Chapter 101

“Are you sure you don’t need to rest a bit?”

“I’m dying to rest. But I have to hold out a little longer. Shift change is in an hour.”

“I’d like to help you, but I can’t be of any use.”

“What? No, not at all! What are you talking about? You’re being a huge help…”

It was true. Yu Jeong-ham had described the incident to Choi Da-ol in vivid detail: Gye Do-hyeop, a man who under normal circumstances might have escalated all the way to a 3-pin alert, had ended the situation without beating a single person. His eyes had been wild enough with rage to destroy people and property alike, yet the instant Geum Seoul clung to him, Do-hyeop had stopped. No reckless swing. No smashed furniture. Nothing. Jeong-ham had even added, with the gravity of reporting a miracle, that the man had begun practicing something called patience.

Da-ol still found it almost impossible to believe without witnessing it himself. Even so, the existence of a safety button could only be viewed as a positive development—especially on a wild dog like the deputy director, liable to go feral without warning.

“I should get going.”

“Sure, sure. Go inside and get plenty of rest. Sleep is the best medicine for body aches.”

The deputy director had told him he’d told everyone else Seoul was just seriously sick instead of pregnant, which was probably why Choi Da-ol specifically pointed out body aches. Unsure whether Da-ol knew the truth or not, Geum Seoul tilted his head curiously before leaving the office and standing before the elevator.

Beep.

● SYSTEM ACCESS

Access Granted

ID: NSSD-TEMP-53

53. His ID was the fifty-third among the temporary employees. Staring quietly at the indicator panel, he boarded the elevator once it arrived and pressed the button for the basement level. Having walked enough, he intended to return obediently to the official quarters just as he had promised the deputy director.

Leaning against the elevator wall, Geum Seoul spread both palms over his abdomen. There was no curve yet, no visible proof at all. The pregnancy still felt abstract. Even the nausea registered more like relentless motion sickness than evidence of a child. Maybe reality would arrive later, when his body finally began to show it.

I hope the baby takes after the Deputy Director. Although it was a vague, distant thought, Geum Seoul pondered it from time to time.

Ding.

When the elevator doors opened upon reaching the basement level, he stepped out. His body, heading down the hallway, came to an abrupt halt.

Right next to him, the elevator at the far end was meant for descending further underground. Geum Seoul stood quietly, gazing at its doors.

Park Gil-pyeong was down here. Seoul had reached that conclusion on his own. No one had ever confirmed it outright. He had only tested the possibility with a few careful questions, but the feeling had settled into certainty anyway.

“…”

He stood dazed for another moment before forcing his feet to move again. The residential quarters were still a long walk away at the far end of the corridor.

For now, he intended to head back, drink some water, and try to eat something. Ever since he had managed to eat fruit without throwing up, the refrigerator had been packed full of all kinds of fruit. I should have a tangerine. It was just as that thought crossed his mind.

Wheee-oo— Wheee-oo—.

“Huh?”

Suddenly, an ear-splitting siren began wailing violently down the long corridor. Geum Seoul whipped his body around and turned his head. The alarm mounted on the corridor wall was flashing frantically, spewing crimson light.

Boom!

Immediately following, a tremor strong enough to shake his entire body shuddered through the floor. Geum Seoul quickly braced a hand against the wall and lowered his stance.

Crash—!

Another thunderous crash echoed. The fluorescent lights flickered violently before abruptly dying out. What had made the basement not feel like a basement was the artificial lighting installed throughout the headquarters, but once everything shut off and the surroundings plunged into pitch-black darkness, it was reduced to nothing more than a subterranean tomb sealed off on all four sides.

Wheee-oo—.

The only saving grace was that the flashing light of the still-spinning siren allowed him to distinguish what lay ahead.

Geum Seoul did not hesitate. Holding his breath for a brief second to check whether the building would shake once more, he immediately sprinted toward the end of the corridor.

What the deafening explosion and this siren signified was obvious. It meant this place had become dangerous. If so, Gye Do-hyeop would come looking for him, and the place Seoul ought to be at such a time was the quarters.

“Hah.”

Reaching the connecting passageway door while panting for breath, Geum Seoul pressed the watch on his wrist against the sensor beside the door.

Beep-beep.

● SYSTEM

LOCKDOWN

Code 001 Initiated; Full Lockdown

The door refused to open. Seoul tapped his wrist against the sensor again and again, but the red lettering never returned to green. Confusion crept over his face. He stepped back and scanned the hallway. Nothing obvious had changed. He grabbed the handle and pulled harder; the door only rattled in its frame. No footsteps, no voices. In the empty corridor, the warning siren continued to pulse and flash by itself.

“…Let’s head back.”

His only choice was to double back the way he had come and search for another way. Swallowing hard to calm his nerves, he set off down the corridor once more.

Krrrzt.

—”Code Pallas. Code Pallas. Explosion occurred approximately 1.4 kilometers north of headquarters. All personnel except third-floor staff, evacuate immediately. Safety shutters engaged. Repeating. Code Pallas. Explosion occurred approximately 1.4 kilometers north of headquarters…”

The voice broadcasting from the speaker revealed the cause of this catastrophe. It seemed the safety shutters had sealed off the door leading to the quarters. If he stayed like this, he could end up trapped in this passageway with no way out. There was no time to hesitate. Tensing his ankles, he sprinted back down the path he had traveled.

“Haaah.”

Clack!

And right as he arrived back in front of the elevator he had come from, a crackling chk sound echoed once more from the speaker mounted on the wall.

—”Geum Seoul.”

Startled by the familiar voice, he jerked his head up. Up until moments ago it had clearly been someone else, but the voice issuing from the speaker now was all too familiar. It was the deputy director.

—”Take the second emergency exit on your left and get up to the fourth-floor rooftop.”

