I Thought I'd Escaped (2)

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I had no idea what had actually happened to me.

Not the true nature of that bizarre space. Not the identity of this organization claiming to be part of the government. I didn't even know how I was still alive.

There were only three things I could vaguely piece together. That I had been caught up in some grotesque incident. That the incident was classified, kept hidden from ordinary civilians. And that the government organization managing it had an odd, ambiguous character — hard to call either good or evil.

And then, out of nowhere, a huge stack of cash had appeared.

Was that supposed to be a good sign?

I did my best to hide the unease and suspicion that had been rising fast inside me, then threw the question back at the man.

"...What was your question again?"

"I asked under what circumstances you used the book during the barter exchange. Since this is for updating the survival manual, please explain in detail."

The survival manual.

Come to think of it, the pamphlet I'd received had said something about Special Zones managed by the government of the Republic of Korea, too.

"Did you make that manual here?"

"Yes."

"It's meant to keep people alive, right?"

"Yes."

"Then wouldn't it make more sense to just patrol the zones yourselves?"

At my rapid-fire questions, the man let out a short sigh. Then, in a distinctly reluctant tone, he began to speak.

"The zone you entered, Mr. Seo Do-woon, generates lethal factors on a constant basis that we cannot counter. As a result, agent entry and extended stays within it are strictly limited."

...So in other words, you were too busy covering your own hides to go in yourselves?

I feigned bewilderment at his answer. The man immediately prodded me along in a stiff voice.

"Now, your answer, please."

He used the word please, but his tone was closer to interrogation.

Under that naked pressure, my own nerves began to fray as well. If we'd met anywhere else, I'd have simply written him off as an emotionally unbalanced individual. But I had died and come back to life mere minutes ago, and I wasn't composed enough to laugh off this kind of treatment.

"Shall I repeat the question for you one more time?"

"..."

I swallowed my anger — for now.

The question this man had asked. The circumstances of my using the book during the barter. As if there had been much in the way of circumstances — I'd had precious few options at the time.

First of all, the manual had said this:

After recalling all that, I opened my mouth.

"The manual called it 'the One Wearing an Old Military Uniform,' so I started by assuming it was a soldier."

Once I made that assumption, two of the rejected items jumped out at me: pornographic material and food. Sorry to reduce people to something so primal, but those two things are what soldiers generally favor.

"But items a regular soldier would have liked were the ones being refused. Instead, among the successful trades were white flowers and uncooked rice, so I thought it might actually be a dead person — a soldier who'd fallen in battle."

Refusing porn and food meant it had lost its appetite for sex and sustenance. That was the hallmark of someone sick, someone dying — or someone already dead.

If so, then the white flowers would be funeral offerings, and the rice would be the grain placed in a dead person's mouth. Viewed through the same lens, accepting painkillers and burn ointment meant it had burned to death. The handkerchief and the silver ring could be keepsakes honoring a mother or a lover.

And handing a fallen soldier a gun or a blade was, quite obviously, a dangerous idea.

"So I decided the book might actually be accepted. Judging from the cigarettes and the cross it took, it seemed to be looking for some kind of comfort."

That was my line of thinking, and as it happened, the book I carried was worth trying to trade. Because that book was a collection of the finest passages from novels — sentences gathered specifically for their power to soothe the heart.

Sure enough, the One Wearing an Old Military Uniform took an interest in that anthology and tore out a single page to keep.

I had no idea which page it had torn out, which sentence it had claimed. There had been no time to check in the moment, and now there was no way to check at all. My belongings, as far as I could tell, had all been disposed of along with that hazmat suit earlier.

When my explanation ended, the man said nothing. He simply stared at me in silence for a few seconds. When I stared right back, he moved on to his next question.

"Between your first reading of the manual and your encounter with Lee Sol, you did not open it again. Is that correct?"

If you watched my every move, why are you even asking?

"Most people check it a few more times while moving through the zone. Why didn't you?"

"There was no need to check."

"You memorized the whole thing?"

"Yes."

The man gave me a look steeped in suspicion. The same rudeness as ever.

"Recite everything you remember about Route C."

"'Escape via the recycling bin. Recommended if escape through Routes A and B has failed, or if shelter in the Circulating Library is impossible. When the interior of the railroad station becomes fouled with human saliva and the like, a neutral entity called the Cleaner will appear. The recycling bin the Cleaner drags around is connected to the real world and can be used as an escape route. However, anyone entering the bin will have a portion the Cleaner has judged to be dirty removed at random. This may be a part unrelated to sustaining ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠life, such as hair, fingernails, or a limb — or it may be a part directly tied to life itself, such as the heart, the lungs, or the brain—'"

"That will be all."

