First Contact (2)
Why hadn’t I realized it? The fact that when I gazed into the abyss, the abyss also gazed back into me.
The barrier, expanding at terrifying speed and wrapping around the entire city, began meticulously scanning everything it touched.
“Miss.”
“Don’t make any rash moves. They’ve only sensed my presence. They haven’t pinpointed my exact location.”
The recognition was mutual, but the detection was entirely one-sided. There was no way the barrier’s edge, which had shot outward in an instant, could instantly scan every building, vehicle, and person on the south bank of the Daedong River. As long as I refrained from casting any spells until the barrier withdrew again, I would remain safe. Besides, this sudden expansion was clearly only a temporary phenomenon.
I rubbed my stinging eyelids and thought, ‘In the end, it’s a barrier that needs a mage to maintain it…’
Whether the spy mage held North Korean or Soviet citizenship and was currently in South Pyongyang made little difference, but in either case they would have no way to evade the National Security Agency’s watchful eyes. Without a proper pivot for the magic, there was no chance this expansion could be sustained for long.
Pavel nodded and asked, “Understood, miss. Shall we return to Seoul as planned?”
“Yes. There are no changes to the plan. For now… let’s go back and think things over.”
Another two and a half hours. Once I had returned to a Seoul hotel, well beyond the barrier’s reach, I found myself sweating from every pore despite the early winter season.
“Did the Soviet of Materialists notice your presence here?”
“More accurately, they only noticed for a fleeting moment. They have no idea where I am now.”
After all, how could they possibly know whether I was still in Pyongyang, in another major city like Seoul or Busan, or had already left Korea entirely? Perhaps that was why, just after midnight, the moment I stepped into the room I felt the tension that had gripped my whole body suddenly melt away.
“A silver lining in the midst of misfortune.”
“You could say that. Wait here. I’ll be back shortly.”
My body felt disgustingly sticky from all the sweat. I had already organized the information in my head on the way back to Seoul, so I asked Pavel to excuse me and headed straight for the bathroom.
‘I suppose this round can be called my victory.’
The water gushing from the showerhead soaked every inch of my body. Droplets fell steadily from my drenched platinum-blonde hair. Even through the thick steam rising from the hot water, the vivid crimson eyes staring back at me from the mirror remained painfully clear.
‘In the end, it really is because of these eyes.’
As I had confirmed in the documents acquired after dismantling the Marseille branch in France, the reason the Soviet of Materialists viewed me as their greatest variable was undoubtedly these Mystic Eyes of Charm. The exact mechanism was unknown, but the part that ached most fiercely when the barrier’s pulsating waves washed over me had been the area around my eyeballs. Whether it was my body or my soul that suffered, I couldn’t tell.
The first contact with the barrier—something I had expected to happen much later—had occurred far sooner than anticipated. The one saving grace was that the information the other side obtained was far less than what I had gained. I had been able to observe the barrier for a full hour before its expansion began. They, on the other hand, had only sensed my presence for the briefest instant. Even that would have been diluted among the millions of other souls in South Pyongyang.
Among those millions, the soul shining with brilliant radiance would not have been mine, but those of the ROK Army and National Security Agency mages stationed in South Pyongyang—the divided city and border outpost of the Republic of Korea. Thus, the presence of other decoys that diverted the barrier’s attention would have only hindered the Soviet of Materialists from identifying me. That, too, was fortunate.
I dried my dripping hair with a warm breeze conjured by magic. Since the magical traces remained confined inside the suite, there was no risk of detection.
“I’ve just contacted headquarters. They reported feeling nothing in London or Paris. No Soviet spy activity has been observed either.”
“Really? So it was a localized expansion limited to the Pyongyang area.”
“Even so, they’ve promised not to slacken surveillance until Bloomfeld returns.”
Combining this new information with my existing theories as a mage, two main conclusions emerged.
The first was the possibility that the barrier was not a precisely coordinated construct, but rather a pseudo-biological machine that simply reacted to stimuli. If it had been designed to activate simultaneously on the opposite side of the globe the instant it detected me in Pyongyang, something should certainly have been felt in London and Paris. Alternatively, the coordination between the barrier system itself and the mages serving as its pivot might simply be imperfect.
