13. New Recruit Open Recruitment (5)
In my opinion, the very concept of home doesn't exist.
The reasons are as follows.
Next:
…...
Let's skip the lame philosophizing about home.
I still had a ton of work left to do, and dwelling on home was pretty low on my priority list.
Take, for instance, the task where the newly joined Team 1 had to evaluate Team 2's handling of the examinees.
"So that's how you dealt with the examinees, huh? Heh, that's some next-level shit."
Jo Gil-taek, the section chief who'd joined Team 1 late, gave that assessment of how I'd handled the provisional passers.
…Let's get back to the home thing.
Right, uh, what was it again?
Ah, yeah. In my opinion, the very concept of home doesn't exist.
The reasons are as follows….
"What? Why the long face? C'mon, lighten up. It's a compliment."
"Huh?"
"'Huh' what? You a parrot or something?"
Before I could react to the lame joke, Jo kept going.
"We're not even supposed to be here today anyway. According to the duty roster, Follow-up Special Duty Division 1 is holed up in the office right now, handling grunt work like what you'd expect from demoted losers—bathroom cleaning schedules, isolation room door specs, shit anyone could do."
"…Uh, yeah."
"And we're a study group. A bunch of ambitious freelancers who banded together for Future Corp entry. Right?"
"……Yeah?"
Jo's evaluation was brutally sharp, whether about Follow-up Special Duty or freelancers.
But that didn't stop him from continuing.
"Black ops. Black ops. We're not company people. Not even on paper. So… we just play it casual, like always. Right, Section Chief Ham?"
"Indeed, is that how it is?"
"Yeah. Indeed it is."
God, give me a hint already. Why do people in this company always talk in these cryptic tones?
…Ah, right. Trauma. The defense mechanism of folks who've learned too much….
'…No matter what, shouldn't you share it with your teammates you're running ops with right now?!'
That's when it happened. Team 1—Jo the section chief and Ham—were chatting and deciding something I wasn't privy to.
"So that's how we end up doing all sorts of crap. Right, Section Chief Ham?"
"Of course. Been a while since a situation like this. But I'm glad. Brings back old memories."
This wouldn't do.
I hurriedly opened my mouth.
"Wait, I have no idea what's going on right now."
"Huh? Oh, you don't know?"
'Know what?!'
I swallowed my frustration. Ham flashed a knowing smile full of exasperating ambiguity and spoke.
"Sung-jin, watch closely. What we're about to do is…."
A wink, perfectly mature.
"…Follow-up Special Duty Division classic."
Still no clue what that meant, but Ham thumped his chest.
The operation proceeds as planned.
But with a bit of sabotage mixed in.
Listen up.
Don't you think we're shouldering way too much?
Stop some unknown anomaly outbreak from a containment failure? Ridiculous.
And the one in charge is just a junior admin. Only six of us on the op. Seventeen hundred examinees, though.
On top of that, handle it without affecting the new hire recruitment.
Does that even make sense?
Don't you feel anything? Resentful?
I'm fucking pissed. Livid. Upper management's pulled this shit before, but every time it feels like my head's gonna explode.
Think I went bald for nothing?
So….
So here's the thing….
How about we throw a wrench in it?
Don't worry.
We'll handle the tasks from above perfectly.
Hey, Oh Sung-jin, that thing you proposed last time that I shot down.
Let's go with that.
Make everyone a passer.
Pop—!
Old memories flooded back.
Not my glory days in college.
Even earlier, from the past.
Clang—! Agh—! Boom—!
Me, Oh Sung-jin, hadn't always raced smoothly along life's track either.
Yeah.
Like anyone, I had my wild phase.
Bang, bang, bang—!
You know, going off the rails. Working part-time, saving cash for piercings and dye jobs.
And… meeting a bad influence, starting a doomed bad romance.
Clang—! Clang—! Clang—!
Ten years ago? Or a bit more?
One thing's clear. In that sudden memory surge, the runaway locomotive Oh Sung-jin was smashing mailboxes with his new buddy.
Clang—!
Why mailboxes? No idea.
Back then, those unmanaged red tin cans just pissed me off.
Vaguely.
Faintly.
That's how it felt.
"Yo, you carry that for style?"
My friend nodded at me. My weapon: an iron pipe. I'd never swung one before.
"Wuss. Watch. Like this."
So my new friend demonstrated with a baseball bat herself.
Whoosh—! Clang—!
Mailbox wrecked.
"See? Easier than it looks, right?"
She mimed swinging the bat over her shoulder again.
Like she'd smash it to bits for good.
"…Yeah."
I swung the pipe willingly.
The crunch echoed through the cold night air.
Until lights flickered in distant apartment windows.
Until the whole complex lit up.
