No Pay, No Gain

Yoo Jae-won had taken the New Egg 2 PC to North Korea last winter. At the time, he had been tense, expecting it to be used immediately. But when it remained completely silent, the device had slipped from his memory. Now, that very PC he had given up on was sending a signal that it was active.

“What could have caused this change of heart?”

Come to think of it, the family reunion event at Mount Kumgang had begun yesterday. With no live broadcast facilities, the news only carried fragmented updates, so it had completely slipped his mind. The emotional shift might have come from watching the reunions. Or perhaps they had been using the gifted PC all along and had only now connected it to the internet.

“Time to find out.”

Yoo Jae-won immediately brought up the command prompt on his Android system. A command prompt was essentially a console screen. Beginners and average users relied on the GUI file manager, but experts found typing commands far faster than using a mouse. The command prompt had been created for those people. Running it brought up a pitch-black screen with nothing but a blinking cursor, just like DOS. From there, you could do anything on the computer—if you knew the exact commands.

Yoo Jae-won manually accessed the rootkit that had sent ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the signal from the black screen with its single blinking cursor. The arrival of a signal didn’t mean an instant connection through something like ID Talk. That would have been convenient, but the risk of being traced was too high. North Korea might be a poor country, but its population was substantial. Among those with good songbun, some were sent abroad to study, and surely a few had been trained as computer experts. Even without that, preparing for the worst was simply prudent.

“Let’s connect to the backup server, then.”

A private server with a completely different IP from ID Technology’s data center was running nearby. It had been built using a 386 computer that would have otherwise been discarded at a recycling center. Its processing power was quite low, but it was more than enough to support Telnet, a text-based internet service. The rootkit in Pyongyang was sending its signal here, and the server automatically relayed it to Yoo Jae-won’s PC.

He executed Telnet from the command prompt, connected to the server, and entered a specific password. Immediately, he gained access to the rootkit inside the New Egg 2 in Pyongyang.

Yoo Jae-won first examined the PC’s internet connection environment.

“Whoa, the speed is better than I expected.”

It wasn’t ADSL. Since ID Group had purchased the patents and was using them exclusively, North Korea couldn’t build the system even if they wanted to. Communication equipment was also a technology the United States strictly controlled, so export licenses were rarely granted. Of course, even with all that, it was still wide open to Chinese spies—like an automatic door with no lock. Nuclear and stealth technology had already leaked through ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the same channels. Only law-abiding export companies were the ones struggling.

According to the information the rootkit had sent from Pyongyang, the connection speed was 10KB/s—dual ISDN level. The assigned IP naturally belonged to China. Given how much of North Korea’s communications infrastructure relied on Chinese involvement, it was only to be expected.

Yoo Jae-won immediately checked the PC’s uptime. He wanted to know whether this was its first use or if it had been running and was only now connecting to the internet.

There was a noticeable gap between the two dates. Judging by the first connection time, the PC had been powered on a few days after Jeon Myeong-heon gifted it. With 225 boots, they must have been analyzing it relentlessly, rebooting over and over.

The Android operating system was Unix-based. Unless hardware was being swapped or critical updates and bug-fix patches were installed, rebooting was unnecessary. It boasted exceptional stability. The fact that they had turned it off and on so many times suggested they had dissected it thoroughly, like picking lice.

Still, it had all been in vain. The rootkit was functioning perfectly and was even sending flawless signals to Yoo Jae-won.

The information from the rootkit updated. Whoever was using the computer had opened the web browser and accessed Nextcom.

If monitoring were raised to a higher level, he could even track mouse cursor movements. But the rootkit had been designed to send only the minimum packets, so it only reported results like this.

Since the internet’s rise, countless commercial sites had sprung up. Sites blatantly copying Nextcom were appearing like mushrooms after rain, which had even created the term “portal site.” Most were mediocre, so Yoo Jae-won felt little threat from them. Among the later entrants, Lycos, AltaVista, and AOL were the only ones worth mentioning. Yahoo had once existed, as had MSN. Yahoo had been absorbed into Nextcom’s search engine, while MSN had vanished before it could even bloom. CompuServe, which had wielded immense power during the PC communication era, was rapidly declining as it failed to adapt to the internet.

AOL was the one that had preserved its influence from the PC communication days. In terms of daily average traffic, it ranked around third in the portal industry. It wasn’t because of any special technology. It simply leveraged the massive capital it had accumulated during the PC communication era to launch an aggressive volume offensive. They were offering hosting and various paid content for free, which had drawn in hordes of sign-ups.

