All Names Shall Be Recorded

The elevator still did not go down, even after the first notice line appeared.

Seojin tore a page from her notebook and divided it into three columns.

Paper record, signature of the responsible party, names actually called aloud.

She wrote down each condition Eunchae had verified remotely, one line at a time.

"What if we only have one of the three?" Sua asked.

Eunchae did not answer right away. She read further into the logs.

"In the past notices, all three conditions appear together. The paper record survives a server rollback, the signature of the responsible party fixes who is in charge, and calling the names aloud puts the omitted names onto the broadcast path," Doyun said. "Too long." Seojin drew a line through it.

"Paper, signature, names."

Seojin did not write down only the four of them.

Below the five current passengers she made a separate section for the rooftop households from eight years ago, and their package receipts. The names were still blacked out, so she wrote them as recipient of 1301, recipient of 1302. "We can't invent a name we haven't verified. But we can submit a record that the households existed." Jang Myeongsu raised his head.

"The original package log is in the management office storeroom." "Can you get to it?" "I have the key, but I need the manager's permission." "And without permission?" Jang Myeongsu rolled the key over in his hand. "Then it's unauthorized removal." Sua spoke up.

"Then read it on camera. Don't take it out."

That was when the report came in from Car 2.

Eunchae's voice picked up speed.

"Building 404, Car 2, display reading 13. No passengers. But the number of people eligible to join the group chat is dropping one at a time along the Car 2 line." Mingyu's phone buzzed.

It was a message from a classmate.

why r all the elevators in ur building on 13

In the photo, the button marked 13 was lit in a different elevator too.

Doyun closed the control panel.

"It's spreading through the whole building. We can't stall much longer." Seojin started to write a time limit beside the three conditions, then stopped.

She did not have an exact time.

Instead she wrote: group chat eligible count decreasing.

The management office manager refused to sign.

His words came through the radio clearly.

"If we acknowledge unregistered households, the building's occupancy approval is the first thing that comes apart. The insurer will reopen the fire claim. If we evacuate everyone at this hour, the elderly and the sick will get hurt. Who takes responsibility for that?" The residents' representative joined the call too. "You're asking every household to eat property damage over one delivery driver? My kids are asleep." Sua opened her mouth, but she did not speak right away.

She looked at Mingyu once, then at Jang Myeongsu.

"Don't say it's because of one of me. The system picked one person. And people accept it because it's convenient."

Seojin wrote her own name in the box for the responsible party's signature.

Yun Seojin, contract field recorder, Daon Life Safety.

It did not save.

Eunchae spoke.

"Authority rejected. Not the managing party, so it has no effect." Seojin set the pen down. A person without authority writing the right words was not enough to open a door.

Doyun was watching that failure.

"Worst case, I go out." "Where to?" "Toward the thirteenth floor the second the door opens. Leave one person outside and the rest of you can go down." Seojin looked straight at him. "Designating a volunteer is not a solution." "It's buying time." Sua cut in.

"And they'd use that time to write the next rule. A volunteer is the same sentence as one person short."

Doyun did not argue, but he did not move from the door either.

He stood like a man getting ready to block it with his body.

Seojin looked at the a written on his arm.

The letter had smeared a little in his sweat.

"If you walk out, Sua's name does not come back. The people from eight years ago stay exactly as they are." "And if we hold on to all of it and lose all of it?" "That's why we move the responsible party." "The manager won't do it." "Then I'll find something the manager can't switch off." Seojin enlarged the video call feed from the management office.

Behind the notice box she could see the building-wide broadcast unit.

Jang Myeongsu saw the same thing.

His hand picked the broadcast room key out of the ring.

At first Jang Myeongsu said, "Well, the thing is."

After that he could not get the rest out.

The manager came over the radio: "Chief Jang, put that key down."

Jang Myeongsu held the radio for a long while before he answered.

"Manager Choe, I'm the one who put up the notice on the morning of April 19, 2018." The date dropped into the elevator. "I put up the one that said evacuation complete. Even after I'd seen the package log for the rooftop households." There was a sound of the manager swallowing a curse.

