Third Rail
Third Rail
Seoul, 2090. The city looks the way it always has, because a secret bureau works every night to keep it that way.
Tonight one district has gone dark. The news is calling it a blackout.
The Gunja rail depot is not blacked out. Something is eating the power lines.
Strike Team HAETAE is three agents, and they are the only ones inside the fence.
And somewhere in the yard, a night supervisor is still waiting for his radio to work.
Chapter 1. The Forty Meters
The Forty Meters — Chapter 1
The Gunja rail yard, Seoul. A little after two in the morning.
[Picture: rain]
The floodlights are dead. The only light left is blue, and it comes from two Voltcoils wrapped around the overhead lines, each one as thick as a man's leg, drinking the current. Every few seconds one of them spits, and an arc walks down the wet rails.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: electric arcs]
SABLE THREAT FILE. VOLTCOIL. D rank, mutated from an electric eel. Winds around live wires and drinks the current. Shocks on contact. Glows brighter the more it has fed.
[Picture: stamp D]
Kwon Jae-min: Okay. Two eels on the wires. Birds on the gantries. And something in the pits that sounds like a garbage disposal. Anybody want to add to the list?
Baek Jun-ho: My left knee servo's full of rainwater.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Noted. Filed under not my problem.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Add one more. The man behind us hasn't taken a breath in about a minute.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: ...Are you people from the power company?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Sure. Let's go with that.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Don't get smart with me, kid. The power company doesn't show up with a glowing lion and a walking forklift.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: It's an exo-rig, sir.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: It's got forklift hydraulics. I know forklift hydraulics when I hear them.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: ...Okay, yeah, those are forklift hydraulics. Good ear.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: What's your name, sir?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Oh Sang-chul. Night supervisor. This is my yard. Or it was, up until about an hour ago.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Why are you still in it?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Thirty years I've worked here, and I've never heard it sound like this. I got my crew out through the wash shed when the lights died. Then I counted heads, and I was one short. So I went back. And the dark just closed up behind me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Who's missing?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Do-yun. Nam Do-yun. Twenty-four years old, three months on the job. Still puts his gloves on the wrong hands. I don't even know if he made it out.
[Picture: previous speaker]
His hand goes to the radio on his chest. He clicks it. Nothing. He clicks it again anyway.
[Picture: radio]
Kwon Jae-min: Backup's twelve minutes out. We sit tight, we keep him breathing, we let the big kids handle the eels. Easy.
Oh Sang-chul: No. Listen to me. You hear that hum? That's the substation, and it's overloading. When it goes, those coil things up there drink the whole surge. All of it. After that, nothing in this yard ever turns back on, and those things stop being a rail yard problem.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: ...Okay. Less easy.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: There's a manual cutoff for this section. It starves them off these wires. I know every step of this ground.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul points down forty meters of open track, through the rain, toward junction box twelve.
Jae-min reads the ground once. There is nothing on it but water, rats and open sky.
High on the gantry, a Sparkraven folds its wings and drops.
Oh Sang-chul: Junction box twelve. Forty meters. I can take you there.
Kwon Jae-min: Then we go now.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yeon-hwa steps out of cover into the rain, palms open, and starts to chant.
Light comes up out of the wet rails and takes the shape of the haetae. It catches the bird in the air and throws it into the dark.
The guardian plants itself facing the pits. Behind it, the pits start to move.
Seo Yeon-hwa: Guardian, hold the pit.
Kwon Jae-min: Mudang anchors. Atlas, you're the wall. Move.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jun-ho walks the rig out onto the open rails with the shield up. Arcs spit off the wet steel around his feet.
Sang-chul comes up low in the rig's shadow and shouts the line to take.
The first rats break from the pit edge and hit the shield like hail.
Baek Jun-ho: Stay behind me, supervisor.
Oh Sang-chul: Left rail! Go!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Forty meters. The Gnashrats hit the shield like hail. Knee-high, hairless, all teeth. Their eyes catch the blue light in a line.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: gnashrat charge]
[Picture: gnashrat side]
[Picture: gnashrat front]
[Picture: gnashrat charge]
SABLE THREAT FILE. GNASHRAT. F rank, mutated from a sewer rat. Fast, cowardly, and never alone. One is a pest. A pit full of them is a grinder.
[Picture: stamp F]
Baek Jun-ho: Contact front! They're chewing on the shield! Can they do that? Can they chew steel?
[Picture: rain]
Kwon Jae-min: Don't ask questions you don't want answered! Shotgun low, don't aim, just sweep!
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The power shotgun goes off like a door slamming. The front rank of rats is just gone.
[Picture: rain]
Oh Sang-chul: Stop! Don't step!
[Picture: rain]
Everyone freezes. An arc crawls down the left rail, right where Jae-min's boot was headed, and fizzles out in a puddle.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: electric arcs]
Oh Sang-chul: It walks every six seconds. Stay on the ballast, never the rail. Wait for it... Now! Go, go, six seconds!
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: electric arcs]
Kwon Jae-min: He's calling the pattern. The old man is calling the pattern!
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: I'm fifty-eight, not dead! Move your feet!
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Jae-min. Above you. They've stopped circling.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Sparkravens only stop circling for one reason. Five of them fold their wings at once.
[Picture: sparkraven dive]
[Picture: sparkraven dive]
[Picture: sparkraven dive]
[Picture: sparkraven dive]
[Picture: sparkraven dive]
SABLE THREAT FILE. SPARKRAVEN. D rank, mutated from a raven flock. Roosts high and mobs anything in the open. They only stop circling for one reason.
[Picture: stamp D]
Five Sparkravens fold their wings at once and dive.
Jae-min does not step back. He goes forward, under the first bird, and swings once.
Feathers and sparks come down in the rain. The track ahead is clear all the way to the box.
Kwon Jae-min: Five for one. Somebody clip that.
Baek Jun-ho: Nobody's recording, Jae-min.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Then somebody remember it really well.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Junction box twelve. Sang-chul has the key ring out before he stops running. There are forty keys on it. His hands are shaking too hard to find the right one.
[Picture: key ring]
Oh Sang-chul: Come on. Come on, come on. It's the square one. Where's the square one...
[Picture: key ring]
Baek Jun-ho: Hey. Supervisor. Take your time. I've got the rats.
[Picture: key ring]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Do not take your time! Atlas, do not tell the man to take his time!
[Picture: key ring]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Mr. Oh. Look at me, not the keys. Your hands know which one it is. They've done this a thousand times.
[Picture: key ring]
[Picture: previous speaker]
He breathes out. He stops looking. His thumb finds the square key on its own.
[Picture: key ring]
Oh Sang-chul: ...Got it.
Sang-chul hauls the red lever down with his whole weight.
Wire by wire, the section goes dark. The eels go dim and lift their heads.
They slide away along the dead lines toward the one glow left in the yard. The substation.
The arcs stop. The rats, with nothing to see by, pour back into the pits. For the first time tonight, the yard is almost quiet.
Baek Jun-ho: That's it? We did it? Tell me we did it.
Oh Sang-chul: No. Look at the meter. That's the feed from the substation, and it's still climbing. All we did was kick them off these wires.
[Picture: volt meter]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: So they went home. To the buffet.
[Picture: volt meter]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: That bought us this track. That's all it bought us.
[Picture: volt meter]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The radio on Jae-min's shoulder crackles.
Captain Yoon Tae-sik: ◉ ▂▄▆█ HAETAE, this is the fence. Relief team is delayed. Something's testing the east side of my cordon and I can't spare anybody. Hold what you have.
Kwon Jae-min: Define delayed, Captain.
