A Train Excursion

Being underground numbs your sense of time.

It was still dark all around us, though by now the sun had likely risen on the surface.

"Woo Jungkook? Your mission's about to close out—"

"There's still time."

I wouldn't call it comfortable. I also couldn't just walk away.

"You're thinking of going in there, aren't you."

"Yeah."

"Well……. Have a good trip."

Teacher Myeong kept well back and showed no interest in coming closer.

Looks like the kind of place you shouldn't step into.

The body of it was rotten through. Where the windows must once have been, not a shard of glass remained. Every opening gaped empty. It looked believable enough that some unknown thing might be living inside.

The squad leader had agreed to wait outside with Teacher Myeong, and the two of them were already murmuring together. Since when had they gotten that close? They must have talked while I was checked out.

A subway. At last.

Somehow I had actually walked into a real subway station, and somehow I had actually found a real train sitting on real track. A train that had fallen onto the rails, strictly speaking. Still.

It couldn't run, so I couldn't say the dream was complete. Even so, this was something. Call it a rehearsal for the day I finally meet a subway that can actually move.

So I don't fumble the first meeting.

I was about to climb aboard when the General came down ahead of me.

"Impressions from inside?"

"I had my hopes. As expected, nothing worth a single coin. Complete waste of time."

That wasn't what I'd asked.

"What's with that look. Think I pocketed a treasure and wiped my mouth clean? Your stooge was watching the whole time, so go ask him yourself. Empty tin can, through and through."

"Who said anything."

"Hm. I just tossed it out as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it came to me……. Chew on it, though, and it fits."

"What does."

"Empty tin can."

The General rapped the outer wall twice with his fist.

"This thing really is a tin can."

The way it looked now, it was.

"Cores happened to come out to twelve, so I took four for my share."

If that wasn't a windfall, nothing was.

"What color?"

"They didn't come out quite that conveniently. We split them fair, so don't go suspecting me."

"That only makes me suspect you more."

"Your stooge watched that too. Go ask him."

If Clock-out Man had been watching, the General couldn't have cheated me.

The General brushed past. I was about to take a step toward the train when—

"Doormat."

"What."

"I'd rather you didn't forget. You got in bed with Tata, and I was the one who ate the loss. I have not forgotten, and I will not."

"You worry about the strangest things. Didn't you already check what ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my memory's like?"

"Pi? Watching you waste it on useless junk like that only worries me more."

"Fine. Worry's free."

One job together wasn't going to soften this, then. Well. I wasn't looking to be friends either.

"I'd rather never see you again, Postman."

Suit yourself.

"Ah. You'll be seeing Clock-out Man, though."

"Hm?"

"You know we agreed to open trade with your settlement."

"That was a contract between the Savior and you. Nothing to do with me."

"Still, having a trading partner is a good thing, isn't it? I'm sending Clock-out Man. You're already acquainted, so the dealing ought to be easy."

"Hmph."

"You get your wish. You won't be seeing me again. Good, right?"

"We'll see."

With that, the General was gone. Better for both of us if we never crossed paths again—so long as he and Tata stayed at each other's throats.

"Bro, come in. This place is wild."

Clock-out Man was the easier of the two, at least.

One step into the train. Then the other foot.

Boarded.

A stale smell of dust. At a glance, no different from any empty ruin. If I had to give the train a first impression in a single line, I would borrow the General's.

One giant tin can.

Jung-goo liked explaining things to me. According to Heeju, that was because I actually listened. It meant I was curious. It also meant there was a great deal I didn't know.

In the cabin there had been two more brothers above Jung-goo. Both were kind, but the years between us were too many. We were close in a clumsy way. They had lived longer than Jung-goo, so they knew more. They had no need to be told.

The brothers used their Cores before Heeju did. There had been another sister above Heeju, too—of the six of us, the one farthest from me. Kind, the way all of them were, and always looking out at some distant mountain. She had thrown a fit to be the first to use a Core, and so she was the first to die. It had been her wish. She probably went happy.

"Bro?"

"Hm?"

"What are you staring at?"

"That."

A photograph of a happy family. Six siblings, as it happened. The little scrap of paper that had dragged the old memory up was stuck to the inner wall of the train.

"What is it?"

Explaining was my job now.

"You want the explanation?"

"Ing? I'm asking because I'm curious, obviously."

Most of it had faded, but you could still make it out.

"It's an ad. Introducing a thing called insurance."

"I know insurance, and I know ads, but an insurance ad is new."

It would be. These days no insurer dealt with private citizens. The old era, maybe. In a world like this, what lunatic would sell policies to individuals? They'd be cleaned out before the month was out.

Insurance in this world worked like this. A policy hung on a hunter's pistol, covering breakage and loss, with the liability sitting on the hunter. If something unavoidable happened mid-operation, they were generous about taking it into account. Otherwise no one would agree to be a hunter. Do something stupid, though—leave it at a pawnshop, say, and have the owner walk off with it—and the fault was a hundred to nothing, the hunter's. That was where the slave-hunter life ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠began.

