The Strongest E-Rank: Kang Taegun Vol.2
Prologue. The Port
Haiphong, Vietnam. Three weeks ago.
A Gate opened in the container port and read as an A rank. The crews set up harpoons and nets, the way they always do.
Asia's Gates make dragons. Every wall on this coast was built for dragons.
What came out wasn't a dragon.
Nobody built a wall for this.
Chapter 1. Standard Rate
Standard Rate — Chapter 1
Seoul, December 2060. Two months after Jamsil. The Euljiro north wall is still a chest high steel barricade on the bottom ring, and it still pays twenty Credits a shift.
[Picture: tag S plus]
Kang Taegun has a steel tag on a chain now that says S plus. He keeps it tucked inside his hoodie.
[Picture: tag S plus]
Seo Ji-hoon: Hyung, that's the eleventh selfie tonight. The barber lady from the fourth ring brought her whole family.
Kang Taegun: It's two in the morning, man.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Ji-hoon: They set alarms, hyung. They set alarms for you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The family lines up in front of the barricade in matching padded coats. Kang stands in the middle and gives the same small, polite thumbs up he gives every time.
Park Min-jae: Delivery! Two jajangmyeon, extra onions. One for the S plus and one for the kid who works with the S plus!
Seo Ji-hoon: Is that a camera on your helmet?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: My mom watches all my delivery videos. She says I'm her favorite show. Also, hyung, you got nineteen offers this week, and one of them is two thousand Credits a week.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Tell them thanks.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Thanks? You're standing on a wall for twenty a night!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: It's a good wall.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: I'm surrounded by crazy people. Where are you even taking the inspector tomorrow?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: A tent.
[Picture: previous speaker]
A boy of about ten in a puffy winter jacket comes down the stairs from the upper ring with a white helmet under his arm and a marker in his fist. His dad waits by the lift.
Kang Taegun: Hey, man. You want me to sign that?
Seo Ji-hoon: Hyung. One's coming. Just one, up the pit wall on your left. Like a single pebble.
[Picture: previous speaker]
GATE AGENCY FILE. DRAGON WYRMLING. E rank. A hatchling dragon the size of a large bird. Spits acid. Comes in swarms.
[Picture: stamp E]
A hatchling dragon the size of a large bird pulls itself over the lip of the pit. It has dull green scales, stubby wings and teeth too long for its head.
[Picture: dragon wyrmling front]
Kang Taegun: How do you spell your name, man? With a y or a u?
Kang doesn't look up. He finishes his name first.
The boy has his helmet back. It says "To Do-yun. Stay behind the barricade. Kang Taegun." He didn't see anything else.
Jo Dae-sung: Kang. Was that a wyrmling?
Kang Taegun: Yes, boss. Sorry. It's back down.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: You're an S plus with families lining up for pictures, and you're still on my wall. That's still standard rate. Don't ask me for more.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The next evening, a plastic tent on a corner in Jongno. Steam rises off the pots, a heater glows in one corner and a small TV hangs over the counter.
It's their second date. Neither of them has called it that.
Ahn Ji-soo: The fish cakes are a seven. The broth is an eight. The tent is a six, because the heater only works on your side.
[Picture: fish cake skewers]
Kang Taegun: You want to switch?
[Picture: fish cake skewers]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: No. Then you'd be cold, and I'd feel bad, and I'd have to rate that too.
[Picture: fish cake skewers]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Min-jae says two dinners is dating.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Min-jae calls his scooter "she." I'm not taking dating advice from Min-jae.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: My dad used to take me to a tent like this, before the Gates. I wanted to bring somebody I liked.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Don't say nice things in the middle of a rating. It throws my numbers off. The tent's a nine now. Happy?
[Picture: previous speaker]
A scooter slows down outside the tent flap. A phone flashes, and the scooter speeds off into the night.
Ahn Ji-soo: Was that your friend? I'm going to have him audited.
On the TV, the news cuts to shaky night footage of a port in Vietnam. An A-rank Gate in Haiphong has been pouring out ants the size of trucks for three weeks, and the Chinese Gate agency hasn't sent a single S-rank.
[Picture: tv haiphong news]
Kang Taegun: Ants?
[Picture: tv haiphong news]
Ahn Ji-soo: Asia gets dragons. Seventeen years of dragons and drakes, and every wall we have was built for them. Vietnam's asking anybody for help.
[Picture: tv haiphong news]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Her phone buzzes, and she steps outside to take it. Then Kang's phone buzzes too. The Seoul detention center says an inmate named Nam Gi-cheol has asked to see him.
Ahn Ji-soo: The agency wants me at Sejong on Thursday. Something about Vietnam. Who was yours?
Kang Taegun: Sarge. He wants to see me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Nam? The man you put through a concrete grille?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: For the record, this was an eight. Before the phones.
The next morning. The visiting room is a row of booths with thick glass and a phone on each side. A man in an orange jumpsuit is mopping by the door.
Kang Taegun: Hey, Choi.
Choi Dong-wook: ...Staff Sergeant.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: You don't have to call me that, man.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Choi Dong-wook: Nam says I do.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol sits down on the other side of the glass. His head is shaved and the scar is still across his jaw. He taps the glass and laughs.
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook wary]
Nam Gi-cheol: Kid. Don't put me through this one.
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook wary]
Nam Gi-cheol: I watched Jamsil on the common room TV. Ninety thousand people, and you asked if you could go home.
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook wary]
Kang Taegun: My sister had an exam.
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook wary]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: They say the agency's sending a team to Vietnam. My crew worked Gates from Busan to Vladivostok, and we never once touched the southern ports. You know why?
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook wary]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Why?
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook wary]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Because the people who own those ports don't fight you. They shake your hand.
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook wary]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: What's that supposed to mean?
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook wary]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: It means when a stranger does something big for free, ask who's paying. And the day they know what you are is the day they start planning for it.
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook wary]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Sarge. What do you know?
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook wary]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Nothing I can prove. That's how those people like it.
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook wary]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Means keep your strength in your pocket, kid.
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook wary]
That afternoon. Ha-eun is home from the science school for winter break. She's at the low table with her phone, and she's clearly been waiting for him.
Kang Ha-eun: So. Anything you want to tell me, oppa?
Kang Taegun: I got milk.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: Nice try. Min-jae posted a picture. "My hyung and his girlfriend on their second date, I'm crying." Forty thousand likes. My whole dorm group chat sent it to me before breakfast.
[Picture: phone post 40k]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: We haven't said that word.
[Picture: phone post 40k]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: In the picture you're looking at her like she's the last fish cake, oppa. You're so gone.
[Picture: phone post 40k]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: It's the inspector with the folder, right? I like her. Don't mess this up.
Kang Ha-eun: Also you smell like prison soap. You went to see that sergeant, didn't you?
Kang Taegun: He said something weird. It's fine.
[Picture: previous speaker]
At eleven that night his phone buzzes. It's a text from Ji-soo. "They're sending all five S-ranks to Haiphong. And me. I leave Friday."
[Picture: phone text jisoo]
Kang Taegun: Friday.
[Picture: phone text jisoo]
Chapter 2. Five Chairs
Five Chairs — Chapter 2
Thursday morning, the Sejong Joint Council Hall. The chamber has a long oak table, a northern and a southern flag over the door, and a screen that covers one whole wall.
Five chairs at the head of the table have name cards. Kang's chair is at the far end. His card says "Kang Taegun. Guest."
[Picture: name card guest]
Ahn Ji-soo: The agency wants its new S plus introduced to the S-ranks. Then I'm supposed to explain why you're not going.
[Picture: name card guest]
Kang Taegun: Why am I not going?
[Picture: name card guest]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: An S plus needs a direct order from the world authority for every job. Nobody's asked for one, because nobody wants to be the one who asks.
[Picture: name card guest]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: That's fine. You're going, though.
[Picture: name card guest]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: I'm logistics. I count boxes and match ranks to jobs. Stop looking worried, it makes me worried.
[Picture: name card guest]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won comes in first. He's Korea's strongest S-rank, and he holds light and shadow at the same time. Right now he's holding a teapot and a paper bag of tomatoes.
[Picture: tomato bag]
Baek Jae-won: Morning. These are from our roof. It's December, so they're a little sad. Take one anyway.
[Picture: tomato bag]
Kang Taegun: Thanks, man. You're Baek Jae-won. Daybreak.
[Picture: tomato bag]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: I stop floods, that's all. I don't fight people. The tomatoes are the part I'm actually proud of.
[Picture: tomato bag]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik comes in next, loud enough to hear from the hall. He reads strength through the ground and raises stone out of it. He has a hard hat clipped to his belt that he never wears.
Jang Tae-sik: Is this the table? Solid oak! Somebody spent money. Ahn Ji-soo, the assessment board! You rated me a seven once!
Ahn Ji-soo: You were late to your own test.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: Traffic! Ha!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon walks in checking an old silver pocket watch she doesn't need. She slows time, and she's already looking at Ji-soo.
[Picture: silver pocket watch]
Min Seo-yeon: Ahn. I read your report on the Euljiro seal. Solid seven.
[Picture: silver pocket watch]
Ahn Ji-soo: It was a nine. And I wrote it in ten minutes.
[Picture: silver pocket watch]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon: You're fast. I'm when.
[Picture: silver pocket watch]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan, the healer, shuffles in behind her in a cardigan and reading glasses, knitting as he walks. He runs a free clinic in Guro.
[Picture: knitting]
Oh Byung-chan: Morning, kiddos. Don't mind the needles. I knit in every waiting room, and this whole building is one big waiting room.
[Picture: knitting]
Oh Byung-chan: I'd shake your hand, Taegun, but I heard what happened to the plate.
