Chapter 53 - Subway (2)

I readily did as he said. There was nothing else I could do anyway. What was I supposed to accomplish here, with both my weapon and my communicator taken away? If he wanted me dead, he wouldn't have bothered saving me from the fungus.

Should I have pretended not to realize he was a deserter?

Well, it was too late now. Playing dumb at this point wasn't going to fool him. I'd find out what he wanted in time.

Once again, we walked through the subway in silence. I dragged my heavy legs along, my eyes fixed on the sword hanging at his waist.

Contrary to Angela's warning, the subway was quiet. The nameless fugitive Badger moved briskly ahead, as though he knew the place well. I couldn't sense any living presence besides ours.

We passed through a long corridor and went through the defunct ticket gates. At the bottom of the stairs, a row of old platform screen doors came into view. Just one stood open. The nameless man headed toward it.

Before jumping down through the opening, he looked back at me.

"Following along nice and quietly, aren't you?"

"I don't have any other options."

He stared at me. I looked at his bushy beard and shrugged.

"It's not as though I could beat you in a fight."

He snorted a laugh.

"Good attitude. Let's eat first."

But I could've sworn I'd only just had lunch.

Not that I could object. I wasn't so oblivious that I'd tell him I wasn't hungry right now. I followed him through the open platform door and jumped down onto the tracks.

A long tunnel stretched ahead. The narrow passage had no electric lighting, but we could still see: luminous mushrooms grew in a line along the tracks. They glowed green.

"Did you plant these?"

"Yeah."

Quite a feat.

I walked along, looking at the beautiful row of mushrooms. A strange black passage filled with green light. A cool breeze flowing through it.

After a long walk in silence, something massive loomed ahead.

An enormous train, standing perfectly still.

"Every entrance to this station is surrounded by that fungus that tried to eat you, so no creatures get in."

"But isn't it connected to other stations?"

"I blocked them all off."

Faint light seeped through the train's windows. The man approached the stationary train and slid a door open, then slipped inside, where light poured out. I trudged over and jumped aboard after him.

Then I recoiled at the sight before me.

"Holy shit."

"Nice setup, huh?"

He smirked at my wide-eyed stare.

"Believe it or not, they used to call me the Badgers' druid before I deserted."

Vegetables.

Neat shelves, with vegetables growing in orderly rows. Purple LED lights shining down on them. My jaw dropped at the pots filling an entire train car.

The sight filling my vision was utterly unfamiliar. Yet I knew the names of everything in those pots. Broccoli. Romaine. Isabel lettuce.

Most looked fresh enough to pick and eat right now.

... An expert at surviving outside the core?

After enjoying my stupefied expression for a while, the man spoke.

"We can't eat there. Come this way."

I finally managed to tear my eyes away from the vegetables and move into the next car. I thought I'd already had my fill of surprises, but each new sight kept me marveling.

Every car seemed to serve a different purpose. I passed through one after another: a car full of peeping chicks and scurrying chickens; a car packed with mushrooms, from enoki to varieties I couldn't name; a car containing rusty weapons, tools, and a block of wood that I assumed was a workbench.

Beyond those cars, we reached one that showed signs of human habitation. Unlike the others, it still had its original subway seats. The man gestured to the seats opposite what appeared to be his bed.

"Sit over there."

Then he went into another car and returned with a pot.

"Chicken soup."

"Wait."

"Enjoy."

He winked, handing me a rusty fork and spoon.

I was dumbfounded, but I didn't refuse. I meekly accepted a plate and ladled soup out of the pot.

We ate in silence for a while. The man seemed genuinely hungry; I was busy trying to take in the situation unfolding before me.

Yun had said supplies were the most important thing. Hadn't I been told that new recruits normally spent their first stretch stocking the supply depots in Area F? I also remembered what I'd heard before leaving the core. Beyond Area D, you had to rough it.

But this was Area A?

Though how I'd ended up all the way out here was a mystery in itself.

The conversation only resumed after the man finished his chicken soup.

"So. Is Yehyeon alive?"

I slowly put down my spoon. After studying the man behind all that hair and beard for a long moment, I asked a question of my own.

"Why did you desert?"

"You don't answer a question with a question."

"I can't just hand over information about us to a deserter."

"Hey. Whatever else I am, I'm a former Badger. And human."

The nameless senior arched his eyebrows, as though my attitude amused him.

"Wouldn't I be less of a risk than you? Besides, what could I do from here?"

Than me?

Why was I suddenly part of this? Unable to make sense of his words, I stared blankly at him.

He seemed to take my expression the wrong way and waved a hand.

"All right, all right. You want me to talk first, is that it?"

"What? About what, exactly?"

"Let's see. Where should I start?"

Was this what happened when someone lived alone for too long? We didn't seem to be communicating very well.

Ignoring my expression, the fugitive Badger stroked his beard.

"Since I mentioned Yehyeon, why don't we start with him?"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"Just listen. It won't hurt to hear it. You probably don't know much about it."

