You Pass
"You are surrounded."
The speaker was an officer in a white dress uniform. The unit patch and the rank insignia were nothing I'd ever seen. Regular army of the Human Meat Factory, if I had to guess.
"You will comply with my orders. Quietly."
That was the plan. For now.
"You there, Postman. You answer for them. The other two keep their mouths shut."
"Answer what?"
"You comply with my orders, and you answer when you're spoken to."
"Fine."
"Hands on your heads. All of you."
I gave him the obedience he'd asked for, and he picked out seven soldiers and brought them in. The rest turned their backs and settled into a watch on every side. Aside from the officer, every one of them wore combat fatigues, kept so sharply that the creases looked fit to cut.
"We're conducting a body search."
"We only came to deliver the mail."
"Don't care. While we search you, don't move so much as a finger. Try anything stupid and I'll put a draft hole through your skull."
"Isn't the stupid part what you're doing right now?"
"I told you to answer for the group when asked. I didn't tell you to talk nonsense."
Their attitude was rotten, but the search itself, oddly enough, went gently. They didn't handle us the way you handle prisoners. They opened the postman's bag and checked the contents one by one, and that was when a test tube with a finger in it came tumbling out.
"Platoon Leader, the postman's carrying part of a corpse. Is it subject to confiscation?"
"A finger? What's he hauling that around for?"
"A keepsake. For a friend who's gone."
"Hm..."
The man studied the ring on the finger with close attention. Don't tell me he recognized it.
"Doesn't look like a disguised object."
Ah. So he'd thought it was something like a miniature bomb.
"You've even had it preserved. Why not bury it?"
"None of your business."
"Hm."
There was a ring, but he couldn't tell whose finger it was. Fair enough. Who would imagine it belonged to someone from the same settlement.
"...What is this? A licensed physician?"
Among Dr. Myeong's things was an ID issued at Headquarters.
"A real doctor? Let me see."
"Could be forged."
"Forge that for what?"
"What do you think? Pretend to be a doctor and something that pays is bound to turn up."
"She might actually be a real doctor."
"Are you stupid? A real licensed physician would be shut up inside Headquarters, not wandering around out here. Who's going to believe garbage like this?"
"Maybe... But what if she really is?"
"Pathetic. Frauds run wild because of idiots like you."
"Hey, take a look at this one too."
This time it was Elder Heo's ID.
"A Core appraiser?"
"Professional ID forgers, these people."
"No, but that one could be real too, couldn't it?"
"This one's got the face of a man who'll get scammed and die of it."
"Hey, look at this. Why's a postman walking around with this many Cores?"
Tsk. Of all the times to run into men like these, it had to be while I was carrying the valuables.
"Emergency funds."
"Emergency funds, my ass. A man with private quarters inside Headquarters wouldn't stroll around flashing this many Cores."
"Maybe this one's a fake postman too?"
"Relax. We're not taking the Cores."
They tucked the inspected Cores back into the bag. So robbery wasn't the point.
The search grew loud, and the officer cut back in.
"Hand those here."
He took Dr. Myeong's ID in one hand and Elder Heo's in the other, looking from one to the other.
"Hm. Indoor staff have no reason to come outside. Traveling with a postman, no less. They that eager to die?"
"Do I answer for the group on this too?"
"Go on, then. Can you prove these identities are real?"
He stacked the two cards and flicked them in front of my eyes.
"Those IDs are forged."
"Woo Jungkook, you son of a—"
"Fake doctor. Shut up."
"..."
"They're just a father-and-daughter pair of con artists. If they were real indoor staff, why would they be wandering around out here where it's dangerous?"
Fortunately Elder Heo had read the situation and didn't so much as crack his mouth. His color was bad. He looked thoroughly frightened, but he was holding up well enough.
"I see. Then why is a postman dragging con artists around with him?"
"You haul us out for a census? If you've got business, say what it is instead of kicking up all this noise. I'm in the middle of a delivery. I'm busy."
"Oh, don't worry. The moment we're sure, we'll get straight to the point."
The officer reached at once for the parcel in my hand. I hid it behind my back on reflex.
"Hm?"
"Stow that arm while you can still fold it. Before I cut it off."
"Nervy postman."
Their aim was to take me alive. They wanted something from me. Which meant I could push a little, at least until they said what they'd come for.
"I'd rather you called it professional duty than nerve. Mail has an owner who's meant to receive it."
"Then show a little professional duty. That parcel came addressed to me."
"Hm?"
The officer split his mouth wide and blew an unpleasant breath through his nose.
"I'm saying I'm the owner of that mail."
I'd assumed they'd learned a postman was coming this way and laid an ambush. Had they planned from the very start to have a delivery made here?
"You don't look convinced. I'll tell you this, and even you'll believe it."
What he rattled off after that was precisely what was written on the outside of the parcel.
"Go on, open it. I know what's inside, too. Shall I guess?"
It didn't seem like bluster. If all of this had been planned, I'd need to match the mood, within reason. Mouthing off now only meant I was still in the palm of his hand. And for the moment, it was also plain enough that he was this parcel's recipient.
"Fine. Then what business did our valued customer have, raising all this racket just to meet a single postman?"