My thoughts naturally turned toward whether I could condition this magical Pavlov’s dog to behave as I wished. For instance, what if I—or magical traces the barrier might perceive as similar to my own—were to provoke it at strategically less important sections of its boundary?
‘Classic conditioning.’
If food is offered every time a bell rings, eventually the dog will drool at the sound of the bell alone. In this case, the barrier would become that dog. If my presence was detected every time a certain stimulus occurred, might it not eventually rampage at that stimulus by itself?
As contact between us grew more frequent, the amount of strategic information each side revealed would increase proportionally. Yet reflecting on the bone-chilling First Contact that had just occurred, the advantage still seemed to lie with me.
The second conclusion was an extension of this strategy.
“What if we could use this conditioning to draw out the pivots?”
“You mean the mages themselves would come leaping out beyond the barrier?”
Pavel asked with a slightly confused expression.
“Exactly. If this conditioning continues, Moscow will have no choice but to investigate what exactly is happening, won’t they?”
To the reds, they cannot tell whether these provocations are truly me, a diversion, or mere camouflage. Yet they cannot afford to remain idle, because from their perspective the unknown factor called “me” is far too uncertain. The distance from Moscow to the Far East is literally half a rotation of the globe—more so when actual transportation is involved.
Therefore, rather than dispatching newly recruited personnel in response to repeated stimuli, it would be far more economical to utilize existing mage forces.
“So you intend to hunt the mages who come rushing out…”
I nodded slowly. “Who knows? They might just keep coming, one after another.”
For the next several hours I focused on documenting and refining the speculations in my head. Sometimes I discussed inferences with Pavel; sometimes he pointed out leaps in logic and corrected them. With the situation now like this, I had one additional topic to discuss during my upcoming call with Delis.
Thus, deep in the predawn hours:
“I just received the report from the intelligence department. You made contact with the barrier while briefly visiting Pyongyang.”
“That’s what happened. Honestly, I thought I’d be fine, but I can’t deny I was somewhat complacent.”
I had run along the Daedong River, but I was certain I had never come into direct contact with the barrier itself. Perhaps some separate detection magic had been running in parallel without my knowledge.
The fact that I had experienced first contact with the barrier was something Delis was only now learning. Yet his tone suggested he already had a general grasp of the situation. When I pointed this out, he immediately clarified that my guess was wrong.
“I didn’t discover it alone. I borrowed a little help from the Magic Department.”
“The Magic Department also knows I made contact with the barrier in Pyongyang?”
My heart suddenly hammered in my chest. Reading my reaction, Delis quickly denied it.
“No, of course they don’t know that. They only know the barrier underwent a temporary expansion in Pyongyang.”
“…You startled me. Anyway, how did they learn even that much?”
“While the Magic Department is a secretive government agency, it doesn’t mean they have zero cooperation with the surface administration. The poor relationship between the department head, Lord Dunhaven, and Prime Minister Thatcher is a well-known fact in British magical society. However, personal discord between leaders should never obstruct organizational cooperation—at least not at the level of a nation.”
“And?”
“The flow of information went roughly like this. A Swiss Army mage attached to the United Nations Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission confirmed the barrier’s expansion in Pyongyang, reported it to their home country, and the information was then shared with the British government and the Magic Department.”
“Ah, so that’s how. What a relief.”
The Magic Department agents who had monitored me from afar even in France would have been dangerous if they connected the anomaly in Pyongyang with my presence in Korea. I went through so much trouble to lower their suspicion to the floor. I can’t allow it to rise again.
The fact that the Magic Department had not discovered this themselves but had only heard about it secondhand was genuinely comforting. Besides, it was highly unlikely they would have sent personnel to monitor me in Korea, a country with which they had no particular connection. Delis had already confirmed this right before my departure.
“Even so, the shared information was extremely limited. Switzerland is neither a UN member nor part of the EU or NATO.”
With the Cold War still ongoing, Switzerland continued to maintain its status as a small neutral state and had not even joined the United Nations. The institution that best represented Switzerland’s identity as a permanently neutral country was undoubtedly the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission. Since the armistice of the Korean War, the commission had been established in areas along the Military Demarcation Line. In original history it had been in Panmunjom; here, where the front line had shifted one degree north, there were separate commissions in Pyongyang and Wonsan. The member nations remained the same: Switzerland and Sweden appointed by the UN forces, and Czechoslovakia and Poland by North Korea.
