TCWGRF 13

A dense fog that had settled around dawn covered the long, red carpet, returning it to its original colorless world. The previous night’s banquet, which had held the full prosperity of the city, ended so anticlimactically.

The patrol members, exhausted from a full day’s shift and a night of rounds, returned to the second-floor office, hoping to get at least a moment’s shut-eye before the siren blared.

However, what awaited them was not a cot far plusher than the ones at home, nor a solid wall to lean their weary heads against, but rather terrible news that made their legs tremble uncontrollably.

“Re-rebels?”

“Wh-what does that mean…”

— There are rebels among the patrol members!

This news spread quickly as a few members who had been on duty on other floors yesterday recounted what they had witnessed to their colleagues, who had been naively thinking only of resting.

The story was simple. Two rebels had already been discovered on-site and, fearing the consequences, had taken their own lives on the spot.

Because they had been caught so easily and an order had come down to ignore it and maintain their posts, those on other floors had no idea such an incident had occurred. A few people were missing, but they simply figured they were delayed running errands or something of the sort.

“I bet some kind of order will come down later…”

“Th-then what’s going to happen to us?”

The faces, shadowed with the fatigue of a sleepless night, had now become living corpses, completely drained of color.

To say that two rebels had been mixed in among the fifty patrol members was, in other words, to say that everyone here could be suspected as a rebel, or that they could be interrogated or tortured to root them out.

Some collapsed to the floor, their legs giving out, while others barely stood, leaning their backs against the wall. It was because they could all too easily picture their own bleak futures, which would soon unfold.

“Those-those outsiders are always thinking only of stealing the city’s wealth! The goddamn vermin.”

“They should just live on their own, why the hell did they have to come into the city and cause this mess. This mess!”

“I thought I’d finally gotten my chance, the bastards. I hope they all just die!”

Soon after, curses against the rebels who had caused this difficult situation poured from everyone’s mouths in unison.

It was not only those gathered there; the majority of citizens genuinely felt that way about the rebels.

Robbers who tried to forcibly take the few resources available without paying any price. Parasites who lurked insidiously throughout the city, seeking to usurp and overthrow power.

This antipathy toward the rebels was something shared by any citizen born and raised in the city.

Where the ingredients for the hard bread, indispensable for even a single day, were produced; where the filth they discharged every day went; where the gas, electricity, fossils, and wood that lit the city’s darkness and warmed their homes came from. The citizens, who considered it an honor to live in the city, had never once wondered about such things.

Blaming the rebels was an extremely citizen-like course of action, thinking only of the city, their families, and their own safety.

“…Nothing happened on the third floor, right?”

A voice tangled with apprehension and suspicion reached Isaac and Vincent, who were standing in a corner. All eyes were instantly drawn to the two men, who had been maintaining a suspicious silence since a moment ago.

Vincent patted the shoulder of Isaac, who was as tense as if he had already been singled out as a rebel or a criminal, and took half a step forward, single-handedly blocking the gazes that seemed ready to stab him.

“Nothing for anything to happen. Anyway, what should we do? We could all be dragged to the basement at this rate…”

The single word ‘basement,’ mentioned by a shabby, middle-aged man, finally gave the old resentments, which had taken various forms, a consistent substance called fear.

The basement. Of all the places in the Public Security Bureau, the basement was close to a taboo, to the point that citizens were reluctant to mention it directly.

The words ‘innocent’ or ‘wrongfully accused’ held no currency there. Even if you had committed no crime, you were a sinner the moment you entered, and there was no hope of survival even if you confessed everything you knew.

In a place where statements and confessions were easily fabricated and then denied, truth or innocence was not particularly important. It was more beneficial to die early than to endure the relentless torture that could end at any moment while being forced to reveal information you did not even know.

Weeeeinggg, a loud siren cut through the heavy silence that made one’s throat catch.

To receive the report on the previous night’s patrol and instructions for today’s duties, the patrol members forced their reluctant feet to move, lined up, and marched briskly out to the training grounds.

Here and there were empty spots, left by personnel absent due to the unfortunate incident and by witnesses to the event. In the gaps they created, anxious premonitions, the worst possible futures, and jumbled feelings pooled and swirled, quickly forming a raging current.

Isaac was no different from them. Even while congratulating himself on perfectly hiding his clumsy steps within the orderly march, and while feeling relieved to have somehow overcome the greatest crisis. He could not completely shake off the anxiety that made the crown of his head tingle.

Amidst it all, if there was one person he could rely on, it was only Vincent, who was diligently keeping pace beside him.

‘H-how…’

A few hours ago, it was Vincent, whom he had thought was asleep at the end of the hallway, who had snatched Isaac’s wrist as he emerged, holding his breath, from the third-floor records office.

Despite limping on his arthritic right leg, he quickly dragged his partner to a corner where they would be out of people’s sight.

He did not run to the patrol members on duty on other floors or report him to an officer. There was no scolding about hadn’t he told him not to go in, nor was there any sign of surprise at his risk-courting escapade. It was as if he had expected Isaac to enter that room from the very beginning.

‘You mustn’t act rashly. Don’t even think about moving alone. You haven’t forgotten where this is, have you?’

Only after firmly warning his partner, who had acted so recklessly, and confirming his nod did Vincent get to the point.

‘…Ha, I’ll help you.’

‘Pardon…?’

‘I said I’ll help you find the person. Isn’t that why you came to the city?’

That alone was not a sufficient explanation. A citizen born and raised in the city would never help another to the point of sacrificing themself.

