Exposing Corruption
As the fog Kid G had unleashed gradually thinned away, Nightingale—who had stood motionless in its depths along the second-basement corridor—finally made her way back up to the surface at a deliberate pace.
Jumper and Iron Fist spotted her and hurried over.
"Nightingale! You're all right! Well—of course you are, but still…"
"Yes. I'm fine."
"Ah—then did you take out Kid G? Just give us his location and we'll haul the body out ourselves."
"No… I'm sorry. Kid G got away."
"I see. Then we'll—wait. What?!"
Jumper and Iron Fist stared in pure shock. Of all people, Nightingale had let an enemy slip through her fingers.
"You… you let him get away? You, Nightingale?!"
"I'm sorry. I must have let my guard down. Quite a pathetic showing, I know."
"N-no, not at all. If even you couldn't hold him, he must have come prepared with more than one contingency. Don't worry about it! Next time we run into him, we'll put him down ourselves—whether you're there or not!"
Their words said one thing, but both men looked privately relieved. If the legendary Nightingale herself had failed to catch him, then their own botched operation wouldn't land them with quite so much of the blame.
"Well then, Nightingale—we'll report this operation as a failure for now. Will you be heading home?"
"Before that—I overheard over HQ communications that Valkyrie was here? And Sejin as well. Where are the two of them? Did you already send them home?"
"Ah, those two. We parked them out in the corner of the police station's back courtyard. Figured they'd cause some kind of incident if we let them wander… Ha. The more I think about it, the more absurd it is. We were just about to take them back to headquarters—we've got incident reports to write as it is."
"I'd like to speak with them myself. You two go on ahead. I'll escort them to HQ. And I'll file the failure report as well. I'm the one who crashed the operation, after all."
"Ma'am? No—having you write up a failed-operation report is a little…"
"I barged into an operation that was proceeding just fine, and I still couldn't catch Kid G. The responsibility is mine. You've both worked hard today. Go get some rest."
"Ah… yes, ma'am. Thank you, Nightingale."
Jumper and Iron Fist bowed and left the station. Nightingale headed for the courtyard where Valkyrie and Kim Sejin were waiting.
The sight of the two of them standing there awkwardly in their slapdash masks made a quiet laugh escape her before she could stop it.
The moment they saw Nightingale, both of them jumped nearly out of their skins.
"N-N-Nightingale?!"
"Nightingale unnie? What are you doing here…"
"I heard. You two caused quite a scene, didn't you? Sejin I can almost understand—but Valkyrie? That doesn't sound like you at all."
"Hold on, unnie! What do you mean, 'Sejin I can almost understand'?!"
"W-well… I really wanted to catch Kid G… but I'm only B-class, so I wasn't allowed on the kill-order operation…"
"I see. Whether to call that overflowing sense of justice or pure recklessness…"
"I'm sorry…"
"Kid G has already escaped. Oh—have either of you had dinner? As late as it is, if you went to the trouble of showing up at an active operation site, I doubt you managed more than a few bites."
She was right. The two of them had spent the better part of the day plotting how to crash the operation and scouting for the perfect spot, and they had skipped every meal along the way.
They glanced at each other—and both of their stomachs chose that exact moment to growl. Nightingale smiled as if she'd expected nothing less and took them each by the hand.
"Then how about we grab a very late dinner together? I didn't get to eat either, because of the operation. Do you like beef? There's an excellent place in Amsa-dong. My treat."
"I-it's fine! We barged in and interfered with the operation—we couldn't possibly let you buy us dinner on top of that. It would be shameless…"
"Beef…? Unnie, is it good?"
"Hey!"
Where Valkyrie tried to refuse out of embarrassment, Kim Sejin's eyes lit up at once, already fully prepared to freeload.
Nightingale stepped between them, rested a hand on each of their shoulders, and steered them along.
"When else am I going to get the chance to treat my proud junior and the Union Leader's daughter to a meal? Don't be shy. Come on—you won't regret it once you've eaten."