Listening to Delis’s explanation, I let out a small sigh of genuine relief.
“Hoo…! When I first collided with the barrier I thought it was all over, yet heaven’s luck keeps following me.”
Delis then let out a low hum. From the faint mechanical sound on the other end of the line, it seemed he had just received the document I had prepared by fax.
“Indeed… You intend to turn the barrier into Pavlov’s dog?”
As expected of Delis, he understood instantly.
“It’s only a plan for now. Because I made this mess by acting too impulsively, I intend to proceed with far more thorough planning in the future. Of course, I can’t abandon decisiveness in the name of caution.”
I would not deny my recklessness. Yet I had also identified a potential weakness in the barrier, so it could be called a blessing in disguise.
After discussing the previous night’s First Contact, we moved on to the originally scheduled topic: local collaborators in Korea.
“The investigation revealed that the man named Ham Cheon-ho has far more connections than expected. The nuclear development documents you obtained are the same.”
“More connections?”
“Classic government-business collusion. The faster a nation grows, the stronger that tendency becomes, doesn’t it? He has quite a few ties to government agencies.”
“Is that your conclusion after reviewing the materials we took from his house?”
It is usually as difficult for an outsider to penetrate internal networks as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Someone’s son-in-law is Prosecutor Choi, their brother-in-law is Editor Lim, their university senior is Assemblyman Jo, their father-in-law is Chairman Kim, and so on. Take two or three more steps and you might even reach President Park. Ham Cheon-ho had no grown children yet and, while his wife was attractive, his family background was modest. Still, the example illustrated the point.
The proxy I had personally chosen was a man who had risen through his own abilities despite his insufficient background. If he had lacked talent, how could he have even crossed the threshold of a major corporation? Had I not intervened, Ham Cheon-ho and Cheonma Sangsa might have become one of the top ten chaebols in the next generation. I had crudely inserted a straw into that possibility.
A tiny gap that no one would notice. Yet what I poured through it was the witch’s deadly poison—enough to addict everyone entangled in that thread of possibility by the time they noticed the intrusion.
What Delis returned was half confirmation.
“Yes. Due to the sheer volume of material, the review is not yet complete, but…”
“It’s fine. That’s more than enough, and you’ve already organized and sent the most critical documents first, haven’t you?”
I could not deny that the intelligence director’s work efficiency was extremely high. It was hard to believe the work was being done from the other side of the planet. I recalled that when Pavel was in London he had also helped share some of the security department’s duties, and I found myself tilting my head slightly at how that was possible.
Delis then calmly offered his own opinion.
“Personally, I believe you should make use of that network at the right time and place.”
“In what way?”
“It’s possible the North might think now is the perfect time and send agents. Whether it’s North Korea’s will or the Soviet Union’s.”
A reasonable statement. Wouldn’t the mages of the Republic of Korea be in chaos right now? There was no guarantee that, taking advantage of that confusion, armed guerrillas wouldn’t infiltrate shouting “I’ve come to take Park Byeong-hwi’s head!” like they had thirty years ago.
“You’re right. I’ll have to give Ham Cheon-ho a heads-up.”
Delis’s suggestion was to establish a line that would allow us to detect any sudden changes in the situation. There was no reason to wait. The moment the satellite phone call with Delis ended, I picked up the spare cellphone I had prepared in advance and contacted Ham Cheon-ho.
I had given my proxy a separate phone with all other functions removed, capable only of contacting me. Even though it was the middle of the night, refusing a call from me was obviously not an option. The call connected after only three rings.
Leaving his trembling voice aside, I conveyed my order in a dry tone.
“It’s me. You have personal connections, don’t you? For the next week, if anything unusual happens regarding North Korean movements, report it to me immediately. Understood?”
Of course there was no option to refuse this time either. After hearing his nearly sobbing affirmative reply, I finally allowed myself to fall into a late, satisfied slumber.
The intelligence network Delis had proposed revealed its usefulness just three days later. On the evening of Saturday, November 15th, as my subordinates arrived one after another from the London headquarters to take over my duties, I received an urgent call from my proxy. A South-infiltrating operative—a red—had escaped from the Namyeong-dong Anti-Communist Branch in Yongsan-gu.