The Strongest E-Rank: Kang Taegun
Prologue. Rated E
Seoul, 2060. Seventeen years ago, tears opened in the air all over the world, and monsters came out of them.
People call them Gates. Nothing goes in. Things only come out.
The people who woke up with powers are called Breakers, and they're paid to fight whatever comes out.
Kang Taegun was seven the night the Gates opened. He carried his baby sister out through the fire.
Three weeks ago, he woke up strong. He doesn't know how strong yet. Nobody does.
Chapter 1. Equipment Fault
Equipment Fault — Chapter 1
Anyone who wakes up with a power has thirty days to register it. They all end up here, at the licensing office in Seodaemun.
Two hundred people are in line this morning. Most of them will walk out rated E.
Kang Taegun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I'm in line. It's long.
[Picture: queue ticket 184]
Kang Ha-eun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ How long?
[Picture: queue ticket 184]
Kang Taegun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I can't see the front. There's a guy behind me who says he can turn his skin blue.
[Picture: queue ticket 184]
Kang Ha-eun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Can he?
[Picture: queue ticket 184]
Kang Taegun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ He did it once. It's pretty blue.
[Picture: queue ticket 184]
Kang Ha-eun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Don't break anything, oppa. I mean it. We can't afford to pay for a building.
[Picture: queue ticket 184]
Kang Taegun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ That was one door.
[Picture: queue ticket 184]
Kang Ha-eun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ And the kettle. And the fridge handle. And the bus stop bench.
[Picture: queue ticket 184]
Kang Taegun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ The bench was already loose.
[Picture: queue ticket 184]
Kang Ha-eun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Sure it was. Go to school. I'll see you tonight.
[Picture: queue ticket 184]
Across the hall, two men in expensive armored coats are walking the line like it's a shop window.
Lim Jae-hyuk: Look at this lot. Blue skin. Warm hands. That one over there can find his car keys.
Choi Dong-wook: Don't laugh at them, Jae-hyuk. They're our future spotters.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Lim Jae-hyuk: Spotters. Right.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Every private team needs a few E ranks. Cheap, eager, and nobody asks questions when one doesn't come back.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Lim Jae-hyuk: What about the big guy? Army haircut. He looks like he could take a hit.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: He looks like a guy who lifts boxes. Watch. He'll be an E by lunch.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bae Soo-jin: Next. Number one eighty-four.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: That's me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bae Soo-jin: Kang Taegun. Twenty-four. Six years army, discharged two months ago as a staff sergeant. When did the power show up?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: About three weeks ago. I went to make tea and the kettle handle came off in my hand.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bae Soo-jin: That happens to kettles.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: The kettle was steel, ma'am. It came off bent into a U.
[Picture: bent kettle]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bae Soo-jin: Ah. And after that?
[Picture: bent kettle]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: The front door. A fridge. A bus stop bench, but that one was already loose.
[Picture: bent kettle]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bae Soo-jin: I'll write down strength.
[Picture: bent kettle]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Thanks. I didn't know what to put on the form.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bae Soo-jin: Room four. Don't be nervous. Hit the plate, the machine gives you a number, the panel signs it, you go home. Most people are done in two minutes.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Two minutes. Great.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Room four is a padded box with no windows. A square steel plate, thick as a phone book, is bolted into the far wall. Sensors are wired all over it.
One wall is dark glass. The panel sits behind it.
Bae Soo-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Okay, Mr. Kang. When the light goes green, hit the plate as hard as you can. Don't hold back. It's rated for A rank. You won't hurt it.
Kang Taegun: As hard as I can.
Bae Soo-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ As hard as you can.
He looks at the plate for a while. Then he pulls his fist back.
He decides to go about half. Maybe less.
Kang Taegun: Okay. Half.
The plate folds around his fist like a sheet of paper.
Every screen behind the glass spikes past the top of the scale, and then every screen goes black.
Behind the glass, the youngest inspector on the panel hasn't blinked.
Silence.
[Picture: character Ahn Ji soo thoughtful]
Bae Soo-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ ...Mr. Kang? Are you hurt?
[Picture: character Ahn Ji soo thoughtful]
Kang Taegun: No, ma'am. I'm really sorry about your wall.
[Picture: character Ahn Ji soo thoughtful]
Bae Soo-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Please stay where you are. Please don't touch anything.
[Picture: character Ahn Ji soo thoughtful]
Kang Taegun: I won't. I'll just stand here.
[Picture: character Ahn Ji soo thoughtful]
Behind the glass, the panel is talking all at once. One voice cuts through the rest. It's young and it sounds bored.
[Picture: character Ahn Ji soo thoughtful]
Ahn Ji-soo: ◉ ▂▄▆█ What did the machine read before it died?
Bae Soo-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ It didn't finish the reading, Inspector Ahn. The screens all went out at once. It's a fault. It has to be.
Ahn Ji-soo: ◉ ▂▄▆█ A fault.
Bae Soo-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ The plate must have been cracked before he came in. Nobody breaks an A rated plate at a light tap. So I'm logging it as an equipment fault. Output unreadable. He goes in as E until his appeal.
Kang Taegun: E?
Bae Soo-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I'm sorry. The rules say that if we can't read you, we can't rank you above E. You can appeal for a retest.
Kang Taegun: How long's the appeal?
Bae Soo-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ About four months right now.
Kang Taegun: Four months.
Bae Soo-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I know. I'm sorry.
Kang Taegun: No, it's fine. An E licence still lets me work, right?
Bae Soo-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ ...Yes. It does.
Kang Taegun: Then it's fine. Thanks, ma'am. Sorry about the wall. And the plate. And I think the glass has a crack in it now.
He's reading his new licence card on the way out when somebody steps into his path.
[Picture: licence card E]
She's in a navy agency coat with a silver pin on the collar and a short sword at her hip. Everyone in the hall has gone quiet to look at her.
[Picture: licence card E]
Ahn Ji-soo: Kang Taegun.
Kang Taegun: Yes, ma'am?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Don't call me ma'am. I'm twenty-six. Ahn Ji-soo. I was on your panel.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Oh. Sorry about the glass.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Hit my hand.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: What?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Hit my hand. I'm A rank. I can take it. I want to see something.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I'm not going to hit you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: It's not hitting me, it's a test. I'm literally the person who does the tests.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Still not hitting you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
He holds out his hand for her to shake instead. She stares at it. Then she shakes it, hard, like she means to make a point.
Her eyes go a little wide. She doesn't let go right away.
Kang Taegun: Too hard? Sorry. I'm still getting used to it.
Ahn Ji-soo: No. It was fine. It was a normal handshake. Totally normal.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Okay. Good. Nice to meet you, Inspector.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: That plate wasn't cracked when you went in, Mr. Kang. I checked it myself this morning.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: The clerk said it was a fault.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: The clerk wants to go home on time. I'd give that handshake a six out of ten, by the way. You held back.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: You rate handshakes?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: I rate everything.
[Picture: previous speaker]
She walks off without saying goodbye. Two men in white coats step in to fill the space she left.
Choi Dong-wook: The guy who broke the cheap machine. I heard it from all the way down the hall.
Lim Jae-hyuk: Equipment fault. That's gotta hurt, man.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: It's fine.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Choi Dong-wook. B rank. I run Hanseong Response. We cover the east side of the Euljiro pit for a big insurance firm. I'm always looking for spotters.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: What does a spotter do?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: You stand where I tell you and you shout when you see something. Easy work for an E.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Lim Jae-hyuk: Real easy. The last one barely screamed.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Jae-hyuk.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Lim Jae-hyuk: Joking. I'm joking.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I'll think about it. Thanks.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Don't think too long. E ranks are cheap.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Evening. It's raining. Kang walks home with a bag of groceries and a tray of eggs balanced on top.
[Picture: rain]
The storm drain at the corner starts to hiss.
