Even as Zixuan looked around the escape craft bay, she kept the muzzle of her gun aimed precisely at me. Then, all of a sudden, she asked me a question as if springing an ambush.
“Did Shuran escape on an escape craft?”
“...I think the person called Shuran is from Engineering Team Ra, but I didn’t see her.”
Every time Zixuan asked a question, I flinched inwardly, not knowing what consequences a single answer of mine might bring. It would probably be safer if Zixuan and Shuran didn’t meet. As if displeased by Shuran’s absence, Zixuan said,
“She promised she’d be here, but she isn’t.”
Considering the sense of liberation Shuran had shown when she threw her gun to the floor in front of the people from Engineering Team Ga, I didn’t think she had wanted to be here. Looking at the five bodies laid out inside, I asked Zixuan,
“Why did you kill these people?”
When I first entered the escape craft bay, I had been carrying Henry on my back, and I was too busy making sure the kid didn’t see this scene to think about pronouncing anyone dead or anything of the sort. After that, there was no way for me to help them either, because even without any medical knowledge, it was obvious they were dead. Two shots each to the head. And they had been laid on the floor so that the shots to their foreheads were all too visible.
They were probably engineers who had come from the dormitory, and it looked like they had been executed by Engineering Team Ra. I recognized only one face among them. Hong Tao, was it? This was already the second time I’d seen this man’s corpse. Zixuan answered indifferently.
“Chinese people are too kind, so when they stay still, everyone thinks they’re pushovers. We always endure and endure, and now it finally burst.”
Seeing my dazed expression, Zixuan must have thought I was shocked by the corpses, because she spoke in a soothing voice.
“It can’t be helped for the greater cause. The undersea base will stabilize soon, so don’t worry too much, Doctor.”
Every curse I knew rose up to my throat. The only reason they didn’t come straight out of my mouth was because I wasn’t in the habit of swearing much.
As soon as I got the sense that Zixuan’s actions were not for personal grudges or gain, she emphasized that all these measures were for the peace of the undersea base and for the people of Daehando. She said it was only natural that her superior people should hold hegemony over the North Pacific Undersea Base, and that the benefits gained under that rule would be distributed evenly on their own, so there was no need to worry. She went on about the actual costs of extracting oil and natural gas and so on, and about the unequal distribution of resources despite eight nations participating, but when she received no answer from me, she soon shut her mouth.
As I silently looked at the dead, Zixuan asked in a small voice,
“Was anyone close to you among them?”
“...No.”
There really wasn’t. How close could I have gotten to anyone after spending only five days at a workplace I’d just arrived at? But the words, If there had been, would you have the ability to bring them back to life? lingered on the tip of my tongue. After hearing my answer, Zixuan spoke in a somewhat generous tone.
“If we meet someone you like on the way, I won’t kill them. I’ll let them go. Really.”
Then, just like before, I had to walk with the muzzle of a gun aimed at me. Was it because my head was heating up? Even though I was walking down the corridor of the Azure Dragon Wing, I didn’t feel cold at all.
“Where did you learn to use a gun?”
No matter how I looked at it, Zixuan didn’t seem to have crammed it in like I had. Every movement of hers carried a sense of familiarity with handling firearms. She didn’t grip the gun while trembling like Lee Jihyeon or me, nor did she act like a snake had coiled around her body just because she was carrying a gun like Shuran had.
“Everyone should know how to shoot a gun.”
You’d get along well with the American Republican Party. I disagree with that opinion. I walked with both hands raised and threw a question over my shoulder.
“When are you going to let me go?”
“...That’s hurtful. I was starting to like you, Doctor. You can just keep coming with me. We’ve even had tea together once already. Think of it as having made a friend at the undersea base.”
I’ve never made a friend who aimed a gun at my back. When I didn’t answer, Zixuan suggested in a gentle voice,
“Have you ever thought about immigrating? I’ll put in a good word for you with Team Leader Li Wei. The New Chinese Federal Republic accepts professional immigrants with almost no restrictions. If I say I recommended you, there won’t be any problem.”
Her tone was so full of certainty that it made me suspicious, so I asked,
“Do you have some kind of connection related to immigration?”
“My parents are in the military.”
What did being in the military have to do with immigration processing? They were completely different fields. I declined while wondering if a bullet might come flying.
“That’s the first time anyone’s ever made me that kind of offer. ...I don’t suddenly feel like changing my nationality.”
My son had excitedly gone off after getting a job at an undersea base, only for my family to hear five days later that I had suddenly defected to China. What would they think?
“Really? Think it over carefully.”
I suddenly wondered why the people from Engineering Team Ra had split up between the White Tiger Wing and the Azure Dragon Wing, so I asked,
“After hearing Xin Hailiang’s broadcast, why didn’t you go to the White Tiger Wing with the people from Engineering Team Ra?”
“I did want to go watch. I really wanted to see that handsome face get ruined. But Shuran and Hong Tao said they’d stay in the Azure Dragon Wing, and someone had to protect them, didn’t they?”
Not protect. Monitor and execute. She also had to guard the secured escape craft. ...My thoughts were growing sharper and sharper.