Jang Myeongsu went on.

"Today I'm going to start with the names of the people who actually lived there." His voice was not his everyday voice.

It was the voice a man uses for names and dates.

On the video call, the junior guard who worked under Jang Myeongsu stepped up to the broadcast room door.

Jang Myeongsu described where the key was.

Third from the left, red rubber cap.

Sua asked where the breaker panel was.

"If the manager cuts the power, the broadcast stops." Jang Myeongsu answered. "Behind the office. Gray door." Sua could not get out of the elevator, but she spoke to the junior guard through the video call. "Block the door. Don't block it with your body, take pictures of the breaker handle while you do it. Leave a record of who pulls it." Her words sounded like an order, but the frustration of a job she could not do with her own hands was attached to the end of them.

The residents' representative kept talking.

"Is this being recorded? We have to think about how this looks for our building." Eunchae answered flatly. "This call is being recorded. Ahead of how it looks, the eligible count is dropping. Three fewer on Line 7." Mingyu, looking at his class group chat, said, "My mom says don't get in the elevator. But she says the doors already opened on every floor." Doyun checked the seam of the door.

There was no gap at all.

Seojin held her notebook's paper record up in front of the camera.

"Five passengers. Record of the rooftop households' existence. Responsible party and witness, Jang Myeongsu." Jang Myeongsu shook his head.

"Not witness. Signatory."

The broadcast room microphone came on.

At first there was a long stretch of feedback.

Jang Myeongsu's voice arrived behind that sound.

"This is Jang Myeongsu, security chief of Building 404. The evacuation complete notice of April 19, 2018 left out people who actually lived here." The manager shouted for the power to be cut, but on the feed the guard was holding his ground in front of the gray door with his phone up. Watching the screen, Sua said, "Not just the handle, get the face too. If you only keep the hands, the person in charge slips out again." Seojin wrote Jang Myeongsu's name under the responsible party signature box.

It was not an actual signature yet.

But the broadcast had started.

The paper with the three conditions read differently to each of them.

To Eunchae it was a set of verification conditions, to Doyun a list of risks that took too long.

To Jang Myeongsu it was a box where he had to write his own name.

To Sua it was the way to save herself, and also the procedure that called someone from eight years ago back.

Seojin did not try to tie those differences into one thing.

"I'm going to confirm each person's scope of consent. Sua, do you consent to your name being broadcast?" Sua did not answer right away. "Just my name. Not my address or my number." "Mingyu." "My name's fine, but don't say my mom's number." Jang Myeongsu said, "Say my position too." Doyun said, "Kang Doyun, field response officer. That's as far as it goes."

This confirmation was slow.

Doyun hated the slowness.

"There's no time to collect consent forms right now." Seojin did not stop the pen. "That's why I'm keeping it short." "When that door opens we have to move immediately." "If the door opens and we don't know who drops out, it's the same thing all over again." Sua looked at Doyun. "You're the save them fast type, and she's the slow, leave no one out type." Doyun did not answer that.

Instead he taped down the emergency stop button inside the elevator. It was a measure to keep hands from getting hurt if the door moved suddenly.

His words were short, but his hands moved first.

The manager kept adding reasons for refusing to sign.

Occupancy approval, insurance, resident complaints, press exposure, legal liability. He also mentioned consulting a city legal officer named O Jeongho.

He had not gotten through yet.

Eunchae reported, "Recording the manager's statements. No actual connection to a legal officer."

The residents' representative said they should reopen the vote in the group chat.

A line went up: process only the people currently verifiable.

The eligible count had already dropped to 3.

It did not show who had dropped out.

Mingyu tried to check whether his own name was still there, but the chat room had collapsed the name list.

Only the number was left.

Sua looked at the screen with only a number on it and opened her palm again.

The ink had bled into the creases of her hand, and the su in Han Sua had gone a little faint.

"If this wears off, write it again." She asked Seojin for the pen.

