When Baek Ae-yeong went into the elevator, I stood in front of its doors and kept watch outside. From the brief glimpse I had of the interior, there was no one inside. There was only a single small chair sitting there by itself. Fortunately, the hulking man who had been sitting in that chair was nowhere to be seen.
I thought that was a relief, but Baek Ae-yeong clicked her tongue lightly at the empty elevator. She seemed disappointed that we couldn’t meet that man right away. The idea that some threat that might someday come for us was lurking somewhere seemed to displease her greatly.
As Baek Ae-yeong looked around the elevator, my eyes caught sight of the hats of the Church of Infinity believers lying on the floor. I wanted to pick them up right away and share them with Baek Ae-yeong, but I didn’t act immediately and waited for a moment. If I went to pick up the hats, Baek Ae-yeong’s body inside the elevator might be exposed, even briefly, to the people in the Central Plaza. Baek Ae-yeong and I kept as many places as possible in our line of sight, as though we had our backs pressed together, constantly checking whether anyone was approaching.
After searching the elevator, Baek Ae-yeong turned toward me, and I asked for permission to pick up the hats rolling on the floor. With her permission, I picked them up, put one on my head, and handed one to Baek Ae-yeong. She glanced at me once, then put the hat on without another word.
We couldn’t steal the dead believers’ clothes. More than an ethical issue, their clothes were torn full of holes or drenched in blood from gunshots, so if we stole and wore them, we would only look more suspicious. As I was looking at the dead, before Baek Ae-yeong could say anything to me, the Central Wing shook violently.
Startled, Baek Ae-yeong came tumbling out of the elevator as if rolling. Rather than bracing my legs and trying to stand firm, I simply fell to the floor and waited for the tremor to stop. Then, still in that fallen posture, I calmly sat on the floor and watched to see if anyone suddenly came running out from the Central Plaza. Baek Ae-yeong glanced at me once, then kept watch over the area outside my field of vision.
When the lights inside the central elevator went out once and then came back on, Baek Ae-yeong looked at it with distrustful eyes, as if the elevator were the maw of some monster. Just looking at the elevator’s condition made worry surge over me like a tidal wave, so I asked Baek Ae-yeong.
“Do you think the elevator is all right? Can we take this and get out?”
“I don’t know.”
At the engineer’s extremely positive answer, even though the shaking had stopped, my desire to board the central elevator vanished. But Baek Ae-yeong herself, despite her reluctant expression, got back into the elevator, so I had no choice but to shudder and push myself into that box where I didn’t know whether I’d live or die. As soon as I got in, I thought of the freight elevator in the Vermilion Bird Wing and wanted to get right back out, but I endured it.
We were waiting for the elevator doors, which had a long standby time, to close on their own when someone began walking hurriedly from the far end of the Central Plaza. Three people were slowly coming this way, and when Baek Ae-yeong shouted for them to stop, they halted in the Central Plaza and spoke hesitantly.
“Ae-yeong! We want to take the elevator too! Let us on!”
We won’t do anything. We just want to take the elevator and get out to Daehan-do. You people were killing each other, but I have nothing to do with any of this, so I want out. Just let us use the elevator. Whatever you people are up to, we won’t care. I just want to leave.
Listening to what they were shouting, it seemed they thought this had happened because the fallen believers and we were enemies. Looking closely, among the three of them, the only person I knew was Jennifer, the team leader of the American team. The moment I saw her face, I was so glad that I smiled brightly without realizing it, but Baek Ae-yeong’s voice immediately flew at me, telling me not to do that. Since Baek Ae-yeong had once told me that if I was aiming a gun somewhere, I shouldn’t take my eyes off that spot, I couldn’t even look at her as I asked in a small voice.
“Why… why?”
“We’re aiming guns at them right now. In that situation, if you look at the other party and smile, it’s easy to invite unnecessary misunderstandings.”
Ah. I see. ……True. For some reason, Jennifer’s face had gone pale, and she was hesitantly backing away. Oh no. I’m sorry. I couldn’t interrupt the conversation to apologize, so I was only apologizing inwardly when Baek Ae-yeong, as soon as she heard what the other side said, immediately ordered them away.
“Get lost! If you come any closer, I’ll shoot! Take the next elevator!”
Then one of the women standing there shouted back at Baek Ae-yeong.
“We’ll have to wait more than ten minutes here!”
She looked like she wanted to run into the elevator right away, but because Baek Ae-yeong was aiming a gun at her, she couldn’t approach.
“Yeah! Wait and take the next one! We were in line for this one first! You want to end up like that?”
Baek Ae-yeong gestured with her chin at the two collapsed Church of Infinity believers. I cautiously asked Baek Ae-yeong.
“Would it be dangerous to ride the elevator with those people?”
Without even looking my way, Baek Ae-yeong answered.
