Welcome to the Special Management Bureau (1)

I opened my eyes to a white ceiling. It was a scene I had seen once before. "Rescues 12 and 13 have regained consciousness." And a voice I had heard once before as well. When I turned my head, I saw a person in a protective suit. "Are you awake, rescuee? Can you see this?" The suit waved a ballpoint pen in front of my eyes as it asked. The same half-hearted gestures as ever. I stared for a moment at the pen bobbing in front of my face, then — mostly because it annoyed me — smacked it away with the back of my hand. "Ah—" Thwack. The pen went clattering off and rolled across the floor. The suit stared at the fallen pen for a beat, then fished a new one out of its pocket and scribbled something down. "Optic nerve function normal. Musculoskeletal response normal as well." Damn it. The person inside that suit was evidently the type of diplomat who could graciously shrug off a rescueee's insolence. Resentful of that composure, and grieving this déjà vu all over again, I squeezed my eyes shut.

"I'm so sorry for the sudden news, Editor-in-Chief. Ah, my body is fine, it's just... no, actually. Yes, yes... Thank you. I'll call as soon as the test results come in." I hung up the phone and let out a long breath. Then I looked at the men sitting across the table from me. Two of them were seated before me. One was Cha Si-eon, whose neck I had not yet gotten around to wringing. The other was, of all things, a young blond man. The stranger of the two, the blond, opened with a smile. "You must have a lot of questions." At his words, I feigned surprise. I'd never seen his face before, but the voice was familiar. It was the voice of that protective suit. "Yep, that's me. Gwak Jae-gyeom of Response Team 3." Once he'd introduced himself, the suit — Gwak Jae-gyeom — turned out to be a guy who looked to be in his early-to-mid twenties. His face wore a beaming grin that matched his lively voice, and his hair was flamboyantly bleached blond. In both vibe and appearance, he was the complete opposite of the gloomy Cha Si-eon. And then this Gwak Jae-gyeom suddenly leaned forward, eyes gleaming. "Rescuee — can I call you hyung?" "...Excuse me?" "Yes. Really, truly, from the bottom of my heart!" Out of nowhere, this sudden brotherly intimacy. When I just stared at him, baffled, Gwak Jae-gyeom barreled on at full volume. "Because honestly, we were watching everything again this time. And wow, taking off your mask like that — that was to save Sa-ra noona, right? None of us saw that coming. Not at all." Oh, that's what this was about. "Did Baek Sa-ra and Han Ji-soo make it out all right?" "Yep, both of them. They got banged up a little, but nothing life-threatening." "Thank goodness." As I exhaled in relief, Gwak Jae-gyeom grinned and started chattering again. "Anyway, when you pulled off that mask, honestly, nobody was holding out much hope. Between you and me, I figured you'd die on the spot. But you held on way longer than anyone expected, and people started getting hyped, then furious that the rescue team hadn't gone in yet... seriously, it was absolute pandemonium." Gwak Jae-gyeom carried on in high spirits, but I wasn't in the mood to join the celebration, so I just sat there looking glum. He responded by trying even harder. "I'm not exaggerating, okay? When that monster of a gun goes berserk, you can count on one hand the people in the whole Bureau who could hold it off alone. And you did it with no weapons, wearing nothing but an otter T-shirt? Of course everyone lost their minds! Right now the field teams and the support teams are all on high alert because of you. We even founded the 'Save the Otter Campaign Headquarters' yesterday." The Save the Otter Campaign Headquarters. This is mockery, isn't it? And why are you already calling me hyung? No — wait, before that. Do the people at this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Bureau all spectate Special Zone situations together like it's a live sports broadcast? Come to think of it, Baek Sa-ra had known about me from the start, too. "Anyway, same as with the Railroad Station, and now this — you've got everyone incredibly worked up, hyung. Oh, and your response to the Moving Gun is being added to the manual, so the Bureau will be arranging separate compensation for that as well." "Okay, hold on." I cut off Gwak Jae-gyeom's ever-lengthening monologue. It was mostly good news, but right now there was a more urgent matter I needed to address first. "Before any of that — what exactly is going on here? Why can't I go home?" My personal safety, specifically. I had already filed an indefinite sick leave with my company, citing the lingering aftereffects of that car accident a while back. Of course, that excuse was part fabrication; the real reason was something else entirely. Because these people had informed me that I 'wouldn't be able to go home for a while.' Being dragged into a Special Zone and tossed around again was absurd enough, but now I couldn't even go home? Compensation, shmompensation — what I needed was an explanation. At that, Cha Si-eon, who had been sitting beside him, spoke up as if he'd been waiting for this. "First, allow me to explain what a Special Management Zone is." "Why would you—" But I asked back, and Cha Si-eon, his sentence cut off, looked at me. So I raised my objection again, precisely this time. "I asked why I can't go home. Why are you suddenly going into that? Last time you told me to keep my nose out of it and focus on returning to my normal life." At my remark, Cha Si-eon's gaze abruptly drifted somewhere far away. What is it with you? Why are you avoiding my eyes? "The situation has changed. I will explain everything in due order." This is ominous. My premonition was far from good, but I had no choice except to listen. "To begin: a Special Management Zone, or Special Zone hereafter, is a hazardous space whose underlying principles remain unexplained. Its defining characteristic is hostility toward human beings — it operates with the purpose of luring in specific or random citizens and killing or absorbing them in unspecified ways." No point being shocked by it now, but still — what kind of preposterous nonsense was this? A hostile space of unknown origin. This wasn't some urban legend. I never expected