Unlike the earlier announcement, this voice came slightly distant and threaded with static, as though patched in from somewhere outside headquarters. Barely a minute had passed since the explosion, yet Do-hyeop already knew exactly where Seoul was—even though Seoul had never noticed a camera anywhere in this corridor. That mystery could wait. He nodded to himself, hurried past the elevator, and seized the handle of the second emergency exit.

Click.

A security sensor was installed on the emergency exit as well, but now, alongside the word ‘Unlocked,’ the sound of the locking mechanism releasing clicked open.

Beep.

Thud. Thud.

He bounded up the stairs two steps at a time. Though his heart was pounding from the sudden emergency, he was still able to maintain his composure.

Krr— krrzt. Chk.

Such sounds continued to issue from the speaker. That faint static meant Gye Do-hyeop’s microphone was still connected. It would likely remain open until he safely reached the fourth floor. Straining every muscle in his body, Geum Seoul ran until his breath came in ragged gasps. Just as the number painted on the emergency stairwell wall passed 3 and became 4, he shoved the heavy door open with his shoulder and stepped over the high threshold.

Vrrrroooom.

Geum Seoul narrowed his eyes. Where he had just emerged was a wind-swept rooftop.

Sitting atop the expansive helipad was a massive transport aircraft of a model he had boarded once before. It was a Phantom helicopter that only the Special Security Department—specifically, only its deputy director—could deploy. Wondering if he had come along as well, Seoul looked around the rooftop, but there was no one other than himself.

—”I’m not there. Get in. It’s bringing you to me.”

Once again, Gye Do-hyeop’s voice, carrying a trace of static, came through. Sweeping his gaze all the way around his surroundings, Geum Seoul spotted thick, murky smoke billowing up past a building not far away.

It was an unmistakable act of terror. Who on earth could possibly bomb the Special Security Department’s headquarters, a facility not even known to the outside world? Brushing back his bangs as they whipped frantically in the wind, Geum Seoul strode forward and sprinted toward the helicopter.

Kaboom!

“Ah!”

Fssssshh—.

As Seoul stepped toward the empty transport, another heavy explosion rolled across the complex. He flinched, ducked his shoulders, and darted inside. The doors sealed the instant he crossed the threshold, and the aircraft began climbing vertically almost at once. Holding his breath, Seoul fastened the seat belt the way he remembered and leaned toward the transparent window. While his transport rose, two smaller helicopters descended in the opposite direction—one settling onto the broad plaza helipad, the other dropping toward the roof of the adjacent building.

—”Advance team return complete. Commencing site scan.”

These were operatives who had been deployed in the field and rushed straight back following the terrorist attack on headquarters. The radio chatter automatically piped through the helicopter interior confirmed as much.

—”Better by my side than stuck over there, right?”

The sound of Gye Do-hyeop’s voice was warm and sweet to his ears. Even knowing the man couldn’t see him, Geum Seoul nodded.

“Yes. I want to go to you.”

He even answered aloud. Of course, without a headset on, there was no chance his voice would ever reach him.

—”You’ll be here in seven minutes.”

“Okay.”

Rounding his lips, Geum Seoul exhaled a taut, nervous breath.

‘Eco-Friendly Energy Research Complex’

The sign visible beneath his feet receded in a rapid blur.

When Seoul first reported for duty, someone had told him the entire building was shielded from satellite surveillance, its grounds effectively erased from ordinary maps. If even that was true, who could possibly have attacked this place—and how had they found it?

If this was Node’s doing as well, it meant Gwak Chun-young was behind it. And Gwak Chun-young was said to be in cahoots with Noh Pil-gyu. Yet no matter how much dirty money had changed hands, did it make any sense to blow up a place his own employees walked in and out of every day? Geum Seoul couldn’t fathom it.

The transport surged forward, slicing swiftly through the Seoul air. All the while, radio dispatches flying across the Special Security Department crackled relentlessly through the helicopter cabin.

Gye Do-hyeop issued directives to operatives on the ground using nothing more than concise operational codes. Primary personnel were dispatched to the headquarters, while the rest were split into small units and mobilized to different locations. Having memorized every code and learned to decipher the orders, Geum Seoul quietly held his breath.

—”Call from the National Police Agency. Five minutes ago, there was an explosion at a gas station in Saemi-dong as well.”

—”Deputy Director, a report just came in of a vehicle explosion in the department store parking lot in Guhyeon-dong.”

As incoming incident reports stacked up between tactical radio chatter, Geum Seoul bit down hard on his lower lip.

“What is going on…?”

The headquarters wasn’t the only casualty. Explosions had detonated simultaneously all across Seoul. This was no simple accident, but an overtly political operation—an assault aimed directly at the state.

Even during their flight across the sky, Geum Seoul witnessed black smoke billowing from two separate locations, catching sight of vivid red ambulances racing down the thoroughfares in endless convoys time after time. His face frozen rigid, he chewed anxiously at his fingernails, clicking his teeth against the tips.

Thwump-thwump-thwump—.

The helicopter carrying Geum Seoul landed on an emergency helipad behind a massive building. Even before the hatch slid open, he spotted Gye Do-hyeop through the window, clamping a jet-black plastic cigarette between his teeth. Geum Seoul, who had been anxiously tapping his feet, bounded outside the moment the door slid back with a hiss of releasing hydraulics. In a single fleeting breath, Gye Do-hyeop’s gaze raked over him from head to toe.

“Scared?”

“Deputy Director.”

Thud.

Effortlessly catching the boy as he poured into his arms like sunlight, Gye Do-hyeop squinted one eye with a grin. Stroking a large palm gently through his hair, the man gave the curve of Geum Seoul’s ear a firm press with his thumb before finally letting go.