Expansion (3)
I couldn't shake that pink maid outfit from my mind on the Gyeongbu Expressway heading up from Daegu to Seoul. Hell, the guy in the car ahead looked like he was wearing one and staring right at me. Think of something else. Think of something else. I had to repeat it three times before the image finally faded, only to come rushing back the moment my mind wandered even a little.
"Oppa, are you okay?"
At Anseong Rest Area, while I was eating a hot bar and resting, Miju asked me with a worried look.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just not feeling great today."
Honestly, it felt like I'd been assaulted. "You must've had a hard time dealing with her. Drop her off and go home to rest."
God, she was too kind. Seeing that guilty expression on her face, as if my condition was somehow her fault, I knew I had to pull myself together. I shook off the haze, got back behind the wheel, and drove straight through to Seoul.
After dropping Miju off and heading home, I got a call from Nakamura. He'd been reaching out a lot lately. Not that I minded—he was a major client. Money talks, right?
"GB, do you have a moment?" — Nakamura (39.4)
"Yes, I'm doing well. How are things in Japan after what happened to the former prime minister?" — GB (38.2)
We fell into our usual back-and-forth about politics, the economy, and the weather.
"The reason I contacted you, GB, is to ask if you handle opium. In Korean, that's apyeon—poppy?" — Nakamura (39.4)
Well… Ali from Express had tried to push some on me last time.
"How much do you need? I have the raw material. I'm afraid OEM processing is out of the question." — GB (38.2)
I wasn't set up for that.
"Impressive. I only need the raw material. My organization is handling the rest." — Nakamura (39.4)
Three years of dealing with him and he still kept plenty of secrets.
"Understood. How much?" — GB (38.2)
"Please send a sample." — Nakamura (39.4)
Some things never changed. I forwarded him the opium sample I'd received from Ali. He must have been in a hurry—approval came the very next day.
"Ten kilograms, if you would." — Nakamura (39.4)
Ali apparently had stock on hand; the goods arrived the following day. He even threw in an extra five hundred grams—whether that was a sales tactic or not, I wasn't sure. When I asked, he called it a promotional event. Five hundred grams was no small amount of money.
I took yen from Nakamura and paid Ali in yuan, acting as an international currency exchanger and skimming a fee in the middle. This was basically trade. I collected the official five percent commission from both sides plus another ten percent in exchange fees. It was almost too easy—no inventory holding costs, and the whole deal wrapped up in under a week.
Still, I reached out to Park the section chief at the Haman Factory. I'd been waiting for an update on the Busan situation and wanted to discuss product development. She replied immediately.
"Section Chief, how have you been?" — GB (38.2)
"I'm well, sir. How about you?" — iloveGB (36.5)
That username made me oddly self-conscious.
"I contacted you about the Busan progress and because I have a favor to ask." — GB (38.2)
I could practically see the bright-eyed look on the other end.
"Busan is…" — iloveGB (36.5)
She launched into an explanation. Modern gang wars weren't the old-fashioned brawls with weapons and blood in the streets. It was all underwater, like ducks paddling furiously while looking calm on the surface. The man we were backing was roughly the organization's third-in-command—not a traditionalist. When I asked what that meant, she said traditionalists were those who'd joined young, lived in group quarters, and taken the fall for the group by going to prison. The third-in-command, by contrast, had risen through drug dealing. Once the money started flowing, the old boss took notice, and as the saying goes, money is power—he climbed all the way to number three.
"The problem right now is that it's a proxy war." — iloveGB (36.5)
I was getting a modern replay of the late-nineteenth-century great-power scramble. Number two had been absorbed by number one. They'd grown up together as fellow traditionalists, but organizational management didn't work that way. If you had your own line, you had to take care of your people; when resources were limited, you either gave them what you had or took from someone else. Apparently number one had been better at that. In the end, when you looked at age, experience, and organizational prestige, number one came out on top. According to Yeoni, the difference in the number of people supporting each side had been decisive. The funny part was that most of number two's former subordinates had switched to number three. Why? Because number three—whether thanks to us or his own ability—had more to distribute. With our support, number three had seized the momentum. Then an outside force intervened and the tide turned again. The yakuza—Japanese interests—had started backing number one, and things began to slip. Number three brought in another faction in response: the Russians. A Russo-Japanese war over colonial Korea? Right now they were at a standoff. Number three and the Russians controlled the ports, while number one and the Japanese held the entertainment districts like Seomyeon and Haeundae.
Listening to all this, I had a bad feeling.
"Section Chief Park, this doesn't sound like a fight we should be getting into." — GB (38.2)
"We can still eat the rice cake while watching the fight." — iloveGB (36.5)
Our position was basically the United States selling weapons to Europe. The first deputy director's line was supplying number one, while Yeoni was wholesaling to number three. Only the executives knew. Now I knew too. They were also providing BS and the Sleeping Series. Hearing the situation, I finally understood why America produced unlimited goods. Before the war, if Busan's consumption was one hundred and supply matched it at one hundred, everything balanced. During the conflict, consumption didn't drop, but when one hundred units entered the market, the factions hoarded and fought instead of letting it reach actual users. So what happened? They bought more from me. Suppliers couldn't break even, so prices rose. In the end, demand for the producer—me—only grew.
"How do you think it'll turn out?" — GB (38.2)
When I asked her to predict who would win between number one and number three, her answer was perfect.
"No one except the two parties involved wants either of them to win." — iloveGB (36.5)
Her reply left me speechless, so I changed the subject.
"Oh, and I have a favor to ask." — GB (38.2)
"Our organization has a bit of opium. I think it could be processed into a marketable product—any ideas?" — GB (38.2)
"I've already developed plenty of recipes. I'll send you the proposals. I referenced the first deputy director's format last time, so let me know if anything looks good." — iloveGB (36.5)
When? Five minutes later a file arrived through Director Ha. Three proposals.
"Section Chief Park, do you have other varieties as well?" — GB (38.2)
"Yes, I have all the major ones. There wasn't much to do at the factory, so… Did I do something wrong?" — iloveGB (36.5)
No, no—I'd completely underestimated the alchemist.
— New Product Proposal (1)
Product Name: Power O (PO)
Effect: Powerful awakening and erectile effects
Primary Customers: Entertainment districts
Features: Strong awakening effect upon use; excellent erectile effect from increased blood flow. Focused on Viagra components and rapid onset.
It was easy to read, styled similarly to the first deputy director's. The first page was a summary, followed by the chemicals needed in manufacturing and the full process—recipes included. The content was solid, and she even had a target market in mind.
— New Product Proposal (2)
Product Name: Bulk T (BT)
Effect: Muscle stiffening and hallucinogenic effects
Primary Customers: Individuals, office workers, men in their middle age and older
Features: For customers lacking confidence or seeking vitality. Provides a sense of physical strength and the hallucinatory feeling that one can do anything.
— New Product Proposal (3)
Product Name: Booster EDM (EDM)
Effect: High hallucinogenic effect, tinnitus
Primary Customers: Noisy places like clubs
Features: Hallucinatory effect of the world spinning, plus a mechanism affecting the ears so users hear sounds they imagine. Lasts about an hour.
I spent a good hour reading through them. I could feel there were organizational secrets I didn't know. Too much of the content could only have come from actual human testing. I'd experienced it myself when developing the Sleeping Series.
"Did you run any experiments?" — GB (38.2)
"They said to send over anything that was going to be discarded." — iloveGB (36.5)