Tactical
Behind Kkamagwi sat a clutter of odds and ends, and I had never once bothered to look at them closely. A merchant stacking his goods high was only natural. Who would have thought a secret lay buried in a heap like that? It had been dark right under the lamp.
"I'm showing this to you and you alone, to mark us becoming partners. Don't go running your mouth anywhere."
Kkamagwi's eyes curved into half-moons. Whatever it was, he was itching to show it off.
"Why aren't you answering? Precious partner or not, this secret does not leave this room. Come on. Promise."
We had been partners for about a minute, and already I was precious. The road ahead looked worrying.
"Promise!"
"Fine."
"Heh."
He reached back to something propped at an angle, close enough to touch without stretching. When he loosened a little of the cloth wrapped around it, a glimpse of the contents showed through, but a glance wasn't enough to tell what the thing was for.
"What is that?"
Something long, as if made of metal.
"This, right here, is what you call a prosthetic leg."
A fake leg, then. It was quite long, cut to fit a body like Kkamagwi's, sheared off clean with only a little of the thigh left behind.
"And?"
"It stands in for the leg I lost."
"I got that much."
A well-made prosthetic could let a one-legged man run. That still didn't make it a weapon.
"Did you stick a blade on it or something?"
"Well, now. You see straight through this too?"
Kkamagwi unwound a little more of the cloth. The prosthetic wasn't packed solid. The metal exoskeleton wrapping the outside was riddled with openings, and the hollow inside held a tangle of machinery. And there really was a blade—not mounted on the outside, but folded away inside the leg. Something to deploy when the moment called for it. I took back the part about a prosthetic not being a weapon.
"A prosthetic that can split a man in two with a roundhouse."
"It's a Tactical Prosthetic Leg!"
"Do you even know what that English word means?"
"It means freaking awesome?"
"Who told you that?"
"The guy who made the Tactical Prosthetic Leg. Anyway. Thoughts, now that you've seen the secret weapon?"
"Hm. Not bad, I suppose."
At the end of the day, it was still cold steel. A firearm let even a child kill with a pull of the trigger. A blade was useless unless the body behind it could deliver.
"You don't trust my kicks. That it?"
"Hike your shirt up a second."
"Huh?"
"To the waist."
Kkamagwi flashed me his waist. Just as I'd thought. Smooth. Nothing there.
"Did you pop the muscles off in pieces too? Like a model kit?"
"Sharp, aren't you. The turtle the Dragon King sent came looking, so I hid them under a rock."
"Until you put those back together, that thing's barely fit for kitchen work. Any plan to reassemble?"
"Too many turtles in this world. I won't feel safe until every last one of them is dead."
With a body like Kkamagwi's, the prosthetic wasn't the least bit tactical.
"So you don't trust me, huh? Then I have no choice but to reveal the final secret...!"
"No, you don't. I'll go see Boss now—"
"Revealing it right now!"
Kkamagwi yanked the cloth off entirely. The prosthetic's real function was mounted down at the lower end.
"Hm. A firearm."
"Shame I can't show you it shooting. This thing is no joke!"
From the calf down to the foot, it had a bizarre look, as if several guns had been tangled together. A number of muzzles showed, and what looked like magazines sat loaded inside, more than a few of them.
"How do you fire it?"
"It reads the movement in the thigh muscles and runs off that. Firing angle's fully adjustable, and you can open every muzzle for a simultaneous volley. Two seconds is plenty to dump thirty rounds!"
"You can shoot without using your hands?"
Kkamagwi nodded, slow and heavy.
"Hm. That's tactical."
"Freaking awesome, right?"
"Tactical."
A pretty useful piece of gear. You wouldn't be aiming by eye, so the accuracy would be miserable, but a weapon that could pour out dozens of rounds in an instant was threat enough. Having both hands free was a serious advantage on top of that, since it left you able to use another weapon besides. And no one would predict bullets pouring out of a leg. There was value in putting the other side off their guard. Right now the prosthetic was in plain sight, so you could guess, but clothes over the top and it would vanish completely.
"Where did you even get something like this?"
"With enough money, there's nothing you can't do. A whole lot of money, I mean."
He'd said the radio he gave me was the same model the Ministry of Future Technology used. If I had it right, the thing was produced in the Geofront for intelligence agents alone. Not for sale. The radio itself would have been harder to come by than the communications Core inside it.
A Tactical Prosthetic Leg. And an expensive radio. That was only what I'd learned on the spot, and Kkamagwi wouldn't have stopped there. He had been preparing in earnest.
Kkamagwi has what it takes to survive.
He was different from the soft ones who had grown used to life in a safe zone and lost the knack for staying alive. He had lived with one eye always on how to make it through. There had been a reason he scraped so hard for money. This one would be of use.
