Knocking Stones
The thing you had to watch for most, cutting through Yeongdeungpo, was the Human Meat Factory crowd.
The Human Meat Factory — the settlement with the most weight in this whole stretch of ground. Rumor had it they took people alive and cooked them, which was why anyone who ran into them was too busy running to do anything else. Maybe that was also why I'd never heard of a soul who had actually watched someone get dragged off. The rumor that they ate human flesh kept making the rounds all the same. Where were they taking people from, and who?
"Help... me..."
No question about it. The man I'd fought barehanded that day. He'd called himself a Special Forces Scout out of the Human Meat Factory. I'd had a feeling that if I kept wandering Yeongdeungpo, I might see him again.
"You're that... postman... the doctor..."
He made it all the way to my feet and collapsed there, dragging in rough, ragged breaths. The antihistamine bottle I'd given him was clenched in his fist, and he shook like he was freezing. Blood was smeared over every inch of him. From the spray of it, the blood had clearly spattered off someone he'd been attacking right in front of him. Leaned on a stimulant again, had he, right before a fight?
"The medicine... put the medicine in my mouth..."
He held the bottle out to me with what strength he had left. Didn't have the strength to open it, by the look of things, so he hadn't been able to take any.
"This won't do you any good. All it does is stop the itching."
"Even so..."
Symptoms like these meant he'd crossed the line a long time ago. Even if he never took another combat stimulant, he wasn't coming back to what he'd been. Dying was only a matter of time. A walking corpse. No — a wheezing one.
"I still... have something... to do..."
Last time I'd seen him, I'd figured two weeks at the very least. He'd gone downhill far faster than I'd thought. Hadn't even lasted a week.
Because of this?
The bottle in his hand. The medicine I'd given him killed the itch, so he'd shot even more combat stimulant. Was that it?
"What is there to do. Close your eyes and rest. Then you'll—"
Die quietly.
"You'll get better."
Not a lie. It was the kind of sickness you only got over by dying.
"I have to... report..."
"Report?"
"The job..."
Addicted to the work, too. Thinking about the mission even now.
"I'll pass it along for you."
"You... mean it?"
That was a lie. Still, there was some goodwill in the saying of it.
"Keep it as short as you can, and keep your eyes shut."
"Thank..."
"Short."
At the promise to deliver it, his face eased all at once, and the rough breathing began, little by little, to settle. Yeah. Dying like this was the best he was going to get.
"...The raiders hired a mercenary. A very seasoned one."
"That's all I need to pass on?"
"They put the mercenary into a settlement and get ready for the raid... That was how they worked, and..."
I'd heard this somewhere before.
Kim-ssi.
"They must have talked among themselves about how they meant to take the settlement."
"I wasn't held for all that long. Ah — would something like this even count as information?"
"Anything you can remember, just say it, Kim-ssi!"
"I heard they hired a mercenary and sent him in, trying to gather information on that settlement..."
A raider crew with two bosses. Hire a mercenary, slip him into a settlement, and crack the place open with whatever he brought back.
"You mean those guys who've been hitting settlements lately?"
"You know about them...?"
"I know. Keep talking."
"That mercenary, he... uk."
All at once he started shaking like a madman. Death was right up against his nose.
"His features are... urp!"
Seemed like there was more he meant to say.
"I'm sorry! I'm really sorry... urgh."
He was shouting at empty air. Hallucinating. In the last stage of the addiction you saw things and heard things, and the fear turned savage. That was why a death from combat stimulant side effects announced itself in the face alone — the muscles locked with the features twisted into something hideous and terrified. A face you never forgot, once you'd seen it.
"Hold on a little."
His life had just been extended by a few hours. I pulled the Armed Forces Type B survival kit Bae Guk-jang had given me out of my bag. The moment I'd seen the state of him, that was the first thing that came to mind. The essential piece inside it.
"You'll feel better in a minute."
A detox injection. It eased the breathing trouble that came with combat stimulant addiction and brought the blood pressure down — only for as long as the drug was working. The more extra shots you took, the weaker the effect got, until at last it didn't take at all. And even then, a Type B kit carried exactly one of them.