[Picture: rain]
GATE AGENCY FILE. SKITTERING HORROR. E rank. Helmet-sized, eight legs, all mouth underneath. Comes up through drains.
[Picture: stamp E]
Something the size of a helmet crawls out of the storm drain, ten feet from three kids at a bus stop.
Kang Taegun: Hey. Kids. Go stand behind me, okay?
Kang puts himself in front of them, still holding the groceries.
He flicks it.
It goes through a car door. Every egg survives.
Kang Taegun: Oh, come on.
[Picture: rain]
The kids are staring at him. One of them has his phone out.
[Picture: rain]
Kang Taegun: You guys okay? Nobody got bit?
[Picture: rain]
They shake their heads. He sets the eggs down, tears a page out of the notebook in his pocket and writes a note for the windshield.
[Picture: rain]
"Sorry about your door. There was a monster. Call me. Kang Taegun."
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: windshield note]
Two rooms above a laundromat. One of them is his sister's. The other one is the kitchen, the living room and his bed.
Kang Ha-eun: So? What are you?
Kang Taegun: E.
[Picture: licence card E]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: E? Like, the letter E? The bottom one?
[Picture: licence card E]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: The machine broke. They called it a fault.
[Picture: licence card E]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: How did the machine break?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I hit it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: Oppa. I told you not to break anything.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I went half.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: You went half. Amazing. My brother, the half E.
[Picture: previous speaker]
She pushes a letter across the table. It has the crest of the science high school on it. She's been holding onto it all day.
[Picture: dorm fees letter]
Kang Ha-eun: This came. Dorm fees. Eighteen hundred Credits by the end of the month, or they give my place to the next kid on the list.
[Picture: dorm fees letter]
Kang Taegun: Eighteen hundred.
[Picture: dorm fees letter]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: I can go to the normal school. It's fine. It's honestly fine. It's closer.
[Picture: dorm fees letter]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: You're going to the science school.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: With what? Your pension's sixty a week. I did the math. I do all the math in this house.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I got a job. Night shifts. At a warehouse.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: What warehouse?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: A big one. Lifting boxes.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: ...Okay. That's actually a good job for you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Right? I'm great at boxes.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: Don't break the boxes.
[Picture: previous speaker]
She goes to bed at eleven. He waits until her light goes out. Then he opens his phone and looks up the one place in Seoul that will hire an E rank the same night he walks in.
The Euljiro Standing Gate. Night board by the lift. Pay by the shift.
Kang Taegun: E rank. Four months for the appeal. Twenty-six days for the fees.
He looks at the bent kettle on the counter. He still hasn't thrown it out.
[Picture: bent kettle]
Kang Taegun: Okay. Let's go to work.
[Picture: bent kettle]
Chapter 2. The Night Board
The Night Board — Chapter 2
Eleven at night. Kang takes the lift down from the street and gets off on the third ring of the Euljiro pit.
Forty people are waiting by a board of night work. A heavy man past fifty sits on a folding stool with a clipboard on his knee and the last two fingers missing from his right hand.
Jo Dae-sung: Two on the north wall, midnight to six, standard rate. Three for the market escort. Nothing heavy tonight. Take the wall if you want an easy one.
Yun Chae-won: Dae-sung, three and six are pulling harder than they were this morning. I can feel it through the rail.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: I believe you, Chae-won. I always believe you. But the readings downstairs say steady. Bring me a number and I'll empty the floor.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: It's closer than yesterday. It was down and to the left. Now it's just down.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nobody answers him, and somebody laughs. The kid's boots are too big for him and there's newspaper sticking out of the tops.
[Picture: newspaper boots]
Kang Taegun: Hey. What does that feel like? Closer, I mean.
[Picture: newspaper boots]
Seo Ji-hoon: Um. Like a phone buzzing in another room? You can't hear it, but you know where it is. And tonight it's louder.
[Picture: newspaper boots]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: Sorry. Nobody ever asks me that. I'm Seo Ji-hoon. E. Third try.
[Picture: newspaper boots]
Kang Taegun: Kang Taegun. Also E. First try.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: New guy. Army, right? You're standing at attention in a noodle line, son. You and the kid, north wall, midnight to six. Twenty Credits each. Stay behind the barricade and don't be a hero.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Yes, sir.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: Don't call me sir. I work for a living.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The lift opens again. Two men in white armored coats walk out, and people get out of their way without being asked.
Jo Dae-sung: Choi. Your contract's the east side. What do you want?
Choi Dong-wook: The insurer wants the north wall covered too tonight. Their building backs onto it. So I need two E rank spotters.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: No. I don't hand you kids anymore. You know why.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Lim Jae-hyuk: Because they keep getting lost?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi holds up a signed order from the Gangnam Contract Exchange. Jo reads it twice and doesn't say anything.
Choi Dong-wook: Private contract. I pick from the board. That one. The skinny one with the newspaper boots.
Jo Dae-sung: He's a week old, Choi.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Put me on it too. He's on my shift. I'd rather he wasn't out there alone.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Hey, it's the equipment fault. Sure. Two spotters for the price of two. Midnight. Try to keep up.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: Kang. You stay behind the barricade. Both of you. Whatever he says.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang leans on the rail and sees the Gate for the first time. Four floors down, a tear the colour of dirty water hangs in the air above the old road.
Eight steel posts stand around it on rails, wrapped in cable, their lamps running a slow green loop. The technician from the board is standing next to him.
Kang Taegun: What are the posts for?
Yun Chae-won: They keep it asleep. Each one pulls on it a little. All eight together hold it quiet. If one pulls wrong, the others have to work harder.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: And three and six are pulling wrong.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: You were actually listening. Nobody listens.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: My dad had a print shop down there. Right where it is. He was working late the night it opened.
Kang Taegun: I'm sorry.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: I was eleven. It's why I do this. I'm Yun Chae-won. I tune the posts.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Kang Taegun. I stand behind a barricade, apparently.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Then stand behind it. Choi's spotters don't last long.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: This one will.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The north wall is a chest high steel barricade on the bottom ring, with the pit floor on the other side. At three in the morning Choi's team is playing cards on a crate, and Ji-hoon hasn't sat down once.
Seo Ji-hoon: Mr. Kang. It's coming up. Right now.
Kang Taegun: How many?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: A lot of little ones. Like somebody threw a handful of gravel at me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The Gate ripples. Something small and green drops out of it onto the road, then another, then a lot more.
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
GATE AGENCY FILE. DRAGON WYRMLING. E rank. A hatchling dragon the size of a large bird. Spits acid. Comes in swarms.
[Picture: stamp E]
They're hatchling dragons the size of large birds, with dull green scales, stubby wings and teeth far too long for their heads. The one in front spits, and the road smokes where it lands.
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
Choi Dong-wook: Spotter. Get out past the barricade and count them for me.
Seo Ji-hoon: Out there?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Spotters spot. You can't spot from back here. Go on, we've got you covered.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Jo said behind the barricade.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Jo doesn't sign your pay tonight. I do. Kid. Go.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Lim Jae-hyuk: Run fast, newspaper boots!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi sends the new kid over the barricade to count them.
Then his team picks up their cards and walks away.
Seventeen wyrmlings come up the road, and Ji-hoon is the only thing on it.
Seo Ji-hoon: Mr. Kang!
Kang Taegun: Get down, Ji-hoon. Cover your head.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang goes over the barricade with one hand.
It takes about four seconds.
He comes back with the kid tucked under one arm.
Behind him, seventeen wyrmlings lie in a pile on the road.
Kang Taegun: You okay? Any acid on you? Check your arms, the acid's sneaky.
Seo Ji-hoon: You just... with your hands. You did that with your hands.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: There were seventeen. I counted. I was supposed to count, so I counted.
Kang Taegun: Good job, spotter.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Hanseong Response comes back from the east end and stops at the pile. Lim's cards fall out of his hand.
