Episode 9. Flushing Out the Fakes (6)
CRASH!
The Fake Human went down in a single move.
And then there was me, more shocked by what I had just done than anything.
"What... what have I just done?"
"Ms. Baek Sa-ra, are you watching this?"
You have officially turned a frail editor into a human weapon.
"-You need to stay focused until the very end."
Ah, right.
I snapped out of my dazed admiration, recalled Baek Sa-ra's words, and moved again. This Fake Human's strength was clearly superior to mine. Which meant I had to end it in one stroke. A strike? No, that alone wouldn't guarantee a finish.
So instead.
I grabbed one of the fallen Fake Human's legs. There are parts of the human body that can never be trained or conditioned. The joints. Intending to wrench and snap the thing's ankle, I looped my leg through its.
Hmm, but wait.
Was there ever any word that these things had joints identical to humans?
CRRACK!
Why is it that gloomy premonitions are never wrong? Before I had even twisted, the Fake Human broke its own ankle to slip out of my hold.
"Ugh...!"
I recoiled in horror and braced for a counterattack.
BANG!
Just then, the door swung open. The teddy bear poked its head in again. And the Fake Human froze mid-motion. Its eyes returned to normal, and it moaned from beneath me.
"S-save me......"
Back to being a gaunt old man, writhing in pain — at the sight of it, I was genuinely flustered. Worse, my current posture, pinning the old man to the floor, was the very textbook definition of elder abuse.
"No, wait, this is—!"
Before I could protest, the skeletons came swarming in. I backed away to avoid them, but their target had never been me in the first place.
Click!
The skeletons slapped handcuffs on the Fake Human that was Im Jong-hak. And the teddy bear came over to me, grinning ear to ear.
"Whoa, you've worked out some, huh?"
This little......
"These things have zero manners. Left alone with a person, they go berserk and just attack, y'know."
"You knew that, and you still ran the experiment?"
If I hadn't been on guard beforehand, I'd have been caught completely flat-footed. A surge of indignation made me lash out on purpose. "If you knew that, you could have warned me in advance, or tied the thing down! I nearly died!"
"Ah, we'd like to keep things safe too. But when their eyes go all crazy and they're in hunting mode, they get so strong they snap right out of restraints. That's why we don't bother tying 'em. Tied up, it's always the humans who get hurt."
When I exploded, the teddy bear gave a sly, self-serving excuse. And what it had just said was true. I knew the habit as well — but putting it into words like that would make it look a little more natural, wouldn't it?
As I kept fuming, the teddy bear pretended to placate me and shuffled outside. Then it spoke to Choi Sang-eun, who had already been waiting out there. "We got all the fakes, so you can relax now. Sorry if it scared you."
What is this?
The teddy bear had suddenly become considerate.
"Commander Gong!"
Just then, one of the skeletons that had been sweeping the theater came running up to the bear. "There are two bodies inside!"
"Oh no, how awful. Let's all bow our heads for them."
The teddy bear pressed its paws together in prayer and bowed its head. At that, the other skeletons assumed similar poses, closing their eyes and lowering their skulls.
What is with this politeness? I'd assumed they were a demented gang of brutes, but apparently not? And it seemed they still hadn't found the Bureau vest I'd thrown off — it must have slipped under a seat and been passed over. I secretly let out a breath of relief while Choi Sang-eun asked the bear:
"Now, please explain. What is all this? Where exactly is this place, and why am I here?"
Mid-question, urgent as he was, Choi Sang-eun's face suddenly went pale. "Could it be... am I already dead?"
"Nah, the dead ones are over there somewhere, why would you think that? You're alive and kicking, mister."
The teddy bear answered with a snicker. "Hey mister, you ever played video games?"
"Games?"
"When a game glitches out, you clip through the map and wander around where there's no roads, right? That's what this is. You just got unlucky, took a wrong step, and fell in here."
"What kind of — then what are those monsters? The stage earlier, and all of it......"
"Ah, don't ask me that. You go up a mountain and there's bugs everywhere, but nobody knows their names. They're just... bug-type things."
Bear-shaped though it was, the teddy bear's explanation, careless as it was, had a certain clarity to it. It seemed fairly used to the Special Zone's environment. But for Choi Sang-eun, for whom all of this was brand new, it was pure confusion. So I cut in smoothly.
"Then what are you people? Do you live here?"
"Us? We just help people out."
...Really?
"Getting out of here is surprisingly easy. But people don't know that, so they die in droves running around in circles. And even the ones who do know get wiped out if the fakes outnumber them. So we manage the place."
Really?
Were you all actually good kids?
"Are the people here affiliated with some organization or government agency?"
"Huh? Nah, it's just us doing our own thing."
"So it's a neighborhood watch, then?"
"Neighborhood watch?"
At Choi Sang-eun's question, the teddy bear scratched at its bear mask, then turned to the skeletons and asked, "What's a neighborhood watch?"
"Aren't they, like, YouTubers?"
"......"
At the Gomdan Gang's innocent cluelessness, Choi Sang-eun and I were left speechless. These guys were a bit rough and a bit dim, but they didn't seem like bad people. Come to think of it, the message I'd received earlier only told me to hide my Bureau affiliation. Which meant, by implication, that contact as an ordinary civilian was fine. Thinking of it that way put my mind somewhat at ease.
"Follow us for now. There are other people who got here before you."