"So from now on, if you want to let anyone else in on the play, you talk to me!"
If I could just do something about that mouth, he would be of use.
"You lend me your eyes, and I do the fighting. You're the head, I'm the body, and we put our strength together. Easier to picture it that way, right?"
Head or body, I was better off taking both myself. If I had to assign Kkamagwi a role, he would be a backer with money welling up like a spring. One with the optional feature of spraying bullets when he flexed.
"Then shall we go see Boss together? Partner."
"Shut up. I'm going alone."
"We'll have to see him together at some point anyway."
Kkamagwi shook the radio.
"...Don't tell me this other partner, the one holding the rest of the radios, is—"
"Tactical, right?"
"That's not how you use that word."
"Freaking awesome!"
"No."
Thock. Thock. Every time Kkamagwi's crutch struck the floor, old dust lifted into the air. An expensive prosthetic on hand, and he still couldn't use it. Hard living, hobbling around on a crutch.
The rusted iron door creaked. Beyond it, Boss's room was the same as ever. Lighting harsh enough to age a man's eyes, stale air packed into the space, and liquor bottles. Boss himself was not the same. He was armed as I had never seen him: full body armor, a rifle, a pistol, even a shotgun. Oh, and a bottle slung on him with the rest. Even in the middle of all that, he hadn't forgotten the watermelon mask, seated properly on his face.
"Why'd the two of you come together?"
I shook the radio instead of answering, and Boss made a face I couldn't quite parse. The eyes seemed to say this was good. The brows had the shape of regret. The mouth went straight for the bottle.
"Partner recruitment is done with this. Faster than I expected, right?"
"Hm? Weren't there four radios?"
"I handed both of them over to Bat."
"Hm..."
Boss stroked his chin. Hard to say whether he was sunk in thought or savoring the whiskey.
"Good work. I was short on anyone worth trusting anyway, and if it's someone Bat brings in, I can trust them. Wise of you, for once."
"Heh. Right? But what do you mean, for once?"
Were Boss and Kkamagwi closer than I'd thought? Boss almost only met people one-on-one, so it was hard to know what the rest of his relationships looked like. Come to think of it, he had said Boss talked to Kkamagwi about me.
"Just knowing that guy is an asset in itself. You know I've got an eye for goods."
Close enough to have a conversation like that, then.
"Bat. Looks like we'll be seeing each other from here on. When we first met, I couldn't have imagined it."
If I had to put it plainly, I hadn't so much become a partner as agreed to take his calls because the pay looked decent. Anyway.
Boss looked at me and opened his mouth, and the smell of alcohol rolled off him.
"Ease up on the drinking, old man."
"I've got to drink it fast and be rid of all of it."
"Huh?"
"I can't haul all of this with me when I leave."
Preparing to leave, then. So that was why he was armed.
"So you're forcing all of that down? You could just sell it. You're one door away from the black market."
"Sell it? Why would I sell liquor. You drink it."
There was no getting through to him.
"Anyway, if you've already agreed to work together, that's less trouble for me."
Had Boss called me in to make a partner of me too?
"If I'd taken you up on your offer, would my pay have come from you?"
"No. Kkamagwi's the one putting up the money."
Boss definitely had an eye for people.
"Putting up the money?! I am a combat operative, thank you."
"You showed Bat that tactical-whatever leg of yours too?"
"Heh. Just showed him on the way over. So there's no need to keep my combat power a secret."
"Right. We'll call you a backer with a feature that spits bullets when you poke him."
"We're keeping it secret even between us? Hm... Well. No harm in watching our mouths."
Kkamagwi was the only one taking it seriously.
"Hey, Bat. Since that's how Boss sees it, me being the god of combat stays a secret."
"God of what?"
"The god of combat. A war god, wasn't it?"
"...Sure. I'll carry it to my grave. It will never leave my mouth. Not ever."
"Now that's the attitude!"
Kkamagwi smacked me across the back. A hit like that ought to sting at least a little, even in play. It didn't hurt at all.
"Still, if you call, I'll come help anytime, so if anybody gives you trouble, you radio me. Got it?"
"I'm grateful enough to cry."
"Don't mention it. This is what partners are. Boss, if you need a combat operative, call anytime. Got it?"
"...Much obliged."
Looked to me like Boss would be in more of a hurry to call me. The real secret in this room was my combat ability. Boss knew all of my past. And not only that—he had seen me fight with his own eyes. That day had been unforgettable for me too. That he didn't bother telling Kkamagwi probably wasn't for any grand reason. He simply wouldn't talk about the past until I said it with my own mouth. Either way, did Boss know as well? That the black market was going to be wiped out.
