Episode 4 - 3[The Dud]
The train stopped.
Shhhhhhhh —
Steam slithered across the platform like a serpent's breath. The screech of brakes tearing into rail scraped the eardrums. The vibration of hundreds of tons of steel killing its momentum traveled up through the concrete, from sole to knee.
The carriage doors opened.
Men in uniform descended the steps. Star-heavy tunics, gold epaulettes, polished boots. Aides-de-camp followed in line, briefcases in hand. The banzai from the crowd climbed a pitch. Coerced frenzy. At the front of the platform, Father bowed deeply — a bow so practiced it had been worn into the bone.
I stood in the middle of the crowd. Steam had risen to waist height. My lower half was submerged in fog. The hide-and-wire left arm hung at my side. The feeling in my fingertips was already gone. Palm — dead too. Numbness was climbing toward the wrist. Inside my body, the clock ticked.
My eyes swept the crowd.
'Where are you.'
Looking for Young-sik. The young man from the truck in Episode 2 — the one I'd freed from his ropes, who'd trembled when he saw my eyes and called them a predator's. Somewhere on this platform right now, the dud in his pocket, waiting.
Right side. Behind a pillar. Worn jeogori, disheveled hair. Holding a mandatory flag, but the hand on the flagpole was shaking. The other hand was inside his pocket. The cloth was bulging. Something bigger than a fist, clenched.
Young-sik.
Sweat on his forehead. In the March morning cold, breath coming out white — and still, sweat running down his face. His jaw trembled faintly. Teeth clamped together to stop them chattering — the same jaw that had shaken in the truck, unable to hold the tin cup.
'He's going to throw.'
I measured the distance between Young-sik and the train. Fifteen meters. Three seconds for the grenade to hit the floor. Two seconds for him to realize it wasn't going off. Five seconds for the military police to close in. Ten seconds total.
I had to reach the dud in ten seconds.
The welcome address began. The general took the microphone on the platform. Japanese poured from the loudspeaker. The crowd was walled in by sound.
Under that noise, movement began.
Young-sik's right foot stepped forward.
His body came out from the pillar's shadow. His hand came out of his pocket. A round, black lump of iron sat in his fist. A grenade. Safety pin already pulled. His thumb was holding down the safety lever. Release the thumb — lever releases — fuse ignites — four seconds to detonation — should have been.
"Long live Korean independence ———!!!"
Young-sik's cry tore through the platform — a scream that could split a throat.
Not a banzai. A last will. The voice of a man who had no intention of coming back.
His arm swung overhead. Shoulder rotating, elbow extending, wrist releasing — and the black lump left his hand.
The grenade arced through the air. It cut through the steam, passed under the flags, flew toward the platform stage.
The platform froze. The banzai chants stopped. Hundreds of eyes tracked the black dot in the air.
The iron hit the floor.
Clank.
Clank-grgrgrgrg…
The grenade rolled across the concrete like a tin can. Five meters in front of the stage. An arm's length from the general's boot.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Four seconds.
The crowd had stopped breathing. My heart had stopped too. Lungs turned to stone. Air wouldn't come in.
Five seconds.
Nothing happened.
From the top of the grenade, a thin thread of smoke rose. Pssst. Blue-tinged smoke. Not explosive. Smoke screen. The fake fuse inserted where the detonator had been, burning — fireworks-level smoke.
"...A dud."
The word slipped out of me. I knew. Dr. Jang had told me. The detonator was gone. But knowing and seeing are different. Watching the iron lump belch nothing but smoke — it hurt worse than a fist to the gut.
Young-sik's knees buckled.
He dropped straight down onto the concrete as if his legs had been cut. His arm was still extended in the throwing position. Eyes wide. Mouth open. Not a scream, not a shout — just the hollow where a voice had been, after it had already left.
From the second-floor railing, Kageyama's voice descended.
"Take them."
Cold and flat. Short as a spoken order could be.
The web snapped taut.
Military boots thundered from every direction. From behind pillars, inside the ticketing office, from the shadows of freight cars — soldiers poured out. Gun barrels swung as one toward Young-sik and the crowd around him. Screams exploded. Mandatory flags dropped to the ground, people surged backward like a wave. Bodies collided, fell, were trampled.
"Everyone down! Move and you'll be shot!"
Japanese and Korean commands tangled in the air. A soldier brought the rifle butt down on the back of Young-sik's head. Thud — a blunt sound, and Young-sik's forehead hit the concrete. Blood spread.
Two men beside Young-sik rushed forward. A shot rang out. Aimed at the legs. One man's thigh erupted. He went down screaming. The other was pinned under three soldiers.
On the second-floor railing, Kageyama watched. Arms folded. Gloved fingers tapping his own forearm. Bored. Expected. Exactly as planned.
The general and his staff were retreating into the carriage, surrounded by aides. Father — Father stood at the edge of the platform. He hadn't stepped back. Chest out, medals forward, watching the soldiers suppress the independence fighters. His mouth was pulled down. Not the face of a man rattled by danger. The face of someone who had just stepped in something filthy.
Young-sik's eyes lifted from the ground. Blood from his forehead covered one eye. The remaining eye looked at the dud, trailing its thin smoke.
"Why… why won't it go off…"
His broken voice crawled across the concrete.
"It should have… why…"
He stretched a hand toward it, lying flat. Bloody fingers clawing the air. Couldn't reach. A soldier's boot came down on the back of his hand. Bones snapped.
I was watching.
In the surge of bodies screaming and stampeding backward, I was the only one moving forward. Pushing through with my shoulder, heading for the center of the platform. The bodies hitting my right side slammed into me one after another. Nothing hit my left. The grotesque shape of the hide-and-wire arm jutting out made people instinctively veer away.
The dud sat on the concrete, still slowly rolling.
Blue smoke curling upward.
Young-sik's blood spreading beside it.
I walked.
My left hand was dead. But the muscle was still alive. The tiger's blood was lighting fires in the fibers. Not the brain's command — the blood's command. An electrical signal drove down the spinal cord and forced the dead nerves awake. The fingers moved. Like a convulsion. Not by will but by violence.
The crowd's screaming fell away. The gunshots fell away. Kageyama's voice fell away.
One sound remained in my eardrums.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The countdown on my left hand was running out.
I took the last step forward.
Inside the military police cordon.
To the dud spitting smoke.