[Picture: falling cards]
Lim Jae-hyuk: Boss. They're dead. They're all dead.
[Picture: falling cards]
Choi Dong-wook: What happened here?
[Picture: falling cards]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: They came up the road.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Good work, team. Textbook. Jae-hyuk, log seventeen for Hanseong.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Lim Jae-hyuk: Seventeen for us. Nice.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi doesn't look at Kang once. Ji-hoon can't look at anyone else.
Seo Ji-hoon: What rank are you? For real.
Kang Taegun: E.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: That's not possible. Nobody's E and does that.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Equipment fault.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Don't tell anyone, okay? I just want the paycheck.
Chapter 3. Seventeen Kills
Seventeen Kills — Chapter 3
Six in the morning. The bounty counter is a window on the second ring, with a line of tired crews waiting in front of it.
Choi Dong-wook: Hanseong Response. Seventeen wyrmlings off the north wall, around three.
[Picture: bounty chits]
The clerk behind the window counts out a thick stack of chits. Choi's team whistles.
[Picture: bounty chits]
Seo Ji-hoon: Those aren't yours.
Choi Dong-wook: Sorry, kid. Say that again?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: You weren't even looking. You walked off. Mr. Kang killed every one of them. I was right there.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Lim Jae-hyuk: You were out there crying, is where you were.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Lim shoves him into the counter. Ji-hoon's borrowed boots slide on the wet floor, and a wad of newspaper falls out of one.
Choi Dong-wook: Spotters spot, kid. That's the job. You spotted, Hanseong killed. Everybody here knows how it works.
Choi Dong-wook: Here. Twenty for you, twenty for the big one. Don't spend it all on newspaper.
Lim lifts the baton to poke Ji-hoon again.
Kang takes his wrist.
Lim pulls. Nothing moves.
Kang Taegun: He's done. We're going.
Lim Jae-hyuk: Hey. Let go, man. Ha. Ha ha. Good grip. That's a good grip.
[Picture: previous speaker]
He laughs like it's a joke. It isn't one.
Kang lets go. He picks up the newspaper, puts it back in Ji-hoon's boot, and takes the two chits.
Kang Taegun: Thanks for the shift.
Seo Ji-hoon: Why did you let him do that? Seventeen wyrmlings! That's like three hundred Credits and you said thank you!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Who's the counter going to believe, a B rank with a contract or two E's? And if I start a fight with a B rank on my first night, Jo can't put me on the board anymore.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: So you just let him win?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: My sister's school fees are due in twenty-five days. I need every shift. Choi can have a nice dinner.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: It's not fair.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Nope. Come on, I'll buy you noodles. I'm rich now. I've got twenty Credits.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The noodle counter is a steel bar with six stools on the third ring. An orange scooter stacked with delivery boxes comes around the ring at full speed.
Park Min-jae: Move, move, move! No brakes! Brakes are more of an idea!
[Picture: orange scooter]
It hits Kang square in the back and stops dead. Its rider goes over the handlebars and bounces off Kang too.
[Picture: orange scooter]
Park Min-jae: Ow. Ow. What are you made of, a bridge?
[Picture: orange scooter]
Kang Taegun: Sorry. You okay? Sorry about your scooter.
[Picture: orange scooter]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: My front wheel's an oval now. It was round this morning. I remember it being round.
[Picture: orange scooter]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Wait, you caught the noodles? All four? Man, you're a hero. Park Min-jae, C rank, fastest delivery in Jung-gu. Usually.
Kang Taegun: Kang Taegun. E.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: E? You stopped my scooter with your back. I hit a bus once and the bus moved more than you did.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I've got a strong back.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: So I'm from Busan, right? My mom's got a fish stall down there and I send her money every week. Well, most weeks. I'm fast, but I'm broke. Are you gonna eat that egg?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: And who's this? He looks like he got shoved.
Seo Ji-hoon: I got shoved.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Lim? Big guy, baton, laughs like a car alarm? He shoved me into a soup pot once. I smelled like broth for a week. Dogs followed me home.
[Picture: previous speaker]
A woman in a navy agency coat walks down the ring with a clipboard and a short sword at her hip. People stop talking as she passes.
Park Min-jae: Oh no. Oh wow. That's Ahn Ji-soo. That's an A rank. That's THE A rank. Everybody act normal.
Ahn Ji-soo: Mr. Kang. Small world. I'm here on a post audit. Every quarter the agency checks that the posts read what they say they read.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Check three and six. The lady who tunes them says they're pulling hard.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: The instruments say they're fine.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: She said they'd say that.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ji-soo sits down beside him and reaches for the chopsticks, and her elbow knocks her sword off the counter. Kang catches it without looking up from his bowl and sets it back.
Kang Taegun: You dropped this.
Ahn Ji-soo: Nine out of ten. You didn't even look. That's the only reason it's not a ten.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Was that a test?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Everything's a test.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: She rated you! She's never rated me. I've been in the same building as her twice!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: The crash was a three. Your wheel's an oval.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: A three! She knows about my wheel!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: Something's coming up the wall. Fast. It's right under us.
[Picture: previous speaker]
GATE AGENCY FILE. JUVENILE DRAKE. D rank. Dog-sized, adult teeth, breathes sparks. Too young to fly well, old enough to bite.
[Picture: stamp D]
A sleek drake the size of a large dog comes over the rail and lands on the counter. It's rust red, its wings are too big for the ring, and sparks come out of its mouth when it breathes.
[Picture: juvenile drake side]
The drake gets one lunge in before Kang has it by the tail.
Kang Taegun: Min-jae. Where's Hanseong eating?
Park Min-jae: Fourth ring, the barbecue place. Why?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: It came over the east rail. That's their side.
[Picture: previous speaker]
He doesn't finish his noodles. He carries it upstairs instead.
Half the ring follows him with their phones out.
He puts it down between the galbi and Choi's gold watch.
Kang Taegun: I think this is yours.
Choi Dong-wook: What the... get it off the table!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Lim Jae-hyuk: Boss! It's on the grill! It's eating the galbi!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: It came over your rail. So it's yours, right? That's how it works?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Lim gets his baton out and hits it until it stops moving. It takes him eleven tries, and Kang holds the tail the whole time.
[Picture: juvenile drake side]
Choi Dong-wook: That was under control. Hanseong had eyes on it the whole time.
Park Min-jae: You had eyes on your galbi.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Someone on the stairs laughs. Then everyone on the stairs laughs.
Choi Dong-wook: Who said that?
Park Min-jae: Nobody. The wind. Bye.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Sorry about your grill.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Equipment fault. Sure.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 4. Market Escort
Market Escort — Chapter 4
The next night. Min-jae's scooter has a new front wheel, and it's already a little bent.
Jo Dae-sung: Market escort. One truck of blank seal cores, Mapo workshop to here. I need somebody who can drive and somebody who can lift.
Park Min-jae: Drive! I can drive! I drive all day!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: You drive a scooter, Park. Into people.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Into one person. Once. And he was fine. He was more than fine, he was basically a bridge.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: Kang. You lift?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I lift.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: Forty Credits each. The cores are worth more than both of you, so don't scratch them. Yun's riding along to sign for them. She asked.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The Mapo workshop is a long brick shed by the river. Blank seal cores the size of paint cans sit on pallets at the loading dock.
[Picture: seal core]
Yun signs for forty of them one line at a time, and checks every one with the flat of her hand.
[Picture: seal core]
Yun Chae-won: Somebody's been in my posts.
Kang Taegun: Three and six?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Three and six. The log says nobody's touched them since Tuesday, but someone adjusted them and didn't write it down.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Who can do that?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Anyone with the access codes. That's maybe twenty people, and every one of them would log it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Could it just drift? My scooter drifts left.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Your scooter drifts left because a man broke it. Posts don't drift.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Tell the inspector. Ahn Ji-soo. She's doing the audit.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: I've told everybody. I'll tell her too. I've been right four times and it's never made anyone listen faster.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I'm listening.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Yeah. You keep doing that.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Midnight. The truck runs east on the inner ring road with the river on the right and almost no traffic.