Captain Yoon Tae-sik: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Hold what you have, Gambit. Fence out.
Kwon Jae-min: ...Great talk.
Seo Yeon-hwa: So it's us.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: It's us. Mr. Oh, where's this substation?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Other side of the yard.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Past what?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Past everything.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 2. Hold What You Have
Hold What You Have — Chapter 2
A parked train on siding four. Doors forced, then forced shut again. Inside it's dry, dark, and smells like floor cleaner. It's the nicest place any of them have been all night.
Seo Yeon-hwa: Nobody step on the salt.
[Picture: salt pouch]
Kwon Jae-min: You salted a subway door.
[Picture: salt pouch]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: I salted a threshold. It happens to be on a subway.
[Picture: salt pouch]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: And that stops a four-meter electric eel.
[Picture: salt pouch]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: It's stopped everything so far tonight, hasn't it?
[Picture: salt pouch]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: ...That's not how evidence works, and you know it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Supervisor, sit down a second. You're bleeding on your sleeve.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: What? Oh. That's nothing, I caught it on the pit ladder. I don't need a medic, I'm hardly even hurt.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Good, because I'm not a medic. I fix forklifts, remember? She's the medic.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Hold your arm out, please. This'll feel warm. Try not to pull away.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Her hands glow the same pale blue as the guardian. The cut closes like a zipper.
[Picture: blue sparks]
Oh Sang-chul: ...
Oh Sang-chul: My mother used to take me to a woman like you. Up in the hills, when I had a fever. She'd ring bells over me and burn paper.
[Picture: shaman bells]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Did it work?
[Picture: shaman bells]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: I'm fifty-eight, aren't I?
[Picture: shaman bells]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Jae-min, did you hear that? Evidence.
[Picture: shaman bells]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: I'm not having this argument with two people.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Sang-chul pulls his sleeve down. He looks at the three of them properly for the first time. A kid in a chalked-up coat. A girl with a ribbon in her hair. A boy bolted into a machine.
Oh Sang-chul: How old are you three? And don't say the power company.
Baek Jun-ho: Twenty-two.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Twenty-one.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Twenty-three. I'm the adult.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: I've got work boots older than you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: All right. You've done your job, you found me. Walk me to the fence. I'll tell your captain what I know about the substation, and the grown-ups can take it from there.
Nobody answers. Jun-ho looks at the floor.
Oh Sang-chul: ...What?
Kwon Jae-min: The fence is sealed, Mr. Oh. Both ways. Nothing in this yard goes out until everything in this yard is dealt with. That includes us. And it includes you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: I'm a Metro employee, not a rat! I've got a wife who thinks I'm doing paperwork right now!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: I know. I'm sorry. The news is going to call tonight a blackout. If one of those things gets out past the fence, nobody's going to believe that for very long. So nothing gets out. That's the rule.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: It's a bad rule. It's still the right one. I used to live in a dorm that didn't have it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The rain fills the quiet. Sang-chul checks his radio. Nothing. He lets it drop.
[Picture: radio]
Oh Sang-chul: Fine. Then I'm not luggage. You want to get across my yard, you do it my way. Give me that chalk.
[Picture: chalk]
Kwon Jae-min: My chalk?
[Picture: chalk]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: You've been drawing on your own coat all night, kid. Draw on the floor, it's bigger.
[Picture: chalk]
[Picture: previous speaker]
He draws the yard on the floor of the car in six quick lines. He doesn't have to think about it.
[Picture: chalk map]
Oh Sang-chul: We're here. Siding four. Substation's over here, far corner. Straight line across the open yard is three hundred meters with no cover, under the wires, under the birds.
[Picture: chalk map]
Kwon Jae-min: That's a wipe. Next option.
[Picture: chalk map]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Wash shed. Here. It's roofed the whole length, and it lets out by the signal tower. From the tower it's the inspection shed, then the substation. Cover nearly all the way.
[Picture: chalk map]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: The wash shed. That's the way your crew went out.
[Picture: chalk map]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: ...Yeah. It's the way Do-yun should've gone out, too.
[Picture: chalk map]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Then it's the right way twice. Okay. Wash shed, tower, inspection shed, substation. Four stages. Atlas leads, Mr. Oh calls the turns, Mudang watches the back, and I...
[Picture: chalk map]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Something hits the floor between them with a small wet sound. It's pale green. The floor starts to smoke.
[Picture: acid smoke]
Kwon Jae-min: ...Nobody move. Jun-ho. What's on the roof?
[Picture: acid smoke]
Baek Jun-ho: My optic's got heat through the ceiling panels. Six shapes. Backpack-sized. They're not moving. They're just sitting up there. Drooling.
[Picture: acid smoke]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Spittlebugs. Beetles. They hang on a ceiling and spit acid till it's soft enough to fall through.
[Picture: acid smoke]
[Picture: previous speaker]
SABLE THREAT FILE. SPITTLEBUG. F rank, mutated from a beetle. Clings to ceilings and spits a slow acid until whatever is under it is soft enough to fall through.
[Picture: stamp F]
Oh Sang-chul: That's a brand new roof! We just had these cars refitted!
The ceiling panel bubbles, smokes green, and sags.
A Spittlebug drops through and lands on a seat that starts to melt under it. A second one pushes its head through the hole.
Jae-min drags Sang-chul back down the aisle by his jacket.
Jun-ho fires once into the ceiling, and the second beetle is gone.
He puts the rig's fingers into the door seam and tears the doors apart. The salt line scatters.
Yeon-hwa is the first one out into the rain.
Baek Jun-ho: Everybody out! Go!
They run. Behind them the brand new roof of car four comes down in one piece.
[Picture: falling debris]
Seo Yeon-hwa: He broke my salt line.
Kwon Jae-min: The salt line was doing great until the ceiling got involved. Run now, mourn later!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 3. The Wash Shed
The Wash Shed — Chapter 3
The wash shed is two hundred meters of roof, and after the open yard it feels like being let indoors. One track down the middle. A row of steel gantries with roller brushes taller than Jun-ho's rig.
Nobody looks up yet.
Baek Jun-ho: Oh, this is a nice rig. Supervisor, is this the German system? With the contour-following brushes?
Oh Sang-chul: Installed in eighty-one. You should see it do a full eight-car set. Four minutes, nose to tail.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Can you two flirt with the car wash more quietly?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Jae-min's right. Everyone stop talking. And look up. Slowly.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The tops of the rollers aren't bristles. They're ears. Rows and rows of folded wings, packed shoulder to shoulder along every gantry and every roof beam, all the way down the shed.
Kwon Jae-min: ...Flickers. Bats. A wingspan each, and fangs like knitting needles. How many?
SABLE THREAT FILE. FLICKER. F rank, mutated from a bat. Erratic flyer. Bites once and vanishes. Roosts in the hundreds. Do not wake the roost.
[Picture: stamp F]
Baek Jun-ho: My optic gave up counting at two hundred.
Oh Sang-chul: They weren't here an hour ago. We came through here. My whole crew came through here.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: They're asleep. The rain on the roof covers our noise. We walk. We don't run. We don't touch anything.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Atlas. Your rig weighs half a ton and sounds like a garage door. Can you walk quietly?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: I can walk... slowly.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: That's not the same thing, is it?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: It is not.
[Picture: previous speaker]
They walk. Forty meters. Eighty. The rig's feet come down like someone setting a piano on the floor, over and over, as gently as possible.
Halfway down, Sang-chul stops.
Oh Sang-chul: ...That's his.
A yellow hard hat lies on its side by the drain. There's a name on the back in marker. NAM. The chin strap is snapped.
