A Bomb to Save Lives
2G bomb, huh. After days of nonstop coding that left him brimming with stress, Yoo Jae-won had finally started pulling off eccentric stunts? No, that wasn't it at all. To Yoo Jae-won, any unexpected variable was nothing more than malicious code that had to be purged. Even while running ID Group, he worked to minimize variables wherever possible and kept himself in check. Someone like him would never create a variable through something as trivial as a prank call. To the person on the other end—say, the duty officer at Buan Marine Police Station—it would certainly sound like one. This call marked the start of a project he had prepared with significant time, money, and effort. It was the project to prevent the Seohe Ferry disaster.
Korea, surrounded by sea on three sides, had suffered its share of maritime accidents both large and small. Among them, the biggest in 1993 was the sinking of the Seohe Ferry on October 10 at precisely 10:10 a.m. The ferry, returning from a trip to Wando, went down and claimed 292 lives in a massive tragedy. This so-called prank call was the first step toward stopping that disaster.
"I wonder if that went well." It wasn't regret over making the call. He simply lacked confidence in his own voice acting. A few days earlier, he had run practice drills with the Korean information team, but getting objective feedback from men who spent all their time flattering him had proven difficult. That was why, even while preparing for the Seohe Ferry operation, neither An Jong-cheol nor Choi Hun from the Korean information team had raised a single question. They had been through so much PMC boot camp that this level of discipline came naturally.
It would have been ideal if the call could have turned around every vessel leaving port or already at sea, but the duty officer at Buan Marine Police Station had almost certainly dismissed it as a prank. "I'll have to call again in six hours."
As Yoo Jae-won's thoughts revealed, he had already decided during the master planning stage to actively prevent any major man-made disasters in Korea that could be stopped. It had taken months of deliberation. Of course, his fundamental principle was that one should never hesitate when it came to saving lives. Still, there was always the risk that intervening could make things worse, or that his involvement might somehow derail the master plan itself. Those concerns were real, yet he had chosen to act because the existence of God felt absolute. His second life itself was proof of divine presence. He had directly experienced God's existence, confirmed the existence of souls, and was even living through reincarnation. If that was true, then an afterlife almost certainly existed as well. Saving many lives would surely count as a positive factor in that afterlife. It was a mindset a million light-years removed from natural human rights or conventional ethics, yet both paths led to the same positive outcome: intervention.
"Well, a report should come in soon enough." The Korean information team was already on standby in Buan and Gyeokpo. A modest operations headquarters had been set up as well. The local team maintained constant contact with headquarters, which in turn reported to Yoo Jae-won online. The call he had just made hadn't been placed directly from San Francisco via international lines. Instead, it had been routed through a public phone line in Korea, making it untraceable—like using a proxy server.
About thirty minutes later, the first report arrived from operations headquarters. It was exactly what he had expected. In 1993 Korea, negligence ran rampant across every sector, including specialized organizations like the marine police.
The same report came in after one hour, then two. They had clearly written it off as a prank call and buried it.
"Just as I thought. Time to detonate Unit 1. Tell everyone to stand by."
"Yes, sir!"
After issuing the ominous order, Yoo Jae-won returned to his computer and threw himself back into coding. Watching the marine police's response made his blood boil. At times like this, nothing helped more than losing himself in code. He made sure to set a precise alarm as well. Once the six hours he had mentioned to the marine police had passed, Yoo Jae-won picked up the phone again.
Normally, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have someone else make the call. He had already modified his voice by tensing his vocal cords, but there was always the chance someone with a good ear might recognize it. Still, Yoo Jae-won wasn't the type to delegate important matters, so he had never even considered it.
"Buan Marine Police Station……" It was the same officer who had taken the call six hours earlier. The boredom in his voice was so thick that Yoo Jae-won could picture his posture through the receiver. He was about to shatter that boredom completely. With that resolve, he delivered another blunt message.
"My words didn't sound convincing, did they? You'll pay the price for ignoring me."
"Hello?"
Yoo Jae-won immediately typed "detonate" into the ID Talk message window and hit enter.
