The Severed Right Arm
Thirteen left, then.
The sack that had held the twenty-five cores from Captain Choi—that was the source of the heat. It had been packed full of cores in every bright color. Twelve of them were pitch-black now. A core losing its light meant the energy inside was spent.
So the ability burns core energy to activate. Heat had surged every time I overturned the odds, which meant the condition was probably right. There might be other conditions or limits besides. You can't map a thing after using it once or twice. When I had the leisure, I'd have to prod it from every angle until I knew it cold. If I couldn't call on it at the decisive moment, I'd be in trouble.
The trouble was that testing it meant using it, and using it meant cores. These weren't pocket change. It wouldn't be easy.
Six cores a use...
Granted, the ones from Captain Choi had been relatively small. By color and texture, they hadn't held much energy either. Even so, scraping together six of them meant putting down at least two small monster colonies. A regular-army squad would have to stay on operations for something like four days to manage it, and time wasn't the only thing that work consumed. Ammunition and the rest of the consumables were separate. As for the lives of the soldiers who died doing it—say the ancestors already paid that bill.
There was another problem. If cores were essential, how was I supposed to haul a heap of them around every time? They were neither light nor compact enough to carry in bulk.
But wait.
Nothing said an ability evolved only once. If I succeeded with an Ability Core a second time, could it evolve further? Even a mere easing of the conditions of use wouldn't be bad. Wanting something more powerful—was that greed? Of course it would mean staking my life again. And the best outcome was that no such thing ever happened.
Either way, fully grasping the limits and conditions came first. Once I got back to headquarters, I'd see Mr. Myeong before anyone. Did that man still have a carton of cigarettes left?
"Ah—!"
Jo An-na, pressed tight against my back, lurched. She'd missed her footing.
"I'm sorry. I can't see what's ahead..."
The sky had darkened some, but not so much that you couldn't see.
"Jeong-guk? What if I walk in front of Anna? I could take her hand and lead her. Anna's night-blind."
Nothing to her but knife-throwing, apparently. That was why I'd set the order this way. Jo An-na, who looked the least likely to survive on her own, was better kept closest to me.
"Take it."
"...What?"
No need to change the order. I had hands.
"Hold my hand and keep up."
Two heads popped out from behind Jo An-na.
"Now, that's a bit much."
"Now, that is not quite proper, sir!"
Jo Shin-hye, I could allow. What was his problem?
"Then we'll do it this way."
I fumbled a glove onto my right hand alone and held it back behind me again. Now that I thought about it, this was funny in its own right. What was the fuss.
"...All right."
Jo An-na took the hand, hesitant. Was my bare hand that filthy?
"Don't hold it loose. Grip it tight."
"Ah. Yes."
A glove I hadn't washed in months. Oddly satisfying.
Even so, I still couldn't get a read on Jo An-na. No sharply defined side to her, you might say. Hocheol had stood out from the moment I saw him in the army. I hadn't known Jo Shin-hye long, but she wasn't hard to figure—which was not the same as easy to handle. Jo An-na, I still didn't understand. She had no strong will of her own, and she wasn't the sort to show much feeling. The one thing I'd seen often was her worrying over Captain Choi. But she hadn't shed a tear even at the captain's death, so she clearly wasn't someone whose emotions ran hot on the surface.
A faint person, without presence. There was always a reason someone turned out that way. I had a guess. Not my business.
We walked like that for about two hours and reached Incheon Grand Park, the place where the Physiognomist had hurled noise generators with such gusto.
I'd cleared a path back then. Tch.
I'd thought the return would be easy, with the zombie horde shoved off to one side. Instead the zombies I'd cleared were scattered all through the park again. Someone had raised hell in the meantime. A nuisance. The sun was down, so we decided to push through tomorrow and found a place to sleep in a ruined building that looked safe.
The sisters and Hocheol collapsed on the spot. Cooped up in the settlement, a little walking had finished them. Hocheol at least had a bad leg. Some allowance there.
