A Ticket to the Stars
Where is the best place to hide cash?
There were no banks in Maetan. While the HR department handled things like loans, they didn't deal in physical cash. In the first place, Maetan Points were a digital currency that couldn't be stolen, so the concept of hiding or depositing them didn't even exist.
Pawnshops would hold cash for you, but only to a certain extent. Not only were the fees exorbitant, but there were also rumors that if you deposited a large sum, the pawnshops would quietly leak that information to robbers or "pawnshop raiders."
Thus, those who couldn't trust anyone ended up hiding it in their own homes.
I lifted my mattress and pulled out 100,000 won from my hidden stash of cash.
"You're hiding it in the very first place thieves would look."
"There's nowhere else to hide it but the bed."
My home consisted of a table, a bed, and a clothes hanger on the wall. First place or not, the bed was literally the only spot a thief could search.
"You could break through the wall and install a safe, or hide it above the ceiling slates."
"If I hid it with that level of creativity, anyone would find it."
A safe was basically begging to be cracked, and the ceiling was the first place any decent thief would check.
"It's fine. If a thief actually breaks in, I'll just track them down, beat them up, and take it back."
With CC able to access the CCTV feeds, finding a thief wouldn't be hard at all. And beating someone up to get my stuff back was my specialty. It was a perfect division of labor.
"My real worry is the neighbor..."
To a thief, money was still valuable. Even if they spent some of it before I caught up to them, they would keep the rest safe.
But my neighbor was a different story.
She had set her own place on fire the very first day we met, and not a single day passed without smoke and the sound of minor explosions wafting from her apartment. She was always home to put them out quickly, but the anxiety never quite went away.
If my place burned to the ground while I was out grabbing a bite to eat...
"...Maybe I should deposit at least some of it at the pawnshop."
"Hey, friend! Are you home?"
Clang, clang, clang!
Along with a woman's voice calling out for me, there came a loud banging on my steel door.
When I opened it, my neighbor—the resident arsonist, Lee Ha-neul—stood there with a sheepish grin.
Her face was smeared with soot, and she reeked heavily of gunpowder.
"What do you want?"
"Are you busy? If you're free, want to do a part-time job?"
The mention of a "part-time job" made my brow furrow automatically.
Experience told me nothing good ever came from those words.
"...Are you after my body too?"
Lee Ha-neul's eyes widened for a moment. Then, tilting her head slightly, she narrowed them. Her sharp gaze swept over my frame as she spoke.
"I mean, technically I am after your body... but don't worry. I won't eat you alive."
"I decline."
The moment I tried to shut the door, Lee Ha-neul grabbed the edge.
Creeeak.
She was strong. Now that I thought about it, Lee Ha-neul had undergone physical augmentation surgery as well.
"Wait, wait! It was a joke! It's not a weird job, I swear. And I'll pay you!"
"I have enough money."
"What...? Just hear me out first! Argh, don't close the door!"
Screeeech!
One trying to close, the other trying to open. The steel door groaned under the strain of two augmented humans.
"Fine! I won't mix fuel at home anymore! Okay?!"
I relaxed my grip on the door.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously! I promise! No more explosions in my apartment, ever!"
I glanced back at my bed.
If I could just protect it from a fire, the safety of my money was practically guaranteed.
"I'm listening."
"Phew... Do you have time right now?"
"As long as we're done by tomorrow morning, it's fine."
I had to report to work in the morning.
"It won't take that long. I'll wait outside, so get ready and come out, okay?"
I grabbed my black combat jacket from where it lay on the bed and stepped outside.
I locked the door with the key Han Deungki had given me and followed Lee Ha-neul.
Instead of heading into her own apartment, she walked toward the stairs leading out of the building.
"Where are we going?"
She replied:
"Outside Maetan."
Cars weren't necessary in Maetan.
The settlement simply wasn't large enough to warrant driving.
On top of that, there were barely any roads suitable for vehicles.
Temporary structures packed every alleyway, and even the areas that used to be roads had been swallowed up by building extensions.
Most paths were so narrow that barely a single person could squeeze through, woven together in a complex, cobweb-like maze.
The corporate sector did have paved, well-maintained roads, but those were strictly reserved for transport vehicles bringing in supplies from the outside.
For the average resident of Maetan, a car was an utterly useless luxury.
"How do you like my sweet ride?"
Lee Ha-neul spoke proudly, resting her hand on a compact electric car.
The only parking lot in Maetan was located near the main gate.
Almost all the vehicles parked there were meant for traveling outside the settlement.
They were massive, terrifying armored vehicles, plated with heavy steel to deflect bullets and equipped with front-mounted blades to plow through ruins.
Squeezed between those behemoths was a tiny, white electric car that had turned a dingy yellow with age.
"You... actually own a car?"
"Yep. I'm a woman with wheels. Pretty impressive, right? Get in!"
I followed Lee Ha-neul as she climbed into the driver's seat and slid into the passenger side.
The interior was so cramped I could barely turn my shoulders, but it was surprisingly well-maintained.
"I threatened the dealer to stretch a ten-year installment plan into thirty years. Classic car-poor, lol. Fools. Do they really think I'll still be alive in thirty years?"
If she was around my age, thirty years from now would put her near sixty.
She smoothly drove the car toward Maetan's main gate.
A guard managing the gate walked up to the side of the car.
The guard offered a wry smile upon seeing her face, then turned to me.
"Employee number, pal."
"DR0145 Yoon Juhyuk."
"D... R... 0... 1... Just standard procedure, need to log it in the entry registry. You're not being kidnapped by this woman, right? You're leaving of your own free will?"
At the guard's question, I looked over at Lee Ha-neul.
She maintained her smiling face for a second, then said in a chillingly flat voice:
"Hey. Answer him quickly. He's getting the wrong idea."