Of course, Yoo Jae-won also provided many free services—from email to Marvel and DC Comics—but he still operated paid services. With comics, for example, reading on the web was free, but downloading high-resolution files or revisiting past episodes required payment.

While later companies were fiercely catching up, to the public, “internet” and “Nextcom” had already become synonymous. And it seemed that common knowledge applied even in North Korea.

Curious what they would do after entering Nextcom, Yoo Jae-won kept his eyes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fixed on the Telnet screen. But even after enough time had passed for something to appear, no new message came. It seemed that Nextcom’s recent flashy graphics were causing delays when accessed from North Korea.

“Ah, here it comes!”

A few more seconds passed before a new message appeared.

“Pfft!”

Yoo Jae-won spat out the water he had been drinking. After going through all the trouble of connecting to the internet from North Korea, the first thing they did was search their own name.

“Ah, maybe the secretaries are doing preliminary searches?”

There was something called “mind protection security.” It meant guarding not only the person’s physical safety but also their mood—removing anything that might offend them in advance, or at least hiding it. It was a service usually reserved for those living completely detached from the real world. Yoo Jae-won had never requested such a thing, nor did he intend to. After all, ID Group was an internet-based company. Falling out of touch with global trends would be tantamount to signing its own death warrant.

Still, he grew curious about what results would appear for “Kim Jong-il.” He immediately accessed Nextcom, typed in the keyword, and hit enter.

“Only news articles.”

There wasn’t even a basic profile. Just web documents containing the words “Kim Jong-il,” sorted by relevance. Most of the news had been generated in South Korea. The majority focused on Kim Il-sung, with Kim Jong-il mentioned only as his son or as the person most likely to become the second-generation dictator after Kim Il-sung’s death. There wasn’t a single article written solely about Kim Jong-il. The English articles were similar. Whatever position Kim Jong-il held inside North Korea, to the world he was still an unknown successor.

This time it was Kim Il-sung. Yoo Jae-won searched the name as well. Far more results appeared than for Kim Jong-il. There was even a profile section with an overly retouched photo and a brief summary of his career. The number of news articles and personal homepage entries was also much higher.

“Would they like it if I made them a plausible profile?”

Before that, there was something he needed to confirm. He should first figure out exactly who was using the PC he had gifted. If it was just secretaries moving for mind protection security, he could ignore it. But if it was Kim Jong-un or Kim Il-sung, taking action wouldn’t be a bad idea.

“Hmm, I should check.”

There was a simple way to verify the user. Yoo Jae-won sent a command to the rootkit. He typed a rather long command on the keyboard and pressed enter. The command instructed the PC’s built-in webcam to check its status, and if it was functioning normally, to take a photo and transmit it.

The New Egg 2 came with a webcam as standard, and the drivers were perfectly configured. As long as the webcam wasn’t blocked, it could immediately capture whoever was sitting in front of it and send the image.

To ensure the computer user wouldn’t notice the internet suddenly slowing down, he set the photo quality to the lowest—320×200—and configured the file to transmit only when there was spare bandwidth. Thanks to that, Yoo Jae-won had to wait several minutes after issuing the command, but he was willing to wait as long as necessary for this.

A few minutes later, the photo file finally arrived. It was encrypted by default, so he decrypted it and opened it with an image viewer. Thankfully, the image file hadn’t been corrupted. However, it was slightly blurry, as if the focus hadn’t been perfect.

Two people appeared in the photo. One was sitting in front of the computer, and the other stood beside him, watching. The focus was a bit off, but it was still recognizable.

“That’s Jong-il.”

The person sitting at the computer was someone whose name didn’t come up even after searching the entire Memory Palace. The one standing beside him, watching, was Kim Jong-il. It seemed they had called in a computer expert and were making him try various things.

“Kim Jong-il was known as the reclusive dictator.”

Put nicely, he was a reclusive dictator. In Yoo Jae-won’s eyes, he was simply an extremely timid coward. He was extremely sensitive about his own safety and hated change. Because of that, he had missed several critical opportunities that could have brought major shifts to inter-Korean relations or North Korea itself. Of course, his greatest mistake had been fully committing to nuclear development. That had led to the Arduous March, which caused countless people to starve to death. The danger brought by North Korea’s nuclear program had even reached South Korea, inflicting massive political and economic losses. Completely recovering from the aftermath had taken until 2020.

“Well, things will be different from now on.”

Yoo Jae-won shook his head, brushing away the memories of the past. Many things had already changed. The previous events would not repeat themselves. And even if they did, he could simply stop them. With the considerable power he now possessed, he was confident he could guide events toward completely different outcomes.

The source of that confidence was the message currently displayed on his monitor.