[Picture: knitting]
Kang Taegun: I'm careful now.
[Picture: knitting]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: That's what the plate thought.
[Picture: knitting]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin comes in last in a dark olive joint command uniform. He's the north's S-rank, and he brings lightning down on whole fields. He sits, opens an army ration pack and eats without a word.
[Picture: ration pack six]
Kang Taegun: Is that a number six? The mackerel one?
[Picture: ration pack six]
Ri Chol-jin: You know the six.
[Picture: ration pack six]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Joint exercise in '57. I traded three cigarettes for one, and I don't even smoke.
[Picture: ration pack six]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin: Good trade.
[Picture: ration pack six]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: The southern bulgogi one's better, though. I've got a box at home. I'll trade you one.
[Picture: ration pack six]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin: Deal.
[Picture: ration pack six]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Taegun. Sit down, please. We're starting.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang walks the length of the table to his chair. Baek has poured tea for everyone.
With every step, the tea in Jang Tae-sik's cup jumps.
Nobody else noticed. Jang looks at his tea, then at Kang, and the color goes out of his face. Then he grins.
Baek Jae-won: Something wrong, Tae-sik?
Jang Tae-sik: Nope. Nothing. Great tea.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Everyone, this is Kang Taegun, certified S plus at Jamsil. He's not coming to Haiphong, because there's no world authority order. That's in the report. Moving on.
Min Seo-yeon: Eleven million people watched that clip. I watched it twice. Welcome.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The screen fills with drone footage of the Dinh Vu container port. A black mound three stories high sits in the middle of it, with green light leaking out of slits in its walls.
Ahn Ji-soo: Haiphong. The Gate opened in the container port three weeks ago, and it read A that night. The ants built that around it out of shipping containers, dirt and some kind of black resin.
Jang Tae-sik: That's not an A. Look at it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin: How many ants?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Nobody's managed a count. The People's Breaker Corps have held the levees for three weeks without a break. China's keeping its S-ranks home for its own dragon lines.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Here's the plan. A partner team pulls the swarm away from the nest. With the swarm gone, the Gate goes quiet. You five carry a seal rig into the nest, set the posts around the Gate and fire.
Oh Byung-chan: Who's the partner team, kiddo? Nobody wants this job.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Somebody asked for it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The screen changes to an open palm on a white patch. Under it are four faces and a line of text. "No flag. No fee."
Ahn Ji-soo: The Open Hand. Four S-ranks from four countries, registered with the world authority. Davao, Surabaya, Can Tho, Guangzhou. Forty rescues in six years, and they've never taken a single Credit.
Nine hours holding a wall of light over a school in Mindanao. Thirty thousand people carried out of flooded Surabaya in one night.
Min Seo-yeon: The school one. I cried on a plane. Don't tell anyone.
Jang Tae-sik: The big guy digging kids out with his bare hands. Come on. Come on!
[Picture: previous speaker]
A door opens in the air at the end of the chamber. The same four people step through it, wet to the knees and covered in mud. The blonde one's shoulder camera is already filming.
[Picture: blue door]
Chloe Barrett: Oh my gosh, we made it! Hi, Korea! Sorry about the mud, legends!
[Picture: blue door]
Rafael Mendoza: Forgive us. A ferry went over in Mindoro this morning, and we couldn't leave until the last kid was out. I'm Rafael. Thank you for having us.
[Picture: blue door]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nadia Karimova: Nadia. I do the doors. I'm sorry about your floor.
[Picture: blue door]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: Batu. Anybody want dried curd? It's from home. It's terrible. You'll love it.
[Picture: blue door]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Rafael Mendoza: Dr. Oh. The Guro clinic. You treated a fisherman named Jun there in '58. He still wears the scarf you made him.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: Jun! The one with the terrible knee? He remembers me?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Rafael Mendoza: He's got three kids now and he tells them about you. Inspector Ahn, I hear you're running logistics. Anything you need, just ask. Boxes, radios, people. Nadia can even get you a door.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Rafael Mendoza: And you're...?
Ahn Ji-soo: He's with me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The meeting ends at noon. On the way out, every S-rank in the room stops at Kang's chair and leaves a card on the table in front of him.
Baek Jae-won: Daybreak. There's a roof garden. No pressure.
Ri Chol-jin: Joint command. Don't call it. My handler reads the call log.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang is the last one left. He sets his card down, then leans on the table with both hands.
Jang Tae-sik: Everybody's footsteps tell me what they are. Twenty years, and I've never met a Breaker I couldn't weigh.
Jang Tae-sik: Yours... the floor's scared of you, man.
Kang Taegun: Sorry.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: Don't be sorry! Sinchon drill hall, ten o'clock. You. Me. Tonight. No cameras.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 3. Closed Doors
Closed Doors — Chapter 3
That afternoon, Seodaemun. The steel plate Kang folded two months ago hangs in a frame behind the counter now, with a small brass sign under it.
[Picture: framed steel plate]
Bae Soo-jin: Mr. Kang! You didn't have to wait in line.
[Picture: framed steel plate]
Kang Taegun: Everybody waits, ma'am. My tag scans E at the Euljiro turnstile. Every night the guard has to wave me through, and the people behind me get annoyed.
[Picture: scanner E]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bae Soo-jin: Ah. Yes. That. A rank change in the Gate agency needs two signatures, one southern officer and one northern. The southern co-chair signed yours on the arena floor at Jamsil.
[Picture: scanner E]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bae Soo-jin: The northern one is Co-chair Ri Sung-ho. It's been on his desk for two months. He's... thinking about it. He's an old general, and he likes to see things with his own eyes.
[Picture: scanner E]
Kang Taegun: So on paper I'm still an E.
[Picture: scanner E]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bae Soo-jin: On every roster in the country.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: It's fine. Sorry about the wall again.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bae Soo-jin: Stop apologizing. People come in just to take pictures with it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ten at night. The Sinchon drill hall is an old agency training floor with concrete walls and high windows. Ji-soo locks the doors from the inside.
Jang, Seo-yeon and Baek are waiting on the floor. Oh sits on a bench with a thermos, and Ri sits next to him eating out of a foil packet.
Kang Taegun: Ri? What are you doing here?
Ri Chol-jin: My handler thinks I'm at the gym.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: This is a gym.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin: So it's not a lie.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: No phones, no cameras, and nobody talks about this outside. I'm refereeing. I'm also rating.
[Picture: character Oh Byung chan amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: No rules! I just want to feel it, Kang. I want to know what you are.
[Picture: character Oh Byung chan amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang puts his hands in his pockets. Jang stamps once, and a stone wall two meters thick comes up out of the floor between them. Kang walks into it, and it comes apart around his shoulders.
[Picture: character Oh Byung chan amused]
Kang Taegun: Sorry about your wall.
[Picture: character Oh Byung chan amused]
Jang Tae-sik: Did you just apologize to my wall?
[Picture: character Oh Byung chan amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: He does that. Wall, three out of ten.
[Picture: character Oh Byung chan amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The floor under Kang turns grey and soft, and he sinks to his knees. He keeps walking at the same speed.
[Picture: character Oh Byung chan amused]
Min Seo-yeon: He's walking out of it. You can't walk out of that.
[Picture: character Oh Byung chan amused]
Baek Jae-won: He isn't walking out of it. He's walking along the bottom.
[Picture: character Oh Byung chan amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Stone spikes shoot up under his boots, one after another, and snap off against his soles.
[Picture: character Oh Byung chan amused]
Oh Byung-chan: Tae-sik, you're gonna owe the agency a new floor.
Jang Tae-sik: Worth it! Okay, the big one. Everything I've got. Hands out of the pockets, Kang, I mean it!
Then the biggest spike he's ever raised.
It breaks on an open hand.
The spike is gravel on the floor. Kang looks at his open palm. There isn't a mark on it.
Jang Tae-sik: Ha! Ha ha! Did everybody see that? That was the biggest spike of my whole life!
Ahn Ji-soo: Spike, eight. Palm, ten.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: Eight! I'll take an eight! He caught it like a ball!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon: Let me try.
Min Seo-yeon: I'm not going to hit him. Nobody's fast inside my bubble, and I want to see what he looks like in there. Take the watch off my hand, Kang. If you can.
[Picture: silver pocket watch]
Kang Taegun: I don't want to take your watch.
[Picture: silver pocket watch]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon: It doesn't even work.
[Picture: silver pocket watch]
[Picture: previous speaker]
She opens her other hand. The air goes grey, and the dust from Jang's spike hangs where it is and doesn't fall.
Jang's laugh stretches out into one long, low sound. Then Seo-yeon closes her fist, and for one heartbeat nothing in the room moves at all.
Kang turns his head and looks at her.
The grey is gone. Seo-yeon is on one knee with blood running from her nose, and her watch is still in her hand.
Kang Taegun: Hey. Are you okay? Your nose.
Min Seo-yeon: You looked at me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon: I stopped time. You moved. Nobody moves in there. Nobody.
Kang Taegun: Sorry. You were right there. It felt rude not to.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The room goes very quiet. On the bench, Oh lifts one hand, and a soft green light stops Seo-yeon's nosebleed from across the floor.
[Picture: green heal glow]
Jang Tae-sik: Jae-won. Your turn. You're the strongest in Korea. Go on.
Baek Jae-won: No. I'm not built to measure you, Taegun. I'm built to stop floods. My light goes wide and your fists go through. There's no honest way to compare them.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: And I'd rather we never find out.
Ri Chol-jin: I'll tell my handler you're average.
[Picture: previous speaker]
One by one they come over to him. This time nobody's joking.
