Seo Jihyeok stood guard in front of the escape pod boarding area like a gatekeeper. Would he give Tumanako the same cold order to leave as he had Carlos? I was a little curious: if I were to ask Seo Jihyeok the same question about the escape pods next, would I be rejected like Carlos or Tumanako, or would I be treated differently because I was Korean?
But in this disaster, what would I even do with confirming that I’d be treated differently from others? If Seo Jihyeok chased Tumanako away and told me to board an escape pod, it seemed like just the thing to poison my mind later when I looked back on this. I already had guilt billowing up inside me like a cumulus cloud.
And who was I to stand there watching someone in distress with malicious curiosity and then evaluate his actions? I cut into the conversation before Seo Jihyeok could answer Tumanako.
“All the escape pods here are damaged, so you mustn’t board them.”
Tumanako started and asked me back.
“They are? Doesn’t the fact that there are four left mean the others took the rest and left, so four are left?”
“Yes. Everyone who left in an escape pod just now is going to die.”
I could feel the gazes of everyone nearby turn toward me. Carlos, in particular, looked ready to shoot lasers from his eyes. The stares boring into my back and the back of my head made my skin prickle. I wonder why gazes seem to have weight. Is it because some instinct from the days when we hunted and ran across fields is hidden inside us?
The hair designer, who didn’t seem to fully grasp what it meant that we couldn’t escape from Baekho-dong right away, asked in a calm voice.
“What caused the breakdown? Poor maintenance? Aging?”
“Engineer Team Na deliberately damaged them. They said they’d always disliked Engineer Team Ga and Team Da.”
Seo Jihyeok, who had his arms crossed, asked me with his face gone rigid.
“Where did you get that information?”
“A Japanese person came to the dental clinic and informed me. I thought it was a joke, since I figured I’d never have to board an escape pod, but I didn’t know it would turn out like this.”
“Can you disclose the informant’s identity?”
Sumire hadn’t voluntarily told me out of a righteous heart; the information had come out under questioning close to torture, so even calling it a tip-off felt ambiguous. Wouldn’t it be better to say there was at least one imaginary person with a conscience in Engineer Team Na?
“······No.”
To me, tense as I was, Seo Jihyeok said with a light laugh,
“Every time I see those bastards from Engineer Team Na, I feel like punching them, so I was going to hit that guy a little less.”
Carlos flew into a rage even more than Kim Jaehee, who had been officially designated as the first-priority user of the escape pods. Are they fucking insane?! They’re out of their minds! Jesus Christ! If you’ve got someone you want to kill, just grab a gun and go to their room! and so on, curses poured out of him. Seo Jihyeok, who had ordered Carlos away earlier, changed his stance and enthusiastically chimed in. They traded remarks like, I never liked those bastards, and, I knew it.
The others seemed half in doubt even after hearing what I said. Nikolai came right up to me and asked my nationality. The moment he heard I was Korean, his gaze changed; he seemed to think it was a staged scam so that we could use the escape pods among ourselves.
······Mm. I wish that were true too. I wish the escape pods were fine, and that the ones now swimming upward through the bathypelagic layer (1,000 m–3,000 m) would reach the surface.
Tumanako looked around at the people nearby and stood awkwardly between Baek Aeyeong and me. He seemed to know that if he couldn’t board Baekho-dong’s escape pods, he had to go somewhere else, but with all the engineers waiting here, he apparently couldn’t quite muster the courage to move immediately. Baek Aeyeong was not particularly shaken even after hearing that boarding an escape pod meant becoming a drowned ghost. She merely put more care into rotating and stretching her wrists and ankles, loosening them up.
When Baek Aeyeong began loosening her knees, Seo Jihyeok came over awkwardly, put his arm around Kim Jaehee’s shoulders, and said,
“Hey. You know how I feel, right? I wasn’t trying to stick you in an escape pod to send you off for good.”
Kim Jaehee burst out laughing as soon as he heard it, chuckled softly, and replied,
“I know. But next time, let’s put Sanghyeon on first, like he wanted.”
At those words, Jeong Sanghyeon tilted his head back to look at the two of them, then jumped up and down on the spot.
“Ah! Hyung! Are you saying you’ll send me as a test subject now and if I don’t die, you’ll board the escape pod?”
