Shell Casings
"Don't worry. It isn't coming down."
The squad leader didn't so much as hesitate.
"This place doubled as a bomb shelter back in the old world. It took an air raid, sure, but in this condition it'll hold just fine."
He looked thoroughly pleased with himself, as if the whole station belonged to him.
"You sure about that...?"
"If you're that nervous, wait outside. All you'll lose is a story you could've chewed on over drinks for the rest of your life."
He was already knocking the dirt off his soles.
"Guess we're going, then."
His bravado didn't last. Trouble found them at once.
"Squad leader. Is there another way?"
The ceiling and a wall had come down, and one enormous pillar had toppled with them, sealing the route to B6. The air raid had done it. Even so, the station hadn't pancaked entirely, which made me wonder if he was right—if the place really had been built to survive a bombing.
"There is another way, but... tch. No telling if that side's intact. Everybody wait here."
The direction he took was no kinder. He dropped to all fours and crawled out through a gap beneath the rubble, a hole barely big enough for a dog.
Click.
The Gentleman and the sentries killed their flashlights together. Saving the batteries while we waited made sense. Kill every light, though, and there was nothing left to see—not that we strictly needed to see anything.
"...Why isn't yours off. Kill it and save the battery."
So Dr. Myeong meant to keep a light burning for the rest of us. If that was what she wanted.
Click.
Switching mine off, I understood why she insisted on leaving hers on. She didn't want those red eyes giving her away. With only one beam left, every gaze drifted toward whatever she lit. Look anywhere else and you saw nothing at all.
I wasn't the only one.
"Doc? Mind looking around a little slower?"
"Hm? Oh. Sure."
The light stopped on a subway map. It was my first time seeing a real one, and even then I had it easy.
The Gentleman, who seemed to love the underground more than anyone alive, had never heard of its most famous resident.
"I am glad we have come down here.... So what, precisely, is a subway?"
"You knew?"
"Obviously!"
"Oh?"
"Got you."
I hadn't expected the sentries to know.
"Woo Jungkook, you've read plenty of old-world books. You'd know."
"And you?"
"I've seen it in a book too."
"You read something besides medical texts?"
"That's where I saw it. It was in an old-world medical book."
What business did a subway have in a medical text.
"Then what, exactly, is this place meant to do?"
Curiosity had the Gentleman now. I'd meant to keep the explanation short.
"The more I hear, the less I understand. Moving several hundred people at once—can such a thing be possible?"
It grew anyway.
"Several hundred of them, inside a confined space? And if even one draws a blade? There would be nowhere to flee."
In the end I had to spell the whole thing out.
"No way something like that ever existed, right?"
It didn't change a thing.
"You seem prepared to believe whatever a book tells you. An unfortunate habit."
I wanted to argue. That required having seen the thing myself.
"And the fare was cheap. Far too cheap. Less than half the price of a meal, you say."
That part I had to grant him.
"Yeah. That is strange. There were vehicles that carried paying passengers, and even next to those the subway was absurdly cheap."
"Do we not still have automobiles? The subway was meant to be a far more advanced machine, and yet its fare was cheaper than a car's? While it moved people faster?"
Hard to refute.
"It sounds like pure nonsense. Can anything else in that book be trusted?"
Tsk. A bastard with a gift for picking the one point he was right about. No wonder Dr. Myeong was worn out, stuck with an enemy like him.
She'd said she'd read about it too. Maybe I ought to call in reinforcements.
"It isn't only in the book I read. Dr. Myeong, you said the medical texts mentioned the subway. What did they say?"
"Mm. You probably don't know this one either. Ever heard of a screen door?"
What? I'd genuinely never heard of it.
"First time for you too, huh? I thought so. It didn't seem like a very popular subject. What they were for—"
...Thud.
"W-Woo Jungkook? Did you hear that? It wasn't just me, right?"
"How do you miss a sound like that."
That impact again. Closer than before—that was the difference. It still seemed to come from under the floor, but not straight down. Somewhere ahead, with a fair stretch of distance in it.
Is it moving?
The squad leader had called it an unstable building shedding a little more of itself. I wasn't convinced. To my ear it sounded like something striking on purpose.
He came back sooner than I'd expected.
"Whew. There's a way through if we go that way."
He didn't crawl back through the hole. He simply shouted from the far side. No point making a round trip through a gap that narrow.
"But do the rest of you really need to come over? I crossed because I've got something to fetch. I can run across and be back in a minute. Just stay where you are, yeah? Why go to the trouble of sightseeing on the platform?"
"Enough. Dr. Myeong, you first. Get in."
"Huh? R-right."
There might not be a later. This was a chance I couldn't miss.
This time I'm going to see it. A universe in miniature.
Dr. Myeong went in without another word, and I followed at once.
"...Hey. Woo Jungkook."
"Mm."
"Don't crawl right on top of me."
"I'm keeping a huge gap, actually."
"Yeah? Must be my imagination."
The problems didn't stop. This time it was the Gentleman and the sentries, and the sheer size of them.
"I simply cannot get through...."
The Gentleman was built like Jung-goo. The frame itself was superior, shoulders broader than mine. I'd wondered, and of course he couldn't fit.
The sentries were no better.
"Well, damn. Shoulders are too wide. I'm not getting in."
"Me neither. Body's just too good, huh?"
Both of them were stopped by their guts. Not from eating well and living easy—something was wrong with them, and they'd swollen. Would've been simpler if they just split open as they were.