Jang Tae-sik: Bedrock raises the first wall at every new Gate in Korea. It's cold and it's dirty and nobody films it. I want you on it.
Min Seo-yeon: Second Hand is four people, and we're the best four in the country. With you, I don't even know what we'd be. I hate not knowing.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: I don't have a team, kiddo. I've got a clinic in Guro with a broken boiler and a waiting room full of kids with scraped knees. You'd be good with the kids.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin: The joint command would take you tomorrow. The food's bad. You know that.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: Daybreak goes where the water's rising. I'd like somebody next to me who doesn't move.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: That's really nice. All of it. Thanks. But I'm good solo for now, man. I've got a wall.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: The Euljiro north wall. Midnight to six, standard rate. He's turning us down for twenty Credits!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: Kiddo, you just scared five S-ranks. Eat something.
[Picture: previous speaker]
They let it go, one by one. Oh pulls a boiled egg out of his cardigan pocket and hands it over. It's still warm, and Kang eats it.
Midnight. The others have gone home. Ji-soo is locking up, and Kang is sweeping the gravel into a pile.
Kang Taegun: I want to come to Haiphong.
Ahn Ji-soo: No.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: An S plus doing anything abroad without an order is an international incident. Anything, Taegun. You lift one car off one person, and it's on the news in forty countries.
Ahn Ji-soo: They'd take your licence. Then they'd ask who brought you, and they'd take mine.
Kang Taegun: I don't want to do anything. I just don't want you there without me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: You can't say that while I'm holding keys.
[Picture: previous speaker]
She's quiet for a long time. She looks at the tag on its chain at his neck.
Ahn Ji-soo: ...On paper you're still an E.
Ahn Ji-soo: And I'm logistics. Logistics is allowed a porter.
Ahn Ji-soo: Carry boxes. Don't punch anything.
Kang Taegun: Deal.
[Picture: previous speaker]
She writes it on the manifest before she can change her mind. Kang Taegun, E, porter.
[Picture: porter manifest]
Chapter 4. Luggage
Luggage — Chapter 4
A Korean air force transport, four hours out of Seoul. The hold is full of crates, seal posts strapped to the floor and the five strongest Breakers in the country.
The S-ranks sit on the crates. The seal crew sits on the floor. Kang sits wherever there's room, which is next to the coffee.
Park Min-jae: Okay, Mom, this is the plane. It's all boxes. And that's my hyung carrying the boxes, because he's a porter now. Say hi, hyung.
Kang Taegun: Hi, Mrs. Park.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Mr. Kang? Ji-soo said she was bringing a porter. You're the porter?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I'm the porter.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Okay. These cores are tuned. If you drop one, I start over, and I cry in front of everybody.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I won't drop anything.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: I know. That's what worries me. Try to look like they're heavy.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: Hey, porter! The pilot had to redo his fuel numbers when you walked on. I heard him swearing. Ha!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Sorry about that, man.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon and Ahn Ji-soo sit across from each other, each holding a paper cup of plane coffee.
Min Seo-yeon: Two out of ten.
Ahn Ji-soo: Three. It's hot. Hot is worth a point.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon: Hot is the minimum. Nobody gets a point for the minimum.
[Picture: previous speaker]
At the tail, Ri Chol-jin is eating out of a green foil ration pack. He hasn't looked up since takeoff.
[Picture: ration pack six]
Kang Taegun: The six again?
[Picture: ration pack six]
Ri Chol-jin: Third day in a row. The mackerel doesn't get better.
[Picture: ration pack six]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: The bulgogi's still on. First thing when we get home.
[Picture: ration pack six]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin: Two bulgogi. You've tasted the six.
[Picture: ration pack six]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Deal.
[Picture: ration pack six]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: Look at that, kiddo. Chol-jin made a friend. He talked to me once in two years, and it was about socks.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The plane tips onto one wing. The pilot tells everyone to look out the left side.
Haiphong. The Gate is somewhere under that.
Park Min-jae: Okay. Mom, maybe skip this part.
Yun Chae-won: They built it around the Gate. Out of shipping containers.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ji-soo counts the ant trails. She stops at forty.
Kang Taegun: You okay?
Ahn Ji-soo: I'm fine. I'm rating it. It's a zero.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The Korean camp sits on top of a stepped levee a kilometer up the river from the port. The black mound is in plain view from every tent.
A woman in olive fatigues waits at the bottom of the ramp. She has a whistle on a cord around her neck and she looks like she hasn't slept in weeks.
Dang Thi Lan: Major Dang Thi Lan, People's Breaker Corps. I run the levees. Thank you for coming.
Baek Jae-won: Baek Jae-won. These are for you, Major. Tomato seeds. They grow anywhere.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Dang Thi Lan: People usually bring me ammunition. Thank you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: Major, the file says this Gate's an A. How'd an A do all this?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Dang Thi Lan: It read A the night it opened, so we set a dragon line. We built this whole country for dragons. Then ants came out.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Down the levee, the Open Hand are already at work. Rafael Mendoza carries two jugs of water up the ramp himself. Batu Ganbold has a kid on each shoulder.
[Picture: character Batu Ganbold happy]
Chloe Barrett talks to the camera on her shoulder as she jogs past. Nadia Karimova walks the rows of tents with a notebook, writing down every one.
[Picture: character Batu Ganbold happy]
Rafael Mendoza: Byung-chan! You came. How's the clinic in Guro? Is Mrs. Lee still bringing you kimchi every Tuesday?
[Picture: character Batu Ganbold happy]
Oh Byung-chan: Every Tuesday, kiddo. She says I'm too thin. I'm not.
[Picture: character Batu Ganbold happy]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chloe Barrett: Hi, legends! The Korean team's here! And whoa, who's the big guy?
[Picture: live badge]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Our porter.
[Picture: live badge]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chloe Barrett: Big porter! Chat says hi, big porter. Chat wants a push-up.
[Picture: live badge]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Hi, chat.
[Picture: live badge]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: Don't listen to them. Here, porter. Dried curd from home. It's hard like a rock, so chew slow.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Thanks, man.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nadia Karimova: Excuse me. Which tent is yours? I like to know where everyone sleeps. If something goes wrong at night, I can find you.
[Picture: nadia notebook]
[Picture: previous speaker]
By dusk, Kang has carried a pallet of seal cores up the ramp on his own. Everyone is too busy to notice.
Night. The S-ranks and the Open Hand are out on the far side of the levee with Major Dang, checking the flood gates. The supply camp is asleep.
Kang is carrying the last crate of radio batteries to the west tents. Min-jae walks next to him, filming for his mom.
Park Min-jae: Hyung. Does the river usually click?
PEOPLE'S BREAKER CORPS FILE. GIANT ANT. Truck-sized. Acid spray. Climbs walls. When the lights on their backs flash together, they all move at once.
[Picture: stamp unknown]
Black ants the size of trucks climb out of the water and up the levee wall, one behind the other. The glowing nodes on their backs light up together.
[Picture: hive mind nexus ant side]
[Picture: hive mind nexus ant front]
[Picture: hive mind nexus ant side]
Ahn Ji-soo: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Ants on the west wall! Everyone to the east side, now! Leave everything!
[Picture: ant node glow]
PEOPLE'S BREAKER CORPS FILE. BEETLE SWARM. Thousands of small beetles moving as one. Strips skin in seconds. Runs with the big ones.
[Picture: stamp unknown]
The ground around the ants' legs is moving. Thousands of black and brown beetles pour up the levee in a low wave, straight for the tents.
[Picture: beetle swarm front]
[Picture: beetle swarm back]
[Picture: beetle swarm front]
Park Min-jae: Hyung, we're the west side. And Chae-won's crew is asleep in the tents!
Kang Taegun: Ji-soo said don't punch anything.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Hold the camera still, man.
He's gone for as long as it takes a light to flicker.
Thirty ants lie along the top of the levee, and none of them are moving. The beetles are gone. Kang is standing exactly where he was, with the crate still in his arms.
Park Min-jae: What was that? Hyung, what was that? I blinked!
Kang Taegun: I didn't punch anything. I kicked.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Blue light cracks across the levee, and Ri Chol-jin steps out of it. The shells around him are scorched black at the edges, and some of them are still smoking.
Rafael Mendoza: Chol-jin! You saved the whole supply camp. Thank you. I mean it, thank you.
Chloe Barrett: No way, I missed it! Legend, can you do it again for the stream?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri doesn't say anything. He looks at the smoking shells, and then he looks at Kang.
Ri Chol-jin: My report tonight says I did this.
Kang Taegun: Thanks, man.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin: It also says the porter's average.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: That's fair.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Hyung. Hyung, I have that on video.
[Picture: phone rec]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Delete it.
[Picture: phone rec]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: My mom's gonna love it.
[Picture: phone rec]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Min-jae.
[Picture: phone rec]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 5. Standing on Nothing
Standing on Nothing — Chapter 5
Morning. Both teams push together to clear the riverfront so the ferries can run again. Kang and Min-jae are on stretcher duty at the ferry dock, one block back.
Ahn Ji-soo: ◉ ▂▄▆█ All teams, go. Stay in your lanes. I'm rating everybody.
Jang Tae-sik: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Rate this, Ahn!
Stone walls shoot up across three side streets at once. Ants pile into them and climb over each other.
Ri Chol-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Everybody off the street. Lightning coming.
Baek Jae-won: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I have the next street. Please don't walk into the dark part, it's sticky.
Min Seo-yeon: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Slowing the big one on the corner. Somebody hit it while it's still thinking about it.
Batu Ganbold: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Got it! Oh, that's two pieces now. Sorry, Seo-yeon.
Oh Byung-chan: ◉ ▂▄▆█ The Vietnamese crew across the river's taking hits. I've got them. Hold still, kiddos, this'll feel warm.
