TCWGRF 18

Perhaps Vincent had circumstances he couldn’t talk about. Maybe he, too, was unjustly framed or blackmailed, and he had no choice but to give him false information to save his own life and his wife’s. Or maybe he really didn’t know.

If so, it wasn’t something he couldn’t understand. Vincent had no obligation to help others at the risk of his own life. It was, after all, a kindness, something he had offered to a young man who knew nothing.

He decided to believe that. Otherwise, it would be difficult to forgive his foolish self for being used. Resentment would take over, and he would want to suspect Vincent rashly without knowing the full situation and hurl curses at him.

“Hoo…”

The Chief of Public Security, who had finished his brief venting with a few blows, said, ‘Think about it carefully,’ and left the room.

Left alone, Isaac wanted to use the excuse of his split mouth hurting from the beating to cry his eyes out. However, his eyes, which had long since become stiff and dry, welled up with tears but couldn’t shed them in a satisfying stream.

The moment he met Samuel’s cold gaze, which held not even a shred of pity for the one tied to the chair, Isaac realized once again how merciless he was, and how powerless he himself was.

When he returned by opening that door, if Isaac couldn’t provide the information he wanted to know, various tortures ‘to not kill him easily,’ as he had warned, would follow.

Isaac had no way of knowing a pain that would surpass his current agony. Stories about the basement, babbled by drunk rebel misters, swirled noisily around his ears as if they had been waiting.

A spooky place where ghosts might appear, a prison where screams echoed at all hours, a space like a pigsty that reeked of excrement.

Among those who had chattered away, spitting as they talked, was there anyone who had actually been here? Did those misters know that this was a place where one waits for death in silence, not even knowing how many days had passed on a cold metal chair?

Every fear he could imagine rushed over him at once, and a chill ran through his body. He trembled so much that his jaw chattered uncontrollably.

“Hahh…”

The only way to escape this extreme terror was to bite off his own tongue, but the probability of dying that way was extremely low. He had been pushing his tongue between his chattering teeth and biting down with all his might for a while now, but all he had managed to do was leave a stinging scratch.

He wanted to die, but he had neither the courage nor the strength to die. He was struck anew by how amazing the people who had preserved their dignity in life by reaching death by their own hands were. Isaac couldn’t do that. It was absolutely impossible.

Now that he realized he couldn’t die by his own power, the next question was obvious. Do I really want to die? No. No matter how much he thought about it, the answer was one. I want to live. I want to live and see you.

Even now, he was scared of dying, of being killed, and scared of rotting away in a damp, musty basement without ever seeing Ashel again.

He would go from being a person to a lump of meat seeping blood, then to unappetizing, decayed trash, and then to something tattered and rotten that couldn’t even function as fertilizer. He was not remotely prepared to imagine that far.

Under the flickering light, a hell was prepared for Isaac. His hell smelled not of sulfur but of damp mold, a place where a white devil wearing human skin was the chief warden, stalking the corridors without a sound.

Isaac raised his head and squinted at the light shining down on him. The feeble light bulb repeatedly flickered on and off for an instant, leaving black holes dotted across his retinas. The dots became spots, the spots took the shape of a face, and eventually transformed into an angel with curly brown hair.

An illusion hovering above his head, flapping its beautiful wings with a hum. It was as if that child who had gone before him had come to meet him.

“Sob. Ashel, Ashel. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

The words, which could have been atonement or a regret mulled over at the end of his life, echoed like a confession before being quickly swallowed by the sobs that followed closely behind. The shadow cast by the lampshade wavered and spoke to Isaac.

‘Isaac, you think too much. Without me, you’d just be lost in useless thoughts, wouldn’t you?’

You’re right. Ashel. It’s the same even now.

‘Acting like you’re the only smart one.’

Without you, I’ve become a fool. What should I do? How can I see you again?

‘I don’t know. But finding me was always your job, wasn’t it?’

Finding Ashel, who would hide away for reasons like being scolded, getting tired of endless chores, or being bullied, was Isaac’s specialty since they were children.

Until Isaac came to find him, Ashel would wait quietly, curled up wherever he was.

‘See? I knew you’d come.’

Click, clack, strength entered his jaw, which had been playing its own discordant tune, and his teeth ground sharply with a grind. His jaw joint throbbed, and a stinging pain spread to the surrounding area, but Isaac felt as if his mind had finally cleared.