I slowly took a deep breath. It wasn’t easy to regain composure with a gun aimed at my back. If we took the Azure Dragon Wing elevator and, though we’d have to transfer once more along the way, ended up going to the Second Undersea Base, we would be caught by the followers of the Infinite Church. Still, at least Zixuan wouldn’t remain in the Fourth Undersea Base.
“Where are we going now? Are we heading to the Second Undersea Base like you said earlier?”
“We’re going to the submersible bay.”
“...Why?”
In a voice similar to when she worried about calories while picking up bread to eat, Zixuan said to me,
“I was gone for only fifteen minutes. I went to the dormitory for exactly fifteen minutes and came back, but Shuran, who was supposed to be guarding the escape craft, disappeared, and all four of our team’s escape craft are gone too. I also met you, Doctor, even though you were staying in the White Tiger Wing. What do you think that means?”
“I have no idea.”
“It means, if I’m lucky, I might be able to meet more people wandering around inside the Azure Dragon Wing. Whoever used my escape craft, I’m definitely going to kill them.”
How? The person who took your escape craft is on their way up to the surface. I suppressed the urge to sneer. A person holding a gun might look perfectly fine on the outside, but inside, they’re full of tension. It’s similar to the feeling of holding onto a pot that’s caught fire. It felt like things would go very wrong if Zixuan went to the submersible bay like this. To change Zixuan’s mind, I said,
“Wouldn’t it be better to go to the White Tiger Wing instead, if you have time for that?”
“There’s nothing I can do to help even if I go there.”
Strictly speaking, Zixuan’s judgment was correct. I walked down the corridor while thinking I wished she wouldn’t make the right judgment. Even as the cold stroked my back and the nape of my neck, I didn’t feel alive. Was there no way to get Zixuan out of the Azure Dragon Wing?
“Actually, I came from the submersible bay, and there was no one there.”
I felt like I had been going around telling all sorts of lies since coming to this undersea base. The problem was that lying wasn’t my specialty.
“Really? Do you know how to pilot a submersible?”
“No.”
If I could pilot something like that, would I be working as a dentist? ...Maybe I would.
“You’re saying that someone who can’t even pilot a submersible went to the submersible bay first instead of the escape craft bay?”
Like a cat playing with a mouse in its paws, Zixuan was clearly enjoying my lie.
“I was going to hitchhike. If it was easier than driving a car, I was thinking of trying to pilot one myself.”
“Did you meet anyone on your way here?”
“I didn’t meet anyone. I came alone the whole way from the White Tiger Wing to the Azure Dragon Wing.”
Zixuan jabbed the muzzle of her gun into my back as my steps slowed and said,
“...Looks like you carried someone on your back. Your clothes are wrinkled, and there are bloodstains here and there. Ah. If you stop one more time or turn around, I’ll shoot you right away, so keep walking.”
In my head alone, I tried carrying out the action of lunging at Zixuan and taking the gun from her about ten times. And the only conclusion I reached was that no matter which direction I charged from, I would fail.
The moment I turned around and lunged, Zixuan would already have put about two bullets into me. If I were the protagonist of an action movie, I would probably have taken Zixuan’s gun from her eleven times over by now. But applying the gunfights I’d experienced so far, the only situation that came to mind was me charging in to take the gun and dying within three seconds.
On top of that, Zixuan was someone who exercised regularly, and I was someone who never did any exercise. Even if I was hoping for a fluke, there had to be limits. Reflexes I usually never used except in my wrists, fingers, and occasionally my feet weren’t going to suddenly improve.
If sighs alone could make the ground cave in, the undersea base would already have collapsed. After walking while being jabbed in the back with the muzzle from time to time, I saw the entrance to the submersible bay in the distance. But there was no one near the entrance. The anxiety and worry that had been walking with me shook my shoulders violently.
Usually, either Baek Aeyeong or Seo Jihyeok was always keeping watch. If the people from Engineering Team Ga had already escaped the Azure Dragon Wing, there would be no problem. It would be best if they had succeeded in escaping on a submersible. But what if they were all inside the submersible bay, and no one noticed Zixuan was coming? What if I was bringing this person there only to put other people’s lives in danger?
Zixuan skillfully used my height and build to hide her own body. When we approached the entrance to the submersible bay, someone spoke to us.
“Zixuan? Hey. You walking around after eating lunch?”
Seo Jihyeok’s voice sounded as though there was hardly any tension in it. In contrast, Zixuan, who had gone rigid with tension, drew in a breath behind my back and said,
“Jihyeok? Are your team’s people inside the submersible bay?”
“Our team? They already went somewhere else. I’m here alone.”
Seo Jihyeok, saying that, was nowhere to be seen at all.
“Where are you?”
“Were you guys the ones who shot the submersible control panel?”
“Where are you? Come out!”
Using my body as a shield, Zixuan looked around and asked. Seo Jihyeok wasn’t visible to me either, so there was no way he would be visible to Zixuan.
“Get down.”
Curses aren’t translated. Likewise, dialects aren’t translated either. The moment I heard it, I threw myself straight to the floor.