Mask
Maybe it was the nightmare. I woke the instant the light started climbing.
A wretched headache. On the days the dreams tore at me hardest, pain came on as if my eyes might drop out of my skull, and every step I took set my head ringing. Alone, I could have screwed my face up and let the hurt show for all it was worth. I had three companions in tow now, though, and every one of them watched the man at the front without once looking away. The luxury of looking like I was in pain was not permitted. A vanguard's morale passes to everyone behind him. Stand at the front, and even if you die, you die on your feet.
I swallowed, hard. In the end an expensive painkiller went down after it. I could probably fool the others. Jo Shin-hye would see through it.
Thirty minutes until wake-up. Long enough for the drug to take. Pressing at my throbbing skull with one hand, I drew out my notebook. I had to get it down before the memory thinned any further.
White, covering the whole face... The eyeholes were blocked with something black, too, I think. Some translucent material?
What I set down was what I knew of the postman in the mask. In truth I had learned almost nothing, which was precisely why even the smallest clue had to be recorded.
Colluding with the settlement command—illegal deliveries, and surveillance on the inside... Was my body refusing to obey me connected to Mask as well?
I could not afford to forget Mask. He was the one who had poured shells down on us. Forget a man like that, and my severed right arm would come looking for me, flapping as it searched. Forever.
Ah. Now that I think of it, I wonder.
Was Mask still there?
The commander smacked his dry lips. He already had a fair guess why Mask had come to talk, and of course his throat had gone dry.
"Ahem. Well, it was a matter of choice. In the end it seems you were right this time, but..."
Mask had proposed raising the alert to its highest the moment the abnormal signs appeared.
"Did I know it would turn out like this? What I said made sense at the time, too. You'll grant me that?"
The commander had dismissed it, claiming a needless fuss would only sow confusion. First, he had never dreamed a single postman could slip the settlement's tight security. Second, they were already struggling to keep the place alive from one day to the next, so what did it matter if a postman walked out with a handful of people? He did not say the second reason aloud.
"If you had permitted maintenance on the rest of the anti-aircraft guns, as I asked, it would never have come this far. Ah. Thank you."
Mask took the cup of hot water an officer brought him and offered the thanks as smoothly as a bow.
"Anti-aircraft guns—you hardly need many. Isn't one enough?"
The reason he had refused the maintenance was simple. Those shells were precious. Blaze away with not one gun but several, and how was anyone meant to bear the drain? Better to let four or so go and be done with it.
"Captains, sergeants, those sorts can be written off. But the one called Jo Shin-hye—losing a doctor cuts deep. I worry about what comes next."
The problem was that a doctor had been among the four who escaped. Even the commander could not bring himself to call that acceptable. A clear mistake.
"This is all those worthless bastards' fault. Truth is, I got word the pursuit team never even set out. If that much had gone right, we could have killed the lot and brought the doctor back. Tsk."
As the commander said, a pursuit carried out properly might have recovered his own error. Best of all, of course, would have been no error of his in the first place.
"Oh dear. So that happened. You kept the wrong men."
Mask sounded genuinely pitying.
"Tell me about it. All of it comes from keeping the wrong men. Tsk."
"If there was a problem of that sort, it couldn't be helped. Don't let it weigh on you."
"Hm. Good of you to understand. A commander's seat is a hard one. You're not sore that I didn't take your advice?"
"Even a commander can't control everything. It's all right."
"Glad to hear it's all right!"
The commander's chin, which had been hanging, began slowly to rise. The blame for this mess was no longer his. At least Mask saw it that way, and that was a relief.
"Then the men responsible ought to be disciplined properly, so this never happens again."
"Yes. That's what I intend. And that postman bastard—I'll have my revenge on him, too. I'll put Lieutenant Colonel Kang on the investigation."
Mask drained the hot water.
"Lieutenant Colonel Kang is a reliable subordinate, certainly. That was good. Clear it away."
He handed the empty cup back to the officer. He always treated those beneath him gently, and that was one of the secrets of his popularity with the men. That the settlement's officers should be a postman's subordinates was a little peculiar, but there it was.
"It won't do any good, though. Don't waste your strength."
"Hm?"
"That postman isn't a man you'll learn anything about by investigating him."
"What—do you know something about him?"
The commander's tone went subtly sour.
"I've heard the rumors a few times. A postman with an outstanding record."
Mask had secretly confirmed the face of the postman moving through the settlement long before. One look, and he knew this was the man the rumors called first in performance. Mask was thorough about postmen. Smooth illegal deliveries required constant wariness toward one's partners.
"So I knew he was a capable one. Even so."
He thought back to the moment a single bullet had stopped the anti-aircraft gun.
"He was more than what I'd heard."
He had only glimpsed it, but it was a hunter's pistol, beyond any doubt. Not a thing a postman had any business carrying. And it had been one shot. He had hit the shell inside the barrel as it fired. The aim alone was superhuman, and the timing had to be perfect down to fractions of a second, several decimal places deep. The gun had been far from him besides, and high, up on the wall. Without a perfect grasp of the ballistic arc, a hit was impossible.