When he closed his eyes, he saw that child in a baggy t-shirt, running barefoot, stepping right into the puddles collected in the gray city.

Right. This was an extension of the hide-and-seek they always played, just the two of them. Ashel hides, and Isaac finds him.

So he couldn’t die in a place like this in vain. Because that child was surely waiting for him somewhere in the city.

A self-deprecating smile hung on one corner of the Chief of Public Security’s lips as he stood leaning his hip diagonally against his office desk.

His brow was deeply furrowed, and his eyebrows were arched in the opposite direction, unfiltered signs that his mood was not good, but it was difficult to dismiss it all as just being angry or annoyed. It was because he also seemed subtly flushed.

This time, it was a clear mistake by the new Chief of Public Security. Not only had he failed to recognize the ‘head’ of the rebels, but the Public Security Bureau had also stood by and done nothing even as the man stole an old blueprint and walked out on his own two feet.

Countless people, including the party officials, were hoping for nothing but Samuel’s downfall, so if they learned the full story of this incident, they would rush to be the first to take his head.

Wouldn’t they try not just to strip him of his post, but to slice his neck slowly, in a way that would cause a human the most pain, and hang it on the street they passed by every day?

He wasn’t afraid of dying, but it would be unpleasant if it were at the hands of the city’s greaseballs or the public officials obsessed with preserving their positions.

Since there was no such thing as an honorable death in this city, Samuel wanted at least an acceptable death. A death by his own hand, or by someone he could acknowledge. If not that, then he would live to grasp true freedom and enjoy what he could to the very end.

In any case, this incident had to be resolved in secret, and there was little time. However, the Chief of Public Security did not seem anxious or impatient.

In the way he tilted his head slightly and stroked his chin with his eyes lowered, one could even feel a certain sense of composure. It seemed that things like the failure of an operation as Chief of Public Security or the report to the officials in three months were not enough to frighten him.

‘Where did I miss it?’

What had ruined Samuel’s mood were the ‘anomalies’ that had deceived his eyes with such futile ease during the execution of this operation.

The black-haired young man who, despite clearly being from the outside, denied being a rebel himself. Vincent, who he had thought was a perfect citizen, who had known the exact location of an old-world artifact that even the Chief of Public Security was unaware of, and who had disappeared with just that one item.

These two people had defied the new Chief of Public Security’s expectations, a man who was seasoned in dealing with rebels, and were making it impossible to be certain of anything.

“What’s the situation?”

“The bodies of the two rebels who committed suicide have been investigated and disposed of according to protocol. However, as for the escaped ‘Neighborhood Watch member Vincent,’ we have searched within the possible range, but…”

“You couldn’t find him?”

“…Yes. I have no excuse.”

Sarah bowed her waist, admitting her fault before Samuel. She had been in charge of vetting the Neighborhood Watch members, and what happened while her superior was away was also her responsibility.

For days, she had secretly traced the sewers and scoured the 26th district where he had lived, using all sorts of excuses, but nothing came up. She didn’t even know where he had gone, so she had to accept any punishment. She deeply empathized with her superior’s view of incompetence as a crime, so making excuses now was meaningless.

“The state of the house.”

But Samuel asked for detailed circumstances instead of reprimanding Sarah.

“In Vincent’s residence, there was a body that had been dead for several days. It’s presumed that he killed the person himself while planning this incident.”

“…Ah. His wife, I suppose?”

“Correct. There was no other material inside, and painkillers distributed from the Central Health Center were found. Judging from the state of the body and the lack of witnesses in recent months, it seems certain that the wife was bedridden for a long time. Perhaps even if he hadn’t killed her, she would have died soon.”

He killed the wife he was trying to save with his own hands.

Considering his actions so far, it wasn’t incomprehensible. He was a man who had fought a war of attrition with the city, casually expending the lives of countless young men. Even if it was a wife he truly loved, couldn’t he have killed her if necessary?

“Besides that, was there anything else unusual?”

“…Ah!”

As if she had remembered something important, Sarah lifted her head and her eyes widened.

“There was a box containing a baby boy’s clothes. I looked up the records, and it turns out he had a son who was reported dead 20 years ago, less than a year after he was born.”

“A son?”

“Yes, but in addition to the newborn’s clothes, there were also clothes of various age ranges that had never been worn. When I asked the neighbors, most of them testified that the news of the baby’s death was unexpected because his cries were too robust for a baby who was going to die.”

“……That’s interesting.”

