A Fruit Unlike Its Rind
"Been a while, Boss."
I'd been meaning to look him up anyway. If he came out to meet me first, that only made it easier.
"The day Bat walks in with a rookie. World's trying to end again, is it?"
"You didn't know? It's tomorrow."
"Spend all day shut in here and you go deaf to anything outside."
"If it's ending anyway, what's the point of a fortune? Hand over some of those rarities, mister."
"I'll die with my arms around every last one of them. Dream on."
Except for a rookie who showed up in a gas mask, everyone in the black market had to wear a mask the Boss handed out. No two of them were the same. He claimed he gave each person the one he thought suited them, and he never explained why that particular mask was the right one. The Boss himself wore a watermelon. A fruit from the old world. He must have chosen it himself, and as usual there was no telling why he thought a watermelon suited him.
"Rookie's got a bad leg, looks like. What do you do?"
"Postman, sir!"
"The two of you are the same."
"Yes, sir! Both postmen, sir!"
"No. You're the same in that being a postman doesn't suit either of you."
"Sir?"
"Who looks at that body and thinks postman? Soldier, plain as day."
"I-is that so. But I absolutely am not, I tell you!"
"Say it all you like, in that voice."
"Urk."
"Kicked out, or ran. One of the two."
The Boss jerked his chin for us to follow and took the lead.
"Rookie. Nobody cares what you scraped by doing before you got here. Nobody in Headquarters. Not a soul is going to make an issue of it."
"Ah. Yes, sir."
He was right. The past didn't matter. That was the kind of place Headquarters was.
"But what you are now matters. What function a man like you serves matters more than the human being you happen to be."
"Yes, sir..."
"You've gone full old crank, mister."
"And how long ago do you think that was? A little late to notice."
The Boss opened a rusted iron door. Under the dim light, grimy bedding and liquor bottles lay scattered where they'd fallen. Years ago, the first time I came, his quarters had looked exactly this sorry. Dig around and you might still find a bottle that had been rolling in the corner ever since.
"Welcome to the center of trade in the Republic of Korea."
"Sir?"
"Just say you understand. That mister thinks this place is the center of the world."
"Wrong. The center of Korea, at most."
The Boss used to say Korea was the center of the world. Which meant: if the center of the world was Korea, and this was the center of Korea, then in the end—
Completely pointless.
"Understood! Grateful for the welcome, I tell you!"
"Which is why we don't hand out trading permits lightly to anyone of low standing. If every mutt off the street could use this place, what would become of its reputation?"
"Is that so..."
"Therefore, should you preemptively remit, from a forward-looking standpoint, the compensation that would arise in the event of harm to our market's good name, I will—pending the Committee's deliberation—actively support the special issuance of a trading permit."
"Sir?"
"He's asking for money."
"You can move the Committee with money?"
"Just that mister. On his own."
I opened the duffel Hocheol had brought and pulled out the gear we didn't need right away. Military kit still bearing the mark of Settlement AAA. What the Jo sisters had carried out during the escape, and Captain Choi's effects on top of that—four people's worth. A considerable pile.
"Standard-issue rifles. National army markings defaced."
"I know they're half price."
"And they've carved AAA into them. Rebel stock, this. Cut in so deep you'd have a hell of a time scraping it off."
"Which is why I also know they go for a quarter."
"You're lucky if you can move them even at a quarter. Crackdown hits and this is a death sentence on the spot."
"Which is why I brought them to you."
"Hm."
The Boss examined the goods with care. Sometimes I wondered whether this man had an ability of his own. Either way, if he could unload all of it, the take would be serious.
"Four of each. Identical."
"Easy math, right?"
"Four items at a quarter apiece. I'll count the lot as one clean piece."
"Clean."
"What do you want? Ammunition?"
"Issue a trading permit to our rookie."
"Fine. All of this buys one year."
"Too short. A year and a half."
The Boss pressed his knuckles until they popped.