I gave him the shot and watched him for a moment. Then I felt eyes on me, and when I looked around, the rooftop sniper and Thumb Man on the second floor were both watching, faces lit up like this was the best thing they'd seen all day. Fair enough. Until now the only show around here had been a zombie in a pink dress. The two of them caught my eye and clapped, small and quiet. They'd put it together, clever as they were, that I was in the middle of saving this man's life. Hard to miss, with a red cross painted that big on a Type B kit. Not that either of them was about to praise me for some noble spirit of service. Absolutely not.
They'll think I've got flowers for brains.
A little later, he'd recovered enough to push himself upright.
"Hoo... I'm gonna live. So you had medicine that good and you held out on me?"
"Here. Look."
I opened the survival kit and showed him the inside.
"There was exactly one of those shots."
"Hmph. Maybe you had more back then."
"Save his life and he still won't shut up."
"Well. Thanks, anyway."
He studied both hands, closing them and opening them again, as if it were a wonder that hands which wouldn't obey him a moment ago had started to move.
"But... when this wears off, do I go back to how I was? I really thought I was about to die."
Yes.
"Don't ever take another combat stimulant. Then you might be all right."
"So it isn't certain."
"When has surviving ever been certain?"
"More twisted than you look, aren't you."
Better to hear everything he knew. Too many eyes here, and too many ears, so we needed to get clear of the place. Aside from the ones who'd shown themselves on the roof and the second floor, there could be any number still hiding.
"Save the talk and follow me."
"Where?"
"You're heading back to the settlement, aren't you? I'm going the same way that far, so let's move."
A little farther and we'd be out of the forest of buildings. Right after that came the plain a fallen Giant Rod had left behind. Nowhere to hide out there, which made it a good place to talk without looking over your shoulder.
"Not even asking me to pay for the shot."
"We talk once we're out of here."
"Hm?"
I started walking without another word, and he followed slowly along behind me. The Giant Rods gradually came into view. We reached the plain — and walked into something I hadn't expected.
"Damn!"
He dropped low in a hurry. Far off, a military unit was running a monster sweep.
"Relax. Stick with me and you'll get through a checkpoint."
"Ah. That so."
"Crouching like that looks more suspicious. Get up."
This worked out. The sweep was sitting on the road that led toward the Human Meat Factory.
"Better to wait here until that's finished."
"Tch. So much for getting back quick."
I'd bought myself time to hear him out without rushing.
"Scout. Finish that raider story from earlier. That's the price of the shot."
"What's a postman going to do, looking into raiders?"
"Never mind why. You got a shot out of it, so opening your mouth a little isn't a bad trade, is it? Raider intel isn't exactly precious."
"Hm. True enough."
He glanced around for a moment, then started walking toward the Giant Rod.
"Where are you going."
"Look at all those casings piled up. Can't just walk past that. Those guys are going to be hunting for a while yet, aren't they?"
I didn't exactly have time to play. Spent casings lay heaped around the Giant Rod. Past the rod, monster corpses were scattered here and there, and if you followed that line of sight on up, there was the unit. The operation had started from this spot and was pushing farther out.
"So. You play any billiards?"
Billiards. Aimed at me.
"I've never lost."
"That a roundabout way of saying you've never played?"
No time for games — but he didn't seem ready to talk just yet, either. Humor him a little?
"If it's a challenge, I'll take it."
I picked up two casings at once, walked three steps — three hundred, in other words — and set two casings down there with space between them. One was my target. The other was his.
"Opening at three hundred?"
"If you're nervous, I'll bring it in. You can start at a hundred."
"Who's nervous? Watch."
Tick.
He threw at once and struck one of the casings standing out there.
"Not bad."
"Nervous?"
"My turn."
Tick.
Knock them both down and you added a step, stood them up again, and threw once more. Neither of us missed a single target. We lengthened the distance a step at a time, and when it reached six hundred, he finally started talking.
"When I was a kid, back home, I used to play billiards with my father for stakes."
"What'd you bet?"
"If I won, I could put off bedtime by thirty minutes."
"Billiards, just so you could sleep in."
"What's wrong with that."
"I'd have done the same."
The distance hit seven hundred. I'd been gripping two casings tight in my left hand for a while now.
"The settlement they hit this time was my hometown. Where I used to play billiards with my father."