In Samuel’s mind, as he gently closed his eyes, the individual events became puzzle pieces, fitting one by one onto a large, blurry picture. More pieces were needed to complete the picture, but it felt like he could faintly sketch out what lay behind it.

A husband who killed his wife with his own hands, the couple’s son who was supposed to be dead, the purpose of stealing a dated city artifact instead of information on the basement or other useful secrets despite having a thorough knowledge of the Public Security Bureau’s interior, the reason he himself moved at the risk of being discovered….

An unexpected context was forming in that series of events. This time, Samuel’s lips stretched thinly to both sides, and a meaningful smile seeped through.

“…Process the fugitive ‘Neighborhood Watch member Vincent’ as deceased.”

“If we search more…”

“No, he’s probably already left the city by now anyway. Since he has the blueprint.”

Why would he aim for a blueprint of the early city, and not a recent one? The answer Samuel came to was simple.

While gray buildings were newly built on the surface and the city took its current form, if there was one place that hadn’t changed at all from the beginning, it was the sewer system laid out underground.

The early blueprint detailed various passages and devices, so he would be able to get out of the city safely, even with his bad leg. That is, if he had a reason to go outside himself.

“Gag everyone who knows even a little about this incident. Make it so they can’t speak at all. …And scrape up as much information as you can about that dead son.”

“Yes, sir.”

Now, it was the young man’s turn, who was stuck in the basement as bait.

What were the chances of meeting a young man who was not even a comrade belonging to the rebels, yet was just careless enough to attract the attention of the Chief of Public Security at such a convenient time? A fool so stupid that even Samuel couldn’t recognize him, who would go digging on his own into a place piled with musty garbage.

Samuel still didn’t know who he was trying to find inside the archives, in the place where soon-to-be-discarded materials were collected.

He said he wanted to find a person, so was he trying to confirm the life or death of a comrade who was like a father to him? Or was it all just an excuse, and he was staying there on Vincent’s orders to attract attention? Whatever it was, it wasn’t very important.

He could just dismiss their meeting as a simple coincidence or one of the rebels’ unusual infiltration cases, and kill the useless young man to vent his anger. His goal was to track down the ‘head’ of the rebels and uproot their forces, not to figure out the pitiful story of some nobody.

“…Tsk.”

But why was it? A nagging feeling, as small as a hangnail, wouldn’t disappear. An annoying hangnail that, the moment you tear it off wrong, would leave a stinging wound all the way to the root of the nail with a riip, and yet wouldn’t come off completely, continuing to irritate you with its roughness until the end.

Tap, tap, tap, his fingers, touching the edge of the desk, tapped aimlessly, urging a decision.

“Shi…”

Intuition. Samuel couldn’t ignore that thing called intuition, which had been coiling in his chest and raising its head for some time.

Was there any need to rely on an uncertain and insubstantial intuition that just kept insisting that this was all like a long, continuous mural, and that if he killed that mysterious opponent, he would regret it someday?

But to simply ignore it, intuition had always been a reliable partner that saved his life in the face of great threats. Sometimes it would arrive a step ahead of perfectly structured rational judgment and lead him in the complete opposite, yet unfailingly correct, direction.

After a brief moment of deliberation, Samuel, gently opening his eyes, gave an additional order to Sarah, who was waiting before him.

“Move the prisoner in the basement to an empty room in the official residence.”

“…Sir?”

Move a prisoner who was clearly a rebel or from the outside to the Chief of Public Security’s official residence?

At the suspicious order, Sarah unknowingly showed a look of bewilderment towards her superior, but Samuel, without a detailed explanation, returned to his chair and added an indifferent instruction.

“…Away from prying eyes, at dawn. Fabricate a fake identity as suitably dead, no need to create a new one. If anyone asks, well, say I brought him for some unusual entertainment.”

“I’ll handle it immediately.”

Torturing and killing him was an easy option he could choose at any time, so couldn’t he take a risk to see if his intuition was right?

For example, what about trying his own hand at it until his curiosity about this unprecedented anomaly was resolved, or using him as bait for another operation by presenting a conciliation plan to grasp the full picture of the elusive image?

For that, he needed a space where he could observe more comfortably, instead of the basement with its many watching eyes. Like his own residence, where no one would attach any particular meaning to it.

“Ahaha…”

Having decided so, he even began to feel a sense of amusement, and Samuel started laughing with his whole face, forgetting even the fact that his operation had failed.