So you could rescue people that way, too. I didn’t think I could manage that even if I died and came back to life. The people draped over the vending machine twitched and moved from time to time. It seemed Sin Haeryang had merely hauled the drowning people onto the vending machine. I could see the backs of people who seemed to have regained consciousness, coughing up water.
I gauged the distance between the water’s surface and the ceiling by eye, then asked Kim Jaehee beside me.
“How are we supposed to get down from here?”
I did want to help those people, but we had our own necks to worry about right now.
“Who knows? Personally, I’m more curious how Team Leader Sin got up here in the first place with no tools at all. Ordinary people like me use ladders when we repair ceilings.”
In a bright voice, Kim Jaehee showed off her leg with a ta-da! Then she gestured with her chin at Jeong Sanghyeon and said,
“Going down like that would be the fastest.”
Jeong Sanghyeon hadn’t climbed down from here, he’d fallen by accident. We didn’t even know what was in the water; wasn’t diving far too dangerous? Back when I was in the hospital, I’d heard dozens of stories about people breaking their cervical vertebrae in diving accidents and becoming paralyzed from the neck down. The story about diving into water and realizing your body wouldn’t move the instant you hit was one of the more horrifying tales for minors in the hospital to hear. The terrifying addendum was that no one came to save you, so you had no choice but to gulp down water.
If there was something like that great white shark teeth structure installed in front of Deep Blue where I landed, I’d probably die instantly.
The water wasn’t surging in like a tidal wave the way it had before, and the water level wasn’t rising, but the dark, still water was enough to stir a primal revulsion. Clear water or black water, water was water, yet just because the color was a little dark, I hated the idea of going in this much. I couldn’t afford to move recklessly in this situation and get injured again. After staring at the dark water for a while, I said to Kim Jaehee,
“...Let’s stay still here and wait for Team Leader Sin Haeryang. The water in Jungang-dong may be pooled up, but is it really all right for him to wander around like that?”
Sin Haeryang had told us to wait here, but he was roaming around as he pleased. About six people were riding on Sin Haeryang’s makeshift boat, a large vending machine that rocked and crept forward little by little. To be precise, most of them had only their upper bodies barely hooked over the vending machine.
Apparently, nearly drowning didn’t make people any friendlier, because the people clinging to the vending machine seemed to be raising their voices at one another. It was a mercy they had no weapons; their tones weren’t exactly gentle. When one of the people who had been coughing up seawater said something to Sin Haeryang, Sin Haeryang turned his head toward them indifferently. I didn’t know what they were protesting about, but maybe because of the distance, I couldn’t hear their words from here.
After hearing the other person out, Sin Haeryang lightly bent forward without saying a word and took one step ahead. That alone made the unstable vending machine tilt, and everyone clinging to the front end of it went into the water. ...It seemed that had happened because Sin Haeryang’s movement shifted the center of gravity.
A few seconds later, when Sin Haeryang leaned his upper body back and took one step behind, the vending machine became parallel to the water’s surface again, and everyone came back out of the water. I could hear one of the people who had suddenly swallowed a mouthful of seawater shout at the person who had just been protesting to Sin Haeryang that if he didn’t shut his mouth, he’d kill him first. Then he pointed at Sin Haeryang, and his shout that Sin Haeryang would be next stabbed into my ears.
Kim Jaehee, who had been watching the scene from a distance with me, heard the cursing and answered me with a smile.
“Team Leader is the same as ever. Let’s worry about ourselves.”
Beeeeep! Jaehee, who had been near the speaker, flinched in surprise as if a broadcast was coming through and hurriedly covered her ears. The dissonance continued for a while, then suddenly spat out a voice.
[Uh. Is this broadcasting? I don’t know if the broadcast is working properly. Water was leaking from the Jujak-dong side, so it looked like the whole Fourth Undersea Base would be submerged in seawater at this rate, and I forcibly sealed off all of Jungang-dong. I imagine quite a lot of people are currently enjoying a forced vacation at the Jungang-dong water park and having a delightful swim.]
Seo Jihyeok’s voice over the broadcast sounded unstable to my ears. Seeing Kim Jaehee cough from time to time, it seemed the seawater hadn’t fully left either his stomach or lungs, but in my case, it felt like the seawater hadn’t fully left my ears.
I took the translator out of my ear and shook it hard in the air. I’d heard it was water-resistant for daily use, but since it was seawater, I was starting to worry a little. I doubted the person who made this translator had imagined a user would wear it while going into the sea. ...If it broke, I’d be in trouble. The only things I could speak were Korean and English. In my opinion, I wasn’t particularly good at those either. I shook the translator several times and put it back in my ear, but a bit of noise had begun to mix in. Static kept crackling.
In the distance, Sin Haeryang seemed to be giving instructions to the people clinging to the vending machine. He appeared to be gesturing for them to grab the wooden table floating nearby, and one brave person swam over to the wooden table and got his upper body onto it.
Sin Haeryang forcefully gave instructions to the remaining people as well, shifting their positions this way and that. Then Sin Haeryang’s chest rose and fell as he puffed it out, and he slowly stepped down from the vending machine. Even with Sin Haeryang’s weight gone, the vending machine did not tilt and continued floating level. Seo Jihyeok rapidly began explaining why he had started broadcasting.
