“Still, they said they’d let us live if we did as we were told. What if I go with you and get shot?”
Rico spoke to Jang in a frightened voice.
“You can’t take responsibility for my life. If I wander around, get shot by those terrorists, and only then regret, ‘Ah. I would’ve been much safer back at the café,’ it’ll be too late!”
Jang let out a deep sigh and answered Rico in a troubled voice.
“Then I’ll just have to accept the risk.”
Jang’s face hardened as he spoke.
“I’m going to live according to my own choices. No matter how pathetic the result of my misjudgment may be, I have to accept it. What else can I do? They pointed guns at my face and chest and told me they’d let me live if I obeyed. Didn’t that bother you at all? It was horrifying to have my life held hostage. Thinking that everything I worked so hard to make would end up in those bastards’ stomachs makes me feel sick and furious. Even if I get caught and killed while running away, I’m going to get at least one step farther from here.”
“I don’t like working like this either! Who would enjoy working while being threatened? But we’re ordinary baristas. We’d never even handled a gun before, and then terrorists suddenly stormed in and told us to do as we were ordered. What were we supposed to do? Throw a cup in their faces and tell them to get lost? And what am I supposed to do if you run away alone? Are you telling me to keep working here by myself?”
Rico sighed and closed her eyes before speaking in a soothing voice.
“Jang. Let’s just hold out a little longer. I understand that things have been really hard for you. It was busy this morning, and there were some bad people, but none of them shot at us, right? Whether it’s the U.S. military, the Australian military, or some underwater drone, someone will come and teach those bastards a lesson. We just have to endure until then. The guns they have might be toys, right? And they’re people too. Maybe they don’t actually intend to hurt us. Even if Todd spoke rudely today, you used to think he was a decent guy. If we just work a little longer and endure, things might get better.”
Jang looked disgusted by her words and replied to Rico.
“You can’t act that arrogantly with a fake gun. Those guys were always so shy and timid, but the moment they picked up guns, they started shouting orders as if I were their maid. If they were really good people, they wouldn’t have started acting so high-handed the instant they got a chance to kill me. They were trash from the start. I just failed to see it before. I’m only learning what they’re really like now. I’d sooner believe that rabbits will go extinct in Australia than believe these bastards are going to let me live.”
Rico knitted her brows and asked Jang,
“You’re really going to leave me behind? They might give me trouble too because you ran away!”
“It can’t be helped. If I disappear, you’ll have to deal with whatever comes. Make up a lie. Say you went to deliver food. Or that you went to the storeroom to get ingredients. Or claim you’re shut in the bathroom with diarrhea! Or run away with me!”
Rico spoke to Jang with tears in her voice.
“I’m so scared of being here alone. Stay with me. And if I let you go like this and you die, I’ll regret forever that I didn’t stop you.”
Shin Haeryang’s patience, which had been quietly listening beside them, ran out after three minutes.
“So, are you going or not?”
I desperately wanted to take Jang’s side. I wanted to cut into their conversation and tell them that this underwater base was extremely dangerous, and that they should forget the work and get out of there as quickly as possible. But to the two of them, I was a perfect follower of the Infinite Church. Even if I revealed that I was a newly hired employee, I would probably look like someone who had joined the company for the sake of this terrorist attack.
The more of my cards I laid out for everyone to see, the more suspicious everything about me would seem to others. I was afraid that one wrong word from me might make even Jang change her mind and decide to stay at the café, so I waited for her to make the decision herself. Jang answered resolutely.
“I’m going.”
“Jang. Think it over again. This might be a rash decision.”
“Shin. ……Just give me a moment to talk to Rico.”
I thought Shin Haeryang would cut her off with a lightning-fast refusal, but unexpectedly, he nodded and said,
“Then I’ll go wait near the diving area first. Come there when you’re finished talking.”
He turned his back on the café and began walking toward the diving area, which lay beyond the pine and spruce trees. Shin Haeryang beckoned for me to hurry.
I bowed my head to the two of them and followed Shin Haeryang, limping slightly. How could he plan to follow two such suspicious people without knowing whether he could trust them? As Rico’s voice grew more distant, it became increasingly indistinct.
Ah. That was true. She had a point.
After walking a few more steps, I could no longer hear their voices at all. My legs had no intention of moving just because I had taken a brief rest at the café. Ignoring my body’s screams that it wanted to collapse on the floor, I whipped myself onward and kept walking.
“Do you think both of them will come?”
“I don’t know. As Rico said, the followers of the Infinite Church probably won’t kill or harm those two right away. And without us there, their conversation might end sooner.”
“I see. ……Do you know what nationality they are?”
“They’re both Australian. I heard that Meiji Jang’s parents were Korean immigrants to Australia.”
Ah. Then Jang might actually be her family name, rather than her given name. Without a translation device, and with my poor hearing, I felt like I was going to burst. It was a different kind of inconvenience from not being able to see clearly ahead of me.
