The Theater That Roots Out the Fake (5)

This, too, was information the Bureau had already catalogued.

And yet the brochure I'd seen earlier hadn't included any of it. There was only a trace of a section that had been sharply sliced away.

Judging by the man's reaction, he knew nothing about Fake Humans either.

Damn it. Why?

If this teddy bear gang had deliberately cut that section out of the rulebook, things just got a lot more complicated.

Clack—!

The skeletons clamped handcuffs onto the Fake Human wearing a woman's shape.

"See that? There are monsters pretending to be people in here. We'll find them for you, so everyone play nice. Got it?"

The teddy bear spoke like a class monitor, then resumed inspecting the people in the cage. It made them move their fingers, ran its hands through their hair, even checked inside their mouths.

"Whoa. Why do you have so many teeth?"

Another one of us had been rooted out — no, another specimen. Behind a neat row of front teeth, it had thirty-two canines.

That one got dragged off as well, leaving three of us — me included. Me, the man, and one elderly gentleman.

Apparently unable to tell by appearance alone anymore, the teddy bear pointed at the man beside me.

"In order: name, age, where you live, what you do. Starting with you, mister."

The stiff-backed man, worn down by everything unfolding before his eyes, complied meekly.

"Choi Sang-eun. Forty-one. Gangdong District, Seoul. I'm a journalist."

"A journalist?! Whoa, guys, he says he's a journalist!"

The teddy bear whooped like a delighted child.

"Journalists make good money too, righ— do they?"

The excitement trailed off into a question. The teddy bear looked Choi Sang-eun up and down. He looked utterly exhausted, in a badly wrinkled suit.

"Hm, well, still, you'd earn about as much as anyone else. But Choi Sang-eun, huh? That name pisses me off for some reason. Whatever. Next!"

The teddy bear pointed at me. I hesitated a moment, then spoke with forced reluctance.

"Park Hyun-jin. Twenty-eight. Seocho District, Seoul. Looking for a job."

The Contaminated Person who'd seized this place — that had to be the teddy bear. So I fudged my name and occupation. I had no idea how good these things' intelligence networks were, and giving the name already logged in the Bureau's org chart would be far too risky.

Fortunately, the teddy bear waved it through without a shred of suspicion or verification.

"Good, good. Next!"

"Im Jong-hak. I'm seventy, and I live in Nowon District……. I'm retired, I just, ah, keep myself busy with little things……"

"Hm. You all seem human enough. Shall we go straight to the sealed-room test?"

Sealed-room test?

I flinched at the words. But there was no room for resistance. Stepping forward and playing knowledgeable here would amount to advertising that I belonged to the Bureau.

"Right, move out!"

At the teddy bear's command, the skeletons pushed our cage. With no floor to it, the rolling lattice forced us to shuffle along as it moved.

Before long we passed through the theater lobby and reached the section with the offices. The skeletons opened an office door and the entrance of the cage, then pressed the two openings together to form a passage.

So this was what it felt like to be a chicken being relocated between coops.

"Step inside."

The teddy bear said it cheerfully, in a quaint period-drama diction, but we didn't move easily.

I knew that office was completely empty. The others didn't. What's more, they'd come straight off a horrific experience in the performance hall, and their wariness of unfamiliar spaces was at its absolute peak.

"What's in there……?"

Im Jong-hak asked in the slow, deliberate tone unique to the elderly. You'd think the bear would show an elder a little respect, but it just stonewalled him.

"Nothing. You just go in and come out."

"Then why do we have to go in at all……"

"Ahh, Grandpa, come on! When you're told to do something, just do it!"

When the teddy bear lost its temper, the skeletons behind us pushed the cage. The folding lattice collapsed inward, swallowing the space bit by bit, until we were shoved through into the office.

Inside, it was a perfectly ordinary office. Rows of work desks divided up by partitions.

The problem wasn't this office — it was the "sealed-room test" the bear had mentioned.

Pretending to survey the room, I kept as much distance from the others as I could.

And toward us, through the crack in the door, the teddy bear called out:

"Then — good luck!"

Click.

The door closed.

"……"

"……"

"……"

An awkward silence stretched on. About three minutes passed like that.

Then the door opened again, and the teddy bear peeked its head in.

"Oh, look at that, nobody's fighting? Hey, journalist mister! Just you come out."

The teddy bear singled out the journalist, Choi Sang-eun. He gave me and Im Jong-hak a quick once-over, then stepped out of the office.

The door shut, and the room became a sealed chamber once more.

Now only two of us remained locked inside — Im Jong-hak and me.

"Excuse me. There's something I need to tell you……"

Im Jong-hak abruptly spoke up, his face grave, and started walking toward me.

So I cut him off flatly.

"Don't come over here. Talk from where you are."

"I did that in case they'd hear outside……"

Despite my refusal, the old man kept inching closer. His anxious expression tugged at my sympathy, but I warned him again anyway.

"Stop right there."

"It's really important."

"No. Still — don't come any closer."

But Im Jong-hak didn't stop. He stopped answering altogether, just swayed along, step by step. A sense of dread surged up in me and I raised my voice.

"Stay back!"

At my shout, Im Jong-hak stopped dead.

Had it understood me? Or had that whole approach just been confusion?

In the instant I was thinking that —

Im Jong-hak, still standing frozen upright, launched himself at me like a maddened beast. In his two pupil-less eyes, nothing remained but blind white.

"——!"

I dodged the charging Im Jong-hak and sprinted for the door.

Rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle—!

But — damn it! The door was locked!

Bang-bang-bang—!

"Open the door!"

I was still screaming myself hoarse when—

CRASH—!

The thing that had been Im Jong-hak slammed into my back.

"Ugh……!"

It coiled around my throat with a grip strength I couldn't believe. Then a cold, damp breath brushed the back of my neck.

I threw every ounce of strength into prying it off. Nothing worked.

"Gh— aagh……!"

The moment I was sure those teeth were about to sink into me—

CRASH—!

Before I knew what I was doing, I had heaved the thing up and slammed it down into the floor.

……Well, well?