Three Characters of a Name
The Waste Disposal Squad had all made it back to headquarters after a brutal job. A red uniform appeared in front of them.
"The airstrike? Oh—you mean the one that hit the subway station?"
"Haaah... I'm telling you, we nearly died."
"No, some of our people actually did. And the wounded? Don't even ask."
"A few of the injured are still at a settlement near—"
"Enough. I don't need the rest. Was the Postman there?"
"Ah. I know exactly who you mean."
The description the Waste Disposal Squad gave matched Jungkook to the letter. The moment it was confirmed that the Postman really had been caught in the airstrike—
"Your impression of the Postman?"
"Sorry?"
"What kind of man did he seem to be?"
"Well... handsome enough, I guess?"
"...Not that. The part you can't see from the outside."
"That would be—"
It was ground they had already covered once. On the way back to headquarters, the first name to land on the block had, of course, been Myung Hwa-young, and opinion split every which way over whether she would truly keep her promise to look after them from here on. Once that argument had more or less burned itself out, it was the Postman's turn.
He had brought the ceiling down and carried on like a madman in the middle of it, but he had still seen to it that their people got treated. Put that together with what they had heard at the Human Meat Factory—
There was no reason to make an enemy of him, and no need. If anything, he was precisely the type you had to keep on your own side.
"The Postman is, how do I put it... is that what they call the genuine article?"
"All man."
"A man's man."
"Warm-hearted."
"Could you ask him why someone with powers like that is working as a Postman? I'm dying to—"
"Enough. Enough."
The real question was only just beginning.
"The Postman should have had companions. Tell me what you remember."
"The doctor? Myung Hwa-young."
"Well... she's skilled, I'll give her that."
"The personality, though. Ahem."
"A woman's woman."
"Not warm-hearted."
"A doctor only needs to be good at the job."
"Skill swapped straight across for character."
"Enough! I didn't ask for that much detail."
"Why does the question keep changing?"
The answer the uniform actually wanted still wasn't coming.
"So the doctor was his only companion. Is that it?"
"Ah."
The Postman was the sort of man you had to keep as an ally.
"There was someone else."
"Right. There was."
Their instincts kicked in. In truth, anyone from headquarters would have known there ought to be one more companion. Everyone knew an operation was underway that required him to take two desk staff out with him.
"Then tell me about that other companion as well."
"Well..."
"Well?"
All they had actually confirmed was the single doctor. So what had become of the other one?
"Seemed like something had already happened to them? We only heard later that there'd been another companion. We never saw them ourselves."
"Something had happened?"
They weren't especially quick thinkers. But get enough people in one place, and there is usually at least one who specializes in a given field.
"We didn't lay eyes on the Postman until after the airstrike came down, you know? By then it was already just the two of them. The Postman and the doctor."
One of them, offering the truth without a fuss. Wasn't this the same man who had single-handedly wrapped the entire Waste Disposal Squad and its leader around his finger, gotten the wounded out, and even pulled a promise from the doctor? A man like that would have prepared for whatever came after. And yet he hadn't asked them to ready so much as a single false statement. The absence of that request meant the plain truth would not work against him.
"Right, right. By the time we first met him, they were already gone."
"Just the two of them."
The ones chiming in weren't doing it because they were quick on the uptake. From here, it was solidarity. The Waste Disposal Squad's specialty.
"Hm... So it's certain he was hit by the airstrike, and afterward the doctor was the only companion left. That's what you're telling me."
The Postman's account wasn't fully proven. But nothing in it contradicted what they were saying. That much was clear.
"The doctor's name was Myung Hwa-young, you said?"
"A very famous Grade A doctor."
"And I hear there's someone called the squad leader. In charge of the underground."
"Ah. The Station Master?"
The investigation kept adding names to its list.
The meal they served in the holding cell was decent enough. I'd asked for a warm soup, and they brought broth at a rolling boil, with a sliver of fuel Core lit underneath to keep it that way.
This wasn't them doing me a kindness. It was a contest of nerves—a demonstration of just how persistent they could be, and of how exhausting they would be as enemies.
Still, the Waste Disposal Squad and their leader had better talk straight.
The uniforms had gone out to verify my story. The only physical evidence was a single finger, and even that wasn't decisive. And still they'd insisted on going out to check. Tch. In the end, it came down to what the witnesses said. Persistent bastards, in every sense of the word.
Still, that's fine. I'm every bit as persistent as they are.
A kind of meeting of minds, you could call it. A pain to deal with—but also the ones who moved the most like I thought. Know them, and you don't lose.
The red uniform was stopped cold at the door of Myung Hwa-young's clinic.
"A right of refusal?"
"That's right."
The doctor's voice came through the door, muffled and flat.
"Does asking about a dead companion meet the conditions for exercising that right?"