The farther we got from the café, the more the coniferous trees disappeared without a trace. When viewed from directly in front, the café had looked as though a coniferous forest had been created beneath the sea, with an oak-built café nestled among the trees. But given the weight of the trees, apparently fewer had been planted than it seemed from the outside.
An ordinary corridor leading to the diving area stretched ahead. As I walked diligently through the quiet place, all sorts of stray thoughts came rushing in as if they had been waiting for me. Thoughts of Kim Jaehee, whom I would soon meet; whether it might be better to turn back now, take Jang with us, and go together; when I would get to see the ash; and how much time remained for the underwater base.
To forget my own worries, if only a little, I asked about the worries of the person beside me.
“What are you thinking about?”
Shin Haeryang hesitated for a moment before answering.
“I’m thinking that even now, it might not be too late to destroy the most vulnerable facilities in the First Undersea Base. If those bastards become trapped inside the First Undersea Base, my team members will only have to deal with the ones on Daehan Island.”
……I’m glad I asked. So he hadn’t given up completely yet. The person beside me was contemplating guerrilla warfare using bombs made from fertilizer for flowers, or considering acts of sabotage, while I was worrying about what would happen if we ran into the followers of the Infinite Church head-on while walking down the corridor like this.
Shin Haeryang slowly explained it to me. If the First Undersea Base were half-destroyed, the team members on Daehan Island would not need to deal with terrorists coming up from the underwater base. They would only have to face the terrorists already on Daehan Island. The terrorists might think that seizing the underwater base gave them a geographical advantage, but the same would be true for those who escaped.
If the First Undersea Base were damaged, the terrorists would have no choice but to evacuate to the Second Undersea Base or go to Daehan Island. I alone would not be enough, but even if an attempt to tie down the terrorists failed, it could still be considered a fairly sound operation.
It would not be necessary to make bombs, either. Eliminating several members of the enemy’s leadership and causing confusion among the cult’s followers would also be a good approach. If the key figures of a cult were effectively removed, there was a high chance that its followers could no longer be properly controlled. (As I listened to this explanation, I remembered Shin Haeryang asking Kim Jaehee about the followers of the Infinite Church that morning.) Tactical explanations continued one after another, and by the time I came to my senses, he was explaining the island nearest to the underwater base and how we could evacuate there. I interrupted Shin Haeryang and asked,
“If the terrorists all attack you at once, what are the odds that you’ll make it out alive?”
Shin Haeryang answered in a voice rarely lacking in confidence.
“Things like this are always dangerous, and the outcome can never be guaranteed.”
I didn’t think I could bear to watch Shin Haeryang die again. I didn’t think I could endure it.
“……Prioritize escaping. Jihyeok, Aeyeong, and Sanghyeon all escaped, didn’t they? You escape too, Haeryang. And Jaehee should escape as well. This is just my personal opinion, but I think the people on Engineer Team A would rather have their team leader get out safely and flee with them than deliberately remain at the underwater base, fight the terrorists, and serve as a shield.”
Shin Haeryang walked silently toward the diving area without answering. I walked quietly as well. The diving area was divided into two sections by the corridor. Illustrations had been put up so that it was immediately obvious which was which: the diving area on the left, with a person in a diving suit and air tank swimming alongside fish, and the submarine port on the right, where several submersibles entered the sea.
“This way.”
As if he knew the route, Shin Haeryang entered the diving area without hesitation. A place with the large words HIGH-PRESSURE OXYGEN THERAPY CENTER written across it immediately came into view. Before opening the door, Shin Haeryang warned me,
“Jaehee knows we’ll be coming this way.”
“Oh. Right.”
“It’s possible that Jaehee betrayed us and stationed followers of the Infinite Church near the treatment center to capture us.”
I flinched at the word betrayal. Sharp of him.
“I don’t think she would betray us in that way. She’s already had far too many opportunities. Even at the Second Undersea Base, she could have shouted for them to capture me or Team Leader Shin while we were here, but she didn’t say a word even when the key executives were standing right in front of her. Jaehee probably doesn’t deeply believe in or rely on the Infinite Church from a religious perspective. If she truly believed in and followed the Infinite Church, wouldn’t she have taken part in today’s terrorist rampage? But even on the day of the attack, Jaehee remained an employee of Engineer Team A. Unless things become overwhelmingly unfavorable for her, I don’t think she’ll betray us.”
“……She may have been there to monitor or control Engineer Team A. Prepare yourself.”
When we opened the door and entered the treatment center, Kim Jaehee was sitting crookedly on a sofa, drinking coffee and waving at us. After looking at Shin Haeryang and me, Kim Jaehee spoke in a dissatisfied tone.
“I’ve been waiting. Aren’t you two awfully late? The ice is going to melt.”