"Squad leader? I believe we need only raise this pillar a little. Can you lift from your side as well?"
The biggest piece blocking the way. So he wanted that huge round column lifted just enough to widen the crawl hole. What a pain.
"Hm? We can try, sure. But then we'd have to hold it the whole time anyone's passing through?"
"The pillar is buried among the other debris. Lift it only a little, and the rubble should settle back into the opened space and hold the height. Would it not?"
Looked that way to me, too. The odds I'd sounded out said the same. The hole would end up a little wider. That much was certain.
"Wait. If our luck's rotten, the whole thing comes crashing down and the way back is sealed for good. Isn't it?"
The disaster Dr. Myeong was picturing was vanishingly unlikely. It still existed. Even if it happened, there was a fix.
"It'd be a hassle, but we could shift the rubble piece by piece and open the path again."
"Uh.... You actually want to do that much labor?"
No choice. If we went on without them, it would count as running. And actually running wasn't an option—this passage dead-ended toward B6. We'd be rats in a jar.
"We'll just have to hope it doesn't collapse."
"Ngh...."
"All right. If that's the call, let's put our backs into it."
The squad leader rolled his sleeves at once.
"You ready over there?"
"We are ready."
"What kind of suffering is this."
"When I count three, we lift! One, two—"
Even Dr. Myeong pressed in close. Everyone braced to heave.
"Three!"
For an instant the pillar rose.
Thud!
"Ah!"
"Aah!"
The impact came from very close. I flinched, but I didn't lose my grip. The problem was that I was the only one who didn't. The column sagged back down, limp.
"Damn it! Everyone all right over there?"
"We are fine! And your side, squad leader?"
"Nothing wrong here!"
The sound had come from the Gentleman and the sentries. It wasn't from below anymore. It was clearly on the same level. Something had climbed up to B5.
This was bad.
"Wh-what do we do?"
I checked the hole with the flashlight first. It hadn't opened much, but the shape was different from before. The potbellies still weren't getting through. This, though—
"The Gentleman might make it, if he's careful."
"I... believe I might...."
"Get over here. Now."
"If I alone cross, what becomes of the sentries?"
"You first! Get through!"
I had a bad feeling. Whoever could cross needed to cross now.
"If I come over, the strength on the two sides becomes unbalanced. Let us lift it once more as we are. Having tried, I believe that with care the opening can be made wide enough—"
"I said get over here!"
Just listen.
"Don't you get it? Stay over there and something dangerous—"
Thoom!
"W-Woo Jungkook?"
"Quiet."
This one was right in front of us. At that range, the three on the far side could probably see it.
"A-aah!"
"What is that!"
Tat-tat-tat!
An assault rifle opened up. One of the sentries.
Then—
"Squad leader! Over here...!"
Thud.
A dull impact, and the whole place went still.
Roll....
All I could hear was a shell casing rolling. The instant I'd sensed the danger, I'd killed the one flashlight still burning, so there was nothing to see. Total dark. A silence that felt packed full.
Touch sharpened. Something groped along my arm, worked its way down, and seized my wrist. That feel—Dr. Myeong's hand. She'd found me. She leaned in until her mouth was at my ear.
"What do we do?"
Quieter than the rolling brass, and still I could hear the pitch of it, the shake.
Back. For now.
One quiet step rearward. This time I caught her wrist and drew her with me. On the second step I bumped into someone—the squad leader, probably. I reached my free hand behind me, felt around, and found his wrist. Both of them in my grip, I took one more step back.
Tuk.
A pebble under a boot. The wrist on his side twitched. I tapped it three times with my index finger. Fine. Then just one more step.
Back.
Stillness.
What was it.
The candidates in a situation like this were obvious. A person. A zombie. A monster. A machine. One of the four.
Zombies dropped out first. Nothing like that was getting into an underground space this tightly controlled. For one to have been born in here, a monster would have had to get in first, and that wasn't easy either. I didn't think there had been people inside to begin with. A machine was just as unlikely—unless the squad leader had lied to me.
A person, then? Someone who could put down three armed people at once. A Hunter could. And unlike a zombie or a monster, I could actually picture a reason a person would be down here. Hunters got assigned to top-secret projects all the time.
If we're dealing with a Hunter...
They might try to check this side through the hole. They already knew there were people over here.
This should be a safe enough distance.
I couldn't see, but my body remembered roughly where the hole had been. Nothing for it but to try. They knew someone was on this side. Sitting still now was pointless. Better to go after the information myself.
I dropped flat somewhere that wouldn't put me square in front of the opening and pressed myself low. From here, they shouldn't spot me straight off from the other side. Down against the floor, held tight—
Click....
I switched the flashlight on, aimed toward where the hole had been. It was so quiet the click came back as an echo. The hole looked the same as before.
I crawled sideways, inch by inch, angling slowly toward a line straight on with the opening.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
I reached a spot where I could see some of the inside. I'd half hoped to find the Gentleman trying to come through. It was empty.
I couldn't see past the hole. It wasn't the angle. At this distance a flashlight was never going to show me the far side. To see what was over there, I'd have to put my face right up against the gap.
That was dangerous.
Then—
Whish.
A single shell casing came flying through the hole.
Ting. Tick.
It bounced twice off the floor.
Roll....
And went skittering off somewhere. When it caught on something and stopped, the silence came back.