Chapter 101: There Is No Line １０ in Seoul (１)

****

The Foundation’s dispatched team to the Anomalous Incident Response Agency. To seize the initiative, they arrived at the Bureau of Special Phenomena headquarters aboard a vertical takeoff and landing fixed-wing transport.

That’s a bit of a mouthful.

The dispatched Administrator Lee Jihye and her party stepped off the transport. And, true to form, to seize the initiative, they appeared fully kitted out in black suits, coats, and sunglasses. The full Men in Black getup.

“Hello. We’re the Foundation support team dispatched for this operation. I’m Administrator Lee Jihye from the Foundation’s Director’s Office. Pleased to work with you.”

The Director nodded.

***

The dawn of the promised day broke.

I was sitting in the command room inside Foundation headquarters. Counting the ones outsourced, we had to investigate 15 locations total and apprehend 135 people.

How successful we’d be was still an open question.

Operation start. The Foundation’s enemies were about to meet the rather formidable hammer of South Korean state authority.

Museu Construction, the Incheon shaman faction’s base.

-We have a warrant. This is the National Tax Service. If you don’t open this door, we’ll seize the entire building!

Second-coming Jesus Kim Gwangchun’s collective farm.

-This facility has a warrant out for systematic child abuse. Come out now. If you don’t open the door, we’re breaking in!

Mujin-ri ghost village, Gyeonggi Province.

-Entering the operation zone.

Abandoned hospital on the outskirts of Ajin City, Chungcheong Province.

-All clear. Entering the operation zone.

Gwangjin University physics lab.

-This is a Ministry of Environment field inspection. We’re here investigating violations of safety laws regarding radioactive materials. If you don’t open the door right now, we’re breaking in!

Abandoned factory on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province.

-This is a police raid team. We’ve apprehended multiple suspicious individuals at the scene.

The library at an abandoned school outside Gyeongju.

-Uh…

Busan Gaori gang base.

-This is a field inspection from the National Health Insurance Service’s collection committee. We’re here regarding unpaid health insurance premiums. If you don’t pay, we’ll freeze your accounts and seize your assets.

Fortunately, things seemed to be proceeding smoothly. Foundation helicopters were also patrolling near the operation zones as a precaution.

I picked up my phone.

“Director of the Anomalous Incident Response Agency. Are you there?”

[Yes.]

“You didn’t go out to the field?”

[No. I’m currently commanding the operation in front of the abandoned school outside Gyeongju.]

“It’s 7 a.m. now, so an hour has passed since the operation began. Please report your results.”

[Yes. Investigation of most of the eight anomalous locations is complete. We’ve arrested dozens of suspicious individuals, and most of the 51 people on the list you gave us should be in custody by today.]

“Good.”

Now. All that remained was entering the abandoned subway station on the outskirts of Seoul. By now, civilian control and entrance inspection should be finished, right?

“I’ll head to the subway station. You all continue commanding the operation.”

I grabbed my gown and rose from my seat.

****

Poi Station, Seoul Line 11.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t Poi Station itself — you’d have to travel a few minutes from Poi Station to reach it — but roughly speaking, it was one of the abandoned stations on an abandoned line at Seoul’s southernmost edge.

The forgotten underground facilities probably numbered more than one or two. The Poi Station underground bunker was just one of the relatively larger abandoned facilities beneath Seoul.

If what we’d determined was correct, this abandoned subway station was a sort of bunker built during the Cold War era. Abandoned after the dissolution of the Cold War system.

Since then, it had been maintained as little more than a hard-to-manage cave.

Now, rumors that something inside was causing trouble had led to this renewed exploration.

The helicopter I was on landed in the designated clearing. Recovery Division staff had apparently been inspecting the site for hours. I looked around.

“Section Chief of Division 1.”

“Ah. Director, hello.”

“How’s the site?”

“There’s definitely movement inside the building. But since it’s underground, confirming it is a bit difficult. For now, we’re sending in as many unmanned robots as we can.”

“Any results?”

“Nothing yet. Honestly, it feels like we’ll need to send a person in before whoever’s on the other side takes the bait…”

“Understood. What about the general internal layout?”

“We’ve confirmed the bunker goes down eight floors underground. We couldn’t reach the eighth floor. We also confirmed that it connects to various other underground structures in multiple places.”

“…”

“What kind of underground structures?”

“We couldn’t confirm exactly. Regular subway lines, water and sewage systems, power grids — a variety. In any case, we believe there are quite a lot of them.”

This was a far more complicated problem than I’d expected.