“Of course not, Sanghyeon. You wanted to ride first, so I’m saying I’ll yield to you. ······He’s too quick on the uptake to dispose of.”
Kim Jaehee put the back of his hand to his mouth and spoke to Seo Jihyeok as if whispering. Seo Jihyeok snickered at Kim Jaehee’s behavior. Jeong Sanghyeon looked at the two of them and muttered,
“Wow. I’m disappointed. So disappointed. I’m disappointed in both of you as a pair.”
“It’s a joke, Sanghyeon.”
Baek Aeyeong, who had been twisting her waist and was now loosening the muscles in her shoulders and arms, looked at Kim Jaehee and said,
“You nearly died, and that’s all you have to say?”
Kim Jaehee spread both arms wide, shrugged, and said with a broad grin,
“You saw that, right? I dodged death again today! I won! The Grim Reaper lost again!”
The people nearby gave hollow laughs at Kim Jaehee’s confident tone. Wow. Cheerful, isn’t he. So you can think of it that way too. If it were me, I think I’d be terrified, saying I’d nearly died by being the first in line to board a broken escape pod.
Jeong Sanghyeon frowned and said,
“If you’d gotten along with the Japanese guys in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. Isn’t this all because of you, Team Leader? It’s because you beat up the Japanese guys, isn’t it?”
Baek Aeyeong, after moving each joint in her body once, raised the corners of her mouth and said,
“Should I tattle when the team leader gets here?”
“Wow. Baek Aeyeong. Look at that. No loyalty at all.”
“Was there ever any loyalty between you and me?”
At that, Jeong Sanghyeon shut his mouth. Only Seo Jihyeok’s low voice as he spoke with Kim Jaehee reached my ears.
“They’re late.”
“The team leaders? Yeah. That guy always sticks to ten minutes when he says ten minutes, which is why he’s scary. ······He’s late.”
“It’s been over ten minutes. Is it because the team leader of Engineer Team Da went with him?”
“The Russians? They consider being twenty minutes late the default. (Hey. Are you talking shit about us?! Nikolai shouted.) We’re not talking shit about you guys?! ······Their ears are good too. They don’t hear us when we ask them to cooperate with work, so how do they understand us so well when we’re talking shit?”
Tumanako, who had been listening to this pathetic conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with escaping, sighed and asked me,
“You said your name was Park Muhyeon, right? What are you going to do now?”
“I have no thoughts whatsoever.”
After leaving in an escape pod, coming back to my room, falling asleep, and waking up submerged in water, what thoughts would I have? I was trying to think as little as possible because I didn’t want to think things like, Am I unable to get out of here? After saying it, it sounded like I had completely given up, so I added one more thing.
“It’s only been five days since I came here, so I barely know the way to the cafeteria and the dental clinic.”
I had been forced to wander around here and there, but on almost every route I’d had to either creep along so my footsteps wouldn’t make a sound, run, or lie flat and hide. ······I’m practically exploring the undersea base like a wild animal.
“You’re similar to me, then. In that case, do you want to go with me to the Third Undersea Base and escape on an escape pod there? My salon is there too.”
Tumanako seemed to look around and realize that, like Carlos and me, he was floating here, out of place. And it seemed he had decided that rather than wait here with engineers he wasn’t friendly with for an engineering team leader who might come who knew when, he would move quickly somewhere else and board an escape pod.
Wanting to help Tumanako escape somehow, I nodded. I might not be able to escape, but Tumanako might be able to get out this time.
Nikolai of Engineer Team Da, still squatting, asked a fellow engineer who seemed relatively less drunk,
“But we don’t have any reason to be on bad terms with them······no, we do. We do. A lot. No, but that was almost a year ago?”
He was probably reflecting on the past to determine just how harmonious Engineer Team Na and Engineer Team Da had been.
“There was something recent too.”
Viktor answered shortly. But Nikolai seemed not to know about it and started prying.
“When? Don’t tell me you fought? Does the team leader know?”
Viktor raised an eyebrow and said,
“Ask the team leader.”
Viktor had been looking at the escape pod port, and a little while later, the door to the escape pod port opened. The two team leaders came in, each carrying a person on his back. Someone’s piercing scream rang out.
Everyone turned in shock to see Nikita, who had been staggering out of the restroom, screaming from far away. Mitya!