‘Excuse me, by any chance…’

Isaac’s lips trembled up and down, hesitating on whether or not to voice his suspicion. It was something that could put the person offering help in a difficult position, after all. However, Vincent seemed to already know what his partner wanted to say.

‘I’ve lost a lot in this city too, and I’ve never found it again. It would be more accurate to say I couldn’t even dare to try. The people of the city don’t know kindness. For example, volunteering to be the partner of an old, infirm man, or sympathizing with someone who has suffered a similar loss.’

‘……’

‘…In the end, repaying a small act of goodwill with great loyalty is the greater cause. Isn’t that right?’

After that, they could not share the detailed circumstances as the assembly time was imminent. But with his last words, Isaac was certain.

Vincent was a rebel who, like him, had come from the outside—and one who had been selected as a comrade decades ago and had settled in this city.

The major incident of rebels being mixed in with the Public Security Bureau’s patrol members concluded as anticlimactically as it was comical that dozens of people had gathered in the training grounds and trembled in fear for a long while.

The higher-ups, who had completed their own investigation overnight, decided to take into consideration the fact that the other members had no particular connection with the two rebels whose identities had been exposed.

Since it did not seem like the rebels had moved in an organized fashion, they judged that it would be a waste of time to abolish the patrol, which had been revived for the Public Security Bureau’s positive image, or to investigate every single member.

Therefore, the final message from the Commissioner of Public Security was that the patrol members should continue as they had been, keeping their mouths shut as if they had heard nothing about the rebels, and carry out their assigned duties at their respective posts.

The moment they heard the order, conveyed in Sera’s clear voice, everyone simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief, but Isaac felt a dizzying sensation, as if he had stepped into a mire of incomprehensible depth.

Torture and death were scary, and it was true he was afraid of his identity being discovered, but he had never thought it would pass by so uneventfully.

Sera, the patrol members’ superior and the Commissioner’s adjutant, did not request any additional reports, nor did she ask any questions about unusual circumstances. After finishing what she had to say, she simply instructed them to patrol in shifts as before.

Isaac had been looking for a chance to report the man and woman he had seen, but in the end, he decided to keep his mouth shut.

The fact that he had reached the third floor without being stopped meant he was someone with the authority to do so.

Besides, even those patrolling the first and second floors had said nothing about the unfamiliar visitors, so he changed his mind at the last moment, thinking it would be better not to speak carelessly.

He did not know who the visitor to the records office was, but they must have stopped by while looking for a place to meet in secret. Thinking back, the man seemed to know his way around the Public Security Bureau quite well.

Besides, though it was unlikely, the last words he had left for the ‘rat’ also sounded like a warning directed at him.

Various questions related to the identity of the man with the cold, almost fishy voice, black, shiny shoes, and white trousers, and Vincent, who had suddenly volunteered to be an accomplice and revealed his identity, pressed down on him, feeling as if they would split his head open.

Who was that man? Did he notice my presence? Is the rebel commotion really over just like this? Is it okay to feel relieved? Since when, and how much does Vincent know? Can I honestly tell him my situation? No, can I even trust him…

“What are you thinking so hard about?”

“Ah…”

A full day had passed since the rebel commotion, and the patrol’s duties had returned to normal, as if nothing had happened. The two-person patrol duty also continued, with those who had lost partners forming new pairs.

But Isaac was just confused. His disjointed thoughts led to one another without finding a single proper answer, and far from finding a trace of Asel, his incompetence in not even being able to describe the unspeakable foreboding with concrete words tormented him.

The greatest pain among them all stemmed from the fact that he could not even trust Vincent, who had said he would help him.

Even when he listed everything he knew about the middle-aged man currently walking beside him, no basis for trusting him emerged.

A person who knew his identity. An undeniable rebel comrade, though he did not know at what point or for what mission he had come to the city. A man in his fifties who had offered to help him on the pretext of a small act of goodwill.

And Isaac still did not even know Vincent’s real name or his real story. He could not know for sure how much of their conversations until now was true, or what Vincent hoped to gain by offering his help.

“Hah…”

On the way back to make the day’s report after finishing patrol. Isaac was so anxious that he let out an involuntary sigh mixed with unease in a quiet alley.

“You look like you have a lot of questions for me.”

That was true. His mind was such a mess he did not even know where to begin asking.

Isaac smoothed his disheveled hair with his fingers and straightened his hat. Phew. After a long, deep breath, one question managed to pop out with difficulty.

“…I still can’t understand why you would take such a risk to help me.”

At those words, the years settled in the corners of Vincent’s eyes drew a winding arc.

“Because I’m a ‘straggler’.”

“…!”

“So if I have a friend like you, I want to help.”

Straggler. At that one word, his trivial suspicions vanished as if washed away, and he could finally understand what his partner had been saying all this time.

‘Stragglers’ were rebels who had infiltrated the city but had given up on their assigned missions and chosen to live under false identities, which was not an uncommon occurrence.

The number of defectors increased, especially as the mission duration grew longer. When they found lovers or started families, they were bound to choose to acclimate to the city rather than carry out life-threatening missions.

The rebels called them traitors. It was because even though they went to the city with important missions, they pursued personal glory and happiness instead of the city’s liberation or the ‘greater cause’ the rebels desired.

Stragglers were people who, while watching their comrades get arrested and die, would cowardly hide themselves away and never appear, afraid that their identities would be revealed to both the city and the rebels. That was all Isaac had known.

“Everything I’ve told you is true. That my wife is sick, and that I applied for the patrol because I need money.”

This was the first time he had actually met a straggler. From the rebels’ perspective, he might be a traitor, but perhaps they were all people like Vincent, just trying to protect their ordinary lives.