She loaded them into her car and drove a little over ten minutes to the restaurant, where they sat down to an extremely late dinner.
Business hours had long since ended, but Nightingale was apparently a regular—the moment she called, the owner lit up with delight and promised to stay open just for them.
Valkyrie had still been squirming with guilt at the impropriety of it all, but once the food arrived she was completely lost to the taste of the meat, eating with single-minded focus. As for Kim Sejin—who had already demolished the cabbage appetizer dunked in gochujang before anyone else had even started—there was nothing more to say.
And so the three of them sat in the otherwise empty restaurant, sharing that late meal, when the TV the owner had left on suddenly erupted into static.
"Huh? What's wrong with this damn TV. Is it broken?"
The owner stepped out to check the set—and in that same moment, the noise slowly cleared. Instead of the regularly scheduled program, a single figure appeared against a pitch-black background: white mask, hat, and cloak.
All three heads snapped toward the screen at once.
As he spoke, Kid G held up a phone in one hand and a file folder in the other.
Once I got home, I had Eve restore every call log and text message from the phone I'd stolen off the police chief, then pull every last conversation from the messenger app TeleKilo. I also had her scan the investigation files I'd looted from the station and sift out only what we needed. Black curtains went up in every corner of the house so that no one watching would be able to map the layout of the room.
Standing in front of the tripod camera in the same mask and outfit I always wore for jobs, I glanced at Eve.
"So? How do I look? Decent?"
"No. You look ugly."
"Not my face! I mean—is there anything around me that could identify me?!"
"Is that what you meant? You should have said so from the start. Did Master assume I can read minds as well?"
"You little— ugh. Never mind. If anything had been showing, you'd already be tearing into me about it. I'll take that as properly covered… Soundproofing and the signal hijack—those are ready, right?"
"Of course. I am a supremely capable and powerful superhuman, after all."
"Good. Then let's begin."
On my signal, Eve seized the IP addresses of dozens of broadcasting stations and overwrote their feeds with the video from the shoddy camera we'd set up in our living room.
Every state-run channel and dozens of cable stations began broadcasting the same image at once. And I started peeling back the ugly truths, one by one.
I flipped open the phone and scrolled through the conversation logs between the National Police Commissioner, the chief of the station I'd hit tonight, and the assemblymen and journalists who had been entertained there.
The messages were full of lively discussion—how to bury the case, how long they needed to stall before public interest cooled off.
Media company presidents were falling over themselves to promise dry, uncritical coverage and a reduced volume of articles. Assemblymen ordered that the matter be smothered no matter what, to keep it from growing. CEOs of various entertainment agencies demanded a swift resolution, insisting that if their female idols were exposed for sexual hospitality, everyone involved would be finished. And the Police Commissioner instructed the station chief to bury the case as thoroughly as possible.
I played back the restored call logs. Voices spilled out over the air.
"Listen here, Chief XXX. This is Assemblyman OOO."
"Yes, sir. Loyalty. Assemblyman."
"You still haven't closed the Freezing Moon Club case? This is dragging on far too long. Am I going to have to lean on the Police Commissioner again?"
"Oh, no, sir, not at all. Enough time has passed that people have mostly lost interest, and everyone's worn down from the fatigue of it. We were just about to close the internal investigation."
"Hurry it up. Hurry, hurry. Hm? Don't you know we're the hurry-hurry people?"
"Yes, yes, of course I do, Assemblyman. I'll be in touch soon with good news."
"Good. I'm counting on you, Chief XXX."
"Yes, Assemblyman. Loyalty."
"Chief XXX. Are you even doing your job? We've got assemblymen, media presidents, corporate CEOs, and celebrities all tangled up in this—how many people is that?—and you keep letting this thing grow?"