[Picture: hard hat]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Mr. Oh...
[Picture: hard hat]
Oh Sang-chul: He wrote his name on it the first day. I told him nobody steals hard hats. He said, boss, you don't know my luck.
[Picture: hard hat]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: There's no blood. The strap's snapped, not chewed. He dropped it running. That's a good sign, Mr. Oh. People who drop things are still moving.
[Picture: hard hat]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Sang-chul picks it up. He holds it against his chest with both arms, like it might get cold.
[Picture: hard hat]
Then Jae-min takes one step back to give him room, and his heel comes down on a squeegee.
[Picture: squeegee]
It's a very loud squeegee.
[Picture: squeegee]
Kwon Jae-min: ...
Baek Jun-ho: ...
[Picture: previous speaker]
Two hundred pairs of ears unfold at the same time.
[Picture: flicker]
[Picture: flicker]
[Picture: flicker]
[Picture: flicker]
[Picture: flicker]
Kwon Jae-min: Okay! New plan! Mr. Oh, does the wash still run?
Oh Sang-chul: With what power, genius? You watched me cut it!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Jun-ho! How much is in your power cell?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Enough to run my rig for... oh. Oh, that's good. Supervisor, where's the feed for the wash pumps?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Gray cabinet, under the panel! You can't be serious!
[Picture: wash panel]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Thirty seconds of juice, maybe forty. What cycle do you want?
[Picture: wash panel]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Cycle three. Roof and undercarriage, full pressure. It's the one that takes the paint off.
[Picture: wash panel]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Mr. Oh, I think I love you. Everyone in the middle of the track! Mudang, barrier up, all four of us!
[Picture: wash panel]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The roof lets go. Hundreds of bats come down out of the dark at once.
Jun-ho feeds the wash pumps off his own power cell. Sang-chul hits the green button.
Every gantry fires. The brushes spin to a blur and the jets knock the flock out of the air.
Inside Yeon-hwa's barrier, the water hammers from every side.
One bat gets in low under the edge, straight for Sang-chul.
Jae-min turns and cuts once, a hand's width from the old man's shoulder.
The pumps cough and die. The brushes roll to a stop. The shed drips.
What's left of the flock goes out the far end in a ragged cloud and doesn't come back.
Baek Jun-ho: Four minutes nose to tail, huh?
Oh Sang-chul: Told you. German.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Jae-min.
[Picture: soap bubbles]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Don't.
[Picture: soap bubbles]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Your hair.
[Picture: soap bubbles]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: I said don't.
[Picture: soap bubbles]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The immaculate undercut is gone. In its place is something flat and foamy that smells strongly of lemon.
[Picture: soap bubbles]
Baek Jun-ho: You look like a wet cat, man.
[Picture: soap bubbles]
Kwon Jae-min: I look like a squad leader who just cleared two hundred hostiles with a car wash. I look amazing.
[Picture: soap bubbles]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: You stepped on a squeegee, son.
[Picture: soap bubbles]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: That's not going in the report.
[Picture: soap bubbles]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: It's going in mine.
[Picture: soap bubbles]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Sang-chul is still holding the hard hat. He turns it over. Then, because he can't help it, he thumbs the radio on his chest one more time.
[Picture: radio]
Click. Nothing.
[Picture: radio]
Baek Jun-ho: Supervisor. How long's that radio been dead?
[Picture: radio]
Oh Sang-chul: Since the lights went. It's a good radio. I've had it eleven years.
[Picture: radio]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Can I see it?
[Picture: radio]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: It's dead, kid. It got wet, it took a knock. Dead's dead.
[Picture: radio]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Sir, with respect. A doctor said that about my legs once. Hand it over.
[Picture: radio]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 4. Dead Radio
Dead Radio — Chapter 4
Jun-ho sits the rig down against a gantry leg with a hiss of hydraulics. He works with the radio in his lap and a screwdriver that folds out of his own wrist.
[Picture: radio]
Baek Jun-ho: Eleven years old. Look at that, they don't even make this board any more. You kept the gasket greased, though. Nice.
[Picture: radio]
Oh Sang-chul: You take care of your tools. They take care of you.
[Picture: radio]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: See, that's what I keep telling these two.
[Picture: radio]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: He named his shotgun, Mr. Oh. Don't encourage him.
[Picture: radio]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: What's wrong with that? Every train in this yard's got a name. Not an official one.
[Picture: radio]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: What's the shotgun called?
[Picture: radio]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: ...We're not doing this right now.
[Picture: radio]
[Picture: previous speaker]
He pries the back off the radio. Water runs out.
[Picture: radio open]
Oh Sang-chul: That thing you said. About your legs.
[Picture: radio open]
Baek Jun-ho: Dormitory came down on me, second year of university. One of these nights, like tonight, except nobody came. I was under a stairwell for nineteen hours. After that the doctors had a lot of opinions about what I'd never do again.
[Picture: radio open]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: So you built that. Yourself.
[Picture: radio open]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: First one was mostly a forklift, yeah. You've got a good ear.
[Picture: radio open]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Nineteen hours. And now you go back into nights like this one on purpose.
[Picture: radio open]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Somebody's under a stairwell somewhere, supervisor. Every time. I just figure they shouldn't have to wait nineteen hours.
[Picture: radio open]
[Picture: previous speaker]
He pops a small power cell out of a slot in the rig's forearm, no bigger than a coin, and presses it into the radio.
[Picture: power cell]
Baek Jun-ho: Battery contact's corroded, that's all it ever was. Here. Try it.
[Picture: radio]
Sang-chul takes the radio in both hands. He doesn't press the button right away.
[Picture: radio]
Oh Sang-chul: ...If nobody answers...
[Picture: radio]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Then nobody answers, and we keep looking anyway. Press it, Mr. Oh.
[Picture: radio]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Click. This time there's a hiss.
[Picture: radio]
Oh Sang-chul: Gunja night crew, this is Oh. Anybody on this channel, answer me. Do-yun. Do-yun, it's the boss. Answer me, son.
[Picture: radio]
Hiss. Rain on the roof. Hiss.
Then a whisper, so quiet it's almost part of the static.
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ ...Boss? Boss, is that really you?
Oh Sang-chul: Do-yun! Where are you? Are you hurt?
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I'm in the signal tower. Top cabin. I did something to my ankle on the stairs, I can't put weight on it. Boss, I'm sorry, I know you said wash shed, I know, I just ran, I didn't think...
Oh Sang-chul: Shut up, you idiot, you're alive! You're alive. Stay where you are.
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I have to whisper. There's pigeons on the windows. Except they're not pigeons, boss, they're the size of my dog. They keep hitting the glass.
Kwon Jae-min: Carrionwings. Glass'll hold a while. Ask him what else.
Oh Sang-chul: What else, Do-yun? Anything inside with you?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ ...There's something on the stairs. I think it's a cat. I never hear it move. I never see it move. But every time the light flashes, it's one step higher up than it was.
Every time the light flashes, the thing on the stairs is one step higher.
It never moves while he is looking.
The last flash shows it on the step below the door, looking up.
Seo Yeon-hwa: A Gloomcat. They pick someone who's alone and hurt, and they wait. It won't rush him. It's not in a hurry.
SABLE THREAT FILE. GLOOMCAT. F rank, mutated from a stray cat. Completely silent. Picks someone alone and hurt, and only moves when nobody is looking at it.
[Picture: stamp F]
Oh Sang-chul: Do-yun, listen to me. Keep your eyes on that door. Don't look away from it, not even to blink if you can help it. We're coming.
Kwon Jae-min: ...