"But you're leaving? You going on a trip, old man?"
"It'll be a long one. I probably won't be coming back."
So he knew.
"Boss has been like that the whole time, so I'm on edge too. He won't tell me anything in any detail. Just keeps saying he's leaving."
Kkamagwi really didn't know a thing.
"Bat."
Boss's eyes, heavy with drink, were half-shut.
"What."
"Seeing you sit there and listen to talk like this without a word..."
I already knew, so there was nothing left to be curious about. Boss had read me.
"...Seems you could use a drink yourself."
He wasn't going to say it outright, not with Kkamagwi's ears in the room. I could roughly guess why Boss was hiding it from him. The moment the guy found out, he would kick up a fuss and start packing to leave. He wouldn't open his mouth and spill it, but he would advertise it with every twitch of his body. That much was obvious.
"Keep the drink. The air in here's just stale. If there's nothing else, how about we do some business?"
My own errand still needed handling.
"Then, partners, I ought to go mind the shop. I've been running my mouth and letting the work slide."
Boss gave a light wave, and Kkamagwi was the first to get up. The iron door clanked shut, and the tap of the crutch faded off into the distance.
"You're bringing it to me instead of dealing with Kkamagwi. Another piece that's a pain to move?"
"If you know, why ask."
First I took out the pill bottle. The one Oh Jang-mi had given me, angling to get on my good side: sixteen Geofront-made antibiotic pills.
"A bottle of antibiotics made in the Geofront?"
Usually only the contents changed hands. A bottle carried a big mark declaring it had been produced in the Geofront. Goods that were genuine down to the container were top grade, but few people took on that kind of risk.
"The contents are in there too."
"Hm. Definitely antibiotics made underground."
"Sixteen pills, total."
"Going by the production date on the bottle, they're quite recent."
"Only ten of them match that bottle. Six don't."
"...How do you know that?"
"If you want, I'll pick the six out for you."
"Hm... Are they that old?"
"Nothing that matters, so long as they're taken within a month."
Boss snapped the lid shut.
"That's plenty. No one will know anyway. The bottle's here, so I'll count all sixteen inside as new and pay you market rate. But—"
"Dealing in Geofront drugs gets you a heavy sentence if you're caught. You take on all of that risk, so the price is half."
"Right."
"No complaints. Pay for the goods entirely in magazines."
"Good. Anything else left to sell?"
This was the real merchandise. I unfolded the Bomber Drone blueprints I had kept hidden away.
Boss went rigid.
"Recognize it?"
The muscle that had jumped in his jaw soon settled, and a short laugh slipped out of him.
"Interesting."
"Yesterday the market lit up with word that a plane had come down, and today it's aircraft blueprints... Reminds me of something you used to say."
"What."
"If a coincidence starts to feel too neat, it isn't a coincidence."
Calling this a coincidence would have been a stretch.
"What's drawn in these blueprints... looks like a different model from the plane that ended up as scrap."
"Correct."
"They have this in common. Both are too small for a person to ride."
"Might be because the same person made them."
"Very interesting."
Boss started rolling the blueprints up.
"This is an item with no market price."
"I figured."
"And you won't find many buyers besides me."
"Of course not."
"Meaning the price is whatever I name."
"Name it."
"Heh."
Boss slid the blueprints under the bedding.
"I'll need ammunition while I travel. I don't have the slack to pay for this in magazines too."
"So you are buying it, then."
"We'll settle with this."
A green Core, drawn out from under the floor mat. I had thought the floor looked swollen. Not liquor bottles, then. The Core's surface was tacky.
"...You don't have another one stashed somewhere?"
"This is the only one. Hasn't been appraised, but I've got a good feeling about it."
"Some good patterning on it, at least?"
"Not that. I just have a good feeling."
"Don't tack on talk that doesn't move the price."
"Talk that does move the price, hm..."
Boss took a long pull of whiskey.
"The outside world, that hell of a place, has come a long way. Building airplanes and all."
"If you want to drunk-ramble, call somebody else in for it. I'm done here, so—"
"It's progress they're afraid of. The ones underground."
He was deep in it.
"You've picked up a scrap or two somewhere about what's going on now. I can tell."
"Then if you've got time to drink and lament, hurry up and prepare—"
"Hmph. Prepare for what..."
Boss rolled the empty bottle off to one side.
"Do you know why the ones underground are doing this?"
"Hm?"
"Why they're making life hell for us. Do you know?"
Did the old man actually know something?
"There's one who comes up from the Geofront to headquarters often. Not that you'd have met him."
"The merchant, you mean? Never met him, but I've heard of him."
"So you know he exists."
Boss definitely knew something I didn't.