"I'm sorry, Commissioner. We still have to go through the motions of investigating the hostess girls who were there…"
"You little bastard—you think I'm losing my mind because nobody's investigating?! Those hostess girls are throwing fits and making it clear they don't want to be questioned, and the assemblymen are screaming at me nonstop! Are you going to clean up this mess yourself?! Huh?! You need to manage those girls' moods a little better and smooth things over properly!"
"Mr. OO, the case is simply too big. We can't give you a suspended sentence. Under current law, that's impossible."
"Ah, Chief, come on. Really? We're all in the same boat here. How many girls have we sent your way for protection over the years? You've sucked and screwed and enjoyed everything there was to enjoy—and now you're pulling this?"
"Hey now, let a man finish talking. A suspended sentence is out, but we can get the prison time down to one year. You have no idea how hard the assemblymen and the Commissioner worked on this. We've already wined and dined every judge who'll be on the case, so a one-year sentence is locked in. And while you're inside, we'll put you in a special suite and look after every convenience. Just think of it as a short one-year business trip somewhere else. Hm? We'll make you feel right at home."
"Ha, fuck… My house is over three hundred pyeong. You think that tiny-ass prison cell is gonna feel like home?"
"Easy, Mr. OO. Let's not look at this so bleakly. While you're in there, we'll quietly close every internal investigation tied to this side of things. If you stay out in the open in a situation like this, you'll just keep stirring up the public and making a racket for no reason. Take a year off the grid and those chicken-brained masses will forget the whole thing and stop caring. We just need to endure until then. In any other country this would be a guaranteed life sentence with no way out—we're only able to pull this much for you because it's us. Close the club for now; later you can reopen under a different name and we won't touch you."
"Tsk… Ah, this is fucking ridiculous. But even Korea's piece-of-shit laws are still laws, I guess. I have to follow them. Ha… one year is really long, though."
"Chief, Mr. OOO—the grandson of the XX Daily chairman—got caught in a drug bust at the club."
"Goddammit, how many times is this with that little shit? Just do a quick interview and release him with a warning."
"Ah, Chairman! I was just about to call and check in on you, and here you are calling me first."
"Hahaha. My grandson has caused your station so much trouble. I'm thoroughly embarrassed."
"Not at all. Protecting our citizens is our job, isn't it? Of course we should look after him."
"This is already the fourth time, so asking the same favor four times over has me feeling quite shameless… Bringing you to the usual place feels a bit much at this point, so whenever you're free, just let me know and I'll reserve a hotel suite for you. Head over after work and I'll send about four carefully selected girls your way. Don't worry about the cost or the hours—just enjoy yourself."
"Haha. Chairman, your consideration leaves me with nowhere to put myself. Leave your grandson's matter to us and rest easy. Don't give it another thought."
"Hello, Attorney MMM. I really should have reached out much sooner. I'm truly sorry."
"Hahaha, not at all. Chief XXX, you're a busy man with public and private affairs alike—why should you waste so much time on me? You've already got plenty of preparations to make; you must be even busier than usual."
"Oh, please. Studying for the bar has me feeling young again—takes me right back to when I was prepping for the police exam. Hahaha!"
"That kind of enthusiasm already? It seems our firm has landed the right man after all. I really ought to prepare a gift for you…"
"Now, now—a gift? You're arranging a special position for me at Lee & Park, a firm no one can even get into. What gift could possibly top that?"
"Even so, showing up empty-handed would be bad for our face. Chief—do you like golf? There's a magnificent course in California called Pebble Beach. Once you've left the force and have some free time, I'll take you myself. And when you get back, you'll have to enjoy a proper evening at a hostess club as well."
The call records went on and on without pause for more than an hour—a raw, unfiltered portrait of connections spanning government assemblymen, media companies, corporations, entertainment establishments, and more, all of them covering for one another's corruption and burying cases as a way of life.
Every word of it was broadcast live and simultaneously across the dozens of television channels whose signals had been hijacked.
Even past midnight, as the exposé continued, word of mouth spread and more and more people began turning on their TVs. Social media caught fire.