"Jeong-guk, aren't you thirsty?"
Jo Shin-hye shook a canteen at me.
"I'm fine."
What caught my eye was the canteen's surface. Military issue. The regular-army mark had been scraped off, and beside it someone had crudely carved a symbol shaped like an anti-aircraft gun. The sight seemed to stir something in Hocheol.
"Heartless bastards... I fired into the wall so nobody would die."
The anti-aircraft rounds coming in as a direct hit had clearly shaken him. He'd worried about the sentries even right before he fired. They were his own men, people he knew. Fair enough. Captain Choi and Jo Shin-hye had done the same, trying not to hit them. All of them had poured fire into the wall.
Well, a round or two might have gone wide and found them anyway.
Of course, cutting down traitors trying to slip out of the settlement was those men's rightful duty. Hocheol wasn't ignorant of that. But they'd shared hardship for so long, and he'd hoped they might simply let them go—firing wide on purpose, the way he had. The only time Mask had briefly appeared and taken the anti-aircraft gun was when he was aiming at me. The ones who attacked Captain Choi, Hocheol, and the sisters had definitely been Hocheol's subordinates. The captain's men, too. There was one thing Hocheol wasn't considering.
"Do you think they knew we were firing at the wrong place?"
"Sir? That... they wouldn't have known, sir."
The crisp answer came from Jo Shin-hye.
"They knew."
Probably. I thought so too.
"You especially, Hocheol. You were obviously shooting low."
"W-was I, sir."
Those men had made their own effort, in their way, not to harm us.
"The escape got snarled and we lost a lot of time, and still, right to the end, all they had were broken rifles."
"That's because I locked the armory, just as you planned, Postman, sir."
"What, did you seal it with steel plate so they couldn't get in?"
"Sir? No, just with a key—"
"When every second counts, how long do you think a lock like that holds?"
They'd dragged their feet on purpose. No rifles issued, no need to shoot.
"They aren't of one mind in there."
Their response had been off somewhere. Repairing only a single anti-aircraft gun was strange to begin with. The malfunction had been suspicious; they should have checked the rest. They'd sensed something wrong and still answered our escape a step late, which meant the alert had never been properly set. Reissuing rifles had been sluggish, and they hadn't sent a pursuit team. A push to stop the escape and a push to look the other way had clearly happened at the same time.
"The only thing that actually responded was that one gun. Nothing else got in our way."
Even that one had likely had Mask stuck beside it, watching. He'd shown up in the gunner's seat himself partway through. With eyes on them, they'd had no choice but to fire for real.
"Then... my men were worried about me too. Is it all right to think that, sir?"
They probably were. From the start, more than one or two of them had wanted out of the settlement. They'd only given up on actually doing it. Men like that would have been cheering a life-or-death escape on in secret. Of course there were also vacant idiots who'd swallowed the worship of the anti-aircraft guns. Those would still be trusting command and following along. A minority, though.
"Worried? Maybe they were. Maybe they weren't."
"I want to know what you think, Postman, sir!"
"Figure it out yourself. Not my problem."
"Aw, how can you say that, sir. The way you've explained everything so far, you clearly think it through de—"
Jo Shin-hye cut in.
"Hocheol? Don't you remember what I said?"
"What did you say, ma'am?"
"When we had that cup of hot water together."
"Ah...!"
And then, soon enough:
"Heh. I remember."
Hocheol grinned, sly. Except when he talked about hip-hop, had I ever seen that face on him?
"What are you smirking at?"
It sat oddly wrong.
"Heh... Nothing, sir. Nothing at all."
"You get what I meant now, don't you?"
She kept feeding him words I couldn't parse.
"The Postman really does seem to be that sort of person. That's a bit of a relief, sir."
Were the two of them badmouthing me back there? Well, they had reason enough. I wasn't good at empty words. Since when had these two gotten so close?
...Anyway, don't let on that I was curious. Ignore it. Ignore it. They were only coming as far as headquarters.