Rafael Mendoza: ◉ ▂▄▆█ The ferry's full. I'm covering it. Go, go, go!
Nadia Karimova: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Four wounded coming to the stretchers. Please step back from the blue.
A door opens in the air next to Kang. Nadia steps out of it with four hurt Breakers and lays them down on the dock, one by one.
[Picture: blue door]
Nadia Karimova: Hello, porter. This one first. His name's Duc. He's scared of needles, so don't mention the needles.
[Picture: blue door]
Kang Taegun: Got it. No needles. Grab the other end, Min-jae.
[Picture: blue door]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Hyung, she came out of the air. She came out of the actual air.
[Picture: blue door]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: They're good. Lift on three.
[Picture: blue door]
[Picture: previous speaker]
PEOPLE'S BREAKER CORPS FILE. UNNAMED. S rank. A locust the size of a truck. Doesn't touch you. You just fall asleep and don't wake up.
[Picture: stamp S]
A warehouse roof at the end of the street splits open. A locust the size of a truck rises out of it, surrounded by a thick band of smaller insects that never breaks.
[Picture: insect haze]
[Picture: the swarm mind front]
Dang Thi Lan: ◉ ▂▄▆█ My people are going down! Nobody's hitting them, they're just falling asleep standing up!
[Picture: insect haze]
Park Min-jae: Hyung, the guy next to us just fell over.
[Picture: insect haze]
Kang Taegun: He's breathing. It's okay. Get his feet.
[Picture: insect haze]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Porter. Stretchers. Only stretchers.
[Picture: insect haze]
Kang Taegun: Copy.
[Picture: insect haze]
Rafael Mendoza: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Chol-jin, cross my beam! Batu, bring it down to us!
Ri Chol-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ On it.
Two teams, nine S-ranks, one fight.
Lightning from the North. Light from the Philippines. Light and shadow from Seoul.
And a Mongolian who pulls it out of the sky with his hands.
The whole riverfront is cheering. Up and down the street, Vietnamese Breakers are waking up on the road and asking what happened.
Chloe Barrett: That's one huge bug down, legends! Korea and the Open Hand, baby!
Rafael Mendoza: Everyone did that. Lan, your people held. Jae-won, thank you. And you, you've carried stretchers all morning. What's your name?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Kang.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Rafael Mendoza: Thank you, Kang. People forget who carries the stretchers. I don't.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Late afternoon. Two of Jang's scouts are on top of a dock crane, mapping egg nests in the mud below. Kang is on the dock, bringing them a box of flares.
PEOPLE'S BREAKER CORPS FILE. BEETLE QUEEN. D rank. Car-sized. Crossed jaws, acid spit. Lays eggs in soft ground near the nest.
[Picture: stamp D]
One of the nests moves. A beetle the size of a car climbs out of the mud, black shell, pale grooves, crossed jaws longer than a man's arm. It closes them around the crane's leg and cuts through.
[Picture: queen mandible side]
Jang Tae-sik: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Scouts! Off the crane! Back down the walkway, now!
The walkway behind them isn't there anymore. At the end of the dock, the air shimmers blue for a second and goes still. At the warehouse corner, Chloe's camera light is off.
[Picture: blue shimmer]
The crane tips out over the harbor. Slowly, then fast. The two scouts are hanging on to the rail at the very top.
Kang Taegun: Sorry, Ji-soo.
Kang jumps. Too far. Too hard.
He should be falling. He isn't.
Forty meters over the harbor, Kang Taegun is standing on nothing.
Kang Taegun: Huh.
Kang Taegun: Okay. Nobody move. Especially me.
He takes one careful step, and the air holds him. He walks to the nearest warehouse roof, sets both scouts down behind a water tank, and drops into the alley on the far side.
One person sees it. She lowers her binoculars very slowly.
By the time Jang gets to the dock, the big beetle is backing into the mud and the crane is under the water.
[Picture: queen mandible back]
Jang Tae-sik: Where are my scouts? Where are they?
Ahn Ji-soo: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Warehouse six. On the roof. They're both fine.
Jang Tae-sik: On the roof? How'd they get on a roof?
Kang Taegun: Anybody need flares?
[Picture: flare box]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Night. Kang and Ji-soo walk back through the stilt district, over bamboo walkways between houses on steel legs. A grandmother on a porch puts two bowls of noodle soup in their hands before they can say no.
Ahn Ji-soo: You were standing on nothing.
[Picture: binoculars]
Kang Taegun: Yeah. Don't tell anyone.
[Picture: binoculars]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Who would I tell? Who would believe me? I was watching through binoculars and I don't believe me.
[Picture: binoculars]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I didn't know I could do that. I jumped too hard, and then I just didn't come down.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: And? What was it like?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Windy.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: You flew for the first time in your life and it was windy.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Nobody saw. The girl with the stream, her camera was off. I checked.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Lucky.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: The soup's really good, though.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: It's an eight. The flying was a ten, and I'm furious about it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Back at camp, Kang sits on a crate outside his tent and calls home.
Kang Ha-eun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ So? How are the boxes?
Kang Taegun: Heavy. How's break?
Kang Ha-eun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Boring. Oppa, I watched Chloe Barrett's stream today. There's a big guy in the back carrying stretchers the whole time. Chat calls him big porter.
[Picture: phone stream porter]
Kang Taegun: Lot of big guys in Vietnam.
[Picture: phone stream porter]
Kang Ha-eun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ He's wearing your jacket. The expensive one.
[Picture: phone stream porter]
Kang Taegun: I'm carrying boxes, Ha-eun. That's the whole job.
Kang Ha-eun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Just come home in one piece, okay? And tell Ji-soo unni I said hi.
Jang Tae-sik walks up the row of tents and stops in front of him. He's still covered in dock mud.
Jang Tae-sik: My scouts swear an angel carried them. A big one.
Jang looks down at Kang's boots. There's harbor spray drying on them in white streaks.
Jang Tae-sik: Nice boots, man.
Kang Taegun: Thanks. They were on sale.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang laughs, claps him on the shoulder hard enough to knock over a normal man, and walks off. He doesn't ask.
Chapter 6. Who's Paying
Who's Paying — Chapter 6
Morning. A map of the port is spread across two crates. Both teams stand around it, and Kang stands at the back holding a tray of coffee.
Rafael sets a steel case on the map and opens it. Inside is a pale curved piece of bone. It hums, low and steady, and every cup on Kang's tray shakes.
[Picture: lure case]
Rafael Mendoza: This is the lure. It's made from resonant bone, and it hums at a pitch the ants can't ignore. They'll follow it anywhere.
[Picture: lure case]
Rafael Mendoza: We carry it out to the flooded paddies, and the whole swarm follows us. We hold them there as long as it takes.
[Picture: lure case]
Dang Thi Lan: And I flood the fields under them. They're slow in deep water. Slow is good.
[Picture: lure case]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: With the swarm gone, the Gate goes quiet. Quiet is what I need. Eight posts, one center unit, then I fire.
[Picture: lure case]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: How long do you need, Chae-won?
[Picture: lure case]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Twenty minutes if nothing's shaking. Forever if it is.
[Picture: lure case]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: Then I'd like to leave Byung-chan here with the wounded. And Chol-jin to watch the camp, after the other night.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Rafael Mendoza: I'd rather you didn't, Jae-won. That nest has eaten three Vietnamese squads. The hive needs your whole team. All five of you together is what gets everybody home.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: He's right, kiddo. If you're in there, I'm in there. Who else is gonna nag you?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin: Fine. I'll bring snacks.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nadia Karimova: Jae-won, could you walk me through your route? Every turn, all the way to the Gate. If anything goes wrong, I'll know exactly where to open a door and pull you out.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: Of course. Thank you, Nadia. That's a comfort.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: Hear that? Free taxi! Ha!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon: It's a good plan. Eight out of ten.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Eight and a half.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon: Fine. Eight and a half.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Dang Thi Lan: It's the first good plan I've heard in three weeks.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Hyung. What do we do during all this?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Carry the coffee.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Night. Yun sits under a work lamp, tuning seal cores one at a time with her bare hands. Kang sits on a crate outside the tent flap with a cup of coffee.
Yun Chae-won: You don't have to sit out there all night, Mr. Kang.
Kang Taegun: I'm not. I'm drinking coffee. It just takes me all night.
[Picture: previous speaker]
PEOPLE'S BREAKER CORPS FILE. CLICKER. D rank. Dog-sized. It runs the small ones by sound. Kill it and the pack falls apart.
[Picture: stamp D]
The canvas at the back of the tent lifts. A brown and green scuttler the size of a big dog pushes under it, and a pack of smaller ones pours in after it. It clicks twice, and every one of them turns toward the cores.
[Picture: clicking swarm leader front]
[Picture: clicking swarm leader side]
[Picture: clicking swarm leader side]
[Picture: clicking swarm leader front]
Yun has her back to them. She's humming.
Then her papers are in the air.
Yun turns around. The scuttlers are all dead on the floor, and her papers are blowing around the tent.
Outside the flap, Kang is sitting on his crate, holding his coffee.
Yun Chae-won: Kang Taegun.
Kang Taegun: It was the wind.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: It's not windy.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: It was a little windy.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: There were twenty of them. How'd you get them all?
[Picture: loose papers]
Kang Taegun: The big one was doing the clicking. The little ones did what it said. So I took the big one first, and after that they just ran in circles.
[Picture: loose papers]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Take the one giving orders, and the rest fall apart.
[Picture: loose papers]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Okay. I didn't see anything. My papers did, and they don't talk.
[Picture: loose papers]
Kang Taegun: Thanks, Chae-won. Sorry about your papers.