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: We are coming. Aren't we?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jae-min has his chalk out. He's looking at the yard map he redrew on his own sleeve. He isn't looking at anyone.
[Picture: chalk map]
Kwon Jae-min: The substation is on a clock. I don't know how long the clock is. If it goes, that's not one guy in a tower. That's the district, and everyone the eels reach after that.
Oh Sang-chul: He's twenty-four years old!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: I know how old he is! I can do both numbers, Mr. Oh, that's the whole problem! I'm the one who has to do both numbers!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Jae-min.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Don't. Don't do the voice. The tower's a detour. Every minute we spend on those stairs is a minute the substation...
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Then go. Go to your substation. Leave me a pipe wrench and point me at the tower. I went back for him once already tonight.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Jae-min. You've already decided what you're going to do. You decided the second you heard his voice. You're just angry about it, because it isn't the smart play.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: ...It's not the smart play.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: No. It's the right one. You make those sometimes. It's why we follow you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jae-min breathes out. He rubs the chalk map off his sleeve with his thumb and starts a new one.
[Picture: chalk]
Kwon Jae-min: Okay. Fine. Tower first. But somebody give me one tactical reason so I can write it down and feel better.
[Picture: chalk]
Oh Sang-chul: The substation door's a Metro high-voltage lock. I don't carry that key. Nobody does. It lives in the key cabinet in the tower cabin.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jae-min stares at him.
Kwon Jae-min: ...You couldn't have led with that?
Oh Sang-chul: You didn't ask, kid. You were busy doing numbers.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: I like him. Can we keep him?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Fastest way to the tower, Mr. Oh. Not the safest. The fastest.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: ...Under. The inspection pits connect to the storm drain, and the drain comes up right at the foot of the tower. Ninety seconds, if it's clear.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: The pits. Where the rats went.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: You said fastest.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: I'll wake the guardian.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 5. Under the Yard
Under the Yard — Chapter 5
The pit is a concrete trench under a parked train, and tonight it's knee-deep in rainwater. The train's belly is the ceiling. Jun-ho has to walk the rig bent over like a man in an attic.
Baek Jun-ho: If I get stuck down here, I want it on record that this was the fast way.
Oh Sang-chul: Straight on to the culvert, then left at the second grate. Watch the rung on that ladder, it's been loose since March.
[Picture: slip ladder]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: You've got a loose rung memorized?
[Picture: slip ladder]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: I filed the repair slip. Twice.
[Picture: slip ladder]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yeon-hwa is last in. She stops on the ladder with one boot above the water, and doesn't put it down.
Kwon Jae-min: Yeon-hwa. Clock.
Seo Yeon-hwa: I don't like it. Running water's clean. Standing water remembers things.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Is that a shaman thing, or a you thing?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: ...I fell in a reservoir when I was six. It's a me thing.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Then hold onto my coat. Just don't smudge the diagrams.
[Picture: previous speaker]
She steps down. The Haetae Guardian pads ahead through the water without making a ripple, and its light goes before them down the pit.
[Picture: haetae guardian side]
That's how they see the eyes. Two of them, amber, just above the surface, a long way back by the culvert mouth.
[Picture: amber eyes]
Baek Jun-ho: Contact. Something's sitting in the water.
[Picture: amber eyes]
Kwon Jae-min: Low, wide, not moving... Mudmaw. It's a frog the size of a barrel. It doesn't chase. It just sits there with its mouth shut until you're in range, and then...
[Picture: amber eyes]
[Picture: previous speaker]
SABLE THREAT FILE. MUDMAW. F rank, mutated from a bullfrog. Sits in standing water with its mouth shut until you are in range of the tongue.
[Picture: stamp F]
Oh Sang-chul: In range of what?
Far down the flooded pit, the frog's mouth opens.
The tongue crosses the whole trench and takes Sang-chul by the ankle. He goes under.
Jae-min cuts it a meter from the boot, and the frog sinks back into the dark.
Oh Sang-chul: It had my leg! It had my whole leg!
Kwon Jae-min: It had your boot. You've still got the leg, I checked. You okay?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: I'm soaked, I'm fifty-eight and a frog just tried to eat me! No, I'm not okay!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: That's the spirit. Keep moving.
[Picture: previous speaker]
They're twenty meters from the culvert when the sound starts behind them. Gravel in a grinder. A lot of gravel.
[Picture: rat eyes]
Baek Jun-ho: Rats! Behind us, coming down the pit! All of them, Jae-min, it's all of them!
[Picture: rat eyes]
Kwon Jae-min: Atlas, can you turn around?
[Picture: rat eyes]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: In here? I can barely stand up!
[Picture: rat eyes]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Then don't. Keep going, get Mr. Oh to the culvert. Mudang...
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: I know. He's already turning.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The guardian turns to face the way they came and fills the pit wall to wall.
The rats hit it like water on a rock. It does not give a step.
Behind it, Yeon-hwa keeps chanting, and her nose starts to bleed.
Seo Yeon-hwa: Guardian. Nothing passes.
The guardian holds. But every rat that hits it takes a little of its light away, and there are a lot of rats.
[Picture: haetae guardian front]
[Picture: gnashrat charge]
[Picture: gnashrat charge]
[Picture: gnashrat rear]
Kwon Jae-min: Yeon-hwa, your nose is bleeding.
Seo Yeon-hwa: I'm aware.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Let him go. Pull him back, we'll run for it!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: He isn't a wall I put up, Jae-min! He's holding because I asked him to! I'm not dropping him in the middle of it!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: ...The drain valve.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: The what?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: The pit drain! That wheel in the wall, right there! It dumps this whole pit line into the storm sewer. We open it after every big rain. Everything in the water goes with it!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Everything. Including us?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Not if you're on a ladder! Big man, I can't turn that wheel, it's been seized since the spring!
[Picture: slip valve]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Let me guess. You filed a slip.
[Picture: slip valve]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Twice!
[Picture: slip valve]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jun-ho puts both hands on the seized valve and tears it loose.
The pit empties in one rush. The whole swarm goes with the water, down into the drain.
The guardian stands in the current until the last rat is gone, then comes apart into sparks.
The pit drains to the ankles. It's quiet enough to hear the sparks go out.
[Picture: blue sparks]
Oh Sang-chul: Your lion. Is he...
Seo Yeon-hwa: He's not gone. He's just tired.
[Picture: previous speaker]
She wipes her nose on her sleeve and looks at the blood like it belongs to somebody else.
Seo Yeon-hwa: ...I'm just tired.
Baek Jun-ho: Sit for ten seconds. I mean it. The rig'll carry your pack.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: The rig is already carrying my pack, Jun-ho.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Then it'll carry it harder.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Sang-chul clears his throat. He's looking at the place where the guardian stood.
Oh Sang-chul: When he comes back. Tell your lion I said thanks.
Seo Yeon-hwa: You can tell him yourself. He heard you the first time.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Mr. Oh. That valve. That was a good call. We'd have lost that fight.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: It's a drain, kid. I opened a drain.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Yeah. And I won a fight with a car wash. Take the win. We don't get that many.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Boss? Boss, it's on the landing. It's right outside the door. I can see it through the glass. It's just sitting there looking at me.
Oh Sang-chul: Eyes on it, son. Don't you blink. We're right underneath you.
Chapter 6. Signal Tower
Signal Tower — Chapter 6
The storm drain comes up at the foot of the signal tower, just like he said. Five flights of steel stairs, a door at the top, and a stairwell exactly one Jun-ho too narrow.
Baek Jun-ho: I don't fit.
