While everyone inside the escape pod port was imagining every possible negative scenario, from getting shot in one leg to being shot in both, the door to the Cheongnyong-dong escape pod port opened far sooner than expected.
It seemed to take less than five minutes. Seo Jihyeok came trudging out of the entrance to the escape pod port. The moment I confirmed who it was, I had no choice but to look at his legs first. Just as I let out a heavy sigh of relief, Seo Jihyeok, without so much as a scratch on him, looked around at everyone and said,
“Everything okay? There’s nobody inside. Come on in.”
After giving a casual nod toward the inside of the escape pod port, Seo Jihyeok quickly approached Lee Jihyeon. Lee Jihyeon, who had the butt firmly pressed against her shoulder, her cheek against the gun, and was aiming down the corridor, let out a deep breath without changing her stance. The moment Seo Jihyeok placed a hand on her shoulder, her posture collapsed in an instant. As Seo Jihyeok accepted the gun from her, he asked,
“How was it? Wasn’t too scary? Is that stance more comfortable than low ready?”
“······Yeah.”
“Wow. You’re brave.”
“It was really scary.”
Seo Jihyeok grinned at her honest reply and said,
“You held out well. The gun’s heavy, right? Aren’t your arms sore?”
“······Responsibility is heavier than the gun.”
“You did well. Our Jihyeon protected everyone here today. See you later.”
Then Seo Jihyeok lightly tapped Lee Jihyeon’s trembling arm once with the back of his hand. Lee Jihyeon let out a long, earth-shaking sigh and moved away as though she never wanted to look at the gun again.
Seo Jihyeok slung the strap connected to the firearm over his shoulder and lowered the muzzle, waiting for everyone to pass him. When I walked by, Seo Jihyeok looked at me and put on an exaggeratedly pitiful expression.
“Don’t scare me too much. It’s frightening.”
“I’m glad nothing happened.”
Judging by Seo Jihyeok’s attitude, he hadn’t been scared at all. I had been more frightened waiting in the corridor. Good grief. To think that, in my lifetime, I would experience something as earth-shattering as worrying about the legs of a man over 190 centimeters tall.
Just as I was wondering whether the engineers inside had gone somewhere, the moment we entered the escape pod port, the smell of hot blood rushed up at us. Several people lay piled messily on top of one another in a corner. They were covered in blood and did not move. ······It seemed that the people from the engineers’ Ra Team had waited inside the escape pod port and shot those who came in.
Seo Jihyeok had said there was no one inside, but this clearly wasn’t “no one.” Had he only counted the living? Yugeum and Tumanako were horrified when they saw the scene, Kang Su-jeong frowned, and Lee Jihyeon quickly made the sign of the cross. Even after confirming that everyone had gone inside, Seo Jihyeok did not enter the escape pod port.
Inside, Shin Hae-ryang and Baek Ae-yeong were busy checking the remaining escape pods. If the full-panel display occupying one wall was showing things correctly, there were four usable escape pods in total. Apparently, either Hong Tao or Zixuan had not left using an escape pod.
Except for one or two, most of the launched escape pods had either folded into the epipelagic zone (0–200 meters) or were already bobbing on the surface of the sea. Shin Hae-ryang and Baek Ae-yeong called out that they had finished checking them, one after another. When I approached the escape pods, Shin Hae-ryang spoke while wearing gloves covered in dust and some unidentified liquid.
“Please wait until all four have been inspected. We’re checking to make sure this isn’t a trap.”
Apparently, he couldn’t trust them until he had seen for himself. Shin Hae-ryang seemed worried that boarding one of the remaining escape pods might leave them worse off than not boarding at all. The engineers beside him hurriedly clung to the escape pods.
If I had read the underwater base guidebook correctly, you had to ride the escape pods standing up. I shook Henry awake. As the boy woke, he flailed his arms and legs in every direction, apparently having completely forgotten that he had been carried on my back before falling asleep. Henry yawned repeatedly, barely able to open his eyes. Pointing at the escape pod with my finger, I spoke to the distracted seven-year-old.
“You’re going to ride that now. Have you ever been to an amusement park?”
“Yes.”
“Where have you been?”
“······DiXneyland.”
“The rides there will be much less fun than this. If you ride that and wait, your parents will come soon.”
I had never ridden an escape pod before, but lies came pouring out of me smoothly. If Henry didn’t board an escape pod now, there was no guarantee when he would be able to escape the underwater base. I couldn’t let this opportunity pass.
The boy pursed his lips with sleep still lingering in his eyes. He didn’t seem to believe me. ······The effectiveness of candy and the authority of a dentist were bound to wear off eventually. Children responded immediately to visual stimulation. An adult male they had never seen before, like me, was not a good candidate for building trust with a child in a short period of time. If I were Henry’s parent, I would have taught him to ignore everything an adult man said while offering him candy. Besides, Henry and I were of different races. If I were Henry, I would have clung to Jennifer’s ankle and followed her when I met her at the movie theater.
Honestly, whether it was Nevatego or Leonard, both of them deserved zero as parents for leaving a young child alone in a place like this. Even if they escaped the underwater base alive and their family tearfully reunited, I would not overlook what had happened today.