Park Min-jae: This truck's amazing. It has a roof. It has four wheels, and all of them are round. I could live in this truck.
Yun Chae-won: Please watch the road.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: I'm watching it! Hey, big guy, you want to hear about my mom's fish stall? There's a crab in this one.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Something big lands on the road ahead, and the asphalt cracks under it.
[Picture: winged drake front]
GATE AGENCY FILE. WINGED DRAKE. C rank. Horse-sized, wings wider than a road. The blue ones breathe frost.
[Picture: stamp C]
It's a muscular reptile the size of a horse, with blue scales, long hooked claws and wings wider than both lanes. Frost spreads across the road from its mouth.
[Picture: frost]
[Picture: winged drake side]
Yun Chae-won: That's a river drake. One of the river Gates must have let it out.
[Picture: frost]
Park Min-jae: I can't stop! It's a truck! Trucks don't just stop!
[Picture: frost]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Then keep going straight. Don't swerve.
[Picture: frost]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang opens the door and steps out of a moving truck.
He meets the drake in the middle of the road with one punch.
The truck stops a hand's width behind his back.
Min-jae hasn't stopped screaming.
The drake is lying on its side across both lanes.
Park Min-jae: Aaah! Oh my god. You got out of a truck! A moving truck! Who gets out of a moving truck?
Kang Taegun: Nice braking.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: I didn't brake! It stopped because it was scared of you!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Sorry about your bumper. It's got frost on it now.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: You dropped a C rank drake with one punch.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: He's E! He told me he's E!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Equipment fault.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The headlights catch something at the edge of the road. It's shaped like a wolf, and they can see the guardrail through its body.
[Picture: phase wolf side]
GATE AGENCY FILE. PHASE WOLF. D rank. You can see through its coat. Usually summoned, not born of a Gate.
[Picture: stamp D]
Yun Chae-won: Those didn't come out of a Gate. Somebody called them.
Kang Taegun: Stay in the truck. Lock the doors.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nine wolves come out of the dark, and you can see the road through them.
Kang doesn't leave the headlights.
The wolves fade out wherever they land.
Behind a pillar, the man who called them starts to panic.
A thin man in black armor that's too big for him backs out from behind a pillar. He has a ring on every finger.
Gu Min-ho: They're not working. Sir, they're not working! The file said E!
Nam Gi-cheol: Stop talking, Min-ho. They can hear you.
[Picture: black van]
[Picture: previous speaker]
A black van is parked under the overpass with its lights off.
[Picture: black van]
A man steps out of the black van into the headlights.
Kang knows him. Master Sergeant Nam Gi-cheol taught him to shoot when he was eighteen.
Nam Gi-cheol: Staff Sergeant Kang. Heard you woke up.
Kang Taegun: Master Sergeant Nam.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: You know him? Why do you know the wolf guy's boss?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Relax. I'm not here for you, kid. Or the cores. I'm here for the technician.
[Picture: previous speaker]
In the truck, Yun goes very still.
[Picture: character Yun Chae won afraid]
Kang Taegun: No.
[Picture: character Yun Chae won afraid]
Nam Gi-cheol: Then here's the other offer. I run a crew now, all ex-army, and we pay real money. Not twenty a shift.
[Picture: character Yun Chae won afraid]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: How do you know what I make a shift?
[Picture: character Yun Chae won afraid]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: I know a lot of things. They logged you E, kid. That's what this country thinks you're worth.
[Picture: character Yun Chae won afraid]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Yeah. They did. Still no thanks, Sarge. I've got a job.
[Picture: character Yun Chae won afraid]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Carrying boxes for Jo Dae-sung.
[Picture: character Yun Chae won afraid]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Carrying boxes for Jo Dae-sung. And if you come near her again, I'll stop being polite.
[Picture: character Yun Chae won afraid]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: You were always polite. It was the most annoying thing about you. Min-ho. Van.
[Picture: character Yun Chae won afraid]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gu Min-ho: We're just leaving? He killed nine of my wolves!
[Picture: character Yun Chae won afraid]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam walks back to the van at an easy pace and doesn't look back. It pulls out with its lights still off.
[Picture: black van]
Yun Chae-won: He knew which truck. He knew my name. Somebody at Euljiro told him.
Kang Taegun: You're okay. He's gone. We'll tell the inspector tonight.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Okay. Okay. Who the hell was that?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: The guy who taught me to shoot.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 5. Home Visit
Home Visit — Chapter 5
Kang is asleep on his mat in his work clothes, in the middle of the afternoon. He got in at seven this morning.
Ha-eun is doing the laundry. She checks his jacket pockets first, because he always leaves tissues in them.
In one pocket there's a folded slip. It says Euljiro Standing Gate, night board, north wall, midnight to six, Kang Taegun, E rank, twenty Credits.
[Picture: work slip]
Kang Ha-eun: Oppa. Wake up. What's Euljiro?
[Picture: work slip]
Kang Taegun: ...It's a neighborhood.
[Picture: work slip]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: Don't. This was in your jacket, and that's the Gate that killed four hundred people. We learned about it in school, oppa.
[Picture: work slip]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: It's kind of a warehouse. There's a lot of boxes.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: Don't make it a joke! Every night since the letter, I'm asleep and you're standing next to a Gate. I don't want the stupid school if that's what it costs.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: You're going to the science school. I decide that. I've always been the one who decides.
[Picture: previous speaker]
It comes out louder than he meant, and she flinches. He has never shouted at her before.
Kang Taegun: Sorry. I didn't mean to yell.
Kang Ha-eun: You're all I have. I don't even remember Mom's face, oppa. I've got you and a bent kettle.
[Picture: bent kettle]
[Picture: previous speaker]
He sits up on the mat. After a while, she sits down next to him.
Kang Taegun: I remember that night.
Their mother put the baby in his arms and told him to run to the school and not stop.
He was seven. He didn't stop.
Kang Taegun: You screamed the whole way. Right in my ear.
Kang Taegun: You don't have to remember it. I remember it enough for both of us. That's my job.
Kang Ha-eun: Then you text me when you get there and when you leave. And you do the laundry for a month. For lying.
Kang Taegun: That's fair.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The doorbell rings. A woman in a navy agency coat is on the landing, with a folder under her arm and a sword at her hip.
Ahn Ji-soo: Hello. Ahn Ji-soo, from the Gate agency. Is Kang Taegun home?
Kang Ha-eun: Oppa. There's a pretty lady with a sword at the door.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Inspector. Hi. Sorry, I just woke up.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: Are you his girlfriend?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Ha-eun!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: No. I'm the one who tested him.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: That's a silver pin. There's an A rank in our kitchen. This is the best day of my life.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: He says you rate everything. Rate him. Overall.
Ahn Ji-soo: Six. He needs a haircut and he apologizes to furniture.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: Six! Oppa, she gave you a six!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I'm right here.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: I need to talk to your brother about work, Ha-eun. The boring kind.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: I'm putting my headphones on. I'm not listening. I'm definitely not listening.
[Picture: previous speaker]
She goes into her room. Music starts up loud behind the door.
Ahn Ji-soo: I pulled your test data. Before the sensors died, the reading went past S. Off the top of the scale.
Kang Taegun: Past S.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: I can fast-track a public retest at Jamsil Arena. It'd be on camera. Everyone in Korea would know your name by dinner.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Please don't.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: You'd turn down S rank? Do you know what an S rank gets paid?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I just want the paycheck. And her to finish school. If I'm on TV, people come to the door, and she's seventeen.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ji-soo looks at the closed door. Then she closes her folder.