Kwon Jae-min: Try sideways.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: I did try sideways. I've scraped the paint. I don't fit, Jae-min.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Okay. Atlas holds the door down here. Nothing follows us up. Mudang, Mr. Oh and me on the stairs. And we've got no guardian.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: We have something. Look.
[Picture: previous speaker]
They come drifting down the stairwell on their own. Little knots of cold blue light, a dozen of them, bobbing at about the height of a reading lamp.
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
Oh Sang-chul: What are those? Do we shoot those?
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
Seo Yeon-hwa: No, no. Wisplings. They're harmless. They gather where old things pool, and he was just here, so they came to see. They like him.
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: previous speaker]
SABLE THREAT FILE. WISPLING. F rank, arcane. Harmless. Gathers where old power pools. Goes dim when something dangerous is close.
[Picture: stamp F]
Kwon Jae-min: They're not from the rats-and-eels side of tonight, are they?
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
Seo Yeon-hwa: No. They're from my side. They're shy. They go dim when something dangerous is close.
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: ...They go dim when something dangerous is close.
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: That's what I said.
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Yeon-hwa, that's not a superstition. That's a motion tracker. Everybody watch the lights.
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: previous speaker]
They climb. One flight. Two. The Wisplings bob along beside them like they've been invited.
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
Oh Sang-chul: The kid said it never moves when you look at it.
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
Kwon Jae-min: Then we look everywhere. Mr. Oh, you watch down. Yeon-hwa, up. I've got the middle.
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Third landing. Fourth. Nothing on the stairs. Nothing on the landings. The door at the top is shut, and behind its little window is a pale, terrified face.
[Picture: character Nam Do yun afraid]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
Oh Sang-chul: Do-yun! There he is. There's nothing here, kid, it must've...
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Jae-min. The lights.
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: wispling]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The Wisplings are going out. Not the ones above them. The ones behind them. One by one, down the stairs they just climbed.
[Picture: wispling]
Nobody was watching the ceiling.
[Picture: gloomcat]
The lights on the stairs go out behind them, one by one.
It was above them the whole time. It drops.
Jae-min shoves Sang-chul into the railing and drives the glaive straight up. The lights come back on.
Kwon Jae-min: ...
Kwon Jae-min: Is it dead? Somebody tell me it's dead, I don't want to look at it.
Seo Yeon-hwa: It's dead. The lights came back.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: It was over my head. The whole time. It was right over my head.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Yeah, well. It picks the one who's alone and hurt. You're not either one. It picked wrong.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The cabin door opens from the inside. Nam Do-yun is twenty-four, his vest is a size too big, and he's holding a fire extinguisher like a baseball bat.
[Picture: extinguisher]
Nam Do-yun: Boss?
[Picture: extinguisher]
Oh Sang-chul: ...
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Your gloves are on the wrong hands.
[Picture: gloves]
Nam Do-yun: What? I...
[Picture: gloves]
[Picture: previous speaker]
He looks down. They are.
[Picture: gloves]
Nam Do-yun: ...Oh, come on.
[Picture: gloves]
And then he's laughing, and then he isn't laughing, and Sang-chul has him by the back of the neck with one hand and is holding on like the kid might blow away.
Oh Sang-chul: I counted heads. I counted heads and you weren't there.
Nam Do-yun: I'm sorry, boss. I'm sorry. I just ran.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: You ran up, you idiot. Everyone else ran out. Who runs up?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Do-yun: It seemed smart at the time! High ground!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: He's not wrong, actually. High ground's a solid instinct.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Don't you encourage him.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Sang-chul pulls the yellow hard hat out from under his jacket, where it's been since the wash shed, and jams it down onto Do-yun's head.
[Picture: hard hat]
Oh Sang-chul: Nobody steals hard hats. But you do drop them.
[Picture: hard hat]
Something heavy hits the window. Then again. The glass has a long crack in it that wasn't there a minute ago.
[Picture: cracked glass]
Seo Yeon-hwa: The Carrionwings. They know the door opened.
[Picture: cracked glass]
SABLE THREAT FILE. CARRIONWING. F rank, mutated from a city pigeon. Dog-sized. Attacks as a darting flock that pecks and retreats. Glass only holds for a while.
[Picture: stamp F]
Kwon Jae-min: Mr. Oh, key cabinet. Yeon-hwa, look at his ankle. Do-yun, tell me what you've seen from up here. You've had the best seat in the house all night.
Nam Do-yun: Who are you people?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Power company.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Do-yun: ...Okay. Sure. Well, power company, you need to look out that window. South side. I thought I was going crazy.
[Picture: previous speaker]
From up here the whole yard is laid out like Jae-min's chalk map. The inspection shed, its doors hung with gray web. The substation past it, pulsing like a heartbeat. And in the middle of it all, one train with its cab lights on.
Oh Sang-chul: That's set five-fourteen. She was powered down at midnight. I did it myself.
Nam Do-yun: It's been creeping, boss. A meter at a time. There's nobody in the cab. I've been watching it for an hour and there's nobody in the cab.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Look at the roof. The glow on the pantograph. That's the second Voltcoil. It's not drinking from the wire. It's feeding the train.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Feeding it... It's driving her.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Where does that track go, Mr. Oh?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Sang-chul doesn't answer straight away. He's gone gray.
Oh Sang-chul: The portal. It's the running line out of the yard. Through the portal you're on Line 5. Gunja station is four minutes. Then Achasan. Then Gwangnaru. All the way under the city, and every meter of it has live wire over it.
Seo Yeon-hwa: It's not trying to escape. It's going where the food is.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Do-yun: Boss, first service is at five-thirty. There'll be people on those platforms.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Nobody drives my trains out of this yard but my drivers. Nobody. Here. High-voltage master. That's the substation.
[Picture: hv key]
[Picture: previous speaker]
He holds up a single long key on a red tag.
[Picture: hv key]
The window goes. A Carrionwing comes through it in a spray of glass.
Do-yun falls back into the chair with his hard hat over his face.
Jae-min throws once from across the cabin and pins the bird to the key cabinet.
Nam Do-yun: Power company?!
Kwon Jae-min: We're a very hands-on power company.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Do-yun, you can't walk, so you're not coming. But you've got the high ground and you've got a radio. You're our eyes. You watch that train and you call every move it makes. Can you do that?
Nam Do-yun: ...Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: I've salted the door and the window frame. Don't step on it. And keep the javelin.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: And fix your gloves.
[Picture: gloves]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Okay, everyone. New win condition. We still kill the substation. And now we stop a train.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 7. The Spider Shed
The Spider Shed — Chapter 7
The inspection shed is where trains go to be taken apart. Two cars are up on jacks with their wheels off. A yellow bridge crane spans the hall, and a wheel bogie hangs from its hook on chains, four tons of steel, left there by the day shift.
And strung through all of it, from the floor to the roof, thin gray lines. Hundreds of them.
[Picture: web strands]
Baek Jun-ho: That's a lot of web. I could just walk through it. The rig's pretty good at walking through things.
[Picture: web strands]
Kwon Jae-min: Don't. Look at the heights. Ankle. Waist. Head. Ankle. Waist. Head. That's not a web for catching flies. It's a tripwire grid. Every line runs up into the roof.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: To what?
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Webtyrant. Spider about the size of a delivery truck. It doesn't hunt. It sits up top with a foot on every line, and the second one twitches, it knows exactly where you are. It's playing tower defense.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: previous speaker]
SABLE THREAT FILE. WEBTYRANT. C rank, mutated from a house spider. Car-sized. Strings a whole building with tripwire and waits above with a foot on every line.
[Picture: stamp C]
Oh Sang-chul: I've got a thing about spiders.
