Kkamagwi
Hocheol showed up hauling an enormous duffel, and every eye in the room landed on him at once.
It wasn't the bag.
"……I told you to bring a gas mask. Not to walk in wearing the thing."
He yanked it off at once and dragged in a rough breath.
"Hahh— so that's what you meant, sir! I was suffocating in there, I tell you!"
"So am I."
I took Hocheol outside.
Buildings of pure white, shining hard enough to tire the eyes in no time. Our destination was Building K, and along the way I gave him a brief account of the buildings we passed—which departments occupied them, and what each one did. Today I wasn't in the mood to walk with my mouth shut. It felt dull.
"You explain things incredibly well, sir!"
Well, of course I did. I'd been an instructor.
"And that annex over there handles core appraisal."
"Can a postman get something appraised too, sir?"
"If you pay. You don't know any appraisers, so figure on handing over about five rounds."
"Urk, that's pretty steep, sir……."
Take a core to Elder Heo and bring up his daughter, and anyone can get treated like a regular.
"Have you forgotten? You asked me to send a letter to your daughter. I was the one who took that job."
"Th-that's right! 'Course I remember!"
But a secret art stops being a secret art the moment too many people know it.
"Hand it to me, and I can get it done a little cheaper."
"Truly, sir? Reliable as ever, I tell you!"
Take four rounds off him, keep one as my fee, and pass the rest to Elder Heo as the commission. A deal where everybody wins.
"We're here."
"Awful gloomy, sir."
Before we stepped into Building K, the gear had to be set.
"Gas mask on."
"Yes, sir!"
While Hocheol strapped his on, I covered my own face. A white bat mask, hiding nothing but the eyes and the bridge of the nose.
"Senior, your gas mask looks awfully small and light, sir? Has Headquarters technology advanced that far?"
"This isn't a gas mask. Follow me."
From the outside, Building K was the same as the rest—a clean, pure-white shell. The outside and the inside, though, were not the same thing. The scanner at the entrance had been broken for ages, and the moment we stepped through, the lobby met us stripped bare and hollow.
"It's run-down to a strange degree, sir……."
"They don't look after it."
"I thought the whole Government Complex would be spotless, sir."
"They could maintain this place if they wanted to. They choose not to."
"Sir? Why would they do that?"
"Because it's a shadow they meant to leave."
Inside Headquarters, secrets don't exist. You're watched without pause, and you're expected to report everything. But perfect control isn't always a virtue. Now and then, people have to be allowed to breathe. Press too hard, and sooner or later something bursts. The air hole left for that purpose is Building K.
"Of course, that doesn't mean you get to act like a lunatic in here. Surveillance and control are just looser. This place has rules of its own."
"I think I get the gist, sir."
"Yeah?"
"It's got that Harlem feel, sir! H.A.R.L.E.M.!"
The hell was that.
"You don't know, sir? Shall I explain it in detail~ YO?"
"I'm good, YO."
"Oh! Your rhyme game is no joke, sir? You know about rhymes?"
"I know. Don't explain."
"YO!"
It's a fruit.
We reached the spot. A grimy door in a corner of the first floor.
"It says machine room, sir?"
We waited a moment in front of it. A small window set into the door rattled open, and the doorkeeper's eyes appeared. Every part of his face but the eyes was covered by a purple mask.
"Will you look at that. Even the Bat shows up with a rookie in tow sometimes."
"Same thing every time gets boring."
"How do you do, sir! Rookie postm—"
"You. Shut your mouth and stand still."
"Yes, sir."
"Anyway. Open the door."
The doorkeeper's snort caught against the mask and came out stifled.
"Not even a request. A flat-out order?"
"While everyone else hauls in ten at a time, I've only just brought one. Think of all the life I've breathed into this place. I've earned the right to ask for this much."
"Krhh……."
The doorkeeper shook his head. His eyes, though, were smiling.
"No argument there. Rookie's got one hell of a backer. Come in."
The door clunked and swung wide, but the inside didn't exactly reveal itself. The fixtures in the abandoned machine room were so old the light came through faint. Still, walk it a few times and you can find the way by feel.
While I led, Hocheol was excited all over again.
"I've never in my life been told I had a good backer, sir! I really am lucky, I tell you!"
"If this is the first time you've heard it in your whole life, that sounds plenty unlucky to me."
"Until recently I thought mine was an unlucky life, but ever since I came to Headquarters my thinking's changed, sir! I'm getting a lot of help from Mr. Yong-han and from you, Senior, aren't I!"
"Well. No harm in taking it as a positive."
