ep7. The Running Corpses (7)

"Team Leader, one of the missing is sending a signal toward our position?"

"—Do not make contact. Clear the area."

Surely it was a plea for rescue. Yet Cha Si-eon's response was merciless.

"—The protocol is to avoid contact with any missing person who cannot be rescued."

He didn't even grant me the chance to ask why. With no alternative, we got up and moved back to the room where we had first started.

"—A rescue plan for you and Gwak Jae-gyeom has just been decided. To ensure a stable extraction, one agent and two inmates will be deployed."

So they were sending in the inmates after all.

"—The pair's combined weight exceeds that of three of our agents. Use the two of them to escape by the same method as last time."

What was this, Hansel and Gretel?... Sending them in and telling us to pick out the fattest inmates and eat them.

"How many people are here right now, in total?"

"—Six."

"Then how about this — send just one inmate, get one civilian out, and we'll clean the stadium?"

By no means an easy process — but the most economical one. Inmates were precious Bureau resources too, after all; this way we'd spend only one instead of two, and we'd spring one more civilian in the bargain.

"—Denied."

Cha Si-eon cut my proposal down with a single stroke.

"—As I said before, cleaning the 147 'Running Corpses' under current conditions would take roughly three days. The civilian inflow rate for this Special Zone, on the other hand, is 0.8 people per day."

...Which meant at least two more people would wander in over those three days. And once the headcount grew, the stadium-cleaning route would be sealed off again.

"Has anyone actually escaped through stadium cleaning so far?"

"—Bureau agents have attempted it as a verification trial. Five fully equipped agents cleared a course of one hundred corpses over 8 hours and 41 minutes, then escaped."

Nearly nine hours, even for agents in full gear. And that was surely nine hours at a dead sprint, resolved to collapse the moment they got out. Stretch the work time beyond that — and with ordinary people like me on the job — and you'd have to build in rest and sleep on top of it.

I was wrong. Looked like there was no making this one work.

"Is there any other escape route, by any chance?"

...Still, giving up just like that left a bad taste in my mouth. No — honestly? I wanted to keep the fallout as light as possible. Walk out of here as-is, and I'd be haunted by the memory of that coat waving back at me, begging for help. I didn't want to carry a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠weight like that out the door. So let me at least build myself an excuse — the wonderfully convenient kind, the excuse that at least I tried.

"These are just the two routes the Bureau knows about. It's not as if they're the only ways out there, are they?"

"—You mean to find a new route. Now."

"Yes."

Maybe he'd call it pointless stubbornness.

"—In that case, I can give you about an hour."

"What's gotten into you?"

"—Fifty-nine minutes and fifty-four seconds remaining. Get moving."

This man's temperament was genuinely remarkable. Cold-blooded or scalding hot — pick one already. What kind of personality comes in stages, like a pot of scorched rice?

Either way, we now had a window to search for another method. Jae-gyeom and I decided to start by combing the indoor spaces for clues.

The first place we examined was the first-floor conference hall — the site of Route B: Escape via the White Shadow with the Pierced Chest. But the hall was completely empty.

"Guess it won't even show itself, since we don't qualify."

The "White Shadow with the Pierced Chest" only extended its help to those who had served their nation, contributed to society, or practiced the sharing of what they had. But I had a rebuttal of my own.

"I saved people at the 'Railway Station,' didn't I?"

"And you got paid a fortune for it, too."

"You can't just write it all off at once like that...?!"

Compensation was compensation, and rescue was rescue! But before I could press the argument with Gwak Jae-gyeom, a newer question struck me.

"You said it before, remember — that Special Zones are spaces hostile to human beings."

"—A Special Zone's defining trait is its hostile response toward humans. It operates for the purpose of drawing in unspecified civilians by unknowable means, and killing or assimilating them."

Cha Si-eon's words, from before.

"But for something that's merely hostile, isn't it built awfully cumbersomely?"

"—Cumbersome, how?"

"There are elements that are quietly favorable to people — and above all, there are far too many rules."

"—That Special Zones are hostile to humans is a fact we have already proven. The Special Zone you experienced, Seo Do-woon, is only that tame because the Bureau is suppressing it. A fully matured one is anything but gentle."

Cha Si-eon rebutted with finality. Bureau suppression. Matured Special Zones. These were concepts I was hearing about for the first time today. There was evidently some complicated history behind them, but I pressed on.

"But if it were truly nothing but hostile, then all these rules, hints, forms of aid, and escape routes would be pointless, wouldn't they? There'd be no need for them to exist."

"—So what is your point?"

"That it's, unexpectedly, built on common sense and courtesy. Like a game that was made to be cleared."

At that, Gwak Jae-gyeom cut in, dumbfounded.

"It's making us play soccer with corpses?"

"It still follows the rule that things have to go into the goal, doesn't it?"

Winners and losers decided through a sporting match, the winner rewarded. When the stadium gets filthy, you clean it; when the work is done, you clock out. Either way, it's common sense. Even if the details are devilish.

And this placid common sense held in the other Special Zones too. To escape the Railway Station, you board a train. To leave the Mart, you go shopping. All of it was a clumsy, common-sense imitation of those places. So what about this sports complex?

"What outnumbers the players and the cleaners in a stadium is the spectators. So shouldn't there be an escape route for people with spectator status?"

Gwak Jae-gyeom groaned at my hypothesis, thoroughly bewildered.

"And how exactly do you get spectator status?"

