The Ones Who Hunt Humans (5)
"For that monster to stop, one of us has to die. Right?"
Black's words were less a question than a confirmation.
Annoyingly clever bastard. Then again, that was probably how he'd come up with the idea of cramming a person into a storage locker in the first place.
I'd been suspicious ever since Orange started bragging about the money he'd raked in from the lockers. Orange was too much of an idiot to have come up with something like that on his own.
So who had done the thinking? It had to be Black. White wasn't part of Orange's crew, and Blue kept drifting off on his own.
"Blue, you remember what Otter said at the start, don't you? That the monster powers down and powers back up every forty minutes. But that wasn't actually true, was it. It was only the first time — the second time, once forty minutes passed, it went on a rampage instead."
Right on cue, Black saw through the Moving Gun as well. And damn it all, this was partly my fault too — my blunder, for not knowing the convicts had been trapped in here this long.
"What difference does it make? In the first forty minutes, Purple got shot dead, and in the second forty, nobody died. That's the only difference. Even mid-rampage, the moment a few people died, the monster stopped right away."
Black was already certain of it. All that remained for him now was to pick the sacrificial lamb.
"If you understand, come over here, Blue. We don't have time."
Ah. So the picking was already done, too. Of course — the latecomer. Me. The easiest target.
Black beckoned repeatedly, but for some reason Blue didn't budge an inch. Instead, Orange beside him exploded.
"Hyung! Not him — make her die! Her!"
Black squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again at the interruption. But Orange, oblivious, kept squirming.
"Look what that thing did to me! You heard my whole story!"
"Quiet. Now's not the time."
"What do you mean, not the time? You said you'd get revenge for me! You said this time we'd do it my way!"
Orange shrieked and shoved his wheelchair forward. It slammed into Black's legs. Black endured it a few times, then kicked the wheelchair away with all his might.
CRASH!
The wheelchair tipped over and Orange spilled out onto the floor. Sprawled there, Orange stared up at Black in shock — and Black said flatly, "Listen to me for once. Can't you see I'm busy?"
"But you said you'd do it for me… I did everything you told me to…"
"And that's why I'm looking after you right now."
Even in the middle of all this, Black's tone stayed remarkably gentle. It was an act made possible by the utter absence of any feeling behind it. Orange seemed to sense it too — his face went blanker still. That once-innocent expression promptly collapsed into something wretched and burrowed away inside his clumsy, heavy body.
I felt no sympathy, but it was a pitiful sight all the same. Black, assuming Orange had given up, turned back toward us. But then Orange, both hands covering his face, called out loudly:
"Hyung! When you picked who'd get the injection, who'd you pick?"
A strangely bright voice for someone huddled on the floor. "I voted for White. Besides that there was one abstention, and the rest all voted for me. Wasn't that abstention yours, hyung?"
"Hmm. I don't remember," Black answered with bored indifference. It was a lie told without even the will to make it convincing. At that total lack of effort, Orange giggled behind his hands.
"It wasn't that long ago, how could you forget… That injection really, it hurt like hell… I didn't want it, I begged you, just once, please look the other way, dedededededededededededededek—"
Orange, mid-giggle, suddenly vomited up a sound like a broken machine. We all flinched and spun to stare at him. Orange's back was bulging and writhing.
"Dedededededededede-gegegegegegegegekegegeok."
His voice tore itself apart, worse and worse. Black, closest to him, staggered back in alarm. And then something ripped through Orange's back and shot upward — a pair of arms, unfurling like wings.
Arms. Human arms. Pale and slender. But so long their elbows nearly brushed the ceiling. Before any of us could even react, those arms lunged at Black and Red.
WHAM — THOOM!
Black was hurled across the room and smashed into the wall. Blue ducked clear before she could be caught in the sweep; Red was crushed flat under an enormous fist.
Orange's arms, having dealt with his own crew first, swung at White as well. White abandoned her wheelchair and rolled away just before they could find their mark — then, in the same motion, drove her heel down onto the crown of Orange's skull.
KRAK!
The moment the blow landed, the pair of arms jutting from Orange's back sagged as if jolted by the shock. White sprang up and shouted, "Ji-soo! Grab Black!"
At her cry, Blue bolted toward Black. White kicked the wheelchair skidding in that direction, and Blue caught it precisely and set Black in the seat. And then that wheelchair — for reasons I couldn't fathom — was shoved off toward me.
"Otter, run!"
At White's shout, I pushed the wheelchair without understanding a thing. Black lay limp in it, unconscious.
BANG! BANG-BANG!
Gunfire cracked behind me as I struggled to keep the sagging man in the chair. I spun around in shock — White and Blue were shooting at Orange with pistols. What the hell, why did you two switch genres without me?
Orange hauled himself upright beneath the massive arms. White and Blue ignored the sprouted limbs entirely, pouring round after round into Orange's body alone. Under their concentrated fire, his head wobbled like it might tear right off.
But Orange didn't go down. Instead, the bullet-torn flesh swelled and bulged, and from those swellings, too, long arms sprouted like bamboo shoots after rain. Orange had become something more grotesque than ever.
Realizing this wasn't working, White and Blue stopped firing and turned. Then they broke into a sprint and fell in beside me. Blue remarked in a perfectly flat voice, "That doping is no joke."
