Yugeum looked at the cat for a moment, then took off her own shoes, stuffed her socks inside them, rolled up her sleeves, and folded up her pant legs. While I was looking at the snake curled as tightly as it could inside the small pouch in my bag, Kanu knocked and came into the room, then picked up the cat wandering around inside.
“Whose cat is this?”
“I don’t know its owner.”
“It’s pretty heavy. My cat at home is much lighter than this one. ……And it’s nice. Gentle, too. Look. I’m touching it, and it’s never seen me before, but it’s staying still.”
Barefoot, Kanu handled the cat’s face and chin with practiced ease. The cat was quietly letting him touch it. ……It’s strange that it’s like that even when a stranger is touching it. I had wanted to raise an animal for a long time, but there had never been enough room at home, so it had been impossible. How intelligent are cats? Are they smart enough to understand this situation? What about snakes? Does Kanu happen to know a lot about snakes too?
“Have you ever seen anyone keeping a snake inside the undersea base?”
“No. Why a snake?”
“It’s inside a pouch in my bag. I brought it out in a panic from one of the rooms.”
“You brought it because you’re confident you can raise it?”
The words suddenly caught in my throat. Uh. I shook my head and said,
“No. The water was coming in, so I didn’t even have time to think about that. I was going to keep it alive and get it out, then ask around and find its owner.”
“……It stays still even when I touch its paws. It doesn’t bite, either.”
Watching Kanu’s hand as he stroked the cat, I asked in alarm,
“Cats bite?”
I had brushed against the cat several times while taking out towels and candy, but it hadn’t bitten me. Right. It’s small, but it has teeth, so of course it could bite. Then how is it any different from a snake? That it isn’t venomous? How many bacteria are in a cat’s mouth? Humans have about a hundred million, and if that thing has as many bacteria as a person, then biting me to death would be more than possible, wouldn’t it?
I really don’t know anything about cats. I’ve seen plenty of pictures of the ones my friends keep. Kanu stroked the cat, then lifted it and handed it back to me.
“Cats bite too. ……You really have never raised one. Put it in the bag before it hides somewhere. If a cat hides, you won’t be able to find it.”
As soon as I heard that, I quickly took the cat and put it back in the bag. I checked several times to make sure the zipper was properly shut. Then I carefully set the bag down on the floor in the corner. Stay still while I’m gone.
When I looked to the side, Kim Gayoung had kicked off her shoes as if throwing them into the corner and tossed her socks beside them. Then she began lightly stretching, twisting her body this way and that. I left the room to see how many people had gathered.
More people than I’d expected had gathered in the corridor. In truth, because of the conversation we’d had earlier, I hadn’t expected anything at all, so I’d thought even two people waiting would be a lot, but there were five in total. Sam and James were there, of course, and three men I didn’t know had gathered and were waiting.
One of them, wearing a hat, had been among the group watching Lee Jihyeon speak earlier, and I was seeing the other two for the first time. ……They must have come down from upstairs. Come to think of it, I had no idea how many more people were on the other floors. Just as I opened my mouth to smile and speak to the three men, the one nearest me spoke first, as if cutting me off.
“To be blunt, I’m not exactly happy to meet you. Let’s cooperate only on escaping and not pretend we know each other.”
It was clear hostility. The man who said it had teeth in terrible condition. What did I even do? I stood there with my mouth open, at a loss for words. Rejection always feels bad. But you have the right to reject me, too. With a sigh, I erased the smile from my face and said,
“I’m not exactly happy to see you either. But we have a common goal now, and we’re going to be moving together for that goal, so there’s no reason for us to be on bad terms before we even start. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you did for a living or what thoughts you carried with you. But from now on, I’m going to try to survive together with you. ……I’m Park Muhyeon, the only dentist in this undersea base. I’m counting on you.”
Then I held out my right hand. If you don’t want to take it, then don’t. No one can hurt me without my permission, they say. What a solid phrase. And yet people hurt and get hurt just by breathing near one another. The man frowning at me looked at my hand and my face for a few seconds, then answered without taking my hand.
“Logan.”
He said it so quietly that it took me a few seconds to understand I had heard his name. I nodded and was about to pull my hand back when the man beside him gave his own name, took my hand, and shook it.
“I’m Benjamin.”
Caught off guard, I shook hands with Benjamin and nodded. Then the man with the hat pulled low over his face gave his name and asked me,
“I’m Carter. Do you know the women who came with you well?”