Myung Hwa-young refused every question he put to her. Better to shut her mouth entirely than let one slip of the tongue splash back onto Jungkook. A right like this could only be exercised because she was a Grade A doctor, and even then an additional condition applied.
"I'm refusing because it qualifies. I was the dead appraiser's attending physician."
"...Proof?"
"What, you think I'd lie about something that'll turn up the moment you check the records?"
The right to refuse any statement at all about a patient under her care—a privilege reserved for doctors, far stronger than anything from the old world. She could decline to testify even about patients she had treated long ago. Common sense said the will of Geofront stood above every law on the surface. That, however, had nothing to do with a common soldier, low in rank and without backing, who had been posted to the surface.
"If you understand, then stop blocking my door and leave. And quit wafting that headache of a smell around."
"...?"
"V6, green grape? The door's shut and it still reeks."
The uniform made straight for the restroom.
"A visit?"
I was only sitting in a holding cell for a little while. What kind of visit was this?
"You get five minutes."
Was there someone who wanted to see me locked behind bars? Not just anyone could file a request and walk in. Even Bae Guk-jang wouldn't have that kind of pull. The only person who could manage it was Jo Yong-han, or else...
I'd rather it just be Jo Yong-han.
"Instructor!"
I never thought I could miss that man this much.
"We're here!"
But Min Yeo-jin hadn't come alone. A familiar little kid was with her.
"That finger? I saw it buried. With my own eyes."
A few words with the uniform were enough for the Squad Leader to grasp what kind of spot the Postman was in.
"The circumstances when the finger was buried?"
He had no way of knowing which answer would actually help. The identity of the red uniform in front of him was a complete blank. Beyond the fact that this was someone with the right to interrogate him, he knew nothing.
"Circumstances?"
"There must have been a situation leading up to it. Tell me the sequence that led to the burial."
"In the middle of all that, who the hell knows where some necklace is. We were too rattled—we buried the finger right there and ran."
To build the story that the appraiser had died in the airstrike, Jungkook had explained the burial as something that followed straight from the strike. In reality, a boss-class creature had filled the time between—a stretch of chasing and being chased. It didn't become much of a problem.
"Pure pandemonium, I'm telling you!"
Airstrike or monster, it was a disaster all the same.
"Blinding light one second, pitch-dark the next. Total chaos."
"Go on."
"Monsters thrashing all over the—"
"Monsters?"
"Ah—no. Let me finish. More like a terror that felt as if monsters were rampaging?"
"Hm."
"I'm saying there was no time to think."
"I see."
"Things just coming down from above, you know—boom!"
"Hm. If this was an airstrike, I didn't come to hear the obvious things anyone would know."
"Yeah, yeah, the airstrike! We buried it in that hell. Not much else to say, is there?"
"Where was the finger buried?"
The uniform peered past the Squad Leader at the stairs leading underground.
"Ah. Trying to go down?"
The finger was buried on the tracks. One wrong step, and the construction site of the new line—a classified matter—could be exposed.
"I can just bring the finger up. Wait here."
"Better if I go with you."
"The hazardous gas probably hasn't cleared yet. If you're fine with that, come along?"
Hazardous gas, its danger inflated in the minds of the people from underground.
"...It still hasn't cleared? As I understand it, more than enough time has passed for it to dissipate."
"Huh? Not even close."
"That can't be right. Aren't you mistaken about something?"
"Well, if that's what you think, then you won't be needing a gas mask."
"Ah—no. I need one."
"And a protective suit?"
"Do I need that too?"
"You don't. It's more like a light dose of radiation. You know the feeling? You don't die right away. Look at me—I only wear the mask, and I'm still alive. If it itches now and then, you scratch."
"Mmm..."
"And if, like you said, it's been ages since the gas should have cleared, then it matters even less."
"...Now that I think about it, there's no need for me to go down myself. A fingerprint comparison will do. Bring it up. Quickly."
It had been buried shallow, so the finger didn't take long to retrieve. The comparison came back exactly as the Postman had said.
"The investigation is over."
The final verification: every circumstance lined up.
Mission failure resulting from an airstrike with no prior warning.
Recognized by the state as mitigating circumstances. Certain penalties, including demerit points, are hereby waived.
"Station Master. One last question."
"What?"
"It's an entirely personal question, so answer as you like."
"I've been comfortable this whole time?"
"Something about this feels off. Everyone seems determined, one way or another, to take the Postman's side."
"That so? I only said what happened."
As the uniform himself had put it, it amounted to nothing more than a feeling. An investigator's instinct, yes—but still only a feeling.
"Understood. I'll take my leave, then."
The findings were passed to an agency of Geofront, the one the red uniform belonged to, and accepted as mitigating circumstances. In the end, the Postman was exempted from every penalty except being sent back out on the mission.
And though the Postman never knew it, this was also the first time the three characters of a name—Woo Jungkook—were delivered to Geofront. Of course, no one underground spared a thought for the failed mission of a single postman.
Not yet.