Subject of Investigation

Jo Yong-han had barely finished his radio call and stepped out of the next room when time ran out.

The power would cut any moment. After that, every generator and power core in headquarters would pour its output into the railgun.

Rumor had it the blackout would reach even the Geofront, though there was no way to confirm it. It wasn't the height of summer, at least, so losing the electricity wouldn't be much of a problem. Let the air conditioning die in a real heat wave, though, and this place became, in an instant, a dead land every bit the match of the world outside.

Air conditioning!

You could fairly call it the crowning triumph of the old civilization. Whoever invented it had surely been the greatest genius of the age. I didn't know the details, but it was obviously either Einstein or Feynman. Einstein, if I had to bet.

Come to think of it, this office had one of those floor-standing units planted upright in the room. The standing kind usually lived in wide-open halls; offices more often got the wall-mounted sort. Was every last little thing like this a VIP privilege?

"These VIP offices don't happen to have some special function that kicks in during an air raid, do they?"

I was only joking.

"Of course."

It hadn't been a joke.

"An emergency power grid is connected."

"Meaning..."

"Meaning the heating and cooling continue to function even during air-raid defense."

Please tell me that was a joke.

Clank.

Steel shutters dropped beyond the windows. Every window in the complex had them, fitted to keep the glass from being destroyed, and they came down for air-raid defense. Without the shutters, the shockwave would blow every pane to pieces. Once they were all down, not a sliver of sunlight reached the interior. Seeing outside was out of the question. Cut the power on top of that, and the whole place became pure darkness.

The final announcement. Without electricity, even the broadcasts would be impossible.

A shrill power-cutoff alarm screamed — and yet not a single light in the office went out. If it had been summer, the air conditioner would have kept running too. Memories of enduring it all while the sweat poured off me unspooled like a panorama.

Rotten world.

"This room has an air purifier as well as the climate-control system."

Jo Yong-han indicated a machine off to one side of the office. I'd been curious about the thing anyway. I'd never seen anything shaped like it in my life. I'd wondered if it was an electric heater. It wasn't.

"An air purifier. As in, it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠purifies the air?"

"Correct."

"Isn't that something the building already does? I think they called it an HVAC system."

"You are well informed."

How could I not be.

"They push it hard in the Postman recruitment notices. Headquarters has clean air, they say."

"Clean air is important. For reference, the HVAC system was invented in the old world by a man named Willis Carrier. A true great. He produced other excellent inventions as well."

And who is that supposed to be.

Knowing the man who made the air conditioner was plenty.

"Mind you, I am not certain that a man named Carrier truly invented it. We simply choose to believe so."

"Well, that's everything to do with the old world, isn't it."

The old world had taken less than a week to collapse. These days the Giant Rods, once they stabbed into the earth, gave off jamming frequencies that scrambled communications — but ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the first few days had been different. The Giant Rods of the early raids had the effect of blowing away the information stored inside machines. Data, as they called it.

The day the first raid began, a single Giant Rod that fell on Gyeongbokgung Palace wiped every last scrap of data across Seoul and all of Gyeonggi Province. On the second day, the whole of the country. Other nations fared no differently. The vast stores of information humanity had piled up evaporated in an instant.

But there was information that could not be erased. Paper. After the data vanished, people began gathering books. Some frantically poured whatever memories still remained in their heads out onto paper. Efforts that fortunate, though — that day was the last of them.

Day three. Monsters appeared for the first time, and humans who were attacked turned into zombies. Day four. The zombies multiplied at a terrifying speed until they were past anyone's ability to contain. Even so, people didn't give up. They believed they would find ordinary life again. Day five. Giant Rods began pouring from the sky without end. Everything was scorched to nothing, and the population plunged. The bombardment continued without rest into the next day. The sixth and final day. By the time what could be called civilization had been reduced to bare traces, the scale of the raids shrank sharply. They didn't stop completely, of course. From then, straight on until now.

Those who lived were only a tiny handful. Whether they gave up or not, nothing was going to change anymore. The end was already reality. In the decades since, education had been severed, and information distorted again and again upon itself. My generation, born after the fall, had become an entirely different kind of human from the old ones who had actually lived through the old world.

I'd heard that in the old world there was something called compulsory education. Meaning you were obligated to know the great Einstein who invented the air conditioner. A world where everyone got to enjoy knowledge and information. But that luxurious obligation went extinct along with the old world. What still got taught among people, passed quietly from hand to hand, amounted to survival skills, Korean, and English — about that much. I'd learned English without knowing why I was supposed to. They said that in the old world, English itself had been a survival skill.

Whirrr.

Stepping closer to the air purifier, I could hear a rush of air. The sound of it swallowing dust, maybe.

"Are you curious about the principle behind the air purifier?"

"Don't need that. The question just now was good, though. From here on, make sure you ask before you explain."

"Even so—"

"And if you can manage it, skip the reasons and just state the conclusion. Even better."

"...The conclusion is that it is good to have an air purifier."

"Ah. Right."

The same people who killed the air conditioning in the middle of summer were, somewhere else, spending emergency power to remove dust. A grievance like that could kill a man.

"You wear an exceedingly aggrieved expression. Surely you did not think that every last bit of power in headquarters would be cut? Under any circumstances, core facilities and the chain of command must not be allowed to stop."

"As if I wouldn't know that."

The question was whether this place was really that core.

"You may feel this office is not important to that degree, but—"

There he goes again. Shut it down.

"Now that I think about it, it is important. Seeing as I'm here."

"Correct. I had, in fact, just secured office-access clearance for you over the radio, Mr. Jungkook."

When was this man ever going to take a joke as a joke? I'd keep throwing them until he did.