to hear something I'd have doubted even in an author's manuscript — spoken as plain fact in reality. "Civilian abductions into Special Zones have been observed worldwide only in the Seoul metropolitan area of South Korea. The exact point at which this phenomenon first appeared cannot be determined, but the government formally recognized the existence of the Zones and began official countermeasures eight years ago." "Eight years?" I had been listening in silence, but I interrupted in surprise. "Didn't you say the rulebook for the Hospital that Hunts Humans is still being written?" Wouldn't that mean the investigation had barely begun? After all, what Baek Sa-ra and the convicts had been doing looked closer to initial-stage reconnaissance. And yet they'd been responding for eight years? Sensing my confusion, Gwak Jae-gyeom stepped in with an explanation. "Well, you see, there are a lot more Special Zones than you'd think." "How many?" "Thirty-seven under active monitoring alone." That had to be a lie. "And we've closed around ninety of them over the past eight years." ...All right, then. Let me revise. I reeled at the number of Zones under monitoring, then recovered my peace of mind upon hearing how many had been shut down. Either way, our government was clearly the stronger side, steadily wiping them out one by one. Long live humanity. Optimistically jumping to my own conclusions, I asked, "Then you've cleared out quite a lot — there can't be many left, right?" "Uh, no, it's a bit different from that. This is from before my time, but the Bureau's original policy was all-out war." "All-out war?" "Yes, sir. Whenever a Zone was discovered, they'd finish the preliminary survey and then send in the troops — people like Team Leader Cha here — to storm in and blow the whole thing to pieces." Right. Exorcism is, and always has been, physical. And it did seem to work, honestly. Picturing the moment the Moving Gun had been blown to smithereens, I asked, "They don't do that anymore?" "No. No matter how thoroughly you destroy one, an identical one regenerates before long." "They regenerate?" "Mm, you know how lettuce or scallions keep sprouting new leaves as long as the roots are intact, even after you cut off the tops? Special Zones are apparently like that — whether they have separate roots or not, no matter how many times they crushed them, new ones just kept appearing." "I see..." "So eventually they gave up. Our casualties during the all-out war were severe, and every new Zone meant re-identifying its traits and patterns all over again... and crucially, the total never grew beyond thirty-seven, so two years ago the directive changed — stop destroying them, start managing them." I had gotten my premise wrong. It wasn't that there had originally been around 130 Zones and the government had bombed them down to 37. There had always been 37, and for eight years the government had thrown every method imaginable at eradicating them — and they still numbered 37. In other words: the goal had been extermination, but it turned out to be pouring water into a bottomless jar, so they compromised on containment. Humanity is weaker than my faith in it, huh... And hearing all this, I couldn't help but ask the next question. "Then how many people in total have been taken into the Special Zones?" "It varies year to year, but as of last year, roughly 4,500 civilians were pulled into the Zones, of whom 208 made it out alive." Astonishing, and yet not surprising at all. At the Railroad Station with the Blaring Siren, I had personally witnessed four people die. All within an hour or two. And with dozens more spaces like that out there, the figures Gwak Jae-gyeom quoted weren't absurd at all. "That many people vanish every year, and somehow it's stayed hidden...?" "Ah, that's also a bit different — it's less that it's hidden and more that it just doesn't stand out." At my lament, Gwak Jae-gyeom answered with an awkward smile. "The metropolitan area has a population of about thirty million. Add in all the unregistered residents and it's far more than that — 4,500 people vanishing out of that isn't a number anyone would notice. It's a little higher than the annual traffic fatality count, and way below the suicide rate." Gwak Jae-gyeom's arithmetic was brutally cold. And at the same time so grounded in reality that Author Na Bit's words drifted back to me. How would the world look to a being of a higher order than humans? Flames raging beside someone peacefully sipping tea. A child's bicycle rolling past a body burned black. Na Bit's imagination had been no mere daydream after all. Anyway, I figured I'd learned enough about Special Zones for now. "So, to sum up: Special Zones are spaces of unknown origin that lure people in and harm them, first discovered in this country eight years ago. There are thirty-seven of them in total, they regenerate no matter how many times you destroy them, and last year 4,500 people were taken in, of whom only around 200 came back alive." "Yep, exactly right." "And that's why I can't go home?" After all that circling, we'd finally reached the point. ...By the way, what ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠are you two doing over there? At my question, Cha Si-eon and Gwak Jae-gyeom glanced at each other. They exchanged some meaningful look, seemed to reach a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠decision, then turned back to face me. Seriously, stop doing that. Why are you both looking so grave? It's making me anxious. When I met their gazes with wary eyes, Gwak Jae-gyeom spoke again. "As you've probably gathered by now, the odds of an ordinary citizen being pulled into a Special Zone are genuinely tiny — about the same as getting struck by lightning. But for one person to fall into a Zone twice in a row? That's a truly astronomical improbability. Except you've already lived through it, hyung, so as far as we're concerned, probability stopped mattering a long time ago." Why is this preamble so long? Sensing something ominous, I just asked him straight. "What's the conclusion?" "You'll most ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠likely keep getting pulled into the Special Zones from now on." At this point, even God owes me an apology. Not that I intend to accept it. Ever.