[Picture: loose papers]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Later. Batu sits on the edge of the levee with a pot of rice and two spoons. He waves Kang over.
Batu Ganbold: Porter! Sit, sit. I made too much. I always make too much.
Batu Ganbold: At home my mother made rice with mutton fat. There's no mutton here. This is sad rice.
Kang Taegun: Why'd you leave home?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: I said no to the wrong man in Ulaanbaatar. When you say no to him, you leave.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Sorry, man.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: Don't be. Those kids I dug out of the school, they send me a drawing every year. I'm always huge in the drawing. Big smile.
[Picture: kids drawing]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Sounds about right.
[Picture: kids drawing]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: So what are you, anyway? I saw you carry that pallet. C? D?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: E. On paper.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: E! Ha! Then you're the strongest E I ever met. Here, you need this more than me.
[Picture: rice cake]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu laughs, big and loud, and puts his last rice cake in Kang's hand. Then he goes off to bed.
[Picture: rice cake]
Min-jae drops down next to Kang with his helmet in his lap.
Park Min-jae: Hyung, can I ask a dumb question?
Kang Taegun: You usually do.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Their plane. The Open Hand plane. They don't take Credits, right? So who pays for the plane?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Donors, maybe.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: I asked Chloe. She said friends. I asked Nadia, and she said Rafael handles it. I asked Rafael and he gave me a mango.
[Picture: mango]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Did you eat the mango?
[Picture: mango]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Obviously I ate the mango.
[Picture: mango]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang looks at the rice cake in his hand. He thinks about Nam behind the glass. When a stranger does something big for free, ask who's paying.
[Picture: character Nam Gi cheol neutral]
Past midnight. Major Dang stands at the overlook rail with a flask of tea. Across the dark port, the nest glows green.
Dang Thi Lan: Can't sleep, porter?
Kang Taegun: Nope. You?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Dang Thi Lan: Not in three weeks. They come a different way every night. The river, then the drains, then the rail line. Never the same way twice.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Like they're learning.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Dang Thi Lan: Like something is.
[Picture: previous speaker]
On top of the nest, against the moon, something stands up like a man.
It's looking right at them. Then it's gone.
Dang Thi Lan: Tell me you saw that.
Kang Taegun: Something's in there, man. Something's watching.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 7. The Lure
The Lure — Chapter 7
Raid morning. Fog sits low over the flooded paddies. A kilometer downriver, the nest is a black hill in the port.
Ji-soo has the raid radio on a folding table. Kang stands behind her holding a crate of spare batteries, because she told him to carry it.
[Picture: battery crate]
Park Min-jae: Okay, helmet cam's on. Hi, Mom. This is the big day. That's the nest, that's the fog, and that's hyung holding a box.
[Picture: battery crate]
Kang Taegun: Don't film the box, man.
[Picture: battery crate]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Everybody loves the box. The box has fans now.
[Picture: battery crate]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Quiet, both of you. Radio check. Daybreak, go.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Daybreak's here. Good morning, Ahn. I checked on my tomatoes by video call. My team says they look sad without me.
Jang Tae-sik: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Bedrock, loud and clear! I can feel the whole levee from down here. Porter, you're shifting your weight again. Stop it, you're scaring the dirt.
Min Seo-yeon: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Here. Your radio voice is a six, Ahn. Too much treble.
Ahn Ji-soo: My radio voice is a nine and you know it.
Min Seo-yeon: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Also, Oh just gave me a scarf. It's twenty degrees out here.
[Picture: knitted scarf]
Ahn Ji-soo: Rate it.
[Picture: knitted scarf]
Min Seo-yeon: ◉ ▂▄▆█ ...It's a nine. Don't tell anyone I said that.
[Picture: knitted scarf]
Oh Byung-chan: ◉ ▂▄▆█ It's an open channel, kiddo. The next one's for Chol-jin. Olive, to match the uniform.
[Picture: knitted scarf]
Ri Chol-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I don't need a scarf.
[Picture: knitted scarf]
Oh Byung-chan: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Everybody needs a scarf, kiddo.
[Picture: knitted scarf]
Ri Chol-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Joint command's here. I filed my report with my handler last night. The porter's in it.
Kang Taegun: What'd you say about me?
Ri Chol-jin: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Classified. When we're out, you owe me that ration pack.
[Picture: ration pack bulgogi]
Kang Taegun: The bulgogi one. I didn't forget, man.
[Picture: ration pack bulgogi]
Yun Chae-won: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Seal crew's ready. Eight posts, one core, one center unit. The core's tuned. It just needs the Gate quiet.
Ahn Ji-soo: Open Hand.
Rafael Mendoza: ◉ ▂▄▆█ We're in position at the paddies, Ji-soo. Thank you for letting us stand next to your people today. It's an honor.
Chloe Barrett: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Legends! One point two million watching already! Say hi to the big porter for me!
[Picture: live badge 1 2m]
Batu Ganbold: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Porter! Save me a seat at dinner. You ate my last rice cake, so you owe me one.
Kang Taegun: I'll find you two.
Nadia Karimova: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I have your route, Ji-soo. Every turn. If anything goes wrong, I'll know exactly where they are.
Dang Thi Lan: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Breaker Corps is on the sluice gates. Say the word and the paddies rise.
At eight o'clock exactly, the lure starts to hum. Kang feels it in his teeth from a kilometer away.
Kang Taegun: Ji-soo. The thing on top of the nest the other night. Nobody's found it yet.
Ahn Ji-soo: Then Baek will find it. There are five S-ranks in there, Kang. Carry boxes. Don't punch anything.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I'm holding a box right now.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Good. Today especially. Hold the box.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The nest's walls are shipping containers stacked on their sides and glued together with black resin. Green light leaks through the cracks.
Baek Jae-won: Stay inside my light, everyone. If you can see my hand, you're fine.
Behind them the entrance gets smaller, and smaller.
Jang Tae-sik: Nothing's moving. I can feel the whole mound and it's empty. Every ant in here is walking toward the paddies.
Min Seo-yeon: Good. Keep them walking.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: Chae-won, you okay back there? You're breathing funny, kiddo.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: I'm counting steps. It helps.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin: Two hundred and eleven.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Out on the paddies, the Open Hand stand on a raised causeway. The lure sits on a pole in the middle of them, a long pale bone that hums.
[Picture: lure bone]
Every ant in Haiphong is coming for it, out of the port and across the fields.
Rafael Mendoza: Here they come. Major, whenever you're ready.
Dang Thi Lan: Sluices open! Water up!
[Picture: previous speaker]
The Open Hand pull the whole swarm out into the flooded fields and hold it there.
Chloe Barrett: Two million watching! Everyone, donate! This is what it's for!
Batu Ganbold: They're stuck! The big ones can't pull their legs out!
[Picture: previous speaker]
It's the bravest thing anybody here has ever seen.
Dang Thi Lan: It's working. Three weeks, and something finally works.
At the center of the nest, the Gate hangs over the floor of a wide chamber. For the first time in three weeks, nothing is coming out of it.
Yun Chae-won: It's quiet. It's actually quiet. Posts, go!
Her crew runs the posts out on their rails. Yun kneels at each one and sets it by hand.
Yun Chae-won: One. Two. Three. Four. That's halfway.
Ahn Ji-soo: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Overlook copies. Halfway. You're doing great, Chae-won.
Baek Jae-won: Four more, and I get to go home and water my tomatoes myself.
[Picture: tomato bag]
On the overlook, the hum stops.
Kang Taegun: Where'd the noise go?
Park Min-jae: Hang on, I've got zoom. Hyung... Nadia's got one of her doors open, right next to the pole. The lure's gone.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Nadia, why is your door open? Rafael, talk to me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Ahn. It's here. The lure's here, at our feet.
Then the channel fills with noise. Somebody down there is screaming.
Dang Thi Lan: ◉ ▂▄▆█ The whole swarm just turned around! They're going back to the port! Where are your friends going?
Park Min-jae: Chloe's stream just went dark. Hyung, it says "stream ended".
Rafael, Nadia and Chloe step through Nadia's door. It closes behind them.
Ahn Ji-soo: Rafael! Rafael, answer me! ...He switched his radio off.
Batu doesn't go with them. He walks up the levee toward the overlook, and with every step he gets bigger.
Kang Taegun: Min-jae. Get behind the table.
Batu Ganbold: Sorry, Ahn. It's nothing personal. No witnesses.
[Picture: previous speaker]
He goes for Ji-soo.
Chapter 8. The Porter
The Porter — Chapter 8
Batu swings at Ji-soo with a fist the size of a car door.
It stops an inch from her face.
Kang still has the crate of batteries in his other hand. He hasn't dropped a single one.
Batu Ganbold: The porter?
Kang Taegun: Morning, Batu.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: You caught that. With one hand. You're holding a box in the other one.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: She told me to hold the box.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Min-jae. Run. Get that footage somewhere they can't delete it.
Park Min-jae: Hyung, I'm not leaving you with the giant bone guy!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: You're good at running, man. Go.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Going! Fastest delivery in Jung-gu!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang hands Ji-soo the crate. Then he hits Batu once, and Batu goes off the side of the levee and down into the container yard below.
The old container yard at the foot of the levee was torn up by the ants weeks ago. The stacks lean on each other and the ground is split open.
Batu stands up out of a crushed container. The dent in his chest pushes itself back out.
Batu Ganbold: Okay. Okay! That's a real punch. Your file says E.
Kang Taegun: Yeah. Paperwork's slow.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: Then let's see what the paperwork missed.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bone plates slide out over his arms and shoulders. Claws come out of his fingers. In a few seconds he's twice as tall as he was.