"Is this the time for jokes?"
"No time, so Senior, you take the gun."
"Don't die."
"Yes, sir."
Blue traded a few words with White and peeled off to the side. White kept running beside me, matching my stride perfectly. Watching her run far too well, I screamed as though coughing up blood:
"Who the hell are you people?!"
"Didn't you already figure it out?"
"Figure out WHAT? I'd have to know something first!"
"Exploration Team 1, Special Management Bureau — Baek Sa-ra. Blue is Han Ji-soo, same team."
Well, White — I could believe that. But Blue being Bureau personnel too? That, I genuinely never saw coming!
"By the way, Otter, why are you here? You went home last week, didn't you?"
"You know who I am?"
"Of course. You're Seo Do-woon of 'I'll pay you back someday, whoever you are.'"
Ghkk—! What in the world was that grotesque nickname?! I bit my tongue in shock at the handle that made my skin crawl.
"Are you all right?"
White looked at me with utter innocence as I writhed in pain. I forced a nod, dredging up everything she'd done so far. When I'd stepped on that trap, White had been the last to appear. I'd assumed it was because of her leg. It wasn't. She'd been late because she was busy recognizing me and scribbling 'Special tip!' onto the command board.
With that, the Bureau's scheming all made sense. The reason the convicts hadn't been told anything about the Moving Gun: White and Blue. With Bureau agents embedded among them, the crew was never in danger of being wiped out — and a group blissfully ignorant of the danger was so much easier to push around.
Truly, these devils never change. In any case, I could accept everything up to this point. But one thing still didn't add up. Why hadn't that bastard Cha Si-eon told me there were Bureau people in here?
White — Baek Sa-ra — seemed to share the question, because she asked me instead: "You spoke with Team Leader Cha Si-eon, right? Our being here — Cha Team never mentioned it?"
"He did not!"
"He's always like that," she said with a small sigh.
He's like this normally? He's just built this way? And we're moving past that?! Bile of frustration climbed to my throat, but I forced it down and asked what mattered more.
"Where exactly are we going right now?"
"To the Moving Gun."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"We're going to make it kill Black — before it goes berserk again."
Baek Sa-ra answered with crystalline clarity. When I stared at her in shock, she added with a gentle smile in her eyes:
"That's why we were chasing the gun around from the very beginning."
Ah. So I'd agonized over nothing. There had been someone right beside me, preparing an offering all along. I could only gape at her — and Baek Sa-ra glanced down at her wristwatch. Then she sighed and murmured:
"Oh dear."
"What is it?"
"It seems it's time for the Moving Gun to fire its high-powered rounds."
WHUMP!
The instant the words left her mouth, a tremor rolled through the building. A vibration I'd already felt several times before — the Moving Gun had fired something again. But with no way to tell where or at what, we stopped in our tracks.
A few seconds later, Han Ji-soo's shout rang out from far away. "Get down!"
I understood the command — but there was no time to obey. No. Obeying was the wrong call from the start.
BOOM! BOOM! CRACK—!
Something detonated, and the floor split open. The fracture came surging toward my feet in an instant. As I wobbled, Baek Sa-ra grabbed my shoulder — and my otter-print t-shirt slid slickly right out of her grip.
The next thing I felt was the loss of gravity. Then nothing but perfect, empty air.
THOOM, thud — CRASH!
Chunks of concrete plummeted, followed by tangled, crumpled rebar. I was flung down along with them, and a thick cloud of dust boiled up. Oddly, though, it didn't hurt much. Instead, a shrill ringing hammered my eardrums and the world danced in double vision.
There was something beneath me. A crushed wheelchair — and a crushed Black.
"Otter!"
Baek Sa-ra dropped down beside me with practiced grace — and checked Black's pulse before mine, the man pinning my back. She examined him, then clicked her tongue hard. At that sound, I knew for certain that Black was dead.
"Otter, can you hear my voice? Are you drowsy? Don't fall asleep — keep your eyes open!"
Baek Sa-ra slapped my cheek again and again. I wanted to answer, but my voice wouldn't come. So I just frowned and turned my head, and relief washed over her face. Then she pressed something into my hand.
A cold, heavy mix of metal and plastic. A pistol.
It made no sense. I don't know how to shoot a gun. Besides, the whole world was spinning before my eyes — what good was handing me this now?
But Baek Sa-ra granted no allowance for my condition, dumped the gun on me, and stood. Looking down at me, she murmured, half to herself:
"I'd very much like to keep you alive, Otter — but honestly, I can't promise anything."
Muttering those cryptic words, Baek Sa-ra unzipped her work uniform.
Ziiiip—
The loose top slid away, revealing a snug tactical bodysuit beneath. She tore off the thick outer mask too, leaving only a black mask as her long hair spilled down. Baek Sa-ra swept the long brown hair up and bound it in one motion. Then she began drawing something from each of her sides.
Two large, dark-bladed machetes slid free from her thighs. Twin machetes with the fluid, sinuous curves of fish. Swinging one in each hand, Baek Sa-ra leapt down into the ruin.
My unfocused eyes followed her figure. At the place she was headed, something waited. Whether it was organic or mechanical, I couldn't tell — a monster trailing an arm made of fused rifles.
The Moving Gun.