Vladimir laid the person on his back down on a long waiting bench. Then, at his gesture, Shin Haeryang laid the woman he had been carrying on his back down on the bench as well. Nikita, who had been running over in a frenzy, tumbled once across the floor, but as if he didn’t even know he had fallen, he got back up and ran again.
The people beside me and the escape pods, without realizing it, moved toward the entrance of the escape pod port. For some reason, an ill omen that the people laid on those benches were already dead swept over me. Though I was too far away to see the condition of the people lying there, I still felt that way. The fact that neither Shin Haeryang nor Vladimir did anything to administer first aid after laying the two on the benches made it feel even more so. To be precise, maybe it was because Vladimir’s back, and the person lying down, were covered in blood.
Nikita ran halfway across the escape pod port with only one shoe on, then stopped dead as if a giant had seized him. Then he stared at the person lying on the bench. Seo Jihyeok and Baek Aeyeong, who had been standing beside me, were also running toward the entrance of the escape pod port as if flying. Are those humans? Leopards?
There were few people who walked; about the only ones were me, Viktor, and Kim Jaehee. In my case, I had run so much in the lodging area that even if someone grabbed me by the collar right then, I didn’t have the strength to run, and Kim Jaehee looked like he wouldn’t want to run even if a bomb went off beside him.
“What is it? Who is it? Who is it?”
Carlos, unable to see well because of Viktor’s bulk walking in front of him, asked me and Tumanako irritably. As if we weren’t the ones who knew the least about this undersea base.
Seo Jihyeok looked at the face of the woman lying on the bench, then exhaled the breath he had been holding and stepped back. Only after seeing their faces did he realize the two were not Korean.
Vladimir approached Nikita, but Nikita didn’t seem to notice even when Vladimir put a hand on his shoulder. Nikita moved only his lips as he asked Vladimir,
“Is he dead?”
“He’s dead.”
Up close, the cause of death was obvious. I could see that he had been shot several times in the chest. It was the same for the woman, though she had been hit in the head. Shin Haeryang was talking with Seo Jihyeok, and when his eyes met mine, he came toward me.
“I am Shin Haeryang, team leader of Engineer Team Ga. I heard you’re a dentist.”
“Yes. I’m Park Muhyeon, a dentist.”
I can guess what he’s going to request. Until a death pronouncement is made, this person is biologically dead but legally alive. Until a doctor declares him dead, we must do our utmost to save him.
“You’ll have to make the death pronouncement.”
······This is my first time going through the death pronouncement procedure with family right beside me. I’ve done it many times, but I simply can’t get used to it.
At Shin Haeryang’s words, Vladimir’s gaze rested on me. Dmitri was Nikita’s younger brother, wasn’t he? Nikita stood there as if he had no soul, looking at the man I presumed to be Dmitri.
“What’s his name?”
“Dmitri Andreevich Muratov.”
I memorized the name. Since there was nothing like a penlight, I used the light from Shin Haeryang’s pad, which I had been holding in my hand all along, to lift the man’s eyelids and check that his pupils were dilated and unresponsive. I checked his breathing by placing my finger under his nose, then put my fingers on his carotid artery. A standard confirmation procedure.
My watch, pad, phone, and everything else were all underwater, so I checked the time on Shin Haeryang’s pad, which I had been carrying, stated the date and current time, and made the death pronouncement.
“Dmitri Andreevich Muratov has passed away.”
I never get used to saying that someone has died after their name. I took a photo of his face and wrote the time over it.
I performed the same procedure on the woman beside him. The woman’s name was Irina Vyacheslavovna Murakhtaeva, and she had died with her eyes half open. I was about to close her eyes with my palm, but after seeing that my left palm was burned, I closed them with my right hand. Sofiya, who had come over belatedly, looked at Irina’s face, then sniffled and began to cry.
“It’s because I’m not sober yet. There’s no way you’re dead.”
No, though. Jeong Sanghyeon muttered that, and Kim Jaehee, who heard him, dragged him off to a corner. Baek Aeyeong approached Sofiya and hugged her from behind. Nikita stood still, looking at his younger brother, then after a long while asked Vladimir in a toneless voice,
“Do you know who did it?”
“I don’t.”
“It was the Japanese!”
Carlos shouted fervently, then closed his mouth under everyone’s stares.