"Postman, sir, are you curious what we were talking about?"
"Not at all. Not my busin—"
"I knew it, sir! As always, it is none of the Postman's business, sir. Heh."
What was wrong with him?
"Quiet. Long day, so sleep is six hours. I'll wake you. Everyone, eyes shut."
The sisters lay down clutching each other. I sat with my back to the wall, ready to sleep. Hocheol didn't lie down at once. He dug through his pack and pulled something out.
"It's cold, sir. Cover yourself with this."
One blanket, thin as paper and small.
"What are you... Never mind."
Once I was sure Hocheol had closed his eyes too, I shut mine last.
It took a long time to fall asleep. I had to sort my thoughts.
In the end I'd used the core I'd meant to bury. Unlike other cores, which only lose their light when the power runs out, an Ability Core ceases to exist altogether. It sat wrong with me. The hot current I'd felt the moment I gained the ability, riding in through my veins—it was as if the core had entered my body. Then maybe I would never shake the smell of Gyeong-su's blood.
Thinking that, my awareness slowly blurred. And I hoped. That the nightmare which had tormented me for days would never come again. That it had vanished along with the core Gyeong-su left behind.
The wish came true. Gyeong-su and the core did not appear in the dream. Only the lead had changed. The nightmare was the same.
The new star was Captain Choi's severed right arm. All night it crawled the ground, folding and unfolding, as if searching for something. The sound of the arm dragging, raking the sand, went on without end.
Shhk. Ssshk.
Was it looking for the missing leg? Or the torso, buried shallow? Or else.
Shhk. Ssshk.
Why did it feel like it was looking for me?
"We lost them. I'm sorry."
"You actually looked? Did you?!"
The commander had reason to bellow.
"You're sure you actually sent the pursuit team?"
"Sir?"
"Sir? Siiir? Major Song, want me to clear out your earholes? No—should I crack your skull and talk straight into it?"
"Ah, no, sir. That's not it. I was a little thrown. Of course we sent the pursuit team. The order went down properly."
But the commander had already received word that the team had never even set out.
"Who did you give that order to? And who did he build the team out of? Investigate every last one of them, now!"
"Yes, sir!"
"And why aren't the rest of them here! Didn't you pass the word?"
He had summoned the officers to the operations room.
"They'll be here soon. I definitely contacted all of them..."
Only about two-thirds had shown. While Major Song was being torn apart, the officers kept silent.
"Every one of them ducked out! Anyone with responsibility, be ready to take off the uniform!"
"Yes, sir..."
"You go fetch Lieutenant Colonel Kang first. I need to look into that Postman. He might come back."
"The Postman... the one in the mask?"
"No, fuck—that one's on our side!"
"Ah. Yes, sir..."
"What are you standing there for! Investigate! Bring Lieutenant Colonel Kang first!"
"Yes, sir!"
The major turned in a hurry.
"Every last one of them, dull-witted bastards... Hey, you empty-headed shits—like this, you think we're advancing all the way to Seoul?!"
Major Song, bolting for the door, glanced back without thinking at the commander's irritation—
Thud.
"Agh!"
He collided with someone just coming into the conference room. The other man wasn't particularly large, but the major—who'd eaten nothing but zombie meat for days—was the one who went down.
"Aigoo, aigoo. Seoul, my ass. We're all going to die right here."
The commander felt a year older every second. Sick of the sight, he turned his back to the wall and shook his head.
"One Postman walks in and walks out with four people, and you can't stop it? Absolute morons..."
The major, briefly knocked senseless, came to and pushed himself up. He tried to stand at once, but the world spun and he sank back down—
Sssk.
The man he'd collided with offered a hand. The major stared up, dazed. The one offering the hand bent a knee, lowered himself to eye level, and held the hand out again. The major had the feeling he was smiling. Sorry they'd collided. The mask hid his face, but still.
The major's instinct was only half right. The man was certainly smiling. Just not in apology for the collision. He simply couldn't hold it back, thinking of what was about to happen in this room.