Kang breaks the plates on his arm, and they grow back. He breaks them again, and they grow back thicker.
Kang Taegun: You heal fast, man.
Batu Ganbold: Everybody says that. Nobody gets to say it twice.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu's claw catches Kang across the mouth. For the first time since he woke up a Breaker, Kang bleeds.
Batu Ganbold: You bleed. Good. I was starting to worry.
Kang Taegun: First time. Sorry, I'm a little surprised.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Why, Batu? You dug kids out of a school with your hands. I watched it on the news.
Batu Ganbold: I did. That was real. Every kid was real. It was also paid for.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Paid for by who?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: You won't be telling anyone, so sure. We're the Jade Dynasty, porter. We always were.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: Your five S-ranks die in that nest today. A tragic raid. Then Korea needs outside cover for Euljiro, Banpo, the Incheon Road Gates. And who's free? The Open Hand. No flag. No fee.
[Picture: open hand patch]
Kang Taegun: And then you own it.
[Picture: open hand patch]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: On paper. The seal workshops, the credential systems, all of it. Legal and signed. Paper first, violence last.
[Picture: open hand patch]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: Nobody gets hurt who doesn't have to. That's the Jade way.
Kang Taegun: Five people are in that nest right now. Yun's crew is in there. And you just went for Ji-soo.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: She's the one holding the radio. I liked you, you know. I gave you my last rice cake.
[Picture: rice cake]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: It was a good rice cake.
[Picture: rice cake]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Behind a tipped-over container, a small red light is blinking. Min-jae is lying flat with a hand over his own mouth.
[Picture: character Park Min jae afraid]
Kang Taegun: Okay. I'm gonna stop being careful now.
[Picture: character Park Min jae afraid]
Batu Ganbold: You were being careful?
[Picture: character Park Min jae afraid]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Sorry about the containers.
[Picture: character Park Min jae afraid]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu is strong. He really is.
Every wound he gives Batu closes. So Kang hits faster than Batu can heal.
Half the yard is flat. Batu is on his back in the wreck, and his wounds are closing slower now.
Batu Ganbold: I can't keep up. I've never not kept up. What are you?
Kang Taegun: Late. I'm supposed to be carrying batteries.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu's plates start growing back. He gets one hand under himself and begins to stand.
Ahn Ji-soo: Keep him down, Kang!
Kang Taegun: Ji-soo? Is that a dart gun?
[Picture: dart gun]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Relic sedative, made for S-rank prisoners. Same kind Gu put in your neck.
[Picture: dart gun]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Brought it for you, actually. In case you punched something. Seemed fair.
[Picture: dart gun]
Kang Taegun: Fair.
[Picture: dart gun]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: A dart won't get through that bone, though. You'll have to push it in.
[Picture: dart gun]
[Picture: previous speaker]
She pulls the dart out of the gun and puts it in his hand.
[Picture: dart gun]
Batu Ganbold: Wait. Wait, porter...
Kang kneels and pushes the dart into the side of Batu's neck with his thumb.
The cut on Batu's arm stops closing halfway. His plates sink back into his skin, and he's just a big man lying in the dirt.
Batu Ganbold: Rafael said you were luggage.
Kang Taegun: I am. I carry stuff.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Hyung. Don't be mad.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Min-jae? I told you to run.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: I did run! The camp's on the other side of this yard. You threw him into my shortcut!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: I got all of it, hyung. Every word. Rice cake and everything.
Jang Tae-sik: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Overlook, anybody. The dome's failing. Something's coming out of the Gate. It's walking. It's walking like a person...
Ahn Ji-soo: Jang? Jang! Bedrock, answer me!
Kang looks at the nest a kilometer away. The ants are still pouring into it.
Ahn Ji-soo: If you go in there, everyone will know. The world authority, the agency, everyone.
Kang Taegun: Yeah.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: It's an international incident, Kang. Your licence. Maybe mine.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Yun's in there. Oh's in there. Chol-jin still wants his ration pack.
[Picture: previous speaker]
He takes off his jacket and holds it out to her.
Kang Taegun: Hold this. It was expensive.
Ahn Ji-soo: I still haven't finished rating you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: So there has to be a later.
[Picture: previous speaker]
He pulls the steel tag out of his hoodie and lets it hang on the outside.
Ahn Ji-soo: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Everybody in the nest, hold on. Just hold on. He's coming.
Kang goes up. On purpose this time.
Chapter 9. The Nest
The Nest — Chapter 9
Inside the nest, a few minutes earlier.
The lure is in the middle of the nest, and the whole swarm came home to it.
The Koreans are pinned around the half-set rig. Baek's dome of light and shadow covers all of them, and the ants are piled on top of it three deep.
Baek Jae-won: Everybody stay close to the middle. The dome's thinner at the edges.
Jang Tae-sik: East wall's cracking! I can't put them up as fast as they chew through them!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon: Three of them are digging under the north edge. I've got them slowed. I can't hold it long.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin: I'm out. That last strike was all of it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon: Then somebody break that bone. It's still humming.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin: I hit it twice. It's a very good bone.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: Keep going, kiddos. Everybody's bleeding a little less than they were. That's my job.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: Byung-chan, your hands are shaking.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: I'm fifty-six. My hands shake at the grocery store.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Four posts are set. The other four are out there, under all of them. And the Gate's awake again, I can feel it in the floor.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: It has to be quiet before I fire. If it isn't, the rig kills everyone in this room.
Baek Jae-won: Then we'll just have to make it quiet. I'd like everyone to know I'm doing great.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek is down on one knee. The string of his prayer beads has snapped, and the beads are rolling across the floor.
Baek Jae-won: I'm sorry, everyone. I don't think I have much left.
Oh Byung-chan: Take mine, Jae-won. Take whatever I've got.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Then the swarm stops. Every ant on the dome goes still at once, and every node on every back lights up together.
Min Seo-yeon: Why did they stop?
Yun Chae-won: The Gate. Something's coming out.
[Picture: previous speaker]
NO FILE. Nothing like it has ever been recorded. It came out of the Haiphong Gate. It stands like a man.
[Picture: stamp no file]
Something steps out of the Gate. It's tall and thin and it stands like a man. Its shell is black with a green sheen, and thin plates on its chest glow purple and green.
[Picture: light dome]
[Picture: baros front]
Jang Tae-sik: Overlook, anybody. The dome's failing. Something's coming out of the Gate. It's walking. It's walking like a person...
[Picture: light dome]
It walks up to the dome, and the ants move out of its way. It looks at Baek through the light.
[Picture: light dome]
[Picture: baros front]
[Picture: hive mind nexus ant side]
[Picture: hive mind nexus ant side]
Baros: You held longer than the others would have.
[Picture: light dome]
Oh Byung-chan: It talks. Oh, I don't like that at all.
[Picture: light dome]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: What are you?
[Picture: light dome]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baros: I watched you from above for three nights. You always protect the small one first.
[Picture: light dome]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: I asked what you are.
[Picture: light dome]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baros: No.
[Picture: light dome]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: ◉ ▂▄▆█ ...in the nest, hold on. Just hold on. He's coming.
Ri Chol-jin: That's the porter.
Oh Byung-chan: He's a kilometer away, kiddo.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon: He moved inside my stopped second. A kilometer's nothing.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: Then we hold until he's here.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The creature lifts one claw and draws it down the dome. The light splits open from top to bottom.
Ri Chol-jin: He needs a few seconds. I've got a few seconds.
Oh Byung-chan: Chol-jin, you're empty!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin: I kept one back.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ri Chol-jin becomes lightning and hits it head on.
It catches him as he comes out of the lightning. Then it lets go, and Ri Chol-jin falls and doesn't get up.
Oh gets to him first. His hands light up green, and then the light goes out.
Oh Byung-chan: No. No, no. Come on, kiddo. Come on.
Oh tries again. Nothing happens. He looks up at the others and shakes his head.
Min Seo-yeon: I tried to stop it. I tried to stop time. I didn't have a second left.
Jang Tae-sik: That's the one that's been watching. It's been up on that roof every night.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baros: That one was fast. Now I know how fast.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: Everybody get behind the rig. Now.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek stands up and throws everything he has left, light from one hand and shadow from the other. The creature steps through the light and raises a claw over him.
Three stories above the chamber, the roof of the nest starts to shake.
[Picture: falling dust]
The roof comes down, and so does Kang.
He lands between it and Baek Jae-won.
Dust comes down. Nobody moves. Not the Koreans, not the ants, not the creature.
Kang looks at the ants. At Yun's crew behind the rig. At Baek on the floor. At Oh, kneeling next to Ri.
Kang goes very calm.
Kang Taegun: Okay.
Yun Chae-won: Mr. Kang?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Hey, Chae-won. How many posts?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Four. I need the other four, and I need it quiet.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Stay behind me. Everybody.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: Kang, it cut through my dome like it wasn't there.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I know. Stay behind me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baros: You are new.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang takes a breath and shouts. The sound goes out from him in a ring, and every ant in the chamber is thrown back into the walls.
Baros: Show me that again.
Kang Taegun: No.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The creature tilts its head. All around the chamber, every node on every ant lights up at once.
Chapter 10. Perfect Evolution
Perfect Evolution — Chapter 10
The ants blown off the dome are getting back up. The creature hasn't moved. It's looking at Kang with its head tilted to one side.
[Picture: baros front]
[Picture: hive mind nexus ant front]
[Picture: hive mind nexus ant side]
Baek Jae-won: Kang. You're not supposed to be here.
[Picture: ant node glow]
Kang Taegun: Yeah. Ji-soo mentioned that.
[Picture: ant node glow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: Ha! I told you. I told every one of you the floor was scared of him.