Ahn Ji-soo: Fine, for now. It's a terrible decision, though. Two out of ten.
Kang Taegun: Thanks, Inspector.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Two more things. Choi Dong-wook is being looked at for bounty fraud. His kill count's way too high for a team that size, but there's no proof yet.
[Picture: gold watch]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: He's got a really nice watch.
[Picture: gold watch]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: And Yun Chae-won reported the road. The man from the van is Nam Gi-cheol. He's a deserter, and he runs a Seoul cell of the Obsidian Guard.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I know. He taught me how to shoot.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: That's not in your file. If he talks to you again, you call me. Not the office, me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ha-eun walks her down to the street. Kang follows as far as the top of the stairs, to say goodbye.
Kang Ha-eun: Can I tell you something? He took my stuffed rabbit to the army. Six years, every base, and it's under his pillow right now.
[Picture: stuffed rabbit]
Kang Taegun: Ha-eun!
[Picture: stuffed rabbit]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: A rabbit. Okay. That one's a ten out of ten.
[Picture: stuffed rabbit]
[Picture: previous speaker]
That evening, Kang sits in Min-jae's rooftop room in Yeonnam-dong, ten minutes from home. It has one plastic table, two chairs and a view of other rooftops.
Park Min-jae: Sit, drink, don't look yet. Okay, look.
Somebody filmed him carrying the drake up the stairs.
Park Min-jae: Up the stairs, past the noodle counter, drake in one hand, noodle lady screaming the whole time. They're calling you Noodle Guy. Thirty thousand views.
Kang Taegun: You can't see my face, right?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: You can see the back of your head, your jacket and your hand wraps. So only everyone who knows you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang groans.
Kang Taegun: I'm moving to Busan.
Park Min-jae: Hyung, you're famous.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang looks up from the phone.
Kang Taegun: Hyung?
Park Min-jae: What? You're older, you carried a drake up the stairs and you gave me your extra dumpling, so that's a hyung. I don't make the rules.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Okay. Hyung's fine.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Good, 'cause you're already in my phone as Hyung. Hey, I've got a run to a club in Hongdae tomorrow night. Twelve crates, no lift, and the owner pays in fried chicken.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I'm in.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 6. The Back Table
The Back Table — Chapter 6
The next night, the club is two floors under a phone shop in Hongdae. The music is so loud the drinks shake on the tables.
Min-jae carries four crates of soju down the stairs. Kang carries the other eight, stacked.
[Picture: soju crates]
Park Min-jae: Last one! Hyung, you had eight crates on one shoulder. You know that's not normal, right?
[Picture: soju crates]
Kang Taegun: They were light.
[Picture: soju crates]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: They were soju, and soju is not light. Okay, I'm gonna go get paid. Don't lift anything else.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang isn't listening. At a roped-off table in the back, Choi Dong-wook is sitting with two men in black, and one of them has a shaved head and a scar across his jaw.
[Picture: character Nam Gi cheol neutral]
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook smug]
Park Min-jae: Wait. That's the guy from the road. Why is Choi having drinks with the guy from the road?
[Picture: character Nam Gi cheol neutral]
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook smug]
Choi slides a small black data chip across the table. The thin man with rings on every finger picks it up and slips it into his coat.
[Picture: character Nam Gi cheol neutral]
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook smug]
Kang Taegun: Go wait by the scooter.
[Picture: character Nam Gi cheol neutral]
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook smug]
Park Min-jae: Hyung. No. That's an A rank, a B rank and a guy with wolves.
[Picture: character Nam Gi cheol neutral]
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook smug]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Go wait by the scooter, Min-jae.
[Picture: character Nam Gi cheol neutral]
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook smug]
[Picture: previous speaker]
He walks to the back. The bouncer at the rope takes one look at him and unhooks it.
Nam Gi-cheol: Kid, sit down. You want a beer? You used to drink the cheap stuff.
Kang Taegun: Evening, Sarge.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Oh, look, it's the E. The noodle guy. You here to carry something up the stairs for me?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: What's on the chip?
[Picture: data chip]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Business. Grown-up business. It's got numbers on it, you wouldn't like it.
[Picture: data chip]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: It's the crew rota. And the codes for the posts.
[Picture: data chip]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Who told you that?
[Picture: data chip]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: You did. Just now, with your face.
[Picture: data chip]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: He was always good at that. Worst card player in the battalion, though.
[Picture: data chip]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Give me the chip, Choi.
[Picture: data chip]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Or what? You're an E, a spotter on paper. You're bait with a licence.
[Picture: data chip]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Give me the chip.
[Picture: data chip]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: They logged you E, kid, and I'm offering you a table. This is the last time I ask nicely.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: This is the last time I ask at all.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Okay. Gu.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Something stings the back of Kang's neck. The thin man with the rings has slipped around behind him, shaking, with a little black dart gun.
[Picture: dart gun]
Nam Gi-cheol: The floor's gonna tilt in a second, kid. Don't fight it.
[Picture: dart gun]
Kang Taegun: Sorry about your tables.
[Picture: dart gun]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The dart is a relic sedative made for S rank prisoners.
Kang puts four of Nam's men through the tables while it hits.
Then the floor tilts, and he goes down on one knee.
Nam Gi-cheol: That dose drops an S rank flat. You're still kneeling. Huh.
The music has stopped.
Kang Taegun: The chip.
Choi kicks him in the ribs. Then he does it again, harder, and plants his shoe on Kang's shoulder.
Choi Dong-wook: That's for the drake. And the stairs. And the thirty thousand views, you nobody.
Kang Taegun: You done?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Now I'm done.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Enough. He's worth more with his ribs in one piece. Put him in the van.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam's men drag him out the back door by his arms, boots scraping the ground. The van is idling at the far end of the alley.
There's agency tape across the alley mouth. A small Gate opened behind the clubs this afternoon, and not everything that came out of it got caught.
GATE AGENCY FILE. SHADOW MASTIFF. C rank. A black dog the streetlight doesn't touch. Hunts only in the dark.
[Picture: stamp C]
Three heavy dogs step out from between the bins, with coats so black the streetlight doesn't show on them. Only their eyes catch it.
[Picture: shadow mastiff front]
[Picture: shadow mastiff front]
[Picture: shadow mastiff front]
Gu Min-ho: Those aren't mine. Sarge, those aren't mine!
[Picture: glowing eyes]
Nam Gi-cheol: Nobody run. Get him in the van, slowly.
[Picture: glowing eyes]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Hey! Put my hyung down, you ugly sausages!
[Picture: glowing eyes]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gu Min-ho: Who is that?
[Picture: glowing eyes]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Fastest delivery in Jung-gu. No signature needed.
[Picture: glowing eyes]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min-jae comes out of nowhere at full speed.
He's carrying a man twice his weight, and three dogs are right behind him.
Kang Taegun: Min-jae. Put me down. You can outrun them on your own.
Park Min-jae: I'm a C rank, hyung. I run away from stuff professionally. Tonight I'm running away with you, so shut up.
[Picture: previous speaker]
One of them gets his leg. He screams and keeps running.
Kang Taegun: Your leg!
Park Min-jae: What leg? I don't have a leg, I have a delivery. Hold on.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Five blocks. Then a fire escape. He doesn't stop once.
Min-jae kicks open the door of his rooftop room and falls through it. Kang hits the floor next to him.
Park Min-jae: We made it! Hyung, we made it. I'm laughing and crying at the same time, is that normal?
Kang Taegun: You came back.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Obviously I came back, you idiot. You're my hyung.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: You're bleeding a lot, man.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: It's mostly jeans. Okay, it's some leg.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang pulls the wrap off his right hand and ties it tight around Min-jae's leg. It takes three tries, because his fingers won't work properly.
Park Min-jae: Okay, I'm calling an ambulance for you. You're grey, hyung. Actually grey.