[Picture: web strands]
Baek Jun-ho: Everyone's got a thing about spiders that size, supervisor.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Boss, five-fourteen just rolled past signal seven. It's still slow. But it's not stopping any more.
[Picture: web strands]
Kwon Jae-min: So we can't go around, and we can't sneak. It owns the map. Fine. When the other guy owns the map, you make him come to you.
[Picture: web strands]
He looks up at the crane. At the bogie on its chains. At the patch of bare floor directly under it.
[Picture: web strands]
Kwon Jae-min: Mr. Oh. Tell me you know how to drive that crane.
[Picture: web strands]
Oh Sang-chul: Twenty years. But it's dead, kid, everything's dead.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: I've got maybe fifteen percent left in the cell after the wash. A crane that size... I can give you one move. Up, down, or along. Not two.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: I only need down. There's an emergency release on the pendant. It just lets go.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: crane pendant]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Then here's the play. Atlas powers the crane. Mr. Oh's on the pendant. Mudang, I need the guardian back, and I need him right there, under the hook, looking delicious.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: crane pendant]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: He is not bait.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: He's not the bait. He's the wall at the end of the run. I'm the bait.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: ...What?
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: I'm going to go trip every wire in the building.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Jae-min, that's the worst plan you've ever had.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: It's top five. Yeon-hwa. Can you bring him back?
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: previous speaker]
She closes her eyes. She's pale, and the chant comes slower than it did at midnight. For a long moment nothing answers.
[Picture: web strands]
Then a small light. It's the haetae, but it's the size of a house cat, and it looks embarrassed about it.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: haetae guardian front]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Oh. Oh, you poor thing. That's all right. That's fine. You're here.
[Picture: web strands]
Oh Sang-chul: Hey. Lion.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The little guardian turns its horned head.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: haetae guardian 3q]
Oh Sang-chul: ...Thanks. For the pit.
[Picture: web strands]
It gets a little bigger. Not a lot. About a dog's worth.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: haetae guardian front]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Told you he heard you.
[Picture: web strands]
Kwon Jae-min: Dog-sized works. Places, everybody. Mr. Oh, don't drop it till I say. Not when it looks right. When I say.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: crane pendant]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: And if you can't say?
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: crane pendant]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Then drop it when it looks right.
[Picture: web strands]
[Picture: crane pendant]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jae-min runs the length of the hall and cuts every line he passes.
High in the roof, something with too many eyes turns to look.
The Webtyrant comes down on one thick strand and lands behind him, faster than anything that size should be.
Jae-min slides past the guardian and out the other side.
The spider rears over the small guardian, all eight legs up.
Sang-chul hits the release. Four tons of steel come down.
Kwon Jae-min: Now! Now, now, now!
Dust. One of the long legs twitches, and stops.
[Picture: dust cloud]
Kwon Jae-min: ...Ha. Ha! Did you see that? Tell me somebody saw that!
Oh Sang-chul: I dropped a bogie on it. I dropped a whole bogie on it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: You dropped it perfectly! Mr. Oh, that was frame perfect!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: That's coming out of my maintenance budget.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Jae-min, get up. Get up now, it isn't...
[Picture: previous speaker]
It isn't. One leg, the last one working, sweeps across the floor like a scythe, straight at the old man with the pendant in his hands.
[Picture: webtyrant]
One leg is still working. It sweeps at Sang-chul like a scythe.
Jun-ho takes it on the rig instead. The knee joint folds with a shriek of metal.
One shot into the base of the leg, and it goes still.
Oh Sang-chul: Kid! Your leg!
Baek Jun-ho: It's not my leg, supervisor. It's the rig's leg. Mine are fine. Well. Mine are the same as always.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Jun-ho. Status. Honest status.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Left knee's gone. I can walk. I can't run. And I definitely can't jump onto anything.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: ...
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Boss! Boss, it's past signal nine! It's not creeping any more, it's rolling! It's picking up speed!
Through the shed's far doors they can see it. Set five-fourteen, cab lights on, rolling down the running line with a blue star burning on its roof.
The substation is to the left. The train is to the right.
Jae-min looks at one. Then the other. Then at his team.
Kwon Jae-min: ...I hate this. I already hate this.
Chapter 8. Split the Party
Split the Party — Chapter 8
Rain again. Set five-fourteen rolls past the end of the shed at a jogging pace, tail lights red, a Voltcoil burning blue on its roof. It's getting faster.
[Picture: rain]
Kwon Jae-min: Two objectives. Opposite directions. One of them's moving. And our tank's got one knee.
[Picture: rain]
Baek Jun-ho: Say it, Jae-min.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: I'm not saying it.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: You have to split us. I can't catch a train. I can make the substation. It's two hundred meters and nothing there's running away from me.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: I don't split teams! That's the first rule! You split up, somebody's alone when it goes wrong, and then you spend the rest of your life doing the math on how you'd have...
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
He stops. It's the most he's said about it in two years, and everyone there knows it.
[Picture: rain]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Jae-min. Who was it?
[Picture: rain]
Kwon Jae-min: ...Nobody. It hasn't happened. That's the point. It hasn't happened yet, and it's not going to happen tonight.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Then it won't. Hey. Look at me. You're not losing anybody. You're just putting us where we win. That's the job. You're really good at the job.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: He won't be alone, kid. I'm going with him.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Mr. Oh, no. The substation's the most dangerous place in the...
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: It's my substation. It's my key. And I'm the only one here who knows which breaker is the master, because the labels fell off in sixty-eight and I never filed the slip. I'm going.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: You didn't file the slip?
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: I was busy.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jae-min looks at the old man for a long second. Then he nods, once.
[Picture: rain]
Kwon Jae-min: Okay. Atlas and Mr. Oh, substation. Kill the power. Mudang and me, the train. Do-yun calls it for both teams. Nobody's a hero. Everybody checks in.
[Picture: rain]
Oh Sang-chul: Listen, both of you. Rear cab of five-fourteen. There's an emergency door release under the step, yellow handle, pull it toward you. Inside, the brake is the big red button on the desk. You can't miss it.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: brake button]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Yellow handle, red button. Got it.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: brake button]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Kid. If that eel's feeding the motors, the brake alone won't hold her. It'll slow her. It won't stop her. You have to get that thing off my train.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Getting things off trains. Sure. Did it twice last week.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: He did not.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Go catch your train, boss.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: ...Don't die. Either of you. That's an order, and I'm going to check.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The train is pulling away from them.
The guardian gets under Yeon-hwa and throws her up onto the rear step.
She catches Jae-min by the wrist and hauls him up after her.
The rear cab door is welded shut by an arc strike. That leaves the ladder.
[Picture: rain]
On top of a moving train, in the rain, the wind has opinions. At the far end of the roof the Voltcoil is wrapped around the pantograph, as bright as a welder's torch.
[Picture: rain]
Kwon Jae-min: Stay low. The wire over our heads is live on this line. Do not stand up straight. Do not raise the glaive.
[Picture: rain]
Seo Yeon-hwa: You're telling me not to stand up on top of a train. Thank you, Jae-min. I was about to do cartwheels.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: You get sarcastic when you're scared. I like it. Five cars to the front. Let's go.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Train team, this is, uh, this is tower. You've got birds. A lot of birds. They're coming off the gantries behind you. All of them.
[Picture: rain]
The Sparkravens have been waiting all night for something to be out in the open. Thirty of them peel off the gantries and fall in behind the train like gulls behind a fishing boat.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: sparkraven flying]
[Picture: sparkraven flying]
[Picture: sparkraven dive]
[Picture: sparkraven flying]
Kwon Jae-min: I can't swing up here. If I raise the blade, I touch the wire.