[Picture: ant node glow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: Where's the lure team? Where's Rafael? We've been calling them for ten minutes.
[Picture: ant node glow]
Kang Taegun: Gone. They dropped the lure on you on purpose. I'll tell you the rest later.
[Picture: ant node glow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang looks past them, at Oh. Oh is kneeling next to Ri Chol-jin, and his hands aren't glowing anymore.
Kang Taegun: Mr. Oh.
Oh Byung-chan: I got to him first, kiddo. There wasn't anything left to fix.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Okay.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baros: There were five. I counted five. You were not in the count.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Nobody counts the porter, man.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Chae-won. How long do you need?
Yun Chae-won: Four posts are set. Four to go. And then it has to be quiet, Mr. Kang. Same as last time.
[Picture: previous speaker]
It comes at him faster than anything he's ever seen move. Kang's first punch puts it into the chamber wall.
[Picture: baros side]
It pulls itself out, and the cracked plates on its arm slide off with new ones underneath. The second punch lands. The third one hits nothing.
[Picture: baros front]
Min Seo-yeon: It dodged. It took the first two, and then it dodged the third.
Baek Jae-won: It's learning you. Every time you hit it, it learns something.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baros: Again.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Sure.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Every node on every ant in the chamber lights up at once. The swarm splits and pours around the back of the dome, away from the fight.
[Picture: hive mind nexus ant side]
[Picture: hive mind nexus ant side]
[Picture: hive mind nexus ant back]
Yun Chae-won: Mr. Kang! They're coming round behind us!
Kang Taegun: Mr. Jang. Can you give me a wall around Yun and the rig?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: I've got one wall left in me. Maybe one. Don't break it, it's my last.
[Picture: previous speaker]
A last stone wall grinds up out of the floor around Yun and the rig. A second later the fight goes straight through the gap by the posts.
Kang Taegun: Sorry! Sorry, Chae-won, I knocked your post.
Yun Chae-won: Don't touch my posts! Fight somewhere else!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: There isn't really a somewhere else.
[Picture: previous speaker]
A hooked claw opens Kang's shoulder. It's the second time this week he's bled.
[Picture: baros side]
Baros: You bleed.
Kang Taegun: Yeah. It's been a weird week.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baros: Then you can be finished. Like the one who became lightning.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: You didn't have to do that to him.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baros: He was in the way. You are in the way.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Eight! All eight posts are set! I just need it quiet!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang stops hitting where it is. He starts hitting where it's going to be.
Its chest plate is cracked from top to bottom. Purple light leaks out of the crack, and for the first time, it's the one stepping back.
Baros: Baros.
Kang Taegun: Kang Taegun. Sorry about this.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: Mr. Kang, listen. It won't go quiet while that thing is giving orders. As long as it's talking to them, they keep coming out and the Gate stays awake.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Like the one in your tent, Chae-won. Get the one giving orders and the rest fall apart.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yun Chae-won: The wind, you mean.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Yeah. The wind.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baros turns and goes straight up the chamber wall on its claws, into the dark under the roof. Around the dome, the nodes start lighting up in a new order.
[Picture: baros back]
Baek Jae-won: It's going to reorder them. Go, Kang. I can give you one more dome. A small one. Thirty seconds, maybe forty. I'm being optimistic.
[Picture: light dome]
Kang Taegun: That's plenty.
[Picture: light dome]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: Kiddo. Come back in one piece. I don't have anything left to fix you with.
[Picture: light dome]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I'll be back. I owe Chol-jin a bulgogi ration pack.
[Picture: ration pack bulgogi]
[Picture: previous speaker]
So Kang grabs it and goes up.
Through the roof, through the smoke, above the clouds.
Above the clouds, the sun is out and there's no sound at all. The whole of Haiphong is spread out underneath them.
[Picture: baros side]
Baros: Where is this?
Kang Taegun: Up.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baros: I can still hear them. They are already climbing your friend's dome. Thirty seconds.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Taegun? Min-jae says you just went through the roof of the nest. Talk to me.
Kang Taegun: I'm a bit above the clouds. It's nice up here. Sunny.
Its claws dig into his arms. It keeps looking down at the city and then back at him. It's afraid, and it's never been afraid before.
[Picture: baros front]
Baros: What are you?
Kang Taegun: Kang Taegun. E rank, on paper.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baros: Paper.
[Picture: previous speaker]
He hasn't gone all out since the Horned Tyrant. He thinks about Chol-jin, eating every meal like somebody was going to take his tray.
Kang Taegun: This one's for Chol-jin.
Baros: No.
[Picture: previous speaker]
It hits the harbor like it fell from space.
Far below, a white spray goes up out of the harbor, higher than the cranes. Across the city, every ant stops where it is, and every light on every back goes dark.
Dang Thi Lan: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Korean camp, this is Dang. They stopped. All of them, out in the paddies. They're just standing in my water.
Park Min-jae: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Hyung! Was that you? The whole harbor just went up! I fell off a levee! I'm fine! My leg's not fine!
Yun Chae-won: It's quiet. It's quiet. Firing.
The seal rig fires. White light fills the nest from the floor to the hole in the roof.
Kang comes down through the hole and lands next to Baek. Baek is flat on his back, laughing very weakly.
[Picture: falling dust]
Baek Jae-won: I'm really glad I never sparred you.
[Picture: falling dust]
Min Seo-yeon: Ji-soo's going to ask me for a number on that. I don't have one.
[Picture: falling dust]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: Help me carry him out, kiddo. I don't want him lying in here.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Yeah. I've got him.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang carries Ri Chol-jin out of the nest himself. Nobody asks him to.
Chapter 11. Paper
Paper — Chapter 11
Evening, and every cot in the field hospital is full except one. Ri Chol-jin's jacket is folded on it, and nobody sits there.
[Picture: folded olive jacket]
Batu is on a cot by the door, cuffed to the frame, with two Vietnamese Breakers standing over him.
[Picture: folded olive jacket]
Oh Byung-chan: Sit down, kiddo. Let me see that shoulder.
[Picture: folded olive jacket]
Kang Taegun: It's fine, Mr. Oh. It's barely a scratch.
[Picture: folded olive jacket]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: Let me. I'd like to fix one thing today.
[Picture: folded olive jacket]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh's hands go green, and the cut on Kang's shoulder closes. He keeps his hands there a while after it's done.
[Picture: green heal glow]
Kang Taegun: Thanks.
[Picture: green heal glow]
Oh Byung-chan: He used to eat like somebody was gonna take his tray. I told him he'd get a stomach ache. He said a stomach ache means you're alive.
[Picture: folded olive jacket]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: I keep feeling for his footsteps. He walked real light. I keep feeling for it and it's not there.
[Picture: folded olive jacket]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ji-soo comes in with Kang's jacket folded over her arm. She hands it to him like it's paperwork.
[Picture: kang jacket]
Ahn Ji-soo: Your jacket. I didn't put it down once, and I'd like that on the record.
[Picture: kang jacket]
Ahn Ji-soo: Everybody knows now. I thought I'd be sorry, and I'm not.
Dang Thi Lan: My people are still counting the ants that stopped. Somebody's going to ask me who did it. I'm going to say the porter, and nobody's going to believe me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The TV over the nurses' desk switches to the news. Rafael Mendoza is standing on the tarmac at Cat Bi Airfield, with Nadia and Chloe behind him.
[Picture: character Nadia Karimova neutral]
[Picture: character Chloe Barrett sad]
Rafael Mendoza: The Korean team went for the Gate before the swarm was clear. It wasn't the plan we agreed on. We did everything we could to pull the swarm back.
[Picture: character Nadia Karimova neutral]
[Picture: character Chloe Barrett sad]
Rafael Mendoza: Chol-jin was a good man. Our hearts are with his family, and with Korea. We fly out tonight, to the next city that needs us.
[Picture: character Nadia Karimova neutral]
[Picture: character Chloe Barrett sad]
Jang Tae-sik: He said his name. He said Chol-jin's name on TV. I'm gonna put that guy through the runway.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon: Chloe posted an edit of her stream an hour ago. Four million views. It's well made. Five out of ten.
[Picture: phone stream edit]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Four. The sad piano's cheap.
[Picture: phone stream edit]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Batu Ganbold: Paper first, violence last, Ahn. You got the violence. They've got forty rescues on record, and I won't say a word in any court you drag me to.
[Picture: previous speaker]
A woman in a navy uniform with a pale blue armband walks in with a tablet under her arm. Everyone who's still standing stands up straighter.
Park Hye-jin: Captain Park Hye-jin, the world authority. I flew in from Seoul with two problems, and I'd like to fly home with fewer.
Park Hye-jin: The first is a registered team telling the world Korea's S-ranks got a man killed. The second is you, Mr. Kang.
Park Hye-jin: An S+ fought abroad with no order from us and no team behind him. Half a city watched him do it. You know what that is.
Kang Taegun: An international incident.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Hye-jin: A very large one. Congratulations.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Captain, he was on my list. As my porter. If anybody loses a licence over this, it's me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: No. That's on me. She told me not to punch anything.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The gym doors bang open. Min-jae limps in with a muddy leg, a bag of shrimp crackers and his helmet cam in his hand.
Park Min-jae: Hyung! Did I miss it? Is this the sad part? I brought snacks for the sad part.
Kang Taegun: Your leg, man.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: Levee. Paddy. I fell off one into the other. Wait, has nobody checked their phone?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: I found signal on top of a pump station. The whole thing took an hour to upload. My battery died at one percent.
They forgot about the courier with the helmet camera.
Every phone in the gym is buzzing at once. The TV cuts away from Rafael to Min-jae's video, and it doesn't cut back.