"Hey! You sound young. What kind of prank call is this to a police station in the middle of the night? The fine alone could—"
The duty officer, still treating it as a prank, had started shouting, but he never finished. Kwaaang! A massive shockwave, like the explosion of something enormous, came through the receiver.
Koreans had always valued seeing something once over hearing it a hundred times. Yoo Jae-won was no different. He had never believed the first call alone could prevent the disaster. What he needed was undeniable proof that everyone could see. That proof was the explosion.
A small fishing boat anchored at Gyeokpo Port in Buan had detonated spectacularly. The information team had worked themselves to the bone preparing it. Naturally, no one had been aboard. They had purchased an old vessel slated for disposal, wrapped it in remote detonators and explosives, and moored it at the port. Since Buan Marine Police Station was located right at Gyeokpo Port, they had witnessed the blast directly. To make sure it was visible, the team had even added a drum of aviation fuel. The moment it exploded, a yellow mushroom cloud rose into the sky for everyone at the station to see—including the duty officer who had just dismissed the call as a prank.
"H-Hey—!" He was so shocked that all that came through the receiver were stuttering sounds.
"I'll say it one more time. Effective immediately, all vessels in the area under Buan Marine Police jurisdiction must return to port and stand by. New departures are also prohibited. If anyone disobeys, the next target will be something like the ferry. I'll give further instructions once this order is followed."
"Hello! Who are you—"
Yoo Jae-won hung up before the man could finish. Now it was time to watch the results. Several dozen minutes later, fresh reports came through ID Talk.
Change had finally come to the area under Buan Marine Police jurisdiction. Unlike the first time, when they had casually ignored his demands, the sight of a bomb exploding right in front of them had forced them into action.
"Seeing it once really is better than hearing it a hundred times."
Due to limited communication technology, all Yoo Jae-won could see of the situation were a few lines of text. Yet those few words were more than enough for him to picture the scene.
"Good. We're almost there." The feeling was right. Waiting through the first six hours had been tedious, but watching the remaining time unfold was genuinely exciting. Time flew by. Even 10:10 a.m. on October 10 in Korean time passed in an instant. Dozens more minutes ticked by without any breaking news. The Seohe Ferry itself had been detained at Wido Port and couldn't depart, so the accident had never occurred. When Yoo Jae-won threatened to blow up the ferry, a bomb squad in full body armor had searched the vessel thoroughly. In the process, they discovered illegal modifications and overloading, leading to charges against the operating company. That part would come to light later.
"We stopped it." The tragedy that would have claimed 292 lives had simply vanished. He had prepared extensively, yet it had ended far more easily than expected. In truth, Yoo Jae-won had prepared a third option in case the second call also failed. The information team had worked hard to set everything up, only for it to end without detonating any of it. It felt strangely hollow. Because of that, he was now unsure whether to make the final call or not. The people at Buan Marine Police Station were probably waiting desperately for his call, but Yoo Jae-won had already achieved his goal by preventing the Seohe Ferry disaster. Even though he had told them to wait for the call, his motivation had completely disappeared. Besides, if he called now, they would have already finished preparing to trace it.
"Forget the call. I'll send a letter instead." Yoo Jae-won instructed operations headquarters to deliver a short letter to Buan Marine Police Station. This was still an era before CCTV covered every street corner and remote area. Sending a letter made it impossible to trace the sender. The content was simple. He wrote that the number of passenger sailings between Wido and Buan Gyeokpo Port was far too low and should be doubled immediately. If the demand wasn't met, they would taste another bomb. The root cause of the Seohe Ferry disaster had been overloading and overcapacity, which stemmed from the ferry company reducing sailings for profit. Since the vessel itself had no defects, increasing the number of sailings would naturally eliminate the fundamental problem.