Kang Taegun: I'm not going to the hospital.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: You literally can't stand.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I'm barely hurt, man.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: You got shot with S-rank sleepy juice and kicked by a guy in a gold watch!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: The watch didn't kick me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Fine, no hospital for either of us. We'll just lie on this floor like idiots. Brothers, whatever.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Brothers. Thanks, Min-jae.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Min-jae. The chip. Tell Jo they've got the...
Park Min-jae: Tell Jo what? Hyung? Hyung!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang is asleep. He's lying across the doorway, between Min-jae and the stairs.
Chapter 7. Posts Three and Six
Posts Three and Six — Chapter 7
Midnight at Euljiro, the same night. Jo Dae-sung is halfway down the board when Choi Dong-wook walks up with his whole team behind him.
Choi Dong-wook: Bad news, boss. Hanseong Response is off the east side. As of now.
Jo Dae-sung: As of now? It's midnight! I've got nobody to put on the east side at midnight!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: The insurer cancelled. Not my call. Take it up with Gangnam.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: The insurer cancelled at midnight. Since when do insurers work at midnight?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Lim Jae-hyuk: This one does! Heh heh.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: If one name on my board doesn't come back tonight, Choi, I'm coming to find you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Nobody's scared of a guy with eight fingers, Jo. Have a good shift.
[Picture: previous speaker]
They take the lift up and out. Twelve people are gone from the east side, all at once.
Seo Ji-hoon: Boss? Kang hyung isn't picking up, and he's on the north wall with me tonight. He always texts back.
Jo Dae-sung: Kang always picks up.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Dae-sung. Three and six are wrong.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: How wrong?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Somebody turned them tonight, just small turns. They used the right codes, so the log says my crew did it. It wasn't my crew.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: Who has those codes?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Me. The agency. And whoever writes the rota for the east side.
[Picture: previous speaker]
They both look at the lift. It's already gone.
Jo Dae-sung: That smug little...
Four floors down, the lamps on the posts are running out of step. Three and six are blinking faster than the rest.
Seo Ji-hoon: It's not a wave. Something big is underneath it.
Yun Chae-won: How big?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: I don't know. It keeps coming closer and it doesn't stop. I've never felt one keep coming.
[Picture: previous speaker]
On the second ring, four men Yun has never seen are standing at posts three and six in maintenance coveralls. One of them pushes a red visor up onto his forehead.
Yun Chae-won: That's not my crew.
Gu Min-ho: Sarge, how much is a little? You said wake it up a little.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Enough noise to empty the rings. Then we take the technician and walk out the service tunnel.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gu Min-ho: It's humming. It's not supposed to hum like that, is it?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Stop turning.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gu Min-ho: I stopped turning! I stopped two minutes ago!
[Picture: previous speaker]
The Gate opens wide, and a blast of hot air comes up the pit.
GATE AGENCY FILE. SKYFIRE SCOURGE. C rank. A red dragon with wings that shade a truck. Its breath covers a whole ring.
[Picture: stamp C]
A red-orange dragon climbs out of the Gate, wings wide enough to shade a truck and heat shimmering off its back. A second one follows it, then a third.
[Picture: embers]
[Picture: skyfire scourge front]
[Picture: skyfire scourge front]
[Picture: skyfire scourge front]
Nam Gi-cheol: ...Get the woman. Now.
[Picture: embers]
The first dragon breathes fire across the bottom two rings. The bunks and the workshops go up.
[Picture: embers]
[Picture: skyfire scourge side]
Jo Dae-sung: Everybody up! Upper rings, now! Ji-hoon, get my locker open.
[Picture: embers]
Seo Ji-hoon: Your armor? Boss, you haven't worn that since...
[Picture: embers]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung hasn't worn his armor since 2054.
He gets it out of the locker anyway.
Jo Dae-sung: I held that west wall for nineteen years, kid. I can hold it for one more night.
Jo Dae-sung: Come on, then! I've had worse from a stove!
[Picture: embers]
In the smoke, two men in coveralls grab Yun by the arms and pull her through the service door behind post six. Ji-hoon runs after them, and the last man shoves him down the stairs.
[Picture: embers]
Yun Chae-won: Let go of me! Dae-sung!
[Picture: embers]
Seo Ji-hoon: Noona! Chae-won noona!
[Picture: embers]
[Picture: previous speaker]
By the time Ji-hoon gets up, the service tunnel is empty.
[Picture: embers]
Across the river, an agency alert goes out to every A rank in Seoul. On the Mapo Bridge, Ahn Ji-soo reads it in her car and turns around.
Kang wakes up on Min-jae's floor with his phone buzzing next to his head. Every part of him feels heavy.
Seo Ji-hoon: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Hyung? Hyung, are you there?
Kang Taegun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I'm here. What's wrong?
Seo Ji-hoon: ◉ ▂▄▆█ They took Chae-won noona... the Gate's open, hyung, it's open.
Kang Taegun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Who took her?
Seo Ji-hoon: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Men in coveralls, out the service tunnel. The bunks are on fire and the boss is holding the west wall by himself. Please come.
Kang Taegun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I'm coming. Stay on the upper rings. Don't go after them, okay?
He hangs up and tries to stand. His legs fold and he goes down on his hands.
Park Min-jae: Hyung, stop. You can't even walk.
Kang Taegun: I can walk.
[Picture: previous speaker]
He gets up. He makes it as far as the door frame and holds on to it.
Park Min-jae: I tried to call Jo before. I passed out before it rang. I'm sorry, hyung.
Kang Taegun: Not your fault. You carried me five blocks.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: I can't walk either. I tried. So take this.
[Picture: previous speaker]
He throws something small across the room. Kang catches it without looking.
[Picture: scooter key]
Kang Taegun: Your scooter key. Where's the scooter?
[Picture: scooter key]
Park Min-jae: Still behind the club in Hongdae.
[Picture: scooter key]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: That's the wrong way, man.
[Picture: scooter key]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Then why'd you catch it?
[Picture: scooter key]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Hyung, come back, okay? Every name on the board comes back. That's Jo's rule.
Kang Taegun: Every name. Okay.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The drug is still in him. He can barely stand.
He doesn't take the scooter. He runs.
Twice his legs give out. Twice he gets up.
Downtown, Euljiro is burning.
Chapter 8. Sergeant Nam
Sergeant Nam — Chapter 8
Three in the morning. The Cheonggye flood channel runs dry under the city, four blocks south of the pit.
The service tunnel from Euljiro comes out in the flood channel.
Kang drops into the channel right in front of the van.
The van hits him. The van loses.
The van has stopped with its whole front folded around him. Kang hasn't moved from where he landed.
Gu Min-ho: We hit him. We hit him, right? Sir, why did we stop?
Nam Gi-cheol: We stopped because we hit him, Min-ho.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam steps down out of the side door. Yun is in the back with her wrists zip-tied.
Kang Taegun: You okay back there?
Yun Chae-won: Left wrist is cut. Not deep. The Gate's still open, Mr. Kang.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I know. We'll go back in a minute.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: In a minute. You hear that, Min-ho? He's giving us a minute.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gu Min-ho: Sir, he stopped the van with his chest. I felt it in my teeth.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Wolves.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Five see-through wolves come out of the air and go for Kang's arms, legs and throat. He doesn't look at them, and keeps walking toward Nam with two of them hanging off his sleeves.
[Picture: phase wolf front]
[Picture: phase wolf front]
[Picture: phase wolf front]
[Picture: phase wolf front]
[Picture: phase wolf front]
Gu Min-ho: They're biting him. They're biting him! Why isn't he bleeding?