The bear waved us forward and took the lead, and Choi Sang-eun and I followed. Along the way, Choi Sang-eun pulled a performance brochure from the inner pocket of his suit and asked, "The person who made this pamphlet — where can I find them?"
"Oh, you can't be holding onto that. The next person needs to see it too. Hey, Number 7! Take this back to the theater."
"It said in here that this place is under government management."
"Management is fuc— huh? Aaahh!"
The teddy bear, ambling along, suddenly shouted and stopped dead. As we startled and looked around in alarm, it jabbed a paw at Choi Sang-eun and yelled, "I-I remember now! Choi Sang-eun! Your name starts the same as that son of a bitch!"
Name order? Son of a bitch?
Choi Sang-eun and I stared blankly, and the teddy bear burst out in a fury. "Cha Si-eon! That XXX son of a bitch! Ah, damn it, no wonder I felt sick the second I heard the name! That's it!"
...Oh dear. So kids these days call consonant-initial spellings "name order," apparently. And Team Leader Cha — always finding some way to leave an impression just when you'd forgotten he existed.
"Cha Si-eon, you say?"
"Total garbage son of a bitch. That guy sucked us dry and then threw us away!"
"Sucked you dry?"
"We didn't do anything, nothing at all, and he threatened to arrest us. So we did whatever he told us to watch the place, groveled like actual dogs. Then the guys who ran with me — he used them as bait and three of them died. Once he'd used them up and didn't need them anymore, he backstabbed us hard! The rest of the guys got hauled off and I barely escaped, that XXX......!"
The teddy bear ranted with real passion, and I focused hard on keeping my face neutral. If they found out I was Bureau personnel, it would be a genuine catastrophe......
Choi Sang-eun, meanwhile, had gone pale for an entirely different reason. "Used as bait and killed? What kind of situation was that? When did this happen, and where?"
"Last year, maybe? It was one of those red places with old buildings. Never been there before either, so I couldn't tell you where. We just got dragged along."
This was heading somewhere ugly. Choi Sang-eun, true to his profession, looked ready to dig into the matter. And the more troubling part was that even my own trust in the Bureau was at rock bottom. Cha Si-eon really does seem like the type who'd pull something that vicious......
What am I going to do about this?
I agonized in silence — but it wasn't long before I realized the worry was pointless.
"What does this Cha Si-eon person do, exactly?"
"Public servant. That pamphlet is their group's work."
"A civil servant did that? What ministry is he with?"
"Ministry? Pretty sure he doesn't have a religion."
The teddy bear was rough-mannered but good-hearted — and a little slow on the uptake. Whether to call that fortunate or lamentable, I couldn't decide. Either way, it wasn't going to produce anything resembling usable information.
The bear picked back up the steps it had briefly stopped on and chirped along cheerfully. "Seriously, the absolute worst. They dumped that pamphlet here and emptied the place out, so we're the ones keeping it running!"
"Here, this is my card."
"Oh? What's this for?"
"Later — first, once you're out of here, please contact me. If you tell me about this Cha Si-eon person and this space, I'll look for a way to help. And could you give me your mobile number?"
Choi Sang-eun was unmistakably a journalist. But something felt off? Unlike Choi Sang-eun's passionate drive to secure a source, the teddy bear seemed wholly indifferent even after taking the card. Wouldn't exposing Cha Si-eon's human rights abuses be a golden opportunity?
"Yeah, well. If the mister makes it out of here in one piece."
"Is there a special way out? Can't you just go through the exit?"
"Obviously not. Did you come in here through a door, mister?"
"Then how do I......"
"Easy. Bring one of those Fake Humans along, and you can leave right away."
ESCAPE ROUTE A. Departure via those wearing the old-style uniforms
One person may escape for each Fake Human taken.
"So that's why you captured those fakes?"
"Yep. If we didn't filter 'em out, people would get taken in by those things, follow them around, and end up dead."
The teddy bear said it matter-of-factly. But could I really take all of this at face value? Who was it that had cleanly sliced the Fake Human section out of the brochures stocked inside the theater? If not these guys, no one else would have bothered. Concealing my suspicion, I asked the bear: "How long have you been here?"
"Us? About a month now?"
Only a month. Not all that long, then. What exactly is your objective? Genuine volunteer work?
"Then may I use one of those fakes?"
Choi Sang-eun asked, pointing at the handcuffed Fake Humans. They were being led along in a line by the skeletons.
"Not for free. We caught 'em, didn't we? We've gotta get paid for the labor. Gotta eat."
Once money entered the picture, Choi Sang-eun's expression actually turned understanding. So was mine. If the guy in a teddy bear mask were volunteering in this chaotic space purely out of the goodness of his heart, that would be terrifying. But sticking around here for money? That I could understand — and it was a relief. Yes.
Which left exactly one question.
"How much is the labor fee?"
"That's for you to decide, mister."
The teddy bear answered Choi Sang-eun breezily. Decide it myself? What did that mean? I'd expected it to open its mouth and try to squeeze out a high price.
Without further explanation, the bear climbed the stairs. We went up to the third floor and found a lobby furnished with sofas. And there, five or six people were seated.
Toward them, the teddy bear bellowed at full volume:
"Escape tickets, fresh off the line! Three today — call your prices!"
What?
Before I even had time to gape at the bear's cry, the seated people shot to their feet and answered:
"Twenty million won!"
"Twenty-five!"
"Twenty-sev......!"
Astonishingly, they had begun an auction.
Yet another scene of pure madness.