This time she did not hesitate.

When Seojin handed it over, Sua went over her palm again.

"I consent to the broadcast. And when I get out, I'm going to say all of this out loud." Doyun said, "If you go public now the residents will come down on us." "Then count the names of the people who come down on us too." "It can't be controlled." "The result of taking one person out to keep control is this, right now." This time too, Doyun could not argue back. His silence was not agreement, but it was less closed than before.

Even while he explained the broadcast room key, Jang Myeongsu kept glancing at the manager. "If my junior opens it, that's on me." Seojin said, "That's correct." "What if I say you told me to?" "Then it becomes a false record." Jang Myeongsu could not even manage a laugh at that.

"You say frightening things." "If I take your responsibility away from you, that's another omission." Jang Myeongsu said nothing for a while.

Then he wrote his own name on the paper.

Jang Myeongsu.

The strokes started small and grew larger by the final su.

"Then let's put it on me. But I only say as much as I know. Names I don't know, I say I don't know." Seojin nodded.

"What we don't know, we broadcast as unknown."

On the video call, the junior guard was shaking.

Footsteps could be heard, the manager coming up behind him.

Sua spoke into the screen.

"You're filming. Shaky is fine. It just can't cut out." The junior turned his phone sideways. The breaker panel, the manager's hand, the broadcast room door, the notice box, the package log.

The footage was not pretty, but the necessary things were in it.

Eunchae saved the files in more than one place.

"Temporary copies on three servers, not one. Not an official record, though." Seojin said, "We need a responsible party to make it official."

Jang Myeongsu lifted the paper.

"That's why I'm the one reading it." As he said it, the elevator speaker let out a short burst of static.

As if the system did not want its turn on the broadcast taken away.

Seojin deleted that comparison from her thinking.

The system only processed the order of things.

Before the broadcast, Seojin confirmed one more thing.

"The names of the rooftop households have been deleted. We do not invent names." Jang Myeongsu nodded. "I'll read only the unit numbers and the receipts left in the package log." Sua said, "Those people would have wanted to be called by name too."

Seojin stopped the pen.

"That's why we leave it as unknown. Making something up to fill the gap is another deletion." Sua looked like she did not care for that answer, but she did not argue.

Saying I don't know was not a rescue.

But it was less bad than covering it over with a false name.

Right before the broadcast room door opened, a new vote appeared in the group chat.

Consent to closing the Car 1 incident.

The only option was in favor.

There was no button for opposed.

Mingyu said, "This isn't even a vote."

Eunchae said flatly,

"It's a single-choice confirmation form." Sua took it up at once. "So only the names are a vote, and the result was decided already." Seojin set the screen beside her notebook and photographed it.

The shape of the form was more frightening than any malice from the residents.

A document with no box for objection made people quiet.

After seeing that screen, Jang Myeongsu gripped the microphone harder.

The last thing the manager brought up was Jang Myeongsu's employment.

"If that broadcast goes out, you're done as of today." In front of the microphone, Jang Myeongsu closed his mouth for a moment. The night differential at the guard post, the holiday gift sets, the packages residents left with him, all of it was his life.

Sua did not push him through that silence either.

Seojin held the pen above the responsible party signature box and waited.

Pushing someone into the right side of things could also be an omission of another kind. Until Jang Myeongsu said it himself, the box had to stay empty.

Jang Myeongsu read the first line of the package log.

"Unit 1301, recipient name deleted. Actual resident at the time." The elevator speaker came on with him. "Persons not registered are." The broadcast covered those words. "Currently aboard Car 1: Yun Seojin, Kang Doyun, Han Sua, Jang Myeongsu, Choe Mingyu. Five people." Sua did not close her eyes at her own name.

Mingyu held up the single letter on the back of his hand.

Doyun did not step back from the door, but he let go of the stance of a man about to throw himself. The moment Jang Myeongsu went to read the next line, every elevator door in Building 404 opened at once.

In front of Car 1 there was the same corridor.

Every nameplate read Unit 1304.