Subjugation on Air (42)
They descended into the basement well before eight o'clock, then crouched low and hid where the corridor bent into a T. The idea was to be in position before Seon Woo-hyeon came down.
Eight o'clock came and went. Seon Woo-hyeon never appeared.
"Min-ju. Slip over there and listen."
"Yes."
Jeong Min-ju dropped low and moved swiftly beneath Room 9.
Room 9 was a riot of noise. Screams and moans poured down from above. Seon Woo-hyeon, it seemed, was taking his fury out on his own slaves after having his toys stolen from him. Given the state of things in Room 9, he might not even spare Room 8 a second thought.
He had stripped every last one of his slaves and was subjecting them to something closer to torture than play. Men and women alike — he ran electric current through their bodies while sexually violating them.
"Hah... hah... Just you wait, Ahn Jin-woo, you son of a bitch."
He kept at it for a long while. Only when nine o'clock rolled around did he finally climb down beneath the bed.
The moment things went quiet, Min-ju hurried back to Dong-hyun.
A short time later the hatch to Room 9 opened, and Seon Woo-hyeon dropped down. He pulled out his phone and made a call.
"Yeah. I'm coming up now. Come down."
Then he hung up. The timing could not have been better — he rounded the corner the instant the call ended.
"Wh-who's there—"
The instant Seon Woo-hyeon started to shout, Yoon Jin-ju burst out, slammed him face-first to the ground, and wrenched his arms behind his back. In the same breath, Min-ju clamped a hand over his mouth.
Seon Woo-hyeon's eyes went wide with shock. He had never seen this coming.
Han Gyeo-wool searched him with practiced speed — his phone, and whether he was carrying any weapons. She recovered a dagger and a pistol from his body. Gyeo-wool tossed the dagger to Dong-hyun. Min-ju took the pistol. People would be coming down from outside any moment. They needed him under control.
While they dragged Seon Woo-hyeon toward Room 9, Dong-hyun slipped over and hid beside the stairs that led up from outside.
Creak... clack!
From the top of the stairs came the sound of a lock being undone. The door opened, and two men walked down.
"Huh? The VIP isn't here yet?"
"Guess not."
Both men came down carrying assault rifles. They hadn't spotted Dong-hyun.
"Mmph!!"
The moment Seon Woo-hyeon saw the agents, he screamed through Min-ju's fingers, trying to give away his position. Jin-ju locked a chokehold around his neck from behind and put him out cold.
But the sound had already carried through the silence. The agents had heard it.
"Huh? What was that?"
"Right? Think he's still playing around upstairs?"
The two of them passed the stairs and entered the T-junction. Watching them, Dong-hyun drew the dagger, closed in from behind, and drove it into one man's heart.
"Guhk!"
The other man finally spun around — only for Min-ju to explode out of hiding and jam the pistol under his jaw. The man threw his hands up in surrender.
Jin-ju and Gyeo-wool stripped both men of their weapons.
"What's up there if we go above?"
"Nothing. Just an empty lot."
Thud!
"The fuck. Don't talk to me like that."
The man Dong-hyun had just hit nodded.
"So it's just open ground?"
"Th-that's right, sir."
Only after taking a hit did the honorifics come out.
"CCTV around the area?"
"Yes. There's a camera that watches the corridor at all times."
"When Seon Woo-hyeon goes up, where does he usually go?"
"Two places. Sometimes he rests at the lodging on this island. Other times he takes a helicopter to the mainland. Depends on the time."
"It's late tonight, so the helicopter wouldn't be standing by, right?"
"No, sir. He's unpredictable, so the helicopter is always on standby."
"How do we get off this island?"
"You can take the helicopter from here. And every day around three in the afternoon, a supply boat comes in."
"How many people can the helicopter hold?"
"Six, including the pilot."
"Hah... All right. Got it."
The man saw the look in Dong-hyun's eyes and grew desperate.
"Please... please spare me..."
"I'm not gonna kill you. Relax. Restrain him and tie him up."
Jin-ju bound the man, gagged him, and hid him beneath the stairs to Room 10 — along with the dead one.
"What should we do with this one?"
Jin-ju pointed to where Seon Woo-hyeon lay.
"Let's not kill him for now. He might be useful."
