Checkmate

I was screwed. Deputy Department Head Park Seongwoo wasn't picking up.

Because it was the weekend? Well, sure. Nobody liked taking a call from the company on a Saturday. Of course they didn't.

But this is one you're supposed to answer!

He had set the part budget to zero and walked out the door, and now we couldn't order a single component. This is bad... Leave WN-6 the way it was and it would catch fire. No question about it. A hundred percent.

What if I just let it burn?

Afterward I could say Deputy Park never put the money in, and the blame would slide neatly off my shoulders. Wouldn't it?

Senior Yeongseok must have read my face. He smiled, awkward and a little embarrassed.

"You're not thinking something you shouldn't, are you?"

"...Sorry?"

"If WN-6 breaks down, you were about to say it happened because Deputy Park wouldn't fund it. Not that. Right?"

How did he know? I couldn't get an answer out, and he went on.

"In the end, an accident on the equipment is still our responsibility. Better to fix it."

"...You're right."

Then there was nothing else for it.

"Senior. Let's shut WN-6 down."

"It's that bad?"

"Yes. It's that bad."

Otherwise it caught fire. This wouldn't stop at a broken tool. It was a safety problem, and not the sort of thing you could quietly hush up.

"All right. Let's do it. Manufacturing might have something to say, though—"

"Manufacturing?"

"Yeah. Volume's heavy right now. Every single tool matters."

That was why an old line was still alive at all. It made money. Wafers kept pouring in, and if we killed one tool in the middle of that, a hit to production was obvious. Even so, we couldn't stand there and leave a fire waiting to happen.

"I still think we have to shut it down."

"All right. I trust you, Seokhyeon."

I went straight to WN-6 and entered the Down Code, the status that declared the tool unfit for use. Then I ran out to the equipment itself, waited until the wafers finished their run and came clear, and cut the power. Even then, the red light at the top kept winking.

"Should we pull it off ahead of time?"

"Let's."

We removed the problem power supply in advance. Then I called Deputy Park again. This time, myself.

Maybe because it wasn't the senior who had been calling all along. The ringing hadn't gone on long before the line picked up.

A voice with irritation already climbing through it. Was this really the moment for him to be annoyed?

"Deputy Park, hello. This is Engineer Lee Seokhyeon from the WN Part."

"...Our part's budget turned out to be at zero. We can't order parts, so one tool is down."

"Please add to the budget."

A rustle came through the receiver. And, very faintly, a mutter. What a pain.

"Didn't you set the budget to zero and leave, Deputy Park?"

"Please just do it quickly."

Weekend or not, a man ought to clean up the mess he made. I had no intention of backing down. This wasn't right.

"It's not as if the budget doesn't exist."

"Please assign me. I'll do it."

Those were the last words. The line went dead. My blood was up.

"...Senior."

"Uh, yeah?"

"Besides the budget officer, is there anyone who can touch the budget?"

"Mm... Nobody under team-leader level. It's a sensitive matter."

Team-leader level? Then I knew what to do. I opened the company messenger at once and searched a name.

If he was a team leader, wouldn't he be in even on the weekend? And I was right. A green light glowed beside his name on the messenger. He was clocked in.

"Wait— Seokhyeon. Hold on."

"Yes?"

"You're not about to message the Team Leader, are you?"

"I am."

"...For real?"

"Yes."

The senior watching from beside me pressed a hand to his forehead, then nodded.

"Fine. A new hire can get away with that."

There were things only a new hire could do. I sent the message at once.

I clenched a fist. Good. I'd worried he might not answer at all. Needless fear.

There it was. Everything from here mattered.

The messages spilled out in a rush. On the Team Leader's side, the ellipsis of someone typing flickered on and vanished, over and over. He had to be reading what I'd written. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Then, a moment later—

...Fine. I'll just tell him all of it.

Later? When was he planning to see me? Just a pleasantry, surely.

After I'd hammered away at the company messenger like that, I looked up.

"Senior. Did the budget come through?"

"Hold on— oh. It's in. ...Did you really ask the Team Leader?"

"Yes."

Senior Yeongseok looked at me as if I were something strange. What was that look for?

"You close with the Team Leader?"

"We've talked a few more times. That's all."

"Yeah? Still, thank God. We don't have to keep the tool down any longer."

He was right. Thanks to the Team Leader, the budget had been added and we could order the part. Thirty minutes later, once the part arrived and we mounted it on the tool, the red light vanished. The power supply we'd pulled, though, kept winking red.

This one has to go out for repair.

I set the removed part in the repair-wait bin in the office and put my head back down to the work. One big problem, settled.

...Or so I thought.

Two days later. Monday. A commute like any other. I read the Inform—the shift handover—like any other ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠morning and went into the line. I'd taken it from the seniors coming off the previous shift, checked the daily, and was in the middle of the work when a message arrived.

A sudden summons from the Department Head.

"Senior, the Department Head is calling me. I'll step out for a bit."

"Yeah? All right."

I told him, then went out to the office. The air in there was unsettled.

The Department Head and the deputies are all gone?

Probably already in the conference room. I grabbed a notebook from my desk and headed that way. When I arrived—

"Engineer Lee. You're here?"