This time it was his own name. A chill ran down his spine. If they were going to search for something flooding the internet these days, they should have looked up adult content. But his name? It seemed that even in North Korea, a young man succeeding in America was considered fascinating.

Seeing that, Yoo Jae-won decided he needed to raise his own security level. Even if it made daily life more inconvenient, the fact that North Korea’s top leadership was showing interest in him was a powerful warning sign.

Still, he viewed the fact that Kim Jong-il was turning on a computer and using the internet positively. The magic of the internet was that while there were people who had never tried it, there was no one who only tried it once. Moreover, Yoo Jae-won was the person with the greatest influence over that internet, and he knew exactly how to wield his power.

“Who was the web page manager again?”

Yoo Jae-won opened ID Talk and scrolled through the IDs tied to Nextcomcast. He clicked on the website management team leader and sent a message. It contained instructions to create a special page for the Korean family reunion event and to strengthen the profiles of related South and North Korean politicians.

In truth, searching one’s own name on the internet was something many people did occasionally. Watching how web pages changed as one’s recognition grew was quite entertaining. The greater one’s presence, the more content there was. It was also an excellent way to check for personal information leaks.

“I suppose this is enough for now? Today isn’t the only day.”

Yoo Jae-won didn’t rush. He calmly closed the command prompt he had been monitoring. Only part-timers lied in search bars. There was no way Kim Jong-il was doing part-time work, so the keywords appearing in the search bar revealed his worries and current state of mind. The more those words accumulated, the better Yoo Jae-won would understand his inner thoughts. In other words, these trivial words were more important than North Korea’s top military secrets. Therefore, he decided to monitor only the keywords for the time being.

Even after closing the command prompt, the server that remained on 24 hours a day would safely receive and store the keywords, so there was no problem.

“I still have goosebumps. Let’s just play a game.”

After closing the command prompt, Yoo Jae-won launched Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which he hadn’t finished yesterday. Today, he was determined to go all out and clear every piece of content in the private beta.

Surprisingly, Yoo Jae-won’s expression was quite positive. The single-player campaign left him with little to say, but the multiplayer was unexpectedly decent. Map design was one of Romero’s specialties, and the multiplayer engine from the previous game, Doom 2, had been nearly perfected. As a result, the gameplay felt extremely smooth.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein supported large-scale 8-versus-8 battles, and it had several improvements over Doom 2. The biggest was the introduction of classes. In Doom 2’s multiplayer, everyone played under identical conditions. You could customize your character in various styles, and unlike 21st-century games, there was no need to open loot boxes. The game provided a generous selection of costumes and accessories from the start. No matter how differently you dressed your character, everyone had the same base health and defense. There were no restrictions on weapon usage either.

In contrast, Return to Castle Wolfenstein’s multiplayer featured three classes: Assault, Sniper, and Medic. Each class had slightly different health, movement speed, available weapons, and skills. The Medic, in particular, could quickly restore health to themselves or other players. Teamwork and strategic picks were crucial. In a broad sense, it was a significant advancement. A simple shooting game had gained tactical elements.

If they added capture points and vehicles, it would be a full-fledged 21st-century FPS. Even though the single-player had greatly disappointed him, after trying the multiplayer once, Yoo Jae-won had smiled. It was such an innovative design that he couldn’t help but grin. With a bit more refinement, it could become a truly outstanding masterpiece.

However, his experience with multiplayer yesterday had been limited to a single match right before he logged off. Yoo Jae-won settled into position, ready to play seriously this time.

Ding!

Had Murphy’s Law activated? The moment Yoo Jae-won got into position, ID Talk chimed.

“Hm?”

If it had been from anyone else, he would have ignored it. But since it was a message from Chief of Staff Choi Kang-wook, Yoo Jae-won paused the game and opened it. The content was quite lengthy. It was a three-day summary report covering the progress on the labor law revisions and punitive damages issues he had recently ordered, along with various domestic matters. An IDW file containing more detailed information was also attached.

But what caught Yoo Jae-won’s eye the most was the very last line.

Kim Taek-jun was a talent Vice President Lee Chan-soo had brought in. At first, he had helped Lee Chan-soo with all sorts of tasks at ID Technology. Then, about two years ago, he had taken charge of SI projects tailored to various companies’ needs, including Busan Group’s groupware and Yugyeong Delivery’s logistics processing systems. He was practically an original member of ID Technology, yet he had submitted his resignation to rest and start his own business.

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Yoo Jae-won felt a sense of crisis. It might be an overreaction to judge the entire company based on a single case, but he sensed that ID Group was beginning to experience growing pains.