"Understood."
They tied up the unconscious Seon Woo-hyeon as well and stuffed him into the same space.
After that, they held a council. There were still ways off this island. Min-ju said she could fly a helicopter. That would let them extract Dong-hyun and five of those he had subjugated. But that would mean abandoning the people who had been loyal to him — people like Won-seon, Ji-yeong, and Bo-ram. Chu So-yeon and Lee Seul-bi had been loyal in their own way, too. In the end, they relegated the helicopter escape to a backup plan.
"Let's go up first and see what we're dealing with."
Dong-hyun stripped the man and dressed Min-ju and Jin-ju in his clothes. He would impersonate Seon Woo-hyeon himself.
"How do we get to the lodging once we're up there?"
The man answered Dong-hyun's question with desperate thoroughness. He even sketched a rough map in his own notebook.
They left Han Gyeo-wool behind in the basement to keep watch, and even pressed a dagger into her hand. If things went south, she was to kill the prisoners immediately. Gyeo-wool nodded, her hands trembling.
They lifted the hatch at the top of the stairs leading outside and stepped into the open. The moment they emerged, a radio on Dong-hyun's shoulder crackled to life.
— VIP, report destination —
— Inform: VIP proceeding to island lodging. —
— Okay. Received. —
The sudden transmission caught them off guard for a second, but Dong-hyun had keyed the radio and answered without missing a beat. They must have seen people coming out on the CCTV and radioed to confirm.
Once they were aboveground, it was exactly as the man had said — nothing but empty wasteland. Streetlights stood around the perimeter, and beneath them they spotted several CCTV cameras. Min-ju and Jin-ju's eyes swept left and right, picking out anything unusual.
They started walking, heading toward the lodging for now. On the left side of the path sat the enemy's situation room. Two men stood guard out front.
One of them waved in their direction. He must have been friendly with the men who had come down earlier. Min-ju saw it and waved back as naturally as breathing. It was the kind of gesture no one would think twice about.
The situation room was a five-story building, and the production staff's quarters were inside as well. If they were going to escape, they would have to take that building. The staff numbered around a hundred — ten times their own force, and the gap in firepower was even worse.
Once they reached the lodging, they held another council. Min-ju and Jin-ju couldn't go back now anyway. The consensus was that they had to make their move tonight.
The plan was this. First, Min-ju and Jin-ju would pretend to be returning from duty and take out the two guards. Then they would go inside and seize the CCTV control room. They needed to avoid the cameras if they were going to go back down through the hatch and bring people up. After taking the CCTV room, they would come back out and bring up everyone who followed them.
Yu-min, Won-seon, So-yeon, Ji-yeong, Bo-ram, and Seul-bi — still waiting in Room 8 — already knew the plan. The men in Room 1 and Su-hyeon did not, so they would need to be persuaded.
They radioed that the VIP had arrived at the lodging, and that Min-ju and Jin-ju were returning to post. Then they moved on the situation room.
"Heyyy... good work. That bastard's a real piece of work, huh? Drinks later?"
The guards didn't notice a thing as Min-ju and Jin-ju approached. Both women had their faces covered with masks, and neither was particularly short, so at a glance there was nothing to raise suspicion. By the time the men felt something was off, both women had already driven their daggers into the guards' hearts.
Dong-hyun came running right after. He stripped the men quickly and hid the bodies off to the side. Fortunately there was no CCTV here, so they could move fast. They collected the weapons and piled them in one place.
After that, Min-ju and Jin-ju stood guard in the dead men's place. Shifts ran on two-hour rotations. The next pair would arrive in about thirty minutes, and they intended to take those men as well.
About thirty minutes later, the door opened and two people came out from inside. Min-ju and Jin-ju ambushed them the same way, killed them, and hid the bodies with the others.
They felt not a shred of guilt about killing these people. According to Jin-ju, most of those who were dragged into this place never made it out alive. And from what they had learned while living here, people were hauled off to VIPs like this and spent the rest of their lives as slaves. They weren't about to let the ones who enabled that walk away.
They had two hours left. They needed to move as fast as possible.
Dong-hyun changed into the enemy's uniform as well, then headed for the CCTV control room on the second floor, just as the men had described.