"You said hometown, so I figured you'd come from a long way off. That place and the Factory, though..."
"What does distance matter."
"So the story is, your father was home when they raided it?"
"Nothing like that. My father died a long time ago. I've still got his keepsake in my bag. A talisman, you could call it."
"Way I figure it, you're not about to pull something useless like revenge for the old hometown."
"Oh. Not bad. You hit it."
Tick.
Somewhere in there the distance had stretched to eight hundred. A real match.
"It was my hometown, so nobody knew that settlement better than I did. That's how the investigation ended up with me."
"Investigation?"
"Raiders who can turn settlements into wreckage one after another like that — first time any have shown up around here. Of course we've got to prepare."
The Human Meat Factory was a place even the military preferred not to get close to. He didn't really believe raiders could take it. Still, preparing couldn't hurt. Maybe a settlement that did well always had its reasons.
"I was digging through the burned settlement when a settler who'd run off and come back turned up. A kid I knew. Twice as tall as the last time I saw him."
While I quietly set a casing down at nine hundred and walked back, he kept talking without a pause.
"We already knew they were using mercenaries. Thanks to that kid, I heard about a suspicious visitor seen right before the raid. A description, that sort of thing."
"And you're saying that was the mercenary?"
"Nothing's certain. You're the one who said so, earlier."
Whiff.
"Damn it."
The first time he'd missed. About what I'd expected. His hands had started to tremble again.
"We never settled how many tries, so I'm throwing again."
"Throw until you hit it."
"I didn't ask you to go easy. Let's say I hit it inside of five."
"Suit yourself. Walking in fresh from a blood shower — so you did find that suspicious visitor and have it out."
"You really don't miss, do you?"
Tick.
"I asked around from the description, and I finally met him."
"You're still alive, so you didn't lose."
"Obviously."
"Doesn't mean you won, either."
"You are disgustingly good at this."
"If you'd actually managed to kill him, you wouldn't be in such a hurry to rush back and report on the mercenary."
"Hm. True."
Tick.
The distance was a thousand now. From here, even I couldn't promise to hit every one.
"Did he run, or did you?"
"I don't know. I came to, and there was some cocky postman in my face, talking shit about my folks."
"You skipped an awful lot of the middle."
The combat stimulant, no doubt. His memory wouldn't be whole.
"There are a few scenes I sort of remember..."
"And?"
"I don't know. I'm not sure."
Whiff.
"Can't hit for shit."
He stopped talking and kept throwing.
Whiff.
Whiff.
"Two left."
"I can count."
"Could've said so earlier."
Whiff.
"Agh."
One chance left. He took the casing and set himself with care, but the tremor in his hands was only getting worse.
"Thing is, I doubt you ran that investigation alone."
"..."
Did that one hit?
"So where'd you sell your partners off."
Last time, this one had been leading five companions. A commando unit, he'd called it. He wasn't a postman. There was no way he'd been traveling alone. The area had gone quiet, though. The monster sweep was entering its final stage, and he didn't look inclined to talk anymore.
"Let's leave the game here and get moving."
From where we stood, the Human Meat Factory and Geumcheon-gu lay in exact opposite directions. But if there was information to be had, walking with him a little farther wouldn't be the worst thing.
"No. Keep going."
He reset his grip on the casing.
"Listen carefully to what I'm about to say. And if something goes wrong with me—"
His voice had a weight it hadn't carried before. I could already see it: information, in exchange for a favor.
"I mean, nothing's going to go wrong... but if, on the off chance, it does — then you have to take what I'm telling you to the settlement. Promise me. It's really important information."
Pass the story along. It sounded like a small thing, if you only half listened.
"Whatever it is, you deliver it yourself."
A refusal. Setting foot in the Human Meat Factory was something you did with your life in your hands.
"Only if I'm in any shape to deliver it myself."
"You're walking fine right now. Talking fine."
"You can say it plain. You know what state I'm in. You were a doctor. The way I am, I'm not making it back anyway, am I?"
"If I'm being honest, I was never a doctor."
"Damn it."
He made a sound like a snort and burst out laughing.
"Fuck. Why is every bit of this so funny."
Whiff.
His last chance. He never made the hit.