“Honestly? ……I don’t really want to bring them. The safest thing is for just you and me to go up in the elevator, Mr. Muhyeon. Once we get in, we have to assume we’ll be trapped for a while. I don’t want to be trapped with those people in an enclosed space like an elevator.”
“The central elevator is huge. It can fit at least thirty more people. And it seems those people want to be trapped with us.”
The central elevator was bigger than my room back in Korea. If it could carry people by volume regardless of weight, it could probably fit over two hundred. Baek Ae-yeong thought for a moment, then shook her head.
“One of those people might be a Church of Infinity believer in hiding. They could wait until our guard is down later and attack or betray us. And… personally, I don’t like any of the three of them.”
Other than Jennifer, I didn’t know anyone, but Baek Ae-yeong, who had worked at the undersea base for a long time, might know all of them.
“What don’t you like about them?”
“I won’t talk about what kind of people they usually are. Let’s just look at the current situation. When those really dangerous-looking terrorists were standing in front of the elevator, they were too scared to make this kind of demand. Only after you and I attacked those two people and took their weapons, and after the Fourth Undersea Base shook, did they finally come out and ask us to let them ride too so they can leave by the central elevator. Did they reserve a spot? Tell them to wait until the next elevator comes and take that one. I’ve dealt with so many bastards like that I’m sick of them. They’re acting like that, and you’re not even angry, Mr. Muhyeon?”
Baek Ae-yeong seemed to think we were being looked down on because those people hadn’t dared demand to ride the elevator from the terrorists but were demanding it from the two of us. I… didn’t think they were making this demand because they looked down on us. They must have seen either me or Baek Ae-yeong, at the very least, kill someone by smashing them with an axe or shooting them before getting on the elevator, and if they were still acting like this, it probably meant they thought being trapped in an elevator with us was better than being trapped with the Church of Infinity believers. They were probably asking to ride with us because they’d seen Baek Ae-yeong’s actions. It wasn’t as if those people would trust someone like me, whom they were seeing for the first time in this undersea base.
“Normally, I might be angry, but this is a disaster situation. We were much braver than those people, so we took action. And there’s no helping it if the two of us look more favorable than masked cultists. Even if we just leave, Jennifer, the team leader of Engineer Team Ma, bothers me. Can’t we take them with us?”
Baek Ae-yeong looked outside and did not answer for several seconds.
“I heard that before, you suggested expanding the scope from protecting only Engineer Team Ga to include Korean civilians as well, Ae-yeong. I don’t think that was only about efficiency. Those people don’t have weapons, and they want to board the elevator with us and get out. They won’t deliberately take a risk and try to hurt us.”
“The situation then and now is different! Back then, we had room to spare! Back then, Seo Ji-hyeok was there! And our team leader was there too!”
Baek Ae-yeong made a pained sound and frowned before speaking.
“I don’t really like Team Leader Jennifer. ……Hailey is over there too. What about Hailey?”
“Who is that?”
“The person next to Jennifer is the Canadian team leader, Hailey Lancaster.”
“It’s my first time seeing her.”
“Really? Then it’s better if it stays that way.”
It seemed she disliked all the team leaders. Just in case, I asked Baek Ae-yeong.
“……Was there ever an engineering team leader you thought was okay, Ae-yeong? Excluding Team Leader Shin.”
Baek Ae-yeong looked at them with an expression that said she disliked every one of them, then sighed as she spoke to me.
“The team leaders push work onto one another so their own teams don’t have to do difficult or dangerous jobs. All I’ve ever seen those people do is shout, threaten, or get irritated. They’ve never been much help to me either.”
“You might see a different side this time. And someone I respect once said that saving lives is always inefficient. After we go up, they’ll have to wait more than ten minutes for the elevator to come back down, and by then, the armed forces who went to the White Tiger Wing might arrive here. Or the people from Engineer Team Ra, who are stationed in the Azure Dragon Wing, might come, or Engineer Team Na, who went to the Black Tortoise Wing, might come. And we, riding the central elevator, might be in more danger than they are. The elevator could stop or fall, after all.”
“They’re people we can’t trust. It could be much more dangerous than just you and me riding together.”
“Would those unarmed people be more dangerous than us with guns?”
“……Fine. Then promise me one thing instead.”
Baek Ae-yeong pulled my hat down so low I could barely see in front of me and said,
“When you’re with those people, barely say anything.”
“What?”
“Even if someone greets you, don’t answer. Just scowl hard… no, don’t do that. Just keep smiling brightly. Like you smiled when you saw Jennifer earlier, just keep smiling the whole time. Don’t answer. Even if they talk to you, ignore them. Can you promise that?”
“Uh. All right.”
Wouldn’t that make me look like a strange person? Baek Ae-yeong frowned, then swung her arm toward the outside of the elevator.
“Hurry up and run over here! If you don’t come right now, we’re leaving you behind!”
The moment Baek Ae-yeong gave permission, the people in the distance began running and entered the elevator.