About what?

I was about to ask, but he spoke first.

"He told me he grew up with a single father, you know."

... What was this?

I blinked, flustered by the completely unexpected turn. The fact that he really was talking about Yehyeon was absurd enough, but I'd assumed he meant something related to Yehyeon's position.

Why was he getting so personal?

My bewilderment changed nothing. With my sword strapped to his waist, the man went on, his expression steeped in memories.

"We were in the same unit for a while during the First War. That's when he told me. Said his mother died giving birth to him. His father, though... Never saw his face, don't know his name, but he was probably pretty high up."

"Wait, excuse me."

"He came to the base a few times. Wanted to see his son."

Excuse me?

I was baffled by the way he blithely carried on. I wasn't sure I should keep listening. But despite my discomfort, I found myself recalling scraps of information I'd read before.

Hadn't people online complained about Yehyeon's obscure origins? That there was no information on either of his parents?

That didn't add up. Had his father been so important that there were no records of him?

"Military, politician, whatever he was... Anyway, Yehyeon would get called outside at the strangest times. He'd go deathly pale."

"Deathly pale?"

"I reckon he was abused."

No. This wasn't right.

This had gone too far. It wasn't something I had any business hearing. His casual remark snapped me to my senses.

I held up a palm toward him. He raised his eyebrows, and I said firmly,

"I won't listen to any more of this."

"Why? Because it's disrespectful to Yehyeon? Or because it doesn't sound useful? If it's the first, are you really in a position to worry about that? If it's the second, you'd be surprised how useful personal details like these can be."

"I don't see why my position should stop me from worrying about that. Either way, this doesn't seem right."

"I like Yehyeon."

What bullshit...

Perhaps my thoughts showed on my face, because the deserter let out a derisive laugh. It sounded like a tangle of emotions spilling out at once.

"You think I'm digging up his dirty laundry for fun, don't you?"

"Aren't you?"

"I'm not just going to tell you about Yehyeon. I'll tell you about all the others too. Jason, Richard, Ami, Yun, Ska, Jonathan, Riccardo. All of them! I'm trying to help you. Why won't you listen?"

"How is this helping me?"

"You need information, don't you? That's how you dodge the land mines and fit into the organization without trouble. Look. Get in their good graces, and you'll have more freedom. You need their trust to move freely outside the core, you fake new recruit."

"... Why do I need to move freely?"

Something was off.

At first, I'd thought he'd simply lived alone so long that he'd forgotten how to hold a conversation. But the longer we talked, the more I felt we were starting from entirely different assumptions.

Were we misunderstanding something about each other?

More precisely, he seemed to know something about me.

My stomach began to churn. I struggled to suppress the strange feeling rising inside me.

"What would I do with the freedom to move around outside the core?"

He looked blank.

For a long while, neither of us moved. Neither of us spoke. A brief silence born of incomprehension. We sat on the train's old seats, staring at one another across the aisle.

At last, he answered, looking as though he couldn't understand my question.

"Kill it."

"... Kill what?"

"The thing you betrayed."

Nausea surged through me.

"The bastard you drove out of the core. Your old comrade."

Fighting desperately not to throw up, I stared into his vivid green eyes. I also saw him begin to pull down his sleeve.

And his arm, turning ash gray.

"The fucker ordering us to drag you into Area S."

BOOM!

A heavy crash rang out.

The train shook. The impact from the rear swept rapidly through our car. The carriage shuddered, the crash echoing through the tunnel.

I turned to stare at the closed door between the cars.

The senior sprang to his feet.

"Fuck, they're here already. Let's go."

"Where?"

"The next station."

He pulled a small knife from his back pocket and sliced off his beard. The cut hair pattered onto the aisle floor. The face it revealed was younger than I'd expected. That was a surprise. I'd thought he'd be physically older. Not that this seemed like the time to marvel at it.

"Might as well stay alive as long as we can."

"What's out there?"

"What do you think? Your old friends, I'd say."

He deftly gathered up the weapons he'd set down. Then, without warning, he handed my sword back. Rather than ask questions, I took it with thanks.

"Thank you."

"I'd hoped we could talk in peace for at least a few minutes. But then, they sensed you here. Of course they weren't going to sit still."

"We can escape, right?"

"Yeah. I've got almost ten years of experience on the run. Keep quiet and follow me. And hey. Maybe it's not my place to say this, having deserted ten years ago, but..."

He pulled a mask over his face and set off.

I strapped the sword to my waist and followed, hurrying along while listening carefully both to the man ahead and to the sounds of whatever had rammed the rear of the train.

The deserter spoke without looking back.

"For what it's worth, I'm a veteran of two wars. I'm not about to stand by and watch our side lose."

He reached the next car in a flash, slid the door open with a rattle, and jumped down. As I followed him into the green darkness, I caught his next muttered words.

They were closer to something he was saying to himself than to me. A whisper edged with razor-sharp resolve.

"Like hell I'm handing you over to them."

We began to run along the dark tracks.