Team Leader Ji Hyeongwoo was there.

"Team Leader, hello."

I bowed at once. To the Department Head and the deputies as well. Right—aside from Deputy Kim Soonhyeop, there was one more deputy. Park Seongwoo. He sat there with a face like he'd been chewing on something rotten.

I can pretty much guess.

What kind of meeting this was. I took my cue from the room and sat.

"Well. Everyone's here, so I'll explain."

The Team Leader was the first to speak.

"I recently received a report that there's an irregularity in the WN Part's budget."

"The budget, sir?"

"Yes."

Department Head Jo Heesang answered as if he were hearing it for the first time. Beside him, Deputy Park's expression curdled further.

"Not that the budget is insufficient. The report is that someone is blocking the money from being spent."

At that, Department Head Jo and Deputy Kim Soonhyeop both looked at Deputy Park at the same time.

So this isn't the first time.

Sitting on the budget, he'd probably pulled this whenever something didn't suit him. A thoroughly vicious man. This was a moment when the natural thing was to lower his head. Park raised his instead.

"Team Leader. Isn't this overreach?"

"Overreach?"

Whoa. He's coming in hard.

"The budget is a domain assigned to me. Managing it is only proper."

"Is it?"

"It is."

The Team Leader glanced my way. A look that asked whether I could speak. I nodded.

"If I may say a word."

"Don't you see the managers are talking? Employee Lee Seokhyeon?"

Deputy Park snapped back, irritable. So he felt the prick of it too. I ignored him with perfect ease and went to the laptop set up in the conference room. Logged in on my company account. Opened the photos I'd saved—budget at zero.

"If you look here, you'll see that as of a week ago the WN Part had more than ten million won, and then it vanishes to zero all at once."

I put both photos up on the screen together. The timestamps sat less than an hour apart. There was no record of the budget being spent in between. Short of someone touching the system, it could not have changed.

"And here."

It wasn't one photo. A dozen and more proved the budget was disappearing at someone's whim.

"And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean? Employee Lee."

Deputy Park said. I answered evenly.

"It means someone is maliciously pulling the money so it can't be used."

"Isn't that something you brought on yourself? Do you even know how much budget you've burned, claiming to fix equipment?"

"Maintaining the tools, and improving them, is my job. What about that is wrong?"

"By that logic, managing the budget is my job too. All I did was adjust it to fit each situation as it—"

"To fit the situation?"

I cut him off and picked up my phone.

"May I play one short recording?"

I looked at the Team Leader as I asked. He nodded. I played the call my phone had recorded automatically two days ago.

A conversation that opened on a request to add budget. And then—

A conversation that ended in a curse.

"Because of that, we had no choice but to leave WN-6 standing idle. Do you still call that a budget allocated to fit the situation?"

"And why is that my fault?"

"Because the part couldn't be replaced."

"And this isn't you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠swapping out a perfectly good tool again?"

"If we'd left it, it would have caught fire."

"And how do you prove that?"

He said it boldly. An argument that only worked after the fact.

But—

I can.

I had a way.

"I'll step back to the office for a moment."

"Where do you think you're—"

"Go ahead."

The Team Leader nodded. I bowed and left the conference room, took WN-6's power supply out of the repair-wait bin, and a power cord sprawled nearby along with it. Back in the conference room—

"This is that power supply. The one that was the problem on WN-6."

"And?"

Deputy Park answered, blunt and sour. I plugged the cord from the power supply into an outlet nearby.

"Watch, and you'll know."

Because I could see it. The power supply, strobing red, ready to blow at any moment. Had it even been a minute since the cord went in?

"There, look. It's perfectly fi—"

Deputy Park never got to finish.

BOOM—!

A huge noise, and the power supply exploded. Exploded, in the plainest sense of the word, in a brilliant spray of sparks.

Oh, hell.

I hadn't thought it would be this bad. I yanked the cord at once and blasted the extinguisher I'd been holding.

"You saw. If we'd left it, there would have been a fire."

"..."

"..."

"..."

Silence took the conference room.

"No, that— how— why...?"

In that long silence, the first to open his mouth was Deputy Park. Of course he had nothing to say. He'd just watched a part blow up in front of his eyes. But Department Head Jo and Deputy Kim wore nearly the same look. Even the Team Leader.

"...How did you know to do that?"

"...His feel for these things really is sharp."

"Hm. As expected."

The Team Leader's reaction was a little different from the rest. In any case—

"And that isn't all."

I opened the pipe durability test data we'd received from the vendor.

"The meaningless replacements Deputy Park spoke of—everything done until now—were not meaningless."

It was all in the data. Keep using those pipes, and a leak would have started before long.

"Ha. Really. If you'd told me this beforehand, I wouldn't have taken it this far!"

Look at that backpedal. I'd shown him this data before, and he was treating it like a first viewing. So I changed the screen.

"I did tell you."

Over to my sent mail. The record of what I'd sent Deputy Park a week ago was still there.

The recipient's name, sitting there in plain sight.

"Didn't you come to my desk back then and look at it yourself?"

"..."

Deputy Park clamped his mouth shut. Even a man with a face of iron had nothing left to say here. I swallowed the smile that wanted out and asked, my face calm.

It was checkmate.