The next day, Yoo Jae-won slept soundly, thanks to having done a good deed. He still couldn't dream, but the fatigue accumulated from developing the embedded operating system had completely melted away. Meanwhile, Korea was in an uproar over a bombing. Although no footage of the explosion existed, the wreckage clearly demonstrated its destructive power, so each of the three major broadcast networks ran at least five segments on it. The most frequently shown scene was passengers angrily confronting the marine police. Travelers who had come to Wido for vacation found their departures canceled and were taking out their frustration on the officers blocking the port. Still, from Yoo Jae-won's perspective, it wasn't a bad outcome. If things had gone slightly differently, they would all have been attending funerals. Seeing them alive and well made him feel he had done the right thing.
He didn't forget to award a generous bonus to the information team for successfully carrying out a secret mission that even Choi Kang-wook and Remington knew nothing about. The marine police and the civilian government, humiliated by the fishing boat exploding right under their noses, were in a frenzy searching for the terrorist. Though Yoo Jae-won could only watch through the small screen of the Nextcom video news page, even that tiny display made their frantic movements obvious. Yet he felt no concern whatsoever. He knew their noisy response was purely for show, to look good to their superiors. Moreover, Korea's current technology couldn't possibly trace the information team.
"I can relax for a while." Having successfully averted a major disaster, Yoo Jae-won felt at ease knowing, through the news library, that no other large-scale accidents were on the horizon. "Time to get back to work." With a light heart, he returned to his daily routine and sat down in front of the computer once more. The embedded operating system for 2G mobile phones was already nearing completion. He had compiled and debugged it every time a feature was finished, though not as frequently as one might expect. Creating an embedded operating system was actually easier for Yoo Jae-won than developing something as massive as ID Office. That made sense—ID Office had grown to the size of an entire CD. In contrast, the embedded OS for a 2G phone was only 100KB in total. Furthermore, ID Office had to maintain compatibility with previous versions and work seamlessly with the operating system, whereas an embedded OS for a phone only needed to make the hardware function properly. Most importantly, there was no need to consider compatibility at all. As long as calls connected well even in mountainous areas, text messages sent and received smoothly, and it could store small memos and up to a thousand contacts, it was more than sufficient for a 2G phone.
A few days later.
"It's done!" After completing his own debugging, Yoo Jae-won immediately sent the finished embedded operating system to the mobile phone development team at the High-Tech Research Institute through the company's internal network. Upon receiving it, the institute began installing it on their prototype right away. When the installation finished and the device rebooted, the director and the entire development team stared intently at the small LCD screen. In the silence so complete that a pin drop could be heard, the moment the simplified tin-can robot logo appeared on the LCD, cheers erupted. That same day, the team used every spare part they had to build eleven more identical models. Of the twelve units, two were kept for testing, and the remaining ten were specially delivered to Yoo Jae-won. Director Andrey and the entire development team were certain that Yoo Jae-won would be moved to tears the moment he saw the working prototype.
"It's a brick." Unfortunately, their confidence was sorely misplaced. Yoo Jae-won's reaction to the prototype was brief and cold. That was understandable—someone who remembered 21st-century mobile devices wouldn't be impressed by this. The rectangular, brick-like prototype had a tiny LCD display smaller than a baby's palm at the top, with a large dial occupying the remaining two-thirds. It was larger than an adult's hand, and over three centimeters thick. Calling it a brick wasn't an exaggeration. Still, the edges were rounded nicely, and the dial pad looked excellent. The antenna was fully retractable into the body and could be extended when needed, making it quite different from existing phones. Another major difference was the charging and computer connection. Even though it was a prototype, it used a unified USB port, eliminating the need for separate cables. Charging and connecting to a computer could both be done through the same USB port. Of course, connecting it to a computer didn't offer any particularly useful functions—the prototype's storage capacity was only 8MB. Flash memory chips were so expensive that even 16MB would have been a burden, let alone 32MB. Still, 8MB wasn't a small amount. The operating system, including reserves, used only 256KB, leaving the rest entirely for the user. Typically, photos taken with the built-in 300,000-pixel camera module would be stored there. Even in high quality, the capacity could easily hold around a hundred images.
"I wonder if it'll work." Yoo Jae-won cleared his throat a few times to prepare for a test call. He then entered a phone number into the device and firmly pressed the call button.