Doctor, Patriot, and Terrorist (2)
Ever since that bastard of a mentor met his spiritual death, the nightmares that had tormented me for so long boiled down to one dynamic kind and one static kind.
The dynamic one was a nightmare in the literal sense. Like a broken tape recorder endlessly looping a specific segment, the memory of that day—being chased without end, with no reprieve—revived ceaselessly in my dreams, repeating over and over. Most of my nightmares fell into this dynamic category.
The static one was the nightmare of sleep paralysis. It was rarer in frequency, but no less terrifying when it hit, and the foul mood it left behind was just as bad. The old term for sleep paralysis refers to the scary dream itself or the frightening thing that appears in it. In my static nightmares, the scary thing was the "Sun" of the imperialists seated around the Round Table Cabinet.
The Sun, symbolizing the source of all power and truth. Or, as they called it, the human who witnessed the Great Flood. This Great Flood they spoke of was the unprecedented catastrophe that followed the Golden Age: the twilight era when the mana essence and mana that had filled the world ebbed away like a tide retreating to the far reaches of the cosmos. According to the Round Table of Light and Truth, the world had since languished in a dark age bereft of truth's light. That was their account of ancient history.
The discoverers of the Sun had extracted the heart from ancient remains, gouged out the eyeballs, and cracked open the skull to pull out the dried brain. Even in the mummified corpse, these three organs had preserved their original form. The first discoverers—the inaugural representatives of the Round Table Cabinet—instinctively sensed that the key to transcendent wisdom lay within them, and their instinct proved spot on.
So the Sun's empty eye sockets staring right at me now were like pitch-black voids.
“—”
In the dark dream, resonances too profound for words filled the space. The droning hum resembled countless overlapping whispers, or the cries of innumerable infants, or curses laced with pleas aimed straight at me. Through all these echoes, the Sun seemed to tell me this: the world I saw with my eyes had never been mine to behold.
My heartbeat quickened. Even knowing it was a dream, the mechanical terror glitch in my brain and body couldn't be fully overridden by limited reason. My chest felt crushed. Instinctive shortness of breath synergized with the malfunctioning fear. Still, my rational efforts weren't entirely futile, so I always tried to observe my state objectively.
'At most four or five minutes.'
Counting down from three hundred usually freed my body before zero. Days when I hit zero and still couldn't wake were just unusually unlucky ones. Counting also helped by affirming the dream's end, dulling the terror.
“—”
The persistent drone burrowed into the gaps in my consciousness as the scent of a desert-dry corpse—chilled by the dark space—lingered at the nose of the dreamer. Amid it all, the unpleasant heat flooding my head from the racing pulse and rising blood pressure. How many desperate attempts to move had I made? I felt my head shift slightly to the right. A failed attempt to wake, but it meant release was near. My body stuttered back to life. The third, fourth, fifth tries failed in succession, but on the sixth, my head finally snapped over.
The breath that broke the paralysis was always a massive inhale.
“……Hoo.”
Exhaling a long sigh as I stared at the ceiling, I sat up and ran a hand over my forehead. My palm was slick with cold sweat. The digital clock read 4:35 a.m. My head throbbed from heavy drowsiness, but it was too early to slip back into that vulnerable dawn. Experience had taught me that lying down now would just invite repeated paralysis.
'I thought I'd gotten much better...'
Whether dynamic or static, the nightmares had dwindled dramatically compared to my fugitive days. Lucid dreams under my control had become more common as a bonus. But no sooner had I returned from Indonesia to headquarters than the nightmares closed in again. Not as bad as pre-magic resurgence, but enough to dread sleep itself. I'd suspected as much, but apparently the quality of my rest had hinged largely on the ongoing battles.
The sense of fighting. Not just hiding and fleeing helplessly, but advancing steadily toward clear goals, step by step. That conviction had faded a lot since returning to Korea. Killing the puppeteer had reaffirmed it: turning myself into asymmetric warfare was key to conquering London. The Round Table imperialists, even on the battlefield, would stick to aristocratic roles and couldn't match my combat experience.
So I needed the fight. Experiences to temper my soul and make me stronger.
Emerging from the bedroom attached to my office to banish the silence, I flicked on the TV. The news channel—permanently tuned in, practically—showed the world's deepening chaos as always. Sinking into the office chair, I pulled up the electronic documents I'd been reviewing before bed. But fatigue or the paralysis's afterglow made focusing on the text impossible.
