Chapter 1

“You know what? Surviving in Seoul is tough as hell,” a boy around his age—one who rarely showed his face in the neighborhood anymore—had once remarked. He’d added that anyone who failed to muscle their way in and carve out a place for themselves ended up spreading outward and downward, like droplets of ink bleeding into water. This place was one of those fringes: a hollow where people swept out of the city center were cast aside and left to settle.

The downtown skyscrapers of Seoul, said to blaze with light even at dawn, belonged to a distant world beyond reach even on foot. Here, rough, patterned cement took the place of dark asphalt. As if an entire mountain had been sliced away, steep, narrow alleys cut through a long-dead ruin from which everyone who could leave had already fled.

Roughly a month earlier, eighty-nine-year-old Grandfather Park Yeong-il had moved far away, into his grandson’s storage shed. Before leaving, he used to say that once upon a time, quite a few people had lived in this impoverished neighborhood. Real homes had been built here, and people had lived like human beings. Spitting out those distant memories like a dying testament, the old man—unable even to straighten his back—had limped onto a three-wheeled cart, coughing in a hoarse, rasping voice that the fare was too expensive and he would have to walk the rest of the way from down below.

[RESTRICTED AREA]

The wooden sign hanging from the barbed wire along the edge of an overgrown, tick-infested patch of weeds had rusted long ago. Even without the warning, no one would have dared enter weeds that rose to the waist, so the placard had likely been stolen from somewhere else—perhaps from the shantytown beginning just past the next alley.

Unlike Seoul, where artificial intelligence supposedly permeated every corner and made daily life seamless, this district remained stuck a century in the past. Cobbled together like clothing stitched from scraps, the ramshackle houses had half-walls that looked ready to give way at any moment. This was the aftermath of a government that had taken power twenty years ago under the banner of “urban beautification,” shouting slogans like “A Hammer to Slums, Eradicate Illegal Encampments!” as it demolished and leveled squatter settlements across the country.

Its ambitious plan had been to plant trees and cultivate urban forests and parks. But when that administration collapsed after only three years, the grand design burst into empty froth. The destitute who had huddled in abandoned dwellings were left with their roofs torn away, reduced to draping corrugated metal sheets overhead or sheltering beneath flapping tarpaulins.

People said that was simply how things went. Whenever the higher-ups brandished some grand design, it was always people like them who staggered and fell beneath the blow. Then, once those elites dreamed up yet another scheme that might well kill them, they applauded themselves for having devised such a brilliant stroke of genius. People like them were the page no one ever underlined.

That had happened around the time Geum Seoul—the twenty-year-old youth now standing at the mouth of the alley—had just come into the world. As people had teased him for years, contrary to his name, he had never once set foot in Seoul. He had settled here instead, in a world apart from the capital.

It was the height of a scorching heat wave. Even in late July, he was bundled from neck to fingertips in oversized, swaddling-like layers of clothing, sweating profusely without making the slightest move to roll up his sleeves.

—Skrrrk. Skrrr-skrrr.

Loudspeakers mounted high throughout the neighborhood blared eerie, discordant noises day and night. The racket was an acoustic deterrent blasted through high-crime zones to drive criminals out, yet the residents stayed put, even if it meant stuffing cheap cotton balls into their ears. Geum Seoul was no different. He shoved the wad of cotton he had bought for fifty won into his ears and raised his voice.

“Ajussi, it’s five hundred won today,” Geum Seoul called out.

The old man scowled. “Two hundred?”

“Five hundred won!” Seoul repeated, firmer this time.

Unlike Geum Seoul’s cheap cotton, Mr. Jang wore sturdier-looking silicone earplugs. He took the neatly folded laundry and flapped a pale fan back and forth, casting a sidelong glance at the young man before him.

Thin brown hair hung in a shaggy mop, poking straight into his eyes. A crooked, bumpy nose sat amid grimy, dirt-streaked cheeks, and his upper jaw protruded enough that every time he spoke, silver braces flashed over his upper teeth. They looked like a bootleg attempt to correct his buck teeth, but since nothing had changed in years, he had clearly been ripped off.

Then again, seeing a real doctor would cost an astronomical fortune. How could someone bouncing from one shanty to another ever afford that? If he had that kind of money, he would have cleared out of this place long ago. Clicking his tongue, Mr. Jang rummaged through his pockets and fished out a pair of hundred-won coins, letting out a hot, weary sigh.

“That’s all I’ve got. Nothing more,” the customer muttered.

Seoul hesitated for a beat. “Mm… Then I’ll take just this. But the next time you come, please buy that thing for me instead.”

“What thing?” the elder asked.

Tap.

Though the man had offered less than half the requested amount, Geum Seoul didn’t ask for more. Instead, he stood on tiptoe and whispered into Mr. Jang’s ear, asking him to fetch something he needed. At the old man’s grunt of agreement, Seoul bowed politely, turned his stout body around, and stepped out of the narrow alley. Done. That was the last errand for today. His worn-out sneakers, their canvas torn and the toes gaping wide, pressed hard against the cement as he marched forward.

“Hot enough to die…”

A gust of dark, dusty wind swept past. Stray strands of hair slipped between his eyelashes and tickled his eyes, and he rubbed his brow and forehead with the grimy back of one hand. Even so, the young man never slowed, keeping up his brisk pace toward one of the few square, intact buildings left standing in the area.