"Office-access clearance, and that's the end of it? You were in the next room quite a while. You weren't secretly eating something in there, were you?"

"I am in a fasting state. This can be verified by endoscopy."

I ought to stop. This felt like losing.

"I would always prefer to keep radio calls short, but the people above never seem to run out of things they want to know. Answering this and that is what drags them out every time."

"That is what one's superiors do."

"What's 'that'?"

"Fretting themselves sick — is this guy doing all right? — that's their whole job."

A laugh escaped Jo Yong-han before he could stop it. It was the first time Woo Jungkook had ever seen him smile. And in that same moment, Yong-han began to turn the radio call over in his mind.

"Regarding Woo Jungkook, you mean?"

A question about what sort of man the rumored number-one Postman actually was. He could not answer his superior at once. Only hours ago, he had been certain he had the man figured out. Things had changed after he met the Jungkook who came back bringing the sisters with him.

"Woo Jungkook is..."

He had ability. Yong-han had not, however, considered ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠him a man who used that ability rightly. Wasn't he the sort who leaned ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on the Director and cherry-picked only the easy deliveries? Erasing his entire past pointed the same way. Yong-han had been sure there was a shameful history he could not afford to have exposed — that he had committed some corruption that harmed the state, been caught, and, because the skill itself at least was genuine, been shown the state's mercy and left to scrape by as a Postman.

"His ability was solid, just as the rumors said."

No. In truth, it was fairer to say the ability exceeded the rumors. Add the breathless, excited account his younger sister An-na had given him, and there was no room left for doubt.

"As for anything that might pose a problem—"

The part he had agonized over most. Did Jungkook have anti-state or antisocial tendencies? Until a few hours ago, Yong-han himself had assessed him as a problematic man — someone who thought only of his own safety and would harm not merely other people but the organization as a whole. That was why he had not been brought into the Subway delivery project.

"There is nothing of the kind. He is not a problematic individual."

But the Jungkook he had seen today overturned that judgment. Not simply because he had gotten the sisters out and brought them back safely. That, in the end, only demonstrated skill. Judging by the various demands he had made on the grounds that he had brought them, it was fairer to call the whole thing calculated. What had actually made Yong-han feel he had been wrong about the man was that moment — while he himself was shedding tears of reunion with his sisters.

The place they had met lay a little outside the protected zone. In a spot that dangerous, while the siblings held one another and wept, what mattered was that Jungkook had waited without a word. Nor had he merely stood there. Together with his companion, Jeong Hocheol, he had kept watch on every side and guarded them. He could have offered some convenient excuse and suggested they move. He didn't. He refused to intrude on the siblings' time. An act that took the risk upon itself so that a precious moment could be kept — and not a shred of calculation had gone into it.

"Yes. He was a man quite different from how he appears. I judge that the rumors, aside from those concerning his ability, need not be given much weight."

At the conclusion he delivered, his superior asked one last time, and Yong-han answered with force.

In the end his superior chose to trust that judgment. Jo Yong-han was the most reliable subordinate he had.

Yong-han didn't know it, but Woo Jungkook's name was on the subjects-of-investigation list kept by the intelligence team under the Future Technology Department. That same intelligence team — the rumored source of the stories about kidnapping people and dissecting them, if it came to that.

Dozens of individuals judged out of the ordinary stood on the list. They were given a light preliminary look, and anyone still deemed a problem was moved onto the special-watch list. As it happened, an investigation assignment had been just about to come down to Yong-han as well. He didn't know this either: after his radio call, Jungkook's name was struck from the list of subjects under investigation.

About ten minutes left until the air raid. I put the six suits of body armor into the storage cabinet. Ordinarily you were supposed to fold them properly, to make the most of the space, but there was no need. So much storage was left over that I wondered whether I'd ever fill it.

Jo Yong-han sat at the desk, flipping through papers. Working, even now?

"If the power had actually cut and left it pitch-dark, you could've used that as an excuse not to work. Too bright in here to slack off, huh?"

"I am not working."

Looking closer, the document in his hands was headquarters' specialty-code classification chart.

"Planning a transfer into a specialist post? Resignation letter in the breast pocket, by any chance?"

"I was considering where to assign my elder sister. I had a rough idea in mind, but I did not expect to be reunited with her this soon."

So he could grant whatever specialty he wanted. The Future Technology Department had far more power than I'd thought.

"Looks like you've already decided for An-na."

"I have thought for a long time that this would suit her."

He pointed to the specialty marked Mechanical Repair. The craftsmanship on those throwing knives, the ones fitted with noise generators, had certainly been something else. But a higher-grade specialty existed in the same line. Someone of An-na's level was more than qualified. She put her heart into whatever she took on; she could handle work with real weight behind it. The way she had punched through that zombie horde, for one.

"Mechanical Development might suit her better than repair."

"Granting a promising specialty to a headquarters newcomer from the very start would be a burden even for me. The picture of someone climbing up from the bottom looks better."

So he had to keep his head down. Nothing to be done, then.

"Hm."

While Jungkook looked the chart over, an unease Yong-han could not account for settled on him.

"But... Mr. Jungkook?"

"Mm?"

"Did you think An-na could go straight into development work? It is work that consumes an enormous budget. Ability is one thing, but the responsibility is immense—"

"Why wouldn't she?"

The answer came back as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and Jo Yong-han found himself at a loss for words.

"Well... it is not that she could not, exactly."

It was impossible, and yet a thought flickered past: did Jungkook know some strength in Jo An-na that even Yong-han himself did not? That was the source of the unease. Of course, he immediately decided there was absolutely no way such a thing could be true.

But this was not the end of it. The real surprises were only just beginning.