When I recited the manual verbatim, the man cut me off as though confirming I'd answered correctly. Soldier or National Intelligence Service, whichever he was, his manner of conducting a conversation was a sight to behold.

No — was this even a conversation, or had it been an interrogation all along? Either way, it wasn't pleasant. I didn't even understand why I had to be grilled like this.

The one silver lining was that this man seemed to have no ulterior motive. He'd pulled out a fortune in cash out of nowhere, which had made me suspicious — but he showed no intention of using the money to scam or entice me. If he had, he'd have been a great deal friendlier than this.

Which meant he really was a government official in the middle of executing his public duties.

...Wasn't that a problem in its own right?

Never mind. I just wanted this suffocating interrogation to be over.

While I was thinking exactly that, the man asked me another question.

"Were you still in possession of your reason when you handed your ticket to Lee Sol?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means: was it an act grounded in a rational alternative?"

"..."

"Or was it a desperate, improvised act?"

"Is there a problem with what I did?"

"No problem at all. The compensation allocated to you, Mr. Seo Do-woon, includes a portion for the preservation of human life."

Then what on earth were you asking?

"You strike me as a quick thinker, so I asked to confirm whether there was some other calculation behind it. If not, that's all I needed."

Before I could find my words, the man wrapped up the matter on his own.

So there I was, savoring the delightful experience of having been branded a man with no plan whatsoever, before replying with an empty laugh.

"Right. My calculations fell short. There wasn't a manual for 'cover your own ass first' anywhere in that booklet, either."

At that moment, the man's pen, which had been scratching out notes, stopped dead. He sat motionless for a moment, pen frozen mid-air, then looked at me and spoke stiffly.

"Then feel free to learn from it this time."

"No, thank you. I doubt there's anything worth learning."

I answered with my smile firmly in place, and the man studied me for a long while. I didn't avert my gaze either, so an entirely unintentional staring contest played out between us.

Once again, I found this man deeply unpleasant. No doubt he was looking at me and thinking exactly the same thing.

The man swallowed a sigh and spoke again.

"Lastly — do you have any suggestions regarding the manual we provided?"

Suggestions? Suggestions.

I started to say no, then changed my mind halfway through.

"It's riddled with errors. You really ought to have it proofread."

"Errors, you say?"

"It's incomprehensible from the very first page. Out of nowhere it tells you not to forget you're human — hammering home a fact people recognize naturally without being told doesn't help anyone; it just confuses them. Especially someone who's just been dropped into god-knows-where. If it genuinely needs emphasis, then at minimum give readers a bit of explanation they can actually accept."

At my critique, the man's eyebrow twitched. I pressed on regardless.

"And there's a line saying 'within the Special Zone, all intake acts — eating, drinking, reading, and so on — are strictly forbidden.' Is it really right to lump 'eating and drinking' together with 'reading' in a single category? How is anyone supposed to infer what the other 'so on' behaviors are? When the penalty for breaking a warning isn't something minor but damage to body and mind, shouldn't the meaning be conveyed with far greater precision? And before that, you might want to resolve the contradiction of telling people to read the manual and then warning them not to read anything at all."

Cushioning your words is a fundamental professional skill for an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠editor.

Because when an editor sets out to carve up a manuscript with intent, the author dies.

But this buzz-cut bureaucrat was no author, and he looked like he could stand to learn a thing or two about mutual courtesy. So I continued my dressing-down in the sincere hope that this unfriendly public servant might become slightly friendlier.

The storage lockers were completely impractical — why on earth were they in there? Do you know some people used them to kill others, carve them up, and sell the pieces? You didn't foresee that happening? Are you an idiot?

And naming things the Railroad Police or the Severed Station Attendant, whatever sounded good to you — how is that acceptable? Anyone who didn't know better would go, 'What the hell is this, you degenerate?' And then they'd see the thing in person and freeze solid in horror. Were you all trying to get people killed?

I savored the way the man's face warped as I said everything I'd been holding back. I'd been regretful enough already that I couldn't underline my copy of the manual. Getting a chance like this was something to be grateful for.

"Of course, I do understand you worked hard to make it."

When I added that afterward, the man's eyebrow twitched again. The expression on his face said, you wound me and then offer the cure?

That wasn't it, actually.

There was no cure — and I made that clear with a smile.

"But it seems you'll need to work considerably harder. So by all means, take this opportunity to learn."

I tossed his own words right back at him, worn to fit, and the man's face finally crumpled in a thoroughly satisfying way. He glared at me, jaw clenched tight, before grinding out, reluctantly:

"...We will take it under consideration."