What made the Sun paralysis so vicious was the lingering urge to gouge out my eyes even after waking. Short as a few hours, long as until day's end. At its root lay alienation and foreignness: the sense that they weren't mine, amplified into intense revulsion. Naturally, it made me want to rip them out. The trick was self-hypnosis: repeating that the Golden Age's Eyes were just prosthetics.
My focus wandered uselessly over the documents. Irritated, I grabbed the remote and cranked the TV volume loud.
What utter nonsense. As laughable as conspiracy theories claiming superpowers and immortal cancer stem from 5G networks run by a shadow government ruling the world in secret. Among all mystical knowledge, only that rooted in Golden Age wisdom held real value—which explained why the Round Table imperialists had devolved into dogmatic worshippers of the Golden Age.
Once, during internal training, Kyung-tae had asked me:
“Why are those guys so obsessed with the Golden Age?”
I countered like a Zen koan:
“Have you ever heard the Sun's voice?”
“Pardon?”
“Literally. Have you ever heard the voice of that sun hanging in the sky?”
After pondering, Kyung-tae shook his head. Suyeon and the others just wore vague expressions.
“No need to overthink. Consider the sun's influence on Earth.”
I explained:
“Light, gravity, magnetic fields, radiation, radiant heat from the sun. Every phenomenon and sound from living things born of them carries the sun's voice, great or small. Tides and currents from gravitational pull, atmospheric changes from radiation, clouds, rain, snow, lightning—and all life growing by light, plus all the lives devouring them. The sounds we hear always hold a trace of the sun. Right?”
Suyeon asked back:
“To them, the Golden Age is like the sun?”
“Precisely, its truths.”
At the time, I was discussing how the Round Table mages viewed truth: their souls were bound by the Golden Age's gravity.
As the weight on my eyelids eased, the screen text finally swam into scattered focus.
Admiral Martinez's reply to my proposal had come in less than a day. Both sides wanted swift progress, so no dawdling with back-and-forth paperwork. We'd bridged the time difference with near-real-time talks over a week. I'd delegated full authority to Suyeon and the secretariat, policy office, and international business division. On their end, the admiral handled it almost personally, minimizing inefficiency.
The page now showed a progress report from those talks. Was the admiral so eager for smuggling profits alone, or for dipping into politics' black hole indirectly? Reading on, I narrowed my eyes at one point.
'The admiral wants in on human trafficking too?'
He'd proposed, after arms dealing, acting as a broker placing his nationals in illegal overseas jobs. Ship people out, and we'd provide IDs, remittance paths, jobs, lodging. We could handle it directly or find trusted brokers, but commissions had to stay reasonable.
It wasn't just diversifying revenue; as a patriot, it fulfilled his sense of mission. Even snag jobs for struggling veterans while at it. Not a bad deal, honestly. I'd proposed this because I needed it. Sure, he'd have charged headcount rates, but with few native defectors, each head would've cost above market. Lingering risks aside.
Now roles had reversed: he needed it more than I did. His midpoint stopover: the Islas Marias archipelago. Precisely, Isla María Madre to the north. Site of the Islas Marias Federal Penitentiary, regularly serviced by a navy supply ship of the same name.
“The admiral cited the islands' naval office exercising independent operational authority and his personal connections there to assure operational security. Also, the regular supply ship's captain belongs to his faction. Verify facts.”
“Early last year, President Obrador signed to close the federal penitentiary but announced withdrawal late last year citing security instability.”
“Attachment 1. Provisional commission split ratios agreed upon.”
My team's commission offer was generous versus industry averages. Chinese brokers would double costs and halve service quality. Who wouldn't call ours conscientious compared to those packing ten into 5-pyeong rooms and gouging 300,000 won per head nightly? Anyway, with the admiral so keen, smuggling North American native defectors should be smooth.
'This brokering doubles as building his support base.'
Lost in thought, a knock pulled me back.
“Come in.”
In came Suyeon in training clothes, apparently detoured from the company gym by the TV noise. She bowed silently, scanned the room, stared at me quietly, swallowed a sigh, and asked:
“Another nightmare, sir?”
I started to deny it—just woke early—but stopped.
“That obvious?”
“Yes.”
“……”
“Shall I make coffee?”
“Please.”
After her second silent bow and exit, I opened the window to let in cold air. To awaken the hunter in me from the prey still half-lost in terror.