious.

No — why are you activating it? I asked you to unlock it.

...Ah.

Come to think of it, there had been a digital door lock at the entrance to the General Affairs office.

Earlier, the blackout had left it utterly dead, and the door had been sealed by the labyrinth's own handiwork.

If the lock activated... then all that remained was to open the door lock itself. Punch in the passcode, or tap an employee ID card.

Just as I finished putting my thoughts in order—

Snap—!

The thousands of tiny indicator lights across the servers went out in unison.

"..."

Drring!

I held my breath and waited, and before long a crackling, antiquated sound effect chimed out.

Only the monitor before me lit up, alone in the dark.

The window I'd been reading had vanished without a trace, and a single line of text hovered on the screen.