"My luck just suddenly got crazy good, sir!"
"Who knows. There was a work of old-world literature. A Lucky Day……. Forget it."
"Sir?"
"We're here."
I opened the door at the end of the corridor.
"How high were you looking to go?"
"Even this is a bargain!"
"Hey, handsome, take a look over here before you go!"
"Come on, I already checked around."
"Customer, you looking to get hit?"
"I'm not clearing a margin either."
The same scene as ever.
"S-Senior? This place is……."
"Where do you think. A battlefield where the only thing they won't take is your life."
The black market.
A place where you can buy and sell everything except a person's heart. And the only spot in Headquarters where you ever actually have cause to use your ability.
When Jo Yong-han went to see her, it happened to be her break.
"Sister, how was the examination?"
"I was fine. The medicine's taking, too."
That wasn't what he had been worried about. He had assumed the treatment would go well, of course. What he had wanted to ask about was something else.
"The……. How was the doctor?"
"Hm? Dr. Myeong?"
"I requested him because his skill is certain. He did not, by any chance, treat you with disrespect?"
Only then did Jo Shin-hye catch what the question was after.
"What's he got to be rude about. The man's an A-rank doctor. He can say whatever he wants to me."
"So the doctor did say something. What did he say? I will give him a stern warning—"
"It's not that."
Her little brother flaring up was nothing but funny to her.
"Well, the kid's way of talking felt a little blunt, but that much is fine."
"If that is the case, then I am relieved."
"Long as the skill's there, what else matters. Thanks for introducing a good doctor."
Jo Yong-han nodded, looking less than satisfied.
"And thanks for the marksmanship instructor post, too. I'd never even thought of it, but the moment I heard, I knew it fit me perfectly."
"If that is also the case, then I am relieved……."
"You know me even better than I do, huh?"
He was not the sort to let a moment like that pass without the truth.
"The truth is, Mr. Jeong-guk was the one who recommended it."
"What?"
"The marksmanship instructor post."
"What……?"
"A black market inside Headquarters—that's one hell of a secret, sir!"
"Anyone who ought to know already knows. What secret."
Live at Headquarters for a little while and you learn there's a black market not far off. Pinning down exactly where it is, and how to get in, takes a while longer.
"Hey, look at this! Military cigarettes, rock bottom!"
"You think I'm selling these for your sake? I'm selling them so I stay alive."
Hocheol toured the market in a state of pure excitement. Then, belatedly, a question occurred to him.
"About the man guarding the door, sir? I had the gas mask on, so he couldn't see my face, but I'm amazed he knew I was a rookie."
"He knew because you were wearing the gas mask. That's the mark of a rookie."
"Ah! The more I learn, the newer it gets, sir!"
Even after the gas mask comes off, you still have to hide your face behind a mask. It's a rule everyone in the black market keeps. That doesn't mean you can't work out who someone is. All you have to do is loiter around Building K and wait for the moment they take it off. If you already knew each other, a glimpse of the features or the sound of a voice can give them away even with the mask on. And yet people wear them anyway, because the act itself is a kind of promise. A promise to pretend you don't know who the other person is.
"You don't qualify to trade until the gas mask comes off, so I'll handle your goods for you."
"Understood, sir!"
Time to get to the point.
"You've got your department assignment, I assume."
"Yes, sir! I met the veterans and did my initiation, I tell you!"
"Good. I'll keep helping you survive as a postman from here on out, so—"
"Ooh!"
"—you pass along to me every piece of information shared inside the department."
"You wouldn't even have to order me, sir! I was going to anyway, I tell you!"
Our Hocheol. What a dutiful one.
"Is there some particular information you need, sir?"
"Don't let a single trivial thing slip. All of it. I especially need information on hazardous zones."
"Yes, sir!"
All this time I'd taken only the delivery work I wanted, through Director Bae. Thanks to that, I could pick routes through ground I already knew inside out. Now I was doing the jobs Jo Yong-han handed me, and that changed things.
The AAA delivery already had me suffering for lack of intel.
If the Physiognomist hadn't told me, I would have walked into the sniper zone and nearly gotten myself killed. I hadn't even known the settlement on the approach had already vanished in an air raid, and that the landscape had changed. The postman in the mask is still a complete blank. And living the department life myself is out of the question. Coworkers, with a personality like mine?
That's why I need Hocheol, with his easy way among people. A guy like him will fold into the postman crowd in no time.
"Oh, and if any word starts going around about something called the Subway, remember that one especially well. There'll be postmen taking part in that work."