"Nobody but me will touch goods like these."
"Do me a favor. Sixteen months."
I needed Hocheol able to move through the black market without trouble. The kid was going to be my source, and a route like this was essential if he meant to stay alive.
"Fourteen months. Not a day more."
"I'll throw in a good story. Sixteen."
The corner of the Boss's mouth lifted.
"It had better actually be good."
"You won't be disappointed."
The man never set foot outside Building K, so he was always hungry for word of the world beyond. A good story especially—he'd pay to hear one. Feed him something that wasn't true, though, and you paid for it. The Boss heard stories from plenty of people who came through the market, and sometimes he questioned the ones who came to talk, checking what he'd already gathered against what they said.
"Thank you so much! But Sunbae, sir, do you have a lot of time left on your permit? Half of mine! I can give you that much, I tell you!"
"Don't worry about me. Worry about staying alive."
"Rookie doesn't know, I see. Bat's permit doesn't expire."
"Oh? How much does a thing like that cost?"
The Boss laughed as if he couldn't believe the question.
"Not everything in this world is bought with money. Anyway. Take off the gas mask. From now on, you wear this."
From the bundle of masks clattering at his side, the Boss picked one out and held it out to Hocheol.
"This is... a grasshopper, sir?"
"From now on, that's what everyone here will call you."
A deep shadow settled over Hocheol's face.
"I've got things to discuss with the Boss, so go take care of your business. Shop some more, if you want."
"Me? Trade on my own?"
"You watched me do it."
Getting to see it once was already a serious education. The rest he'd learn by getting fleeced himself.
"Ah, yes, sir! Understood! Thank you so much today, Sunbae, sir!"
Once Hocheol was gone—
"All right. Let's hear this story."
The Boss took a glass of whiskey in hand.
"Piping hot."
What I told him was the present state of AAA, the postman who wore the mask, and the layout of the VIP office. I couldn't spill everything, so I left out Jo Yong-han's name and where the office sat. When I came to the layout, though, the Boss's face went somewhere bored. He'd already known, most likely.
"AAA and the mask were interesting."
I wasn't telling him this only to stretch Hocheol's permit. I got something out of it too. The Boss never just listened. He always answered.
"That crooked postman you saw at AAA. The mask he goes around in—I gave him that."
Good thing I'd brought it up.
"What I can't figure is why his, of all of them, everybody insists on calling a mask. Perfectly good word of our own sitting right there. I hand them out, and I always call them masks."
I'd never once thought about it. Maybe there was a reason.
"So you know a thing or two about him."
"Of course. But—"
"I know. You'd never tell me."
Ironclad protection of identity. That was why he put masks on people.
"Then at least tell me what the mask is."
"Hm?"
What the man wore wasn't something you could name at a glance, the way you could the Boss's watermelon or the bat I wore.
"The white mask. The eye holes and the mouth were covered over with something black."
"There's a nose, too. Small, but it's there."
"Yeah? I saw it from a distance."
"That mask, you see—"
Whatever a mask stood for became that person's name inside the black market. You needed at least a name if talk was going to go smoothly, and if you meant to point at someone and speak of them. So the name of a mask was information even the Boss would give.
"You know what a movie is, don't you?"
"I know. The Old Man had something to watch them on. I saw a few when I was a kid."
"That gentleman in the Geofront? Any word of him?"
"Not interested."
A mere postman had no way of laying hands on information that high. Of the people I knew, Teacher Myeong was about the only one who caught the occasional rumor out of the Geofront. He said he heard things now and then, dealing with merchants who came up from below. Whatever he heard stayed with him. He had never passed a word of it to me.
"Anyway. There was an old-world movie with a killer in it, and that's supposed to be the mask he wore. I never saw the film. Just heard about it."
"A killer?"
"White mask, something like a black robe thrown over him, one knife dangling in his hand."
"Doesn't sound threatening at all. No gun, so I'm guessing it's set in old Korea?"