"I meant to keep it short. But no matter how I look at you, you're a suspicious postman."
His eyes had been traveling over me, and they stopped just under my chin. They caught on the suspicious necklace.
"All three of you are wearing something strange. Catch a punishment?"
This one looking wrong was the normal reaction. And this was the thing I could only talk around for so long. Maybe it was time to show a little honesty first. These men clearly knew nothing yet about the situation at Headquarters. But it was a large enough incident that their learning of it was only a matter of time. If they were going to find out anyway, better that I be the first to hand them the information.
"All right. I'll tell you the story, so the customer keeps his business short too. I need to get back to Headquarters."
"Let's hear it."
I told him about the uproar underway at Headquarters. The situation that had forced indoor staff outside. The reason I was traveling with them. And the function of the necklaces locked around our throats like leashes.
The officer's reaction was, of course—
"Bullshit."
Perfectly normal.
"A trio of con artists, postman included."
"You won't even recognize sincerity."
"Sincere about the con, I'm sure."
He snapped his fingers, and a soldier who had been watching the rear came running from a long way off.
"Tell Tin Can to get over here."
The soldier took the order and sprinted away. He laid a hand on someone's shoulder, and the man he'd tagged came trotting over as if the seeker in a game of tag had just changed. He wore something like full-body armor that covered him entirely, head included.
"Reporting!"
"Check their necklaces. Everyone else, three paces back."
Bomb disposal, then. Good. I'd been curious anyway.
"Well, now... What is this? Looks like fun."
The moment Tin Can saw the necklace, his eyes rolled back with delight.
"Headquarters put this on you? Postman, if you know anything, say it all now. Looks like it was locked on as punishment. Does it explode?"
"They joked it might blow if you try to force it off."
The men who had already retreated three paces suddenly took two more.
"That so? This is going to be very fun. Hehe..."
"Fun how? Our necks blowing off?"
"Hm? Oh, right. If this goes, your neck goes with it."
"...You're realizing that now?"
"I realized it now, so we're good, aren't we?"
"Excuse me, valued customer? You're sure it's all right to leave this to him? Is he called Tin Can because there's nothing in his head? Hey. Customer?"
The officer avoided my eyes. In the meantime a hand in a thick glove touched the necklace. He seemed to be turning it over with care, and then his face creased at once.
"What is this? Government people didn't make it."
"I said Headquarters put it on us. I didn't say they made it."
"Then who did?"
A Geofront mark had been stamped into it, engraved on the inner face, invisible while the thing was locked around a neck.
"How should I know who made it? They wouldn't tell me."
"Hm..."
"And why do you think the government didn't make it?"
"The finish isn't anything they can turn out inside Headquarters. This is, if anything..."
I'd only been thinking of how wary I was of them. Looking now, they were the same. They were on extreme guard against us. What in the world was all this commotion for?
"Postman, be straight with me. It's built so it can't be taken off anyway. We need to know what it is if we're going to take you in without worrying."
"Take us in?"
"Ah. The Platoon Leader hasn't told you yet?"
Looks passed between Tin Can and the officer a few times, and then both of them nodded.
"You've been kidnapped."
Tin Can simply stretched an arm behind him and pointed toward the Human Meat Factory.
"So we're checking whether you've got anything that'll be a problem. Bombs and such."
A quick return to Headquarters wasn't going to be easy. Fail to make it back on time and the mission failed with it. I couldn't afford a screwup like that.
"Anyway, the necklaces should be fine, Platoon Leader! Work's pretty much done!"
So it wasn't a bomb. That was something, at least.
"Yeah? You're saying the thing on the postman's neck isn't a bomb?"
"No. That part isn't certain. But at least if that thing blows and makes a wreck of someone, it'll end with their necks. From the way it's built, it isn't something that can hurt the people standing beside them."
Huh?
"I see. Then we can relax."
"Hey, misters, couldn't you look a little more carefully?"
"Work's done, then! Returning to post!"
"Hello?"
Tin Can vanished, and the officer held his palm out in front of me. The obnoxious little flick was the same as ever.
"Hand over the parcel."
At this point, guarding the mail didn't mean much. This man really did seem to be its owner. I passed him the box. He tore it open without ceremony and pulled out what was inside. A few sheets of paper, as expected. But every sheet but one was blank, and even the sheet that wasn't had nothing on it but a single short sentence, written large. Grinning, the officer unfolded the paper and showed it to me.
"You brought the mail properly, so you're either a real postman, or at least you received it from a real one. Good. You pass."
"Pass as what?"
"As a quality prisoner."
The vehicles started up their rattling again. While the soldiers dressed their ranks, the three of us had our upper bodies lashed with rope.
"Jungkook... Is there some way out of this?"
Dr. Myeong, whispering low.
"Hm?"
"You've been calm this whole time, so I wondered if you had some kind of plan."
"Boy, you holding a good move?"
I don't have anything like that.
"Of course I do."
"Hah... All right. I'll keep easy, then. For now we just do as they say, right?"
"Probably."
"Dad, you stay right up against my side."
"Shameful as it is, nothing else for it."
A bloodless entry into the Human Meat Factory.
Whether to call it good luck or bad, I couldn't say.