[Since I expect there are quite a few people on the Jungang-dong side who were unlucky enough to get swept up by the seawater, we’re going to forcibly lower the water level. We’ll open the barrier walls on the Baekho-dong side and the Cheongnyong-dong side at the same time.]
After getting down from the vending machine, Sin Haeryang very carefully slid into the water. Even the bastards clinging to the soda vending machine and using it in place of a life buoy seemed flustered by Sin Haeryang’s sudden action. ...Was it all right for him to just go in like that? Something in the water hadn’t grabbed and pulled him down, had it? Why was he suddenly going into the water? Seo Jihyeok’s broadcast continued.
[Baekho-dong hadn’t flooded yet, but I haven’t gone to Cheongnyong-dong either, so I’m not sure. If the water level rises even higher than it is now when we open the barrier walls... let’s just say we’re all fucked. If anyone knows why this Loacker bastard’s pad won’t run the CCTV feed, please write a post on the undersea base bulletin board before you die. I can’t see what Jungang-dong looks like. Especially how high the water has risen.]
Sin Haeryang didn’t come out of the water for quite some time, making people panic. Kim Jaehee and I, clinging to the ceiling like lizards, had no choice but to listen to the broadcast and watch the still surface of the water. Just as I was starting to wonder if someone needed to go rescue him, Sin Haeryang suddenly burst up from the water.
In Sin Haeryang’s hand as he emerged from the water was something like a pure white snake, and he handed it out to the people around him. Watching from afar, it looked as if the people were each taking hold of sections of the long, white snake’s body in turn. What was that?
“What is Team Leader Sin handing out?”
Kim Jaehee, an engineer, seemed to have almost never used one either. He frowned as he looked, thought for a moment, then said to me,
“...It looks like he brought out the fire hose from the emergency fire cabinet.”
[You may be wondering why we’re flooding two perfectly fine wings instead of just running the drainage equipment and waiting for the water to drain. If an engineer asks that question, kill that bastard. We’re doing this because everyone trapped in Jungang-dong might die during the long time it takes to drain. In particular, I hope all our team members who were in Jungang-dong are still alive and tenacious as cockroaches. Grab onto anything around you right now. You’re going to slip in the current. Those of you with gods, pray quickly that you don’t get hurt. Those of you without gods, I wish you luck. Seo Jihyeok’s life-risking rapids ride! The seawater flume ride is departing!]
After hearing Seo Jihyeok’s warning broadcast, Jeong Sanghyeon shouted at us in terror.
“Jaehee hyung! Help me!”
“Yeah, Sanghyeon. I can hear you well.”
“Help me!”
“Right, right. I can hear your voice well.”
“Aaaagh! Jaehee hyung! I said help me! Be useful!”
There was no particular way for Kim Jaehee to help Jeong Sanghyeon. We had no way to get down, so how were we supposed to pull up someone below?
Jeong Sanghyeon kicked at the water several times from atop the wooden bookcase, then went limp as if he had exhausted himself. It seemed he had decided his method of survival would be to stop wasting strength and use the wooden bookcase as a tube while he drifted along with the current.
Five seconds after Seo Jihyeok’s broadcast ended, everything on the water’s surface gradually began moving away from the center. The wooden bookcase Jeong Sanghyeon was riding also grew farther and farther from sight, and before long, it was sliding rapidly toward the distant Cheongnyong-dong side. I heard Kim Jaehee say a small farewell.
“Bye-bye.”
Contrary to Seo Jihyeok’s worries, the water level gradually began to fall, and in the distance, the large refrigerator that had hit me passed below my feet and flowed toward Baekho-dong. Everything submerged in Jungang-dong’s water seemed to be flowing toward either Baekho-dong or Cheongnyong-dong. As time passed, the water level lowered, and I began to see beneath the surface.
The people holding the fire hose desperately endured the whirlpools in the current. Then a wooden chair and a metal clothes rack, pushed close by the current, suddenly slammed into the people gripping the fire hose. In the process, I saw the people beside someone who had been knocked unconscious catch them.
Kim Jaehee watched the scene expressionlessly and said to me,
“What a hard way to live, huh?”
“It’s because the current is so strong. If they get swept away in it now, they’ll be hurt badly.”
“No. I meant our team leader. There’s no need for him to live like that. He could just stay here comfortably and do nothing. But he has to go and save someone.”
When the water had dropped to about ankle-depth, the barrier wall of Hyeonmu-dong began to open in the distance. The part of the graffiti submerged beneath the water of Hyeonmu-dong showed a dark, earth-colored creature that looked like a softshell turtle. Only its eyes flashed gold. Was Hyeonmu originally supposed to look like a snake combined with something you couldn’t tell was a softshell turtle or a tortoise? Once the barrier wall disappeared, I saw people walking in from far away, splashing through the water.
Seo Jihyeok and Baek Aeyeong were walking toward Jungang-dong. All the people who had been gripping the fire hose were lying sprawled on the floor.