Until the city became a sea of lights.
…Of course, that was wishful thinking.
Neither she nor I ever did it again after.
'…Embarrassing memory.'
Worth calling a memory?
Dunno.
Pondering it is as pointless as imagining what if I'd had a guardian back then.
Anyway.
The core of this shameful memory is this.
"There! Charge!"
Destruction has a weird liberation to it.
"Subdue 'em—! Block—! Grab 'em—!"
…Like right now.
"Hahaha! Feels damn good—! Come at me—!"
Jo's hefty frame cleaved the air.
His iron grip snatched a pistol aimed at him, then in a flash wrapped the arm and slammed it down!
"Gah—!"
"That all you got? Hahaha! Future Corporation's fate ends here!"
Jo bellowed heartily, then leaped into a body slam at the HR scrum.
"Take this—!"
"Dodge, evade!"
"No you don't—!"
Ever seen bowling pins explode on a strike?
I have now.
Pity the sacrificed—er, surviving—HR, training, and education folks.
'Is this okay…?'
Sticky breath clung inside my hasty balaclava. I turned from Jo's carnage.
The other side was no different. Ham and Choi Soo-jung were rampaging there.
Ham toyed with the 'tails' using his specialty.
"Over here…! Huh?"
"Haha, wrong way."
That super-speed move from the prelim scout.
"There! Grab him!"
"Nope, not there."
…Or slightly different?
Hard to tell.
No real impact anyway. Choi Soo-jung, syncing perfectly with Ham, pulled off absurd feats.
"…."
Expressionless, she matched his speed, knocking out taunted proctors one by one.
With neckhand chops.
I'll say it again: plain old neckhand chops. The kind she and I used to goof around with back when we got along.
And.
Those plain chops sent proctors crumpling like they'd dozed off. Simply, like they'd been dosed with sleeping pills.
Chills ran down my spine. Creepy as hell.
Unable to stand it, I turned away again.
Song the junior admin was bashing proctors' heads with some skull he'd found god-knows-where.
…Decided to look nowhere.
"Hm, everyone's fighting well. Don't you think?"
Go the junior admin spoke up then.
I forced an awkward smile and nodded.
"Y-yeah…."
"I want in too. Gotta move while you can, or the body stiffens."
This guy's not normal either.
"Too bad. If not for work, I'd go wild."
"……."
"Shall we go then?"
Yeah.
We have to.
Going. Go.
What was it? 'Steal' the folktale tied to Dangsan Dowon?
Snatch the roles assigned to examinees, make evaluation impossible.
Tie all scores equal….
Pass everyone.
'Aigoo, my god.'
Hell on earth, asura field.
The world was pandemonium.
Hwang Eun-hye the junior admin and her dumbass senior responded to the sudden support request and arrived on site.
The site was chaos. People flying, flying, flying again.
"Hahahaha—! Come on—! Blood's boiling—!"
Balaclava-wearing thugs causing havoc.
And Hwang Eun-hye knew who they were. Oh Sung-jin's colleagues.
'What the hell—!'
What? Betrayal? No, can't be. Oh Sung-jin just got assigned to field ops recently.
But what's this in front of her? Company people attacking company people!
'…Wait.'
Chills down Hwang Eun-hye's spine.
The BIG3 ruling the underworld—Future Corporation, Counter-Measure & Preparation Bureau, Twilight Library—each has elite symbolic units.
And the most infamous? Future Corporation's unnamed division.
The one everyone in the know knows.
Follow-up Special Duty Division.
Backworld proverb where she'd been before entry:
'Never, ever touch Future Corporation's Follow-up Special Duty Division.'
Double 'never' made it near-taboo.
Her mind flashed to aptitude evaluator Kim Jun-sik's words.
"Follow-up Special Duty! Elite of elites! Congrats, Oh admin!"
Ah.
Those guys are Follow-up Special Duty.
But weren't they defunct? That incident seven years ago….
"Fuck, embarrassing. Getting owned by those clowns?"
Hwang's dumb senior stepped forward.
"Hwang admin, watch from here. I'll sweep 'em."
"S-s-senior?"
The dumb senior flashed a cool smile at Hwang. She wanted to scream.
'You idiot! If you get taken out, I'm screwed!'
No time to convey that. He charged the battlefield before she could stop him.
And.
Thwack—!
"Gaaah—!"
Down in one hit.
'….'
Hwang stared blankly at the field, heart sinking.
One thing was clear.
Today, right here….
Follow-up Special Duty Division was revived.
No idea why they were shaking their rep at colleagues, though.
'Huh? Wait.'
Then Hwang spotted two slipping away from the field….
'Kyung-min and Sung-jin?'
They were bailing for 'work.'