[Picture: rain]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Then don't swing. Stay behind me. Both of you, stay behind me.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Both of... Yeon-hwa, he's the size of a spaniel!
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: He's the size he needs to be.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Yeon-hwa puts her hand flat on the roof and the barrier comes up around them.
The flock breaks on it. And with every bird that hits, the guardian gets bigger.
By the time the last bird wheels away, the haetae is the size it was made to be.
Kwon Jae-min: He got bigger. Why did he get bigger?
[Picture: rain]
Seo Yeon-hwa: The haetae guards against fire and disaster. That's what he's for. The worse it gets, the more of him there is.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: So he scales with the threat. That's... actually a really strong passive. Why didn't you ever tell me that?
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: I did. In March. You said it was a superstition.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: ...I'm going to start writing those down.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Train team! You're past signal eleven! That's two minutes to the portal, maybe less!
[Picture: rain]
Kwon Jae-min: Copy. Substation team, how are we looking?
[Picture: rain]
Static. Then Jun-ho's voice, very calm, the way it only gets when things are very bad.
[Picture: rain]
Baek Jun-ho: ◉ ▂▄▆█ We're at the fence. The other eel's here. Jae-min, it's been eating all night. It's big. I'll call you back.
[Picture: rain]
Kwon Jae-min: Jun-ho? Jun-ho!
[Picture: rain]
Nothing. At the front of the train, the Voltcoil on the pantograph lifts its blunt head off the wire. It turns. It looks down the length of the roof at the two of them.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: electric arcs]
Seo Yeon-hwa: It knows we're here.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: electric arcs]
Kwon Jae-min: Yeah. And it's between us and the brake.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 9. Thirty Years
Thirty Years — Chapter 9
The substation hums so loud it's in their teeth. The second Voltcoil has threaded itself through the fins of the biggest transformer and spent the night drinking. It was four meters long at midnight. It isn't any more.
[Picture: electric arcs]
Baek Jun-ho: Okay. That's bigger than the file says they get.
[Picture: electric arcs]
Oh Sang-chul: That's transformer two. That's the whole east side of the district going into that thing's belly.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Where's the breaker, supervisor?
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Switch room. The steel door, there. Fifteen meters of open ground. And you see those arcs jumping off the insulators? Anything that walks across that yard is the tallest thing in it.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Not if something taller's standing next to it.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: ...Kid.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: The rig's half a ton of steel and it's grounded through the feet. I walk out first and plant it. The arcs come to me, not you. You walk behind me, you open the door, you throw the switch.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: And what happens to the boy inside the half a ton of steel?
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: The cockpit's insulated. Mostly. I built it myself.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Out of a forklift!
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Out of a really good forklift.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
He says it lightly. Then he stops smiling.
[Picture: electric arcs]
Baek Jun-ho: Supervisor. I'm the wall. That's what I do on this team, it's the only thing I do, and I'm good at it. Let me be good at it. You be good at the door.
[Picture: electric arcs]
Sang-chul looks at the red-tagged key in his hand. His hand is shaking again, worse than at the junction box.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: hv key]
Oh Sang-chul: I'm not like you three. I hide behind train wheels. I've been hiding all night.
[Picture: electric arcs]
Baek Jun-ho: You called the arc pattern. You ran the wash. You opened the drain. You dropped a bogie on a spider. When exactly were you hiding? I must've missed it.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: ...
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: On three. I'll even count slow.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jun-ho walks the rig out onto the open ground on a broken knee and plants it.
The big eel lifts its head, and the arc comes across to the shield and stays there.
In the rig's shadow, Sang-chul runs for the door with the key in his fist.
The door. The lock. The key goes everywhere except into it.
[Picture: hv key]
Oh Sang-chul: Come on. Come on, not now, come on...
[Picture: hv key]
Baek Jun-ho: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Supervisor. Talk to me. What was the first train you ever worked on?
[Picture: hv key]
Oh Sang-chul: What? Kid, this isn't...
[Picture: hv key]
Baek Jun-ho: ◉ ▂▄▆█ First train. I'm getting hit by lightning here. Humor me.
[Picture: hv key]
Oh Sang-chul: ...Set three-oh-one. I was nineteen. I walked the track in front of her with a lamp, five in the morning, checking the rail. The driver flashed his lights at me when I gave the all clear. First time anybody ever thanked me for anything.
[Picture: hand lamp]
The key slides home. He didn't even notice it happen.
[Picture: hv key]
Baek Jun-ho: ◉ ▂▄▆█ There you go.
Inside the switch room there is a wall of breakers, none of them labeled, and one big handle at the end, painted red under thirty years of dust.
[Picture: breaker handle]
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Boss, the train's at signal twelve! Boss, if you're going to do something, it has to be now!
[Picture: breaker handle]
Baek Jun-ho: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Supervisor. The shield's glowing. Not a complaint. Just an update.
[Picture: breaker handle]
Sang-chul puts both hands on the master breaker. They're steady. They've been steady since the key went in.
[Picture: breaker handle]
Oh Sang-chul: Thirty years. Nobody drives my trains but my drivers.
[Picture: breaker handle]
Thirty years, and he finally gets to throw the big red one.
The arc snaps off. The eel flares white along its whole length, once, and goes dark.
The yard goes out section by section. The only light left is the shield, glowing orange.
Dark. Real dark, for the first time tonight. Just rain.
[Picture: rain]
Oh Sang-chul: Kid? Hey. Hey! Big man, answer me!
[Picture: rain]
Nothing.
[Picture: rain]
Oh Sang-chul: Jun-ho!
[Picture: rain]
Baek Jun-ho: ...I can't feel my legs.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Oh no. Oh no, no, no...
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: No, wait, sorry, that's normal. That came out wrong. That's just the rig rebooting. It does that. Give it thirty seconds.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: You... I'm fifty-eight years old! You can't say things like that to a man who's fifty-eight years old!
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Sorry, supervisor. You did it, though. Listen. No hum.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Sang-chul listens. His yard is quiet. He sits down in the wet gravel next to the dead rig, puts his back against its leg, and laughs until it turns into something else.
[Picture: rain]
Oh Sang-chul: Thirty years, and I finally got to throw the big red one.
[Picture: rain]
Baek Jun-ho: How was it?
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Heavier than it looks.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The radio crackles.
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Boss? Boss, the whole yard just went dark. I can't see anything. Did you do that?
Oh Sang-chul: We did that, son. It's over. Wire's dead, the train's got nothing to run on.
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ ...Boss. I can still see its lights.
Sang-chul stops laughing.
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ The train's still moving, boss. It's dark everywhere and the train's still moving.
Baek Jun-ho: It doesn't need the wire. It's been drinking all night too. It's a battery. Supervisor, it's running her off what it's already got.
Oh Sang-chul: How far will that take it?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Baek Jun-ho: Far enough to find more.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Out in the black yard, one small set of lights slides toward the portal. There's nothing either of them can do about it from here.
Oh Sang-chul: Give me your radio. Jae-min! Kid, can you hear me? It's all on you now. Get that thing off my train!
Chapter 10. First Train
First Train — Chapter 10
The wire overhead goes dead. Every light in the yard goes with it. For one second the only bright thing left in Gunja is the Voltcoil on the front of the train.
Kwon Jae-min: They did it! Jun-ho, you beautiful forklift, they did it! Wire's dead, I can stand up!
Seo Yeon-hwa: Jae-min. We're not slowing down.
[Picture: previous speaker]
They aren't. The Voltcoil has let go of the dead wire. It doesn't need it. It pours itself off the pantograph, glowing like a filament, and goes in through the roof hatch of the front cab.