"There'd be some condition, like a supermarket membership. Holding a ticket, maybe — or having your player status revoked."

"—Ha Yu-ju was recognized as a player even with her wrist severed."

"There are Paralympics, after all."

"Dead people count as players here, though?"

"Around here, you can run even when you're dead."

"—..."

"..."

"No, think about it seriously. Players or cleaners, there's twenty, thirty of them at most — but spectators number in the thousands, the tens of thousands. So there has to be a spectator-only escape route too."

I knew — I knew I was leaping to a colossal conclusion. But this space itself was the final boss of leaps in logic, so what could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you do? Let me think in step with its rhythm, then. Conditions for the revocation of player status that this space would accept. What came to mind right away:

"Doping?"

"No more drugs left — the Hippo used them all up earlier."

"School violence?"

"All I did as a kid was study..."

"Drunk driving?"

"I hardly drink."

This guy's only delinquency was his hair; the rest of him was absurdly earnest. Then Cha Si-eon intoned:

A thick silence settled over us. I was a little thrown, but I rebutted without letting it show.

"A sexual offense is something that happens when one side's consent is absent. So nothing we tried among ourselves would qualify. That would be consensual — between adults."

Good. A proper defense. Pleased with my own statement, I turned back to Jae-gyeom.

But Gwak Jae-gyeom, my friend — why is your hand on your gun?

"—Fortunately, it appears it will not be consensual."

"Why is that fortunate?! He's holding a gun right now! The gun's one thing, and never mind me — but Gwak Jae-gyeom is your own subordinate. Is this how you treat him? It's not as if ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠we're never going to see each other's faces again; we work together. Where's the basic human courtesy, the bare minimum of respect? No — before any of that: that man earlier went on and on about sexual offenses, and yet his player status stayed valid right to the end. That's already been confirmed."

"—I see."

"..."

"—You've made yourself understood, so calm down. Your heart rate has spiked considerably."

This was one hundred percent deliberate. See there? He was doing it on purpose! Apparently Cha Si-eon simply could not tolerate the notion that Special Zones made sense. And Gwak Jae-gyeom looked fairly skeptical himself.

Had I misread things? Or was my idea too extreme? Well — revocation of player status was the sort of thing that only occasionally made the society pages. ...Hold on. Right. That was never a common occurrence. What happened commonly, as a matter of course, was...

At the thought that flashed through my mind, I turned to Gwak Jae-gyeom.

"Jae-gyeom."

"Yeah?"

"You've still got live rounds left, right?"

"Team Leader, if anything happens to me, please make sure I'm laid to rest at the National Cemetery. It's classified, sure, but don't just go scattering me into the sea. Got it?"

"—Come back alive, and the first thing I'll do is sew your mouth shut."

At Cha Si-eon's frost-edged retort, Gwak Jae-gyeom quit his whining and raised his gun.

Bang—!

With the report of a single shot, the handle of the broadcast room door dropped away. Jae-gyeom kicked the door open, then tucked himself behind the wall. After waiting a beat for any reaction, he swept the interior with a searchlight. All that National Cemetery talk — pure theater, this guy.

"Looks like nobody's in there."

"—Move in."

We entered the broadcast room. According to the earlier exploration report, the broadcasting equipment here worked normally. Just what kind of interaction it allowed, however, had never been established.

I switched on the broadcast room's microphone and held my smartwatch up to it.

"Play the sound, please."

At my request, a sharp, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠jarring blare erupted from the smartwatch.

Beeeeeeep—!

A referee's whistle, announcing the end of the match. And what followed was music — the kind that salutes players who gave everything they had.

Right — revocation of player status was the kind of event that only occasionally made the society pages. The end of a match, meanwhile, was a mandatory routine in every single game. And when a match ends, the spectators go home. So if we staged the end of a match, what would happen to the people hiding in the stands?

Holding our breath, we waited for the Special Zone's response. We waited quite a while.

"Pretty sure we've just become the whistle-blowers."

"...Ha."

I was covering my face in mortification when the floor abruptly gave way beneath my feet.

"...!"

Falling? No — this was... weightlessness. The vertigo of the ground vanishing under me and the bewilderment of my body drifting upward arrived together. Aghast at the sensation of being lifted, I hastily looked around.

"Do-woon hyung!"

Not far away was Gwak Jae-gyeom, backed by a void of black.

"Eek!"

"Aaaagh!"

Screams rang out, and when I turned, I saw them — far off, other people floating just like us. Four in all. The missing who had been hiding in this space.

"Hyung, grab it!"

Jae-gyeom flung a rope toward me. As I flailed to catch it, something cut across my path — something black, beyond identifying, beyond pushing back. Panicked, I twisted to look behind me. But the people back there, too, were being veiled, little by little, by some darkness.

They hadn't vanished. Something was eclipsing my field of view, the way the moon eclipses the sun. And when that darkness narrowed into a sliver of a gap, like the webbing between fingers, I understood. The hand that had taken Ha Yu-ju earlier. It was reaching to close around me.

The darkness came binding down and smothered my breath. Then my consciousness plunged headlong into the abyss.

Everything around me brightened all at once. A woman was facing me. A lovely face — but an expression clouded with worry. Someone I knew.

"Baek Sa-ra...?"

Seeing her appear out of nowhere, I murmured in a daze.

Baek Sa-ra's eyes flew wide open. Then she shouted — not at me, but toward somewhere else:

"Seo Do-woon's come to!"