The door. The lure. The confession. It's on every screen in Asia.
Batu Ganbold: That kid had a camera on the whole time?
Park Min-jae: My mom likes the delivery videos. She shared it first.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Hye-jin: That's my first problem gone. Their flight leaves Cat Bi in fifty minutes. I can arrest them on paper right now, but I can't arrest three S-ranks with a tablet.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: You won't have to, Captain. I'd like to see his face.
Jang Tae-sik: We're all going. Chol-jin would've been first out the door.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: I'll bring bandages. Mostly for them.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Hye-jin: Mr. Kang, you're my second problem. You're coming where I can see you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Night. Rafael, Nadia and Chloe wait at the ramp of a gray transport plane. The Koreans walk out across the tarmac in their bandages, with Kang and Hye-jin in front.
Rafael Mendoza: Jae-won. Tae-sik. You should all be in bed. I'm so glad you're alive.
Baek Jae-won: Chol-jin isn't.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: You remembered my clinic, Rafael. The first day we met. You knew its name.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Rafael Mendoza: I remember everyone, Byung-chan. It's the job.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Hye-jin holds up her tablet. The arrest order is already on it, with all three of their names.
[Picture: arrest tablet]
Rafael Mendoza: Captain. It's footage from a courier. We have forty rescues on record, and every one of them is real.
[Picture: arrest tablet]
Park Min-jae: I'm not a courier, I'm a runner! Okay, I'm also a courier.
[Picture: arrest tablet]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nadia Karimova: Rafael. The door's ready.
[Picture: arrest tablet]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chloe Barrett: Sorry, legends! Flight's leaving!
Chloe hangs in the grey air halfway to the door, one foot off the ground and her ponytail sticking straight out behind her.
Min Seo-yeon: You're fast. I'm when.
Jang Tae-sik: That's for Chol-jin!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Stone comes up through the tarmac and cages the plane's ramp. Nobody is leaving by air. Rafael throws his light at Baek, and Baek catches it out of the air with his bare hand.
Baek Jae-won: I don't like fighting people. I like you less.
Then Nadia is at Kang's side with her hand on his arm, and a door opens under his feet.
Nadia Karimova: I'm sorry, Kang. I always know where everyone is. In a second, you'll be in the middle of the South China Sea.
Ahn Ji-soo: Taegun!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang drops through, and Nadia opens a second door for herself. A minute later, a boom rolls across the airfield and every window in the terminal rattles.
Kang Taegun: Learned to fly last week. Still not great at it.
Nadia Karimova: That was one minute.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: I brought two darts. I rate my own planning a ten.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The dart goes in. Nadia's door folds shut, and she sits down on the tarmac.
Park Hye-jin: Rafael Mendoza. Planning the deaths of five Korean S-ranks, one of them successful. Moving a relic into an active Gate site. Fraud against the world authority. Forged travel permits. And lying on television, which isn't a crime, but I'm writing it down.
Park Hye-jin: Chloe Barrett. The same, plus turning off a camera at a very bad time.
Chloe Barrett: Can I at least say bye to chat?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Hye-jin: No.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Rafael holds out his wrists for the cuffs. He's still polite. He looks at Kang the whole time.
[Picture: handcuffs]
Rafael Mendoza: Who are you?
[Picture: handcuffs]
Kang Taegun: The porter.
[Picture: handcuffs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 12. North Wall
North Wall — Chapter 12
One week later. It's snowing in Sejong, and the council chamber is full. Kang sits at the witness table in a borrowed suit that's tight across the shoulders, with Ji-soo next to him.
Park Hye-jin: This hearing is about one charge. An S+ Breaker, Kang Taegun, fought in Vietnam alone, without an order from the world authority.
Park Hye-jin: By our rules, that's an international incident. A serious one.
Kang Taegun: Yes, ma'am. Sorry.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Hye-jin: You're not supposed to apologize at your own hearing, Mr. Kang.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Sorry. Habit.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Hye-jin: Before we rule, I have a letter from the prime minister of Vietnam. The letter asks the world authority to grant the order after the fact, backdated to the morning of the raid.
[Picture: pm letter]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Hye-jin: It gives one reason. "For the city of Haiphong."
[Picture: pm letter]
Hye-jin stamps the order. She almost smiles, and then she decides to.
[Picture: stamp granted]
Park Hye-jin: The order is granted, backdated. For once, paper wins.
[Picture: stamp granted]
Ahn Ji-soo: I'm keeping my licence. Kang. I'm keeping my licence.
[Picture: stamp granted]
[Picture: previous speaker]
At the end of the council table, an old man in a northern general's uniform stands up. He's held one sheet of paper in his lap the whole hearing.
Ri Sung-ho: One more thing, Captain. It isn't on your agenda.
Ri Sung-ho: Ri Chol-jin sent a report to his handler every night he was in Haiphong. His handler sent me the last one. They're all very short. He hated writing.
[Picture: report slip]
Ri Sung-ho: "Kang Taegun. Porter. Average."
[Picture: report slip]
Nobody in the chamber says anything for a long time.
[Picture: report slip]
Ri Sung-ho: He was always a funny boy. He called me average in a report once. I was his general. I kept it.
[Picture: report slip]
Ri Sung-ho: I've been thinking about a signature for two months. I'm done thinking.
He signs the form in front of him. In the quiet room, everybody can hear the pen.
Kang Taegun: Thank you, sir.
After the hearing, Ri Chol-jin's photo is set on a table at the front with a bowl of rice and a cup of soju. Oh stands next to it in a new olive scarf.
[Picture: memorial photo]
Oh Byung-chan: I told him the next scarf was his. I finished it on the plane home. It's a bit long. I figured he'd grow into it.
[Picture: memorial photo]
Kang Taegun: I brought him the bulgogi one. I owed him a trade. I kept saying tomorrow.
[Picture: ration pack bulgogi]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: He'd have eaten it right here, standing up. Like somebody was gonna take it off him.
[Picture: ration pack bulgogi]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon: He told me my watch was pointless. He was right. I'm still wearing it.
[Picture: ration pack bulgogi]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: We were going to wait until spring to ask you again. But we're all here, so.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: Bedrock's got a spot, man. Loud team. Good lunches.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Min Seo-yeon: Second Hand has two. We're better than Bedrock. Nine out of ten, to their six.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Byung-chan: My clinic doesn't have a team, kiddo. But we've got good biscuits.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: Daybreak has tomatoes.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Thanks. Really. I'm good solo for now, though. I've got a wall.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jae-won: Then call us when you need a team.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jang Tae-sik: Or a wall.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The next morning, Kang takes a number at Seodaemun like everybody else. He's number two hundred and six.
[Picture: queue ticket 206]
Bae Soo-jin: Mr. Kang. You didn't have to take a number.
[Picture: queue ticket 206]
Kang Taegun: It felt rude not to.
[Picture: queue ticket 206]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Bae Soo-jin: Two signatures, north and south. Kang Taegun, S plus, on every roster in Korea. Sorry it took so long.
[Picture: licence card S plus]
[Picture: previous speaker]
She stamps the form, and then his card, once each, very hard.
[Picture: licence card S plus]
Kang Taegun: Sorry about your wall.
[Picture: licence card S plus]
That evening. The bent kettle is still on the counter. Ha-eun is chopping onions very hard.
[Picture: bent kettle]
Kang Ha-eun: Carrying boxes. You told me you were in Vietnam carrying boxes.
[Picture: bent kettle]
Kang Taegun: I carried a lot of boxes.
[Picture: bent kettle]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: You flew, oppa! Forty million people watched you fly! My physics teacher paused the video to do the math on the board!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: Then you went through a roof and I couldn't see you for two whole minutes. Two minutes.
Kang Taegun: I'm sorry, Ha-eun.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: Don't. I'm not crying. It's the onions.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Ha-eun: My teacher says that punch broke three laws of physics. Congrats. You're a criminal.
The doorbell rings. Ji-soo is on the step with a cake box and a bag of tangerines.
Ahn Ji-soo: I brought a cake. It's a seven. The bakery was closing.
Kang Ha-eun: Okay. Question. Are you two dating?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Yes.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Yes.
[Picture: previous speaker]
They say it at the exact same time. Neither of them has said it out loud before.
Kang Ha-eun: Finally. Min-jae owes me twenty Credits. He said New Year's.
Ahn Ji-soo: That was a ten, by the way. The yes.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: Mine or yours?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ahn Ji-soo: Both. Don't let it go to your head.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Two nights later, the lift opens on the third ring at Euljiro. Forty people turn around to look.
Jo Dae-sung: Two on the north wall, midnight to six, standard rate.
Kang puts his hand up. Ji-hoon puts his up right next to it.
Seo Ji-hoon: Hyung. The wall's been so boring without you. I counted the cracks. There are three hundred and twelve.
Jo Dae-sung: You're S plus on every roster in the country now, Kang. Standard rate's still twenty Credits.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kang Taegun: I know, boss. I just want the paycheck.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Park Min-jae: I'll drive!
[Picture: scooter with bow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jo Dae-sung: It's still a wall.
[Picture: scooter with bow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Midnight on the north wall. Two on shift, plus one courier who wasn't asked.
Korea's only S+ keeps his strength in his pocket.
Mostly.
Across the city, the TV on the visiting room wall is playing the Haiphong footage again. Choi Dong-wook stops mopping to watch the porter catch a fist the size of a car door.
Choi Dong-wook: I kicked that guy once.
Nam Gi-cheol: I had him darted. We're a very small club.
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Gi-cheol: Told you, kid. They shake your hand.
[Picture: character Choi Dong wook amused]
In Haiphong, divers search the harbor for the creature's body for a week.
They never find it.