Nor was that all. Checked afterward, the round had not been standard issue but a custom armor-piercing round, the sort a man would rarely have cause to use. Loaded in advance, no doubt, against the anti-aircraft gun. The caliber itself was different, but a hunter's pistol supported multiple calibers, so it could be fired. The trouble was that an armor-piercing round does not follow the same arc as a standard one. Ordinarily the difference is nothing to fuss over. Hit a very small target from far away, and it becomes a gap you cannot ignore.
He had controlled every one of those variables and still landed the shot. If that was skill, it was the greatest marksmanship in history. Unlikely as it was, even if the man were hiding a Core ability tied to shooting, it would still be the greatest shooting Core there had ever been.
"Ah, that story? One pistol shot, and the anti-aircraft gun stops? Ha. What kind of bullshit... Even if it's true, it was pure luck."
The commander found luck the more reasonable explanation.
"It might be luck. What frightens me is if it really was."
"Hmm? Why would luck be frightening?"
To Mask, that was worse.
"Because you can never beat a man who has luck on his side."
They had put anti-aircraft fire on him properly, and he had walked out whole. Harder still to accept was that the rest of them had lived as well. One had left an arm and a leg behind on the way, true enough. You could say the sergeant's position had a bunker. The others made no sense at all. Small wonder, then, that he found himself wondering whether the postman had worked some trick. And if that postman ever came back nursing a grudge over this? Mask had no confidence he could stand against him. He had felt a wall.
The conclusion he reached was simple. Change is necessary.
The commander, meanwhile, could think of nothing but the officers who had yet to appear despite the summons.
"When are they bringing Lieutenant Colonel Kang! And where did the rest of those bastards go that they aren't coming!"
He shook as he sat and stood and sat again.
"What do you intend to do from here?"
Mask gave him what might be his last chance.
"What do you mean, what? First I thrash the ones who made a mess of this."
"And after that?"
"After? What after is there? We go back to peacetime."
"Peacetime?"
The chance was gone.
"What are these slugs even doing—Major Park! Go fetch Lieutenant Colonel Kang, and hurry—"
"Peacetime?"
"...Hm? Your tone's gotten rather short."
Something felt wrong. Mask had never once cut him off before.
"Peacetime is peacetime. Is there a problem?"
"Were we not at war the entire time?"
The commander burst out laughing.
"And here I wondered what you'd say. For us, peacetime is wartime! We're always ready to advance."
"I can't help thinking you've grown afraid."
The commander doubted his ears.
"What did you just say? Afraid? Me?"
"Yes. I can't help thinking the Commander is scared, and carrying on like a brat."
Snap. His reason went, and with it whatever had been left of the relationship between them.
"...Did I hear that wrong?"
Mask had been creeping upward by inches, and now he was one step from lighting a cigarette across from him like an equal. The commander had already disliked it.
"Did you say brat...?"
"Yes. A brat."
"I went easy on you, and you forget your place!"
"A man who rises to supreme command and still acts afraid is a brat. Ah—I'm speaking of you, Commander."
Thud. Thud. The commander's boots were a heartbeat from punching holes in the conference-room floor. The officers standing at attention sprang out in a hurry and caught him as he closed on Mask.
"Let go! Cut the deal and you're nothing but a nobody errand boy again, you hear me? Understand?"
"You aren't fit to sit in a commander's chair. I said it was fine, and you truly believed it was fine. I have nothing left to say."
"You bastards, I said let go! And you—didn't you have some ability that stops people moving their bodies? Ha! Those bastards all ran, didn't they? Fraud!"
Mask came toward him, unhurried.
"I held back as far as I could. Stay as we are, and the whole force starves to death here. You never meant to advance on Seoul to begin with, and you aren't aiming anywhere else, either."
"Who are you to hold anything back? And you think advancing is some easy fucking thing?"
"Yes, yes. It isn't easy. That's why I watched to see how you'd manage it, and now it won't do. I believe I've given you time enough."
"What time did you give me? Who do you think you are? Just know the deal is finished, you worthless low-level civil-servant bastard!"
"I can't stand to watch a frightened rat cower inside a fence of anti-aircraft guns any longer."
"Throw him out! No—seize him! It's the stockade!"
Judging they had talked enough, Mask stepped back and drew away.
"Kim Seong-seok is relieved of every post."
"What is that bastard saying? You idiots, I said let go!"
"Execute him."
Click. Another officer, until then standing in formation, drew a pistol. At the same moment the two holding Kim Seong-seok kicked the backs of his knees and dropped him. They each seized an arm, bent it, and locked him down hard.
"Wh-what is this? What—how did this happen! What is all of this...!"
Bang. Blood burst from the back of his head in a clean, satisfying spray, and the conference room grew considerably quieter for it. The officers returned to their places and formed up again. Only the most junior remained, and started wiping the spattered blood. That was when Major Song came back with Lieutenant Colonel Kang.
"Lieutenant Colonel Kang has arri— Ah. It's already over."
Major Song moved at once to help with the blood.
"Lieutenant Colonel Kang. You're here? How is it outside?"