Kang Taegun: They're chewing my jacket, man. Call them off.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: You should be flat on a floor, kid. That dose drops an S rank for two days.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Yeah. You should've used more.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Still got a mouth on you. I used to run that out of you before breakfast.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: You used to try.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Min-ho. Put them away. This one's mine.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gu Min-ho: Yes. Gladly. Very gladly.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Last offer, Staff Sergeant. They logged you E. They'll log you dead the same way, one line on a form. Come with me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: No.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Then stand still, kid. It's been a long time since I hit you properly.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam pulls his visor down and throws everything he has.
Kang's head doesn't turn. His boots don't move.
Nam Gi-cheol: ...What.
Kang Taegun: Sarge. You taught me to keep my guard up.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Your hands are down, kid. They're all the way down.
[Picture: previous speaker]
One punch. Nam goes through the wall.
Gu Min-ho: I surrender! I surrender. I'm on my knees, look, I'm already on my knees.
Kang Taegun: Rings off.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gu Min-ho: All of them?
[Picture: pile of rings]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: All of them.
[Picture: pile of rings]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang pulls the van's side door off its track to get to Yun. He leans it against the wall, carefully.
Kang Taegun: Sorry about your van.
Gu Min-ho: It's fine! It's totally fine! Keep it!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: You apologized to his van.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Habit. Hold your wrists out.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Blue lights come down the ramp. Ji-soo gets there well ahead of the agency cars and stops at the hole in the grille.
[Picture: agency lights]
Ahn Ji-soo: Is that Nam Gi-cheol? In the wall?
[Picture: agency lights]
Kang Taegun: He's okay. I think. I went pretty soft.
[Picture: agency lights]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Pretty soft.
[Picture: agency lights]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Nam Gi-cheol, you're under arrest for desertion and for kidnapping a seal technician. Hands behind your back. Take your time, you look busy.
[Picture: agency lights]
Nam Gi-cheol: He didn't even move, Inspector. I hit him with everything.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Yeah, he does that. I'd give that punch an eight, by the way. You held back.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: A little. He used to be my sergeant.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Listen, both of you. The rig can't fire while the Gate's active. If anyone fires it now, the posts break and everyone near them dies.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: And something big is still coming up underneath. Three and six have been moved by hand. I'm the only one who can set them back by feel.
Ahn Ji-soo: Then you're coming with me. I'm faster than the car.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I'll run.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: You'll try.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Euljiro is burning on the bottom two rings. Hanseong Response has been called back by the Gate agency and posted on the east ring, next to a line of E ranks.
[Picture: embers]
Choi Dong-wook: Called back. By the agency. At three in the morning. Do they know what my hourly is?
[Picture: embers]
Lim Jae-hyuk: Ha! Your hourly!
[Picture: embers]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: Captain, it's moving. Something's climbing the wall right under us. It's big.
[Picture: embers]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Spotters spot, kid. So spot it quieter.
[Picture: embers]
[Picture: previous speaker]
GATE AGENCY FILE. ELDER DRAKE. B rank. The size of a truck. A hide that turns most weapons and breath that clears a room.
[Picture: stamp B]
A dragon the size of a truck drags itself over the lip of the east ring. Its grey-green chest is covered in old scars.
[Picture: elder drake front]
Choi Dong-wook: Hanseong, fall back! Up the stairs, now!
Seo Ji-hoon: Fall back? What about us? There's seven of us!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Hold the ring! That's what spotters are for!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: Everybody behind the barricade! Get down and stay down!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi and his team run for the stairs and leave seven E ranks on the ring.
The drake breathes on them.
Kang lands in front of them first and takes all of it on his arms.
Seo Ji-hoon: Hyung?
Kang Taegun: Hey. Sorry I'm late. Everyone okay?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: Everyone's okay. All seven. Hyung, your sleeves are on fire.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Then he turns around and hits it once, and it goes back down four floors.
Choi Dong-wook: That's the E. That's... Jae-hyuk, that's the E.
Lim Jae-hyuk: Ha?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 9. Four Floors Down
Four Floors Down — Chapter 9
The drake is still falling when the Gate starts to tear. The slow grey slit over the old road opens wider, then wider again.
Jo Dae-sung: Everybody up! Every ring, up and out! If you can walk, walk! If you can't, somebody carry you!
Jo Dae-sung: Rig crew stays on two with Yun. Nobody else goes near the bottom. That's an order!
Yun Chae-won: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Three is set. Six is set. The rig's ready. It just can't fire.
Jo Dae-sung: Why the hell not?
Yun Chae-won: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Because the Gate's wide awake. If I fire now, it comes back up through the posts. Everyone on two dies. Me first.
Seo Ji-hoon: It's one thing. Just one. It's huge, and it's almost through.
Jo Dae-sung: How huge, kid?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: I can't find the edges of it. I keep looking and there's more.
[Picture: previous speaker]
GATE AGENCY FILE. HORNED TYRANT. S rank. The size of a hangar. Lightning breath. Standing near it breaks a line before the fight starts.
[Picture: stamp S]
Two ridged horns push out of the Gate first, scored and chipped. Then a blue head the size of a bus, and then a neck that keeps coming.
[Picture: horned tyrant front]
The line on the second ring breaks before it's even halfway out. Everyone who can run, runs.
[Picture: horned tyrant front]
Jo Dae-sung: Go! Don't look at it! Just go!
Kang's phone buzzes with a text Ha-eun sent before she went to bed. He's only now seeing it. It says "Wake me at six, I have an exam, don't be late from the warehouse."
[Picture: phone text haeun]
Kang Taegun: Ji-hoon. Hold this.
[Picture: phone text haeun]
Seo Ji-hoon: Your phone? Why?
[Picture: phone text haeun]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: If my sister texts, tell her I'm at the warehouse.
[Picture: phone text haeun]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: Hyung, no. You're not going down there. Hyung. Nobody goes down there.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: The rig crew's on two. Go up with Jo, okay?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: Kang! That's an S rank down there! Get back up here, that's an order!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Put me on the board, boss. Pit floor, till it's done. Standard rate.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: ...You come back. You hear me? Every name comes back.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Yes, sir.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang steps off the second ring and drops the last two floors to the road. Small dragons are pouring out around the big one's legs, green wyrmlings and red drakes, more every second.
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
[Picture: juvenile drake front]
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
[Picture: juvenile drake front]
Ji-soo drops down to the pit floor right behind him, sword already out.
Kang Taegun: I told you to stay up there.
Ahn Ji-soo: You told the ring. I'm not the ring. I'm the Gate agency.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: It's dangerous down here.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: I'm A rank. I've been doing this since you were in basic training.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I went into basic at eighteen. You'd have been twenty.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Don't do math at me in the middle of a fight.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Small dragons keep pouring out around them.
Ahn Ji-soo: Nine. That's nine for me. What are you at?
Kang Taegun: I stopped counting at twenty. It felt rude.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: You don't get to be polite about this! I'm keeping score!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Left.
Ahn Ji-soo: I saw it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: You didn't see it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: I saw it after. That counts. That was a four, by the way. Sloppy.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Your drake or mine?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Yours. Mine was a nine.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Above them the Tyrant lifts its head. Blue light runs along its horns and down into its throat.
[Picture: lightning glow]
[Picture: horned tyrant side]
Kang Taegun: Ji-soo. That's lightning. Go cover the rig crew on two. Keep Yun's head down.
[Picture: lightning glow]
Ahn Ji-soo: And you?
[Picture: lightning glow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I'll be here.
[Picture: lightning glow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Don't you dare die. I haven't finished rating you.
[Picture: lightning glow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: What am I at?
[Picture: lightning glow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: I'll tell you later. So there has to be a later.
[Picture: lightning glow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
She's gone up the wall in three steps.
The Tyrant drops its head and charges.
Kang catches a horn in each hand, and a dragon the size of a hangar stops dead.
On every ring above, every phone in the building is pointed down at him.
The road under Kang's boots is cracked in a ring around him.
Yun Chae-won: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Mr. Kang. Listen to me. It has to be quiet. The Gate has to be quiet or the rig will kill us all.