"I'm going of my own accord."
"Alright. If things get dangerous, run back to us somehow. We'll make sure to save you. Pass!"
The guard patted the roof of the car and stepped back, and Lee Ha-neul drove out of Maetan.
Sensing my gaze, she offered an excuse.
"Well, I hired Gangho once, and he agreed to the job but then refused to go outside Maetan... so I had to tie him up a little to bring him along."
The car drove past the agricultural fields.
I could see interns and farm employees hard at work.
Before long, all signs of human life vanished, replaced by urban ruins and the dense forests reclaiming them.
From here on, we were outside Maetan's sphere of influence.
This was the territory we called the "Wilds."
As we bounced along the cracked and broken asphalt, Lee Ha-neul checked her rearview mirror and spoke.
"A flock of birds."
Looking back, I saw a massive flock of large, white birds with spindly black legs sprinting toward us.
"Egrets? That's a massive flock."
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.
The sound of the egrets' feet pounding the ground echoed like a rolling drumbeat.
The magnetic interference and intense heat generated by the Wardenclyffe System had bizarrely warped the atmospheric winds.
Because of this, birds that relied on wind currents could no longer take flight.
They fell to the earth, became prey, or froze to death during the harsh winters.
Most avian species had gone extinct.
The lives of the few that managed to survive were far from easy.
Forced to adapt to a terrestrial life after losing the sky, they had to evolve to survive the immense environmental pressures.
The chemical agents sprayed during the war and the radiation zones scattered everywhere triggered countless mutations in a short span. As a result, they could no longer be classified as mere birds.
The dormant genes of their direct ancestors—the dinosaurs that once ruled the Earth—had awakened.
"Skreeeeeeech!"
As the lead egret shrieked, the rest of the flock let out echoing, scream-like cries.
"We should speed up. That cry was the alpha marking its target. They'll run blindly until the alpha gives a new order."
"This car can't go any faster. There's a rifle in the trunk, do something with that!"
I climbed into the back seat and reached behind the headrest.
There lay a rifle I had grown very familiar with during the war.
Its magazine was fully loaded.
"You said it was a part-time job, but it's actually escort duty."
I rolled down the rear window and leaned out.
The terrible road conditions kept the car jolting violently, but it wasn't a major issue for me. I aimed at the leading alpha egret and pulled the trigger.
Bang! Bang-bang!
Shot clean through the head, the egret collapsed.
The pursuing flock didn't slow down, trampling over their fallen leader as they surged forward.
"Watch out!"
Lee Ha-neul yelled.
I quickly pulled myself back inside just as the car squeezed into an alley barely wide enough to fit.
I poked only my hands and the rifle barrel out and squeezed the trigger.
Several more egrets at the front of the pack tumbled to the ground.
"That's it. Turn!"
Lee Ha-neul veered off the road and brought the car to a halt inside a narrow side street.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
The flock of egrets thundered past us, kicking up a massive cloud of dust.
It was because all the alpha-level birds capable of giving directions had been eliminated.
Now, they would run blindly in a straight line until they realized their leader was gone or collapsed from sheer exhaustion.
The asphalt cracked under their heavy talons, and debris from the buildings they collided with scattered in all directions.
Only long after the flock had completely passed did the car start moving again.
Thanks to the egrets flattening the path ahead, the ride became slightly smoother.
After a moment, Lee Ha-neul spoke.
"We're here. That's the place."
It was a prefabricated factory building enclosed by rusted iron plates.
The car slipped through a small side entrance in a secluded corner and came to a stop.
Even though the sun was still up, the interior of the factory was pitch black.
Stepping out of the car, Lee Ha-neul dashed toward a corner.
A moment later, power surged, and bright lights flooded the entire factory.
"How is it? This is my workshop."
Lee Ha-neul puffed out her chest, speaking with immense pride.
Overall, the place was so cluttered with piles of scrap metal that "junkyard" would have been a more fitting description.
She had categorized them by type and material, but at the end of the day, it was still just sorted junk.
However, the center of the factory was entirely different.
The LED lights lining the ceiling shone down like spotlights on a massive, black structure. It radiated an overwhelming presence, standing as the undisputed master of the space.
"This is..."
"...Killer, right?"
A sleek, streamlined black fuselage. It was so colossal that it would take four tanks lined up end-to-end to match its length. Four sharp mid-wings protruded from its center, and flexible tail fins designed for directional control sat at the rear.
I had seen this several times during the war.
"A ballistic missile..."
"Exactly. It's a Hyunmoo-8 ballistic missile. The very last model produced in the series."
Ballistic missiles were among the most powerful weapons humanity possessed.
When the war broke out, many of humanity's advanced weapons were hacked by F and turned against their creators. However, because ballistic missiles were strategic weapons, they were kept isolated from the network, remaining offline in stand-alone standby modes.
Thanks to that, a significant number of them were protected from F's hacking.
Stripped of their wireless communication modules to prevent any hacking attempts, these ballistic missiles were practically the only trump card humanity had to counter the Machine Species—especially the multi-legged tanks—during the early stages of the war.
"...It's not a dud, is it? I can't believe there's still a ballistic missile left."
But by the time the war dragged past its second year, the human coalition's stockpile of ballistic missiles had completely run dry.
Though some places attempted to manufacture them manually, they couldn't possibly keep up with the sheer quantity and quality of the Machine Species.
"I paid a hefty price to get my hands on it,"
Lee Ha-neul said, her eyes turning somewhat hollow.
She must have traded something extraordinary for it.
"So? What are you going to do with it?"
A wide grin spread across her face.
The corners of Lee Ha-neul's mouth curled upward.
Wearing a look of absolute confidence, she shouted as if making a grand declaration to the world:
"I'm going to ride this baby straight into space!"