"They're standing by."
"Lead the way."
There was a small hole at the mouth of the white mask covering his face. Mask set a cigarette into it and, guided along, arrived at the plaza. Every officer who had failed to appear despite Kim Seong-seok's summons knelt there, bound. They were the ones who had never received a recruitment offer from Mask—the ones who fell short of the standard. Behind them, a number of NCOs and soldiers were bound in the same posture, bearing the blame for failing to stop the escape. Mouths were gagged tight so none of them could make a sound, and a soldier stood behind each one.
A captain came up and reported.
"Eight officers, four NCOs, twelve soldiers. Twenty-four in all."
Mask lifted the mask for a moment, wiped the sweat from his brow, and gave the order.
"Execute them."
"Yes, sir."
He covered his face again. The soldiers drew swords of every shape in a single motion.
"Hold on. What are you doing?"
"Sir?"
"Where did all of you leave your guns?"
"Ah, well, there's no need to waste precious ammunition on an execution—"
Mask tilted his head.
"I mean a firing squad. Courtesy toward men in uniform. Even men without ability are still soldiers. Let us at least be the sort who preserve honor."
"Ah... Yes, sir! A firing squad, then. Issue rifles to all of them! Move!"
Bang. Bang. Bang-bang. The parched plaza grew damp with blood, and the statue of an anti-aircraft gun toppled. Those who lived took the execution for a winnowing, the incapable culled from the rest, because Mask had made them believe it. One of his weapons was an outstanding eye. Simply being able to divide the useful from the useless brought a man a great many advantages in staying alive. He made the capable his own, set them on, and had them trample the rest, and in that way his power grew. The same eye had recognized the true measure of that lucky postman.
Bang. Bang-bang. Having left every task to the subordinates he had chosen, Mask did not watch the cleanup one body at a time. He was walking the top of the wall with Lieutenant Colonel Kang instead.
"Good work, Lieutenant Colonel Kang. A special promotion. You're a brigadier general now."
"Thank you, sir."
Mask handed Brigadier General Kang a densely written list.
"General Kang. Promote them as the list says, and carry out the transfers."
"Yes, sir. Incidentally, I hear Kim Seong-seok meant to investigate the postman who helped them escape. What do you think?"
Mask looked out past the wall.
"I'm done with that postman. He's a serious enemy. Better we don't get tangled up with him."
"I agree he seems no ordinary man. But isn't that all the more reason to investigate?"
"Start looking into him, and we may be traced back ourselves."
"Sir? Do you know something about him?"
"Not well. But I have the feeling he's a man who could do it. A man who could, and then some. Don't touch him."
"Yes, sir..."
Beyond the wall, the Giant Rods stood sparsely in the far distance, throwing their shadows south.
"We go south. We turn our backs on Seoul."
"South, sir."
"We have to live. We have to go where living is possible. Stay here, and every one of us starves."
"Understood. Where in the south would be best?"
Mask shifted his gaze to the horizon.
"Let us go to Busan. Draw up the operational plan."
"Yes, sir."
After that, the fact that Settlement AAA had been left completely empty remained unknown for quite a long time. Natural enough. Even the regular army had been reluctant to draw near. The anti-aircraft guns atop the wall still stood in all their majesty, so postmen passing nearby never realized the settlers were gone. They had departed leaving behind their symbol, their guardian deity, and their greatest shield.
The moment they resolved to abandon the anti-aircraft guns, they could finally advance.
"Up."
The word was barely out of my mouth before Hocheol snapped awake like a spring let go.
"Awake!"
"...You don't have to repeat it back."
"Yes, sir."
It was only that Hocheol finished preparing to move so quickly. The sisters were not slow, either. The sight of Jo An-na's face brought the right arm from the nightmare up again, unbidden. Her eyes were swollen. Maybe she had dreamed worse than I had.
"The place is packed with zombies. We're going around, right?"
Jo Shin-hye regarded the horde filling the park with a bored look, as if zombies were someone else's problem.
"No. We break through."
According to what the Physiognomist had told me, guerrillas were hiding on the park's outskirts. That was why I had forced a way through here on the way in, too.
"Uh... why?"
Now that the horde had suddenly become her problem, her color changed. That was how work always went. Blink, and someone else's trouble was yours.
Tell her there are guerrillas on the outskirts, and she'll insist on an even wider detour. No question. There was no time to swing wide when a shortcut sat right there. Weren't we Koreans, that bloodline carried down unbroken from the old world to this one? What gets stamped into the genes does not wash out easily.
A nation of delivery.
For a postman, time is life. Time is life, yes—but first you have to keep hold of life itself. Not dying matters most.
"We'll try the breakthrough first. If it truly won't work, we look for another way."
Jo Shin-hye swallowed the sigh she badly wanted to heave. She was against pushing through the zombies, but she and Jeong-guk were aligned where it mattered most: keep everyone's morale up. That was why she had held the sigh in.
Jo An-na, who had been watching the two of them talk, carefully raised a hand.
"Um... I have something to say..."
To Jeong-guk, Jo An-na had been someone else's concern.
Until then.