“Why would someone build something like this?”

“Probably because they judged there was a possibility of North Korean forces occupying the Seoul surface, or fallout covering it. In that scenario, it makes sense.”

I nodded.

“What about the specific entry plan?”

“We do have a wall-breaching machine, but I can’t guarantee its effectiveness. We’ll probably just proceed as usual — breaching the doors with thermite.”

The entrance was secured, anyway.

****

I checked my radio, my rifle, and my observation equipment. All functioning normally. My night-vision goggles were working properly too. There was no guarantee the lights would be on down there.

And even if they were, we’d probably be turning them off as we advanced. Whoever we were up against, we had the advantage in the dark with high-grade night-vision gear.

[This is Moon-1. Task Force Moon of Seoul. Ready. We’ll enter as soon as we’re in contact with headquarters.]

[This is Command. Entry authorized.]

We stepped into the pitch-black darkness of the abandoned underground bunker. The interior breathed out wind like the maw of some great beast. Was there a heat source inside…?

Unpleasant.

Entering basement level 1.

“I’ll take point.”

A hand signal. I took the energy shield Lee Seah had used, along with the Gauss musket Dr. Chae had given me last time, and stood at the head of the formation.

The task force was following behind me.

[We don’t know what might come out, Director.]

The underground bunker was, for some reason, lively. The sound of rats and insects moving, the sound of sewage water flowing, the distant rumble of a subway train passing by.

I swept the area with my night-vision goggles.

“Install adhesive sound recorders on the walls. I want the sounds analyzed.”

[Understood.]

This was similar to a deep-sea situation. Water and earth are excellent mediums for transmitting sound. So we needed to examine the sounds at the site first.

[This is Field Support. We’ll get adhesive recorders on the walls as quickly as possible.]

“You don’t have any acoustic equipment on site?”

[Sorry. We don’t.]

“Right, well… just make it quick.”

****

We swept all of basement level 1, but there was nothing special. Up to this point, it was just an ordinary subway. Of course, all the important sections were sealed behind thick blast doors.

[Where on earth did the Korean government of that era get the money to build something like this?]

“There might have been a Group of Interest that wanted the survival of humanity or the nation. Or the Foundation, Pluto LLC, or the Peacekeeping Force might have supported it.”

[Hmm, I suppose so.]

[This is Moon-1. After surveying the area — although there were no people or anomalies, this facility did not appear to have been sealed for the past thirty years.]

I nodded.

“There were quite a few small animals, and judging by the air composition, it didn’t look like air that had been sealed for a long period. The radon concentration is oddly high, so I suspect the terrain here is unusual.”

[Confirmed.]

“Aside from the radon levels, no other reality distortion or spacetime anomalies were detected. Also — whether it’s iron ore in the area or the rebar, I don’t know — but communications will likely become difficult the deeper we go.”

[Understood.]

“We’re already starting to lose contact with Field Support, aren’t we? We won’t reach the eighth floor at this rate.”

The task force team leader nodded.

[We’ll need to decide before that happens.]

****

Entering basement level 2.

Basement level 2 appeared to have been designed as a sort of living quarters for subway or government personnel. A space maintained like a hotel.

Unlike before, the repeating spaces added another layer of unease to an already dark and maze-like underground impression. But…

“If people lived here, this would be the place.”

[Right? They wouldn’t go further down and leave a hotel behind. Director, do we check each door, or do we just pass them by?]

“Let’s check one for now.”

One of the task force members pulled out an axe and broke down the wooden door. *CRASH!* We were able to break through the door and enter the hotel room in no time.

“…”

There was nothing special in the room.

Just a few pieces of furniture old and crumbling away. The only peculiar thing was a massive landscape painting hanging where a window should have been. For some reason, it sent a chill down my spine.

[Director. I think you should take a look at this.]

The task force team leader brought over the lock from the now-shattered door. I tilted my head.

“Look. There are traces of recent oiling, aren’t there? If this facility really was closed before it even properly opened, there would have been plenty of time for dust to pile up on these hinges.”

True.

[And also. There’s not much dust on the floor, is there? It looks like someone came and went recently. Whatever it was.]

I thought for a moment.

But wait, what’s the composition of this dust? Most dust in an ordinary household is made of human fragments. Skin cells, dandruff—those make up household dust. It doesn’t seem like people live here, so where is the dust coming from?

Is it just decades of time piling up? Fungal spores? Or should I consider even this to be a type of anomaly?

“Let’s look around a bit more.”

We resumed our steps into the darkness.