If this were Korea, I would have reported Henry’s parents for child abuse to the police until my phone battery died. Would Australia and the United States accept a child-abuse report from a foreigner? ······I would make sure they had no choice. If I got out of here alive, I would walk around with a megaphone, shouting about the escape from the underwater base until the whole world knew.
Shin Hae-ryang, Baek Ae-yeong, Kang Su-jeong, and Lee Jihyeon clung to the remaining two pods and quickly called out that their inspections were complete as well. Seo Jihyeok did not enter the escape pod port, whether because he was keeping watch or for some other reason.
Shin Hae-ryang looked over the people and called Lee Jihyeon. Lee Jihyeon stood on the spot where a round circle had been drawn on the floor and, as though accustomed to it, pressed the button beside her shoulder with her elbow. A soft beep sounded.
“I’ll see you up there.”
At those words, Kang Su-jeong waved her hand. Lee Jihyeon lowered both arms to her sides, stood at attention, and closed her eyes. The escape pod, nearly spherical in shape, wrapped around her like an egg and shot away as if flying into the sea.
Next was Yugeum. After taking off her glasses and hesitating for a moment, Yugeum quickly removed the cardigan she was wearing and handed it back to me.
“You can wear it.”
Yugeum smiled faintly as she spoke.
“They said the weather would be warm today. I’ll take it back.”
She forcibly draped the cardigan over my shoulders, then stood inside the circle and pressed the button.
“I’ll wait for you up there, so hurry!”
The moment Yugeum straightened her body into an attention stance, the escape pod vanished in an instant. Tumanako lightly waved both hands toward the spot where Yugeum had disappeared.
Now it was Henry’s turn, after watching everyone else go. When Shin Hae-ryang told Henry to step inside the circle drawn on the floor, the boy shuffled nervously and took his assigned position while watching everyone’s reactions. Shin Hae-ryang looked at Henry for a few seconds before pulling him out of the circle. Then he went to a corner for a moment and returned with a life jacket, though I had no idea where he found it.
Shin Hae-ryang took off the cardigan Henry was wearing and put the life jacket on him. He fastened all the buttons in an instant and pulled the loose chest strap tight. He brought the lifeline hanging down behind Henry’s hips between his legs and hooked it in front, then pulled the strap as tight as possible.
······Was it because it was an adult-sized jacket? On a seven-year-old, no matter how tightly the straps were pulled, it looked flimsy, as though he were wearing clothes far too large for him. It gave me the uneasy feeling that it might slip right off him if he was unlucky. Perhaps Shin Hae-ryang had the same impression while inspecting Henry’s life jacket, because he unwound the parachute cord from his wrist and tied Henry’s body and the life jacket together more securely. Then Shin Hae-ryang said to Baek Ae-yeong,
“Ae-yeong. Scissors.”
Baek Ae-yeong, who had been watching the launched escape pods, began to toss the scissors through the air toward the team leader, but stopped when she saw Henry. Instead, she pushed them along the floor to the team leader, who was some distance away. After cutting the parachute cord to a suitable length, Shin Hae-ryang knelt and spoke to Henry.
“Everything is automatic, so just stay still. Don’t touch anything. The escape pod capsule will keep floating in the sea. ······You have to pull this after you get out.”
Shin Hae-ryang stopped Henry, who was trying to pull the cord connected to his life jacket right away. The boy asked in a completely unconcerned tone,
“Can’t I do it now?”
“No.”
I joined in to reinforce Shin Hae-ryang’s instructions.
“Henry. You pull this when you can see the sky. Got it? Lift your head, and pull it when you can see the sky. When do you pull it? When you can see the sky! Henry, when do you pull it?”
“When I can see the sky!”
Even after I emphasized it so many times, only Henry’s little fingers would know whether he would actually pull it when he saw the sky. Shin Hae-ryang placed Henry in the designated circle again. No matter how I looked at it, the escape pod was too large for the child to ride alone, yet ambiguously too small to fit both him and an adult.
When I asked Kang Su-jeong whether the child could ride it by himself, she said the escape pod had originally been designed for one adult and let out a heavy sigh, seemingly frustrated herself. The child, apparently uncomfortable in the life jacket, waved his arms around, but when I patted my thigh and exaggeratedly stood straight at attention, he looked at me and stood straight as well.
“Let’s never see each other again at the underwater base.”
As Kang Su-jeong offered that farewell, she pressed a button at a height Henry couldn’t reach. The moment the hemispherical section enclosed Henry, it was launched in an instant. I watched the capsule-shaped, circular escape pod fly away.
I looked at the spot where Henry had disappeared and let out a sigh of relief. It felt as though my insides had been vomited out. With the tension released, it seemed all the strength had drained from my body. If there had been anywhere I could sit or lie down, I felt like doing nothing but lying there and sleeping for thirty minutes.
When Shin Hae-ryang handed Yugeum’s cardigan, which he had tossed onto the floor, to Tumanako, Tumanako shivered and quickly wrapped herself in it. I handed my cardigan to Tumanako as well. Sumire, who had been quietly watching, asked Shin Hae-ryang,
“There’s one escape pod left. Who’s going to take it?”
Shin Hae-ryang’s gaze moved from Kang Su-jeong to Tumanako to Shulan, then finally settled on me.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like Muhyeon to take it.”
What was that supposed to mean?