Oh Sang-chul: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Jae-min! Kid, can you hear me? It's all on you now. Get that thing off my train!
Kwon Jae-min: Loud and clear, Mr. Oh. Mudang, front cab. Run!
They drop through the bent hatch into the driver's cab. The Voltcoil is already there, wound around the driver's desk and down into the floor, and everywhere it touches metal, the train obeys it.
[Picture: electric arcs]
Through the windshield, the tunnel portal. Black, and getting bigger.
[Picture: electric arcs]
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Train team, you're at signal fourteen! That's the last one! That's forty seconds!
[Picture: electric arcs]
Kwon Jae-min: Red button!
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: brake button]
He slams it with his whole forearm. The brakes scream. The train shudders, slows, and keeps going.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: brake button]
Kwon Jae-min: He said it wouldn't hold. He said it, and I still hoped. Okay. Okay, think. It's a battery. It's running the motors through the frame. I can't cut it, the blade's a conductor, I touch it with the glaive and I'm charcoal...
[Picture: electric arcs]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Jae-min.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: I can't pull it off. I can't shoot it. If I had Jun-ho, if I had one more...
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Jae-min. My grandmother said the haetae eats fire.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: ...What?
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: That's why they put them at the palace gates. He guards against fire and disaster, because he eats it. I told you that, too. In March.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The guardian is already looking at the eel. It's the biggest it has ever been. Its horns brush the cab roof.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: haetae guardian front]
Kwon Jae-min: That's fire. That's lightning. That's a whole night of the east grid inside an eel. Yeon-hwa, if that's more than he can swallow...
[Picture: electric arcs]
Seo Yeon-hwa: I know what happens. So does he.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: previous speaker]
She puts her hand on the guardian's flank. It leans into her, once, the way a dog does.
[Picture: electric arcs]
[Picture: haetae guardian side]
Seo Yeon-hwa: He's not doing it because I'm telling him to. He's doing it because there are people on those platforms. That's what he is. Let's find out about lightning.
[Picture: electric arcs]
The guardian takes the eel just behind the head.
The charge goes down its throat instead of through it. It burns brighter and brighter, white at the core.
Yeon-hwa keeps her hands up and does not look away.
Seo Yeon-hwa: Guardian. Eat.
The guardian pins the eel to the floor.
Jae-min puts the glaive through it, into the frame of the train, and the last of the charge is gone in one flash.
Same motion. Red button. The portal stops in the windshield.
Kwon Jae-min: Hold it, hold it... Now!
Set five-fourteen stops with her nose four meters from the portal. The rain is giving up. Somewhere behind the yard, the sky has started to go gray.
Nam Do-yun: ◉ ▂▄▆█ It stopped! Boss, it stopped! It stopped, it stopped, it stopped!
Oh Sang-chul: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I can hear you, son, the whole city can hear you.
Baek Jun-ho: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Train team, check in. Jae-min, you said you'd check. Check.
Kwon Jae-min: ...Train team's here. We're both here. Everybody's here.
He sits down on the cab step in the drizzle. Then he notices Yeon-hwa isn't celebrating.
The guardian is standing on the track in front of the train. It's far too bright, and it's coming apart at the edges, the way a sparkler does.
[Picture: blue sparks]
[Picture: haetae guardian front]
Kwon Jae-min: Yeon-hwa...
[Picture: blue sparks]
Seo Yeon-hwa: He ate too much. He can't keep this shape. It's all right. It's all right, you did so well. You did so well.
[Picture: blue sparks]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The guardian lowers its horned head to her, all the way to the ground. Then it turns, and does the same thing toward the dark yard behind them, toward a substation it can't see.
[Picture: blue sparks]
[Picture: haetae guardian 3q]
The haetae bows its head to her, all the way to the ground.
Then it comes apart, tail first, into a thousand small lights that drift up past the wires.
One of them settles in her open hand and stays lit.
Kwon Jae-min: Is he...
Seo Yeon-hwa: Tired. Very, very tired. He'll want a week. And offerings. Good ones, Jae-min, not convenience store rice cakes.
[Picture: rice cakes]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: He can have whatever he wants. I'll expense it.
[Picture: rice cakes]
[Picture: previous speaker]
He's quiet for a second.
Kwon Jae-min: ...Yeon-hwa. I was scared. The whole time. Since the first rat.
Seo Yeon-hwa: We know.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: You know?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: Jun-ho and I have always known. You chalk faster when you're scared. It's fine. You're scared and you call the play anyway. That's the only kind of leader I'd follow onto the roof of a train.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The fence opens at ten past five. The relief team finally comes in, twelve minutes turned into three hours, and finds there's nothing left to relieve.
Captain Yoon Tae-sik: HAETAE. You look terrible.
Kwon Jae-min: Captain. You're late.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Captain Yoon Tae-sik: I had forty rats and a fence. You had the rest of it. I read the tower kid's radio log. A car wash, Gambit?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: Cycle three. It takes the paint off.
[Picture: wash panel]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jun-ho comes through the gate on foot, the rig limping behind him on a tow strap like a tired horse. Do-yun rides on its shoulder with his ankle strapped and his hard hat on straight.
[Picture: character Nam Do yun happy]
Captain Yoon Tae-sik: Mr. Oh. There are some papers. Tonight was a grid failure. A transformer fault at the depot, a blackout across Gwangjin, no injuries. You and your crew sat it out in the break room. I need you to be comfortable saying that. For a long time.
[Picture: statement]
Sang-chul looks back at his yard. The trains sit in their rows. Set five-fourteen is a small silver shape down by the portal, pointed at the city, going nowhere.
[Picture: statement]
Oh Sang-chul: It was a blackout. I fell asleep at my desk. The kid here can tell you, I do it all the time.
[Picture: statement]
Nam Do-yun: He snores, sir. It's in my statement.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Captain Yoon Tae-sik: Good enough.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Sang-chul unclips something from his key ring and holds it out to Jun-ho.
[Picture: bay key]
Oh Sang-chul: Maintenance bay three. It's got a wheel lathe, a press, and every hand tool Metro ever bought. Nobody's in there Sundays. Come and fix that forklift properly.
[Picture: bay key]
Baek Jun-ho: Supervisor, I can't take your...
[Picture: bay key]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: It's a loan, not a present. And you. Girl. There's a shrine lady up past Achasan my wife goes to. I'm going to have her burn something for your lion. Does he have a name?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seo Yeon-hwa: He does. He'll tell you himself next time.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: Next time. Let's not have a next time.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: ...And you, kid.
Kwon Jae-min: Mr. Oh.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: You came back for my last man. You didn't have to. I know what the numbers said.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: The numbers were wrong. There was a key in the tower.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Oh Sang-chul: You didn't know that when you decided.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Kwon Jae-min: ...No. I didn't.
[Picture: previous speaker]
On Sang-chul's chest, the eleven-year-old radio crackles. It isn't Do-yun. It's a voice from outside the fence, and then another, and another, all talking over each other.
[Picture: radio]
◉ ▂▄▆█ Boss? Boss, it's Kim, the lights are back on, are you there? Is that him? Give me that. Boss! We've been calling all night! Did you find Do-yun? Boss, pick up!
[Picture: radio]
Six voices. He counts them. He counts them twice.
[Picture: radio]
Then Oh Sang-chul, night supervisor, Gunja depot, thirty years, presses the button.
[Picture: radio]
Oh Sang-chul: This is Oh. All heads accounted for. First service goes out at five-thirty, same as always. Somebody put the kettle on.
[Picture: radio]