Why was he asking how close I was to them? Well, among the three, I had met Lee Jihyeon and Kim Gayoung for the first time today. As for Yugeum, I’d been seeing her since my first day at work. Thanks to the last few hours of going around together, my sense of closeness to those three had already reached the level of ten-year friends in my mind. But they might not feel that way about me. I might be the only one thinking we were close.
I was about to say we were close, but realizing that, objectively, I didn’t know all that much about them, I hesitated to answer. How much do you have to know about someone to say you know them well? I answered with only the facts, leaving Carter to judge for himself.
“I started working here five days ago.”
At that, the three men looked at one another, then turned their gazes toward Lee Jihyeon, Yugeum, and Kim Gayoung as they came out of the room. Nine people gathered in a circle with Lee Jihyeon at the center. While Kim Gayoung stretched with her arms high, Lee Jihyeon took her eyes off the pad and looked at the people as she said,
“As I said earlier, we’ll be attempting to escape through the elevator stopped on the first floor. We have just sealed off the space between the Undersea Pollution Center and the Deep-Sea Biology Center with the barrier wall. I don’t believe anyone here intends to cross over into another research center anymore. First, everyone here must swim to the small valves located on the corner walls of the first floor.”
Using the pad to show the first-floor layout as a three-dimensional map, Lee Jihyeon explained. When she selected the valves, a dozen or so drainage valves located on the first floor were simultaneously marked in green.
“When you reach a valve, grab the valve handle and turn it all the way in the opposite direction so that the covered drain is exposed. The drains on the floor are currently kept covered by lids. If you turn the valve all the way, small fingernail-sized holes will appear in the floor three meters away from the valve. That is the drain. Once you have removed the cover, do not go near the drain. Please come straight back here to the third floor.”
Lee Jihyeon looked once at everyone’s faces and said,
“I will assign the valves one by one. Swim to the designated location and turn the valve. Are there any questions so far?”
Sam shot his hand up. When Lee Jihyeon indicated Sam with her chin, Sam asked,
“What should we do if the valve won’t turn, or if we fail to open the drain?”
“Leave it as it is and come to the third floor. Any other questions?”
I had my hand raised, and when Lee Jihyeon gave me the chance, I asked,
“If I finish opening my valve, can I open valves in other locations?”
There were more than ten valves. It would be better to open as many drains as possible. Lee Jihyeon thought for a moment before answering.
“That would be good, but even finding the valve you’ve been assigned while diving underwater will be difficult. Once everyone here reaches the third floor, I’ll activate the automatic drainage system. How much water will drain out is unknown. In this situation, we can’t know whether the drainage system will function properly. But if the water drains and we become able to use the elevator, it will be our best chance to escape. Let’s all do our best.”
I nodded at Lee Jihyeon’s words and loosened up with some light stretching. There had been times when I had no choice but to enter water or fall into it, but it had been a long time since I’d had to swim with such clear purpose.
Lee Jihyeon carried Roaker’s pad around and assigned each person which valve on the first floor they needed to open. I was also assigned a valve to open, and it was somewhere I had to swim quite a distance to reach from here. It was the valve beside the wall of Lab 120. I didn’t know exactly where that was, but while looking at the first-floor map displayed on the pad, I checked where on the third floor I would have to enter the water in order to reach the valve most quickly and efficiently.
The water had already filled the entire second floor. Would diving straight down from here on the third floor to the first floor be dangerous? ……It would be, wouldn’t it? More than diving straight into the water from my current position about seven meters up, I was more worried about not knowing what might be in that water.
I couldn’t forget the pain and memory of a bed sliding underwater and striking my calf. Even now, wooden tables and office supplies were floating on the surface. It’s not as if I’m good at swimming.
Since I could only swim well enough not to drown, all kinds of worries began flooding in as I looked at the dark blue water. I had to swim down about six or seven meters and then come back up again—did I really have that kind of stamina? Did I have enough lung capacity to hold my breath without trouble over that distance? When was the last time in my life I had swum more than fifteen meters? Those were the things I agonized over. The conclusion I reached was one. I was in the middle of beating myself up in my head, asking why I hadn’t exercised regularly.
Yugeum asked if, by any chance, I was done looking at the map and could lend her the pad, so I gladly held it out to her. Looking around, I saw that everyone with a pad had the first-floor map open and was checking the place they had to go. Yugeum frowned as she looked at the first-floor location assigned to her on the map. Seeing her standing there with a hand on her waist, sunk in thought, I abruptly spoke to her.
“May I see where it is?”
“Huh? Yes.”
It was just as far as mine. But as long as we chose the right spot to descend vertically from the third floor to the first-floor bottom, it seemed the distance each of us had to go would be more or less the same.