Said to have been a bustling commercial building long ago, it still stood sturdily in the northern center of town like the village’s cervical spine, holding the settlement upright. Corrugated iron roofs and canvas tarps clung in clusters to its exterior walls, hinting at the squatters living around its perimeter. Geum Seoul pushed open the heavy iron door at the broad entrance and stepped inside.

“I’m back,” Geum Seoul called as he entered.

A pungent, sour stench assaulted his nose. In one corner of the concrete structure—where exposed pipes wound endlessly along the walls and crumbling partitions gaped open—a man sat with his feet propped on a dark green metal table, puffing heavily on a cigarette. Two visitors stood across from him: a middle-aged man with deeply sunken eyes and, directly behind him, a boy with hunched shoulders.

Leaving the trembling boy—who looked about Geum Seoul’s age—half a step behind him, the middle-aged customer raised his voice and rattled a gemstone in his open palm.

“Take a look at this, Boss Park,” the middle-aged man insisted, shaking the stone. “This is practically emerald-grade.”

“See this rich color? I don’t know everything, but this has gotta be at least a B-grade.” Still waving the hand covered in curly gray hair as he raised his voice, the cigarette-smoking boss jutted out his chin and eyed the object clutched in the visitor’s grasp.

“At best, it barely scrapes by in the middle of Grade C,” Boss Park scoffed, flicking his lighter. “Where’d you even get it? You already sold off everything you had.”

The lukewarm response made the guest’s thick neck tense.

The visitor muttered defensively, “Hell if I know. Found him sleeping in my backyard at dawn. No idea where he was headed or if he ran away from another owner.”

“Hmm… Seoul-ah,” the boss called out.

Boss Park had asked the question only to blow out a plume of gray smoke, already seeming to lose interest in the answer. Then he called to the youth who had just entered the building. Geum Seoul, about to cross the first floor and head upstairs, stopped in his tracks.

Seoul paused and turned his head. “Yes?”

“Go bring that thing out,” Park ordered with a dismissive wave.

His shaggy bangs swayed slightly as he blinked. With a soft “Yes,” he approached the metal desk while keeping a little distance. Boss Park pulled a ring of keys from his waist and tossed them over with a flick.

Clink.

Caught it. Snatching the keys just before they hit the ground, Geum Seoul walked past the stairs and headed toward the president’s office at the far end of the first floor. Paranoid to an extreme, Park made a habit of locking his office even when he stepped out for only a moment.

Click.

Everything from the second floor up was so dilapidated that fluttering plastic sheeting replaced window glass, yet this was the only room sealed completely on all four sides. The key turned in the lock, but the iron door was so heavy that Geum Seoul had to strain and drive his shoulder against it before he could force open a gap.

“Thought my arm was gonna fall off.”

The office was packed with safes. Rectangular boxes of varying sizes and colors were stacked neatly across two entire walls, rising higher and higher until they reached the ceiling. Anyone else might have found the sight bizarre, but Geum Seoul moved like an automaton carrying out an order, paying the safes no attention.

Squeak—creak, screeech.

The utility cart by the door was so old that its wheels gave an ear-piercing screech with every push. A massive black machine sat on the cart’s highest shelf, forcing Geum Seoul to pitch his body forward and put all his weight into laboriously shoving it toward the man.

Rumble.

Meanwhile, Park Gil-pyeong stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette in a glass ashtray, rolled up his sleeves, and held out an arm. The customer across from him hurried closer and poured what he was holding into Park’s broad palm. Releasing the cart handle and stepping back two paces, Geum Seoul let his gaze drift from that hand to the monitor on the machine’s control panel.

When Park Gil-pyeong pressed a button tucked into the corner of the machine, a low hum rose as letters appeared on the screen. Bzzz, crackle. The customer’s expression soured at the suspicious noise, but Gil-pyeong only tapped the machine smugly with one thick finger.

“This baby picked out a B-6 grade amber just the other day.”

Praising the machine as if it were human, Park Gil-pyeong picked out the most vivid stone among the gems spilled across the desk and placed it on the circular glass plate atop the unit. The device emitted a series of beeps, cast a green crosshair laser over the surface, and began its analysis.

Whirrr… hummm.

The empty bar on the monitor slowly filled with black beneath an uneasy mechanical drone. Occasionally, a dry spinning noise came from inside the machine or the laser flickered, but gemstone evaluation devices were so costly and scarce that everyone around here had no choice but to rely on this single unit. Even this one, people said, had only been procured after Park Gil-pyeong—who had spent his whole life rolling through back alleys—spent ages greasing palms and scraping together favors.

Beep.

At the high-pitched tone, pitch-black letters flashed across the monitor.

● SYSTEM

C-7

As if to say “I told you so,” Boss Park lifted the gemstone from the machine, set it back on the table, and clapped his hands together. A Grade C could easily be scrounged up anywhere around these parts with a little digging.

“Ah, fuck, why’d I even bother picking him up?” the man snarled, whirling on his hostage. “Hey, didn’t you claim your grade was good?”

Crack!

A sharp, violent crack—distinctly different from the clap of hands a moment before—rang through the building. The scrawny boy who had been standing silently half a step behind the middle-aged man collapsed flat to the floor beneath the blow.

“My condition right now… is bad…” the boy stammered, curling inward.

“Bullshit!” the customer barked. “Even at your best, you’re bottom-tier garbage—who do you think you’re kidding?!”

Shaking his head but making no move to stop the violence, Gil-pyeong switched off the machine with a click and reached an arm to the side. His smoke-scented hand brushed along Geum Seoul’s lower back as the youth took hold of the cart handle again, then slid down to grab and knead his plump buttocks.

Clack.