"No. I heard it was a country where you could buy a gun in front of your house."
"Then why a knife?"
"Must've been poor."
"Pity."
"I think the mask had a name of its own once, but here we just called him the Killer. He stopped coming a long time ago."
As if that were all he meant to say, the Boss sipped his whiskey.
"The Killer. Not a mask you hand to just anyone."
I floated it, lightly.
"I'm done talking."
He wouldn't say more than that.
There was a reason for wearing a mask from the black market out beyond it, and that reason couldn't be unrelated to what the Killer meant. A piece of threatening equipment, in its way. He'd probably worn it to announce who he was. A stranger's bare face carried nothing in particular, but if he was wearing the mask from the rumors, the story changed. I myself had already known about the postman in the mask, which was why I'd been careful even though I was seeing him for the first time.
A man whose identity only comes out once the mask is on...
Put the other way, it meant his identity hid the moment he took it off. Used right, that could make him a difficult man to face.
"Well, mister? Satisfied?"
The Boss looked down into the emptied glass.
"Satisfied."
"Then I'll be going. Still got shopping left."
"Whenever you've got another good story, come back."
"I've got plenty of good stories right now."
"Ha!"
While the Boss laughed, I gathered the bag I'd set down and got to my feet.
"Planning to unwrap them one at a time, whenever you need something?"
"Of course. Isn't that how business works?"
"The day a hatchling who used to whine about getting cheated stands in front of me and lectures on business. The world really must be ending tomorrow."
"If it's going to end, tomorrow's as good a day as any."
"Hm?"
"I was planning to shop today and run up a huge tab."
As I took hold of the rusted iron door, the Boss came out with something I couldn't quite place.
"I gave you the wrong mask. Something other than the bat would suit you better."
"Like what?"
"Well—"
He tapped the watermelon on his own face with a fingertip.
"How about this?"
"I'll pass."
"Why? A precious fruit. They only eat them in the Geofront."
"You picked it, and you're the one wearing it. Don't go sticking that rotten taste on somebody else's face."
I turned the handle and opened the door, and the Boss laid a farewell over a few more words.
"I didn't pick it. My boy did. And I'm not offended that you called the taste rotten, so don't trouble yourself. See you next time."
The lock clanged. With the shock of the iron door swinging shut, a flake of rust broke loose and fell.
Has it already been more than six years since I first met the Boss?
Back then, his son had still been alive.
I made the rounds of the black market and bought cores—enough to fill two large duffels. I didn't put a single thing on credit. What I'd said to the Boss had only been a joke. I keep my deals clean, and he would have known the talk of a tab was a joke too. It meant burning through most of the magazines I'd been keeping in the cabinet. Five or six left, barely. Years to gather them, and a moment to spend them. Gyeongsu's magazines were still there, of course. Not a waste, either way. I'd bought what I actually needed. Maybe the whole hoard had been for a day like this.
I have to pin down the conditions and the constraints for flipping the odds.
If I didn't know exactly how the ability worked, I wouldn't be able to use it for certain when the moment came. That meant using it over and over, which meant dozens of cores. The problem was finding a place where I could test it without looking over my shoulder. Walking around at ease with that many cores on you was something you could only do inside the black market. Anywhere else in Headquarters, you passed a scanner, and carry this many cores and you would be interrogated. A fine way to get yourself marked as a person of interest. On top of that, something unexpected might happen while I was burning cores and working the ability. Using it outside Headquarters would be even more dangerous.
The first person who comes to mind is Jo Yong-han. I could ask him.
He'd ask why. No question about it. So long as he belonged to the Future Technology Department, anything to do with using an ability was something I ought to keep as far from him as I could. Which left one option.
Nothing for it. I'll have to go see him. It's been a long time.
A man as uncomfortable to face as Teacher Myeong, but he was the only one. I couldn't even remember when I'd seen him last.
Meeting your own disciple shouldn't weigh this heavy.