"The Subway? You mean the thing that runs underground, sir?"
Hocheol actually knew this one.
"You do know the oddest things."
"Subway stations are the holy ground of graffiti, sir!"
"And what's that supposed to be."
"You're curious, aren't you, sir?"
He'd agreed to play informant without a word of complaint. I could humor him once.
"Tell me, YO."
"It's when you leave pictures or writing in a public place, and it's pretty cool, sir! One of the essential elements of hip-hop!"
"Does it have to be a public place?"
"Yes, sir. And you have to paint it without permission!"
"……That's just a crime."
"It's graffiti, sir!"
Bullshit, as expected…… no. Thinking about it, it isn't bad. Those Government Complex buildings, every last one of them the same pure white, could use graffiti like that. Even that much, and I might not get so sick of them. Not that I'd do it myself. If only someone else would.
"But why the Subway, sir? Isn't it all gone by now?"
Hocheol would need to know a little. You can't collect new information if you don't already know something.
"It'll be rebuilt soon."
"Oh? Today's just packed with new stories, sir."
"Just don't go around broadcasting it."
"Of course, sir! But I heard that thing's pretty dangerous, I tell you."
"The Subway? No. I heard ours was relatively quite safe and clean."
"Is that so, sir?"
Right, right.
"And how fast it is. They bore a tunnel and run through the inside of it, so there are no obstacles. Picture yourself tearing through a pitch-black tunnel at full speed. Wouldn't it feel like you were out in space?"
"Uh……."
"There are windows strung all along it so you can see outside. And it runs on electricity. Like a railgun—have a power core ready and you're set. How clean is that? Once it's built, I'm riding it every single day. Oh, and inside there are seats where you can sit down, and also—"
"It sure is new, sir."
"Right?"
"You are, Senior. You're what's new, sir."
"What are you saying. Were you even listening to me?"
"I-I'm sorry, sir."
That was when a familiar voice reached me.
"Hey, Bat. Hauling a rookie around?"
A crow mask.
They say he used to hold a proper job and live here at Headquarters. Lost a leg, and that's how he washed up this far. He'd been here since the first time I came to the black market. Not that that made him a regular. I only deal when the terms are good.
"Trying to kit this one out."
"Proxy shopping? You? Your time to die come around?"
"Shut up and show me anything worth using. Basics, mostly."
"Good! First customer of the day, so I'll make it special cheap."
"Cut the crap."
While he pulled the goods out, Hocheol leaned in and whispered.
"Still giving off rookie the whole time feels pretty bad, sir. When can I take the gas mask off?"
"Once Boss gives you a mask that suits you. From then on."
"Boss? How do I get to meet him, sir?"
"We're going to see him once we're done shopping anyway."
Kkamagwi laid out goods tailored for a rookie. Even at a glance, the quality was excellent. The problem was the price.
"Wow, even Headquarters' black market is on another level, sir."
The truth is, even this isn't Headquarters' real face. The ones with actual power don't come looking for the black market. They deal with merchants out of Geofront—merchants who handle goods you will never see on the surface. Take the lipstick Dr. Myeong uses. What kind of lunatic sells cosmetics on the surface? Who's buying that crap.
"From here to here. How much for the lot."
A lighter and the other survival essentials, plus a stock of medicine. For now, this would do.
"Aw, that stings. Price talk right from the start?"
"You'd rather talk later? Then I'll look around and come back."
"Aw! Stay."
Between the here and the here I'd named, Kkamagwi quietly slid in a pair of shoes and a pair of gloves.
"Look at that color match. This is how you hit the trend these days."
"Why would anyone need a match like that?"
"What's our rookie's line of work?"
"A postman, sir!"
"Came to the right man. Hold on."
"You not hearing me?"
This time it was a whistle.
"If you're a postman, you need this!"
"Oh, is that so, sir?"
"So how. You don't need it at all."
"Hehey, look close."
He flipped the whistle over.
"Well?"
A post office mark. Something the post office must have ordered in bulk, once upon a time.
"Oh!"
"What's there to oh about. I said you don't need it."
You use it to draw zombies in. Handy when you're heading out to clear them. Otherwise, useless. The sort of thing you'd need when you're saving everyone else and getting yourself killed.
"And last of all, for when you get bored, it'd be nice to have one of these."
The last thing Kkamagwi brought out—
"Killer, right?"
"Oh!"
"If even playing along is too much for you, you can stop."
"Yes, sir. Definitely a useless item, I tell you."
It was a hundred-sided die, marked from one to a hundred.