There was insurance on mail, too. Breakage and loss, the same as the rest. And if, through circumstances you truly couldn't help, you lost a parcel that was insured? Would the government, or the post office, generously share the pain?

Not a chance.

A Postman is not a hunter.

"Bro, isn't this amazing?"

What Clock-out Man had been calling amazing since earlier were the hand straps dangling all through the car. They were certainly the most conspicuous thing in the place. Fair that they'd seem strange. Until you'd lived it, it was hard to grasp that a moving train throws a passenger's balance around. Most people had never ridden a bus, the nearest mechanical cousin, let alone a car. What I knew, I knew from books.

"Looks like something you hang stuff on, right? You hang a Gun on it? Or a Bag? Is this thing sturdy?"

He grabbed a strap in both hands. His head didn't know the use. His body got it right. He locked his grip and lifted himself clean off the floor.

"Wow! This is solid. Could've hung a bag on it."

"I've seen it in a book."

"Seen what?"

"What you're doing right now."

"What? Hanging off it? Is that how you're supposed to use it?"

"Mm……. They say some people used them that way, now and then."

"This is actually a workout. Was it for exercising while you traveled? I'd have been hanging off these every day!"

"Mm. Sure."

The seats were built so you sat packed against the person beside you. Not packed as a figure of speech—built so that touching them was unavoidable. Total strangers, bodies jostling. I could see it and still not believe it. If it was true, as I'd heard, that you could board without a search, that was even more absurd.

I sat. It wasn't comfortable.

"Oh, that was a seat?"

"It looks exactly like one."

"Does it……? Something's off."

Clock-out Man dropped into the seat beside me.

"Look, our arms are touching. Did only people who knew each other sit here?"

"Not as far as I know. They say strangers sat together."

"So how does that make any sense."

"Right."

And the people who rode standing had been packed in just as tight, from what I'd heard. Why, I couldn't see. Not enough money to build more trains? Then why set the fare so cheap and make a disaster of it. There would have been more than one or two skimming money off the middle, besides.

"The doors are weird too, right? Look at this handle. Look!"

Doors that opened to either side. The handle had been made inconvenient on purpose. I knew the reason, more or less.

"Automatic doors. They opened on their own, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so you didn't have to touch them. The handle was for when they didn't."

"Aha!—no. Not aha. Even so, if you needed them open in a hurry, shouldn't they have made it easier than this?"

"This already looks inconvenient, doesn't it. Watch. I'll show you something worse."

Crouch in front of the door and look beneath the side of the seat, and there's something small and square. A function hidden in it.

"They call it a door cock. You have to work this before you can open an automatic door by hand."

"Why would they……?"

The books didn't go that far. The feeling was closer to, Does this really need explaining? The way so many things from the old era were.

"Who knows. Maybe they thought it would be dangerous if it opened too easily."

"No way. What kind of idiot would do that? And look."

Clock-out Man sat in the middle of the bench and slapped the empty seats to either side.

"The guy who thinks that's dangerous builds the seats like this?"

Fair point. More dangerous than a train in motion: an unknown human being, sitting perfectly still with his arm against yours.

"I don't get it. No way."

What would Jung-goo have done? Could he have made this understood?

I searched my memory and found almost no time I had ever talked back to one of his explanations. Which meant I had always been satisfied. He was my older brother in name, and yet I was far older now than he had been then. So why couldn't I make Clock-out Man understand?

The reason's obvious. Because I didn't understand it myself. To make someone else understand, you have to understand first.

……But had Jung-goo, at that age, really known everything?

The reason Heeju gave me the toy subway. Looking back now, the explanation Jung-goo had offered was wrong.

I didn't know it then. I do now.

In truth, Heeju had probably handed it over without much thought at all. The child I was hadn't read Son Heeju. I could now. I hadn't gotten older for nothing.

And come to think of it, Heeju had said something once.

The truth was, I had already half known it before she told me. Hearing her only made it plain.

……I think I can see the answer.

If Jung-goo had been standing here, could he have made Clock-out Man understand? No. He couldn't have. He hadn't known everything.

Then why had I always been satisfied with his explanations?

Had I really understood them?

I hadn't. I never objected because the explanation was sufficient. That wasn't why.

Nodding at my brother. That was how I liked him.

"Bro? First boss fight in a while—you wiped out?"

"Hm?"

"You've been blank this whole time. If something's wrong, just say so. There's a doctor outside."

"It's not that bad. Maybe the air's thin. Enclosed space?"

I said it, and then I saw the windows—the glass smashed out of every one, a row of them standing wide open.

"Could be. May be. Don't push it."

Thump. Thump.

Another set of footsteps crossed the tin-can train.

"Is there really something in here worth a whole day?"

Teacher Myeong had come aboard.