Kang Taegun: How quiet?
Yun Chae-won: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Nothing coming through. Nothing moving at the mouth. Not for a second. That's all I need. One second.
Seo Ji-hoon: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Hyung, there's more behind it. I can feel them lining up. It's not stopping.
For three weeks he's been careful with every door, every handshake, every plate, even his old sergeant.
He thinks about the text from his sister. He thinks about the seven E ranks and Ji-hoon and Yun on the second ring.
[Picture: character Kang Ha eun happy]
Kang Taegun: Okay.
[Picture: character Kang Ha eun happy]
Kang Taegun: I'll make it quiet.
[Picture: character Kang Ha eun happy]
He has held back his whole life.
Tonight he doesn't.
One punch. The shockwave puts out every fire in the pit.
Then nothing moves at all. The Gate goes quiet.
The Tyrant is lying across the old road.
Seo Ji-hoon: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Hyung. It stopped. All of it stopped. There's nothing behind it anymore.
Yun Chae-won: ◉ ▂▄▆█ ...It's quiet.
Yun Chae-won: ◉ ▂▄▆█ It's quiet. Firing.
Yun brings her hand down on the switch.
All eight posts fire at once.
White light fills the pit from the floor to the roof.
At the bottom, Kang sits down against a post and closes his eyes.
Chapter 10. Unreadable
Unreadable — Chapter 10
Morning comes down through a hole in the roof shell. The rig is still holding, and the Gate hasn't moved since it went quiet.
Kang sits on the pit floor against a seal post, eating a rice roll. Min-jae limped in ten minutes ago with a convenience store bag and one working leg.
[Picture: rice roll]
Park Min-jae: Tuna mayo. They were out of bulgogi. I asked twice, hyung. I showed the guy the video.
[Picture: rice roll]
Kang Taegun: Thanks, man. How's the leg?
[Picture: rice roll]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Leg's great. Leg's got forty stitches. Hyung, you punched a dragon the size of a shopping mall! I watched it on four phones at once!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: It was more like a hangar.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: That's worse! How is that worse?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: Board call! Answer when you hear your name. Seo Ji-hoon.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: Here!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: Yun Chae-won. East ring, all seven of you. Hands up.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Here. And the seven are here. I counted them twice.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: Pit floor. Kang Taegun.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Here. Sorry. Rice roll.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: That's all of them. Every name on the board came back. Nobody look at me, there's smoke in my eyes.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: Hyung. Your phone. I held it the whole time. Your sister texted eleven times. I told her warehouse.
[Picture: phone 11 messages]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Thanks, man. Good job.
[Picture: phone 11 messages]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: My father ran a print shop on this street. It's never been quiet since the night he died. Thank you, Mr. Kang.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: You did the posts. I just stood there.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: You stood there holding a dragon by the horns. Eleven million views. The Gate agency chair called me directly. On my personal phone.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Can I go home? My sister has an exam. I have to wake her at six or she'll kill me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi comes down the stairs with an agency officer on each side of him. His white coat is still perfectly clean.
Choi Dong-wook: Inspector. For the record, what you saw last night was a tactical withdrawal.
Ahn Ji-soo: It's on eleven million phones, Captain. I watched it a lot. I couldn't find the tactical part. You're suspended pending review.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Lim Jae-hyuk: Ha! Tactical! ...Sorry, boss.
[Picture: previous speaker]
That afternoon, the whole of Hanseong Response stands at the bounty counter because the clerk has asked them to. She plays a phone clip from the north wall, listens to Ji-hoon, and re-audits all seventeen wyrmlings.
The bounty comes out of Hanseong Response's account with a penalty on top. The clerk counts it out in front of them, twice.
[Picture: bounty chits]
Choi Dong-wook: This is a misunderstanding. My team was covering that wall.
[Picture: bounty chits]
Seo Ji-hoon: Spotters spot, Captain. I spotted. It's all on the clip.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Half of this, plus the shifts... that's eighteen hundred. That's the fees. Ji-hoon, the other half's yours.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: No way, hyung. You did all seventeen.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: You spotted.
[Picture: previous speaker]
One week later. Jamsil Arena has ninety thousand seats and every one of them is full.
Kang Ha-eun: A warehouse. He told me a warehouse. Thirty-one people in my class sent me the same clip.
Park Min-jae: In his defense, he's really good at lifting stuff.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Two rows down, Choi sits in a borrowed suit, smiling at any camera that points his way. On the arena floor, Bae Soo-jin stands next to a new steel plate twice as thick as the one in Seodaemun.
Kang Taegun: Hi again, ma'am. Sorry about last time. The wall and everything.
Bae Soo-jin: I kept the old plate. It's in my office. People come to look at it on their lunch break.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Is this one expensive?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bae Soo-jin: It's rated for S plus. It's the most expensive plate in the country. Please hit it as hard as you can.
Kang Taegun: Can I just tap it?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bae Soo-jin: You can do whatever you want, Mr. Kang.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The plate caves in. The board runs off the top of the scale, and then it only says one word.
Unreadable.
Ninety thousand people go quiet at once.
Bae Soo-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ The panel certifies Kang Taegun at rank S plus.
[Picture: licence card S plus]
Then the noise starts, and it doesn't stop.
[Picture: licence card S plus]
Kang Ha-eun: That's my brother. That's... oppa's down there.
[Picture: licence card S plus]
Park Min-jae: That's my hyung! I know him! I carried him once!
[Picture: licence card S plus]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ji-soo stops at Choi's row with two officers.
Choi Dong-wook: Inspector Ahn. Perfect timing. I wanted to talk about my review.
Ahn Ji-soo: Choi Dong-wook, you're under arrest for selling the Euljiro crew rota and the post access codes to the Obsidian Guard.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: That's a lie. Who said that? Who told you that?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Gu Min-ho. He talked for six hours. He's a very nervous man. He brought up your watch four times.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Wait. Inspector, wait. We can talk. I can make this worth your time.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: That bribe's a two out of ten. Hands, please.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ninety thousand people watch Choi Dong-wook go down the steps in cuffs.
Choi Dong-wook: I'm B rank! I'm a captain! Do you people know what my hourly is?
Every phone in the section turns to follow him.
Kang Taegun: Can I go? My sister's got an exam tomorrow.
That evening, the apartment is full. Min-jae is on the floor with his leg up on a cushion, and Ji-soo is standing by the door with her folder.
The school's email is open on the table. Fees received, dorm place confirmed. The bent kettle is still on the counter.
[Picture: bent kettle]
Kang Ha-eun: It's fine. It's not a big deal. Lots of people's brothers are S plus.
[Picture: bent kettle]
Kang Ha-eun: Okay, it's a big deal. Don't look at me. Oppa, I said don't look at me.
[Picture: bent kettle]
Kang Taegun: I'm not looking.
[Picture: bent kettle]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: So. Dinner. With me. Friday, or not Friday, whatever. It's an audit. A dinner audit.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Yes. Okay. Dinner. Friday. Yes. Sorry, I said yes twice.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: That was so bad. You were both so bad. Four out of ten.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: It's later. What am I at?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Ten. Don't let it go to your head. The handshake's still a six.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Hyung. Hyung. There's a scooter downstairs with a bow on it. A new one. Is that... hyung?
[Picture: scooter with bow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Try not to crash it into anyone.
[Picture: scooter with bow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Every major team in Korea has sent him an offer.
That night, he's at Euljiro anyway.
Jo Dae-sung: Two on the north wall, midnight to six, standard rate.
Kang Taegun puts his hand up.
Ji-hoon puts his up right next to it.
Jo Dae-sung: You're an S plus, Kang. Standard rate's twenty Credits.
Kang Taegun: I just want the paycheck.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: I'll drive!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: It's a wall. There's nothing to drive.
[Picture: previous speaker]
