Safety Rules for the Last Train

Seojin boarded the last train after seeing the alert that Sua's damage compensation report had been rejected.

The stated reason was unclear directness of harm.

Sua had been unable to make her deliveries, her account had been frozen, her name had been erased, and still the document said there was no directness.

Seojin did not delete that sentence. She captured it.

The doors of the front car of the three-car Seongan Line last train closed.

Doyun took the strap across from her and said,

"Read the card first this time." Seojin opened the envelope.

If the terminal station announcement plays twice, do not get off at the second station.

The red editing line was the same thickness as the one on the Building 404 card.

Miran's instruction came over the radio, short.

"Don't agitate the passengers, keep records manual." "Confirming the S.M. initials comes first." "Field takes priority." Miran turned an answer into an assignment.

Seojin checked the back of the card, but it was still blank.

The signal indicator disappeared right after the train entered the tunnel.

Eunchae's message had arrived before that.

Transit card logs, 7 people.

No heat source anomaly inside the car.

Seojin counted the car.

Even leaving out herself and Doyun, there were eight passengers.

A woman with a camera stood beside the doors, watching Seojin.

The woman said her name was Yi Dogyeong.

A reporter for a Seongan area channel.

She did not lead with Seojin's name.

Instead she held out her phone screen.

It was evacuation footage uploaded by a Building 404 resident.

In the blurred frame, Seojin's notebook and Sua's palm passed by.

"You're the Daon staffer in this video, aren't you." Instead of answering, Seojin asked, "Was this footage taken with consent?" Dogyeong raised an eyebrow. "That's what comes first for you right now?" "A victim's face is in it." Dogyeong looked down at the screen for a moment, then covered the face with her finger.

"Then I'll ask with the face covered. Why did you board the next site too?" Doyun cut in.

"Put the camera down."

The passengers were on the last train for different reasons.

The night shift worker had grease stains on the sleeve of his work clothes, and the college student kept a laptop bag on his knees. The man who smelled of alcohol kept asking how many stops to the terminal. The woman whose child had fallen asleep was holding a folding cart instead of a stroller.

An elderly woman named Go Jeongae had a paper ticket tucked inside a handkerchief.

She said she had boarded with cash, not a transit card.

Seojin wrote that down separately.

Go Jeongae, cash fare, digital log unconfirmed.

It was not a conclusion yet.

Eunchae had written "possible simple omission" as well.

The first terminal announcement came.

"This stop is Seongan Depot. This stop is the last stop. All passengers are requested to disembark." The train halted in front of the station sign.

The doors did not open.

The announcement spoke again soon after.

"For your safety, do not disembark." The two sentences did not agree with each other, but they did agree with the field card.

The passengers broke into complaints.

The night shift worker talked about his predawn shift change, and the college student calculated a taxi fare.

Dogyeong turned her camera on.

"The Seongan Line last train is not opening its doors at the terminal. A Daon staffer is on site." Doyun pushed the lens down with his palm.

"Don't film faces."

The train pulled out again.

Outside the window there should have been tunnel.

Instead the same terminal station sign appeared in the window on the opposite side.

Seongan Depot.

The sign that had been on the left before was on the right this time.

Seojin drew the positions inside the car.

The people holding straps, the people seated, the person standing at the doors, Dogyeong with her camera, Go Jeongae with her handkerchief. To check whether the same arrangement was repeating, she had to know the current arrangement. Doyun said, "Positions, not a name list."

Seojin was already drawing it.

A short confirmation passed between the two of them.

At the second terminal, the doors opened.

People were standing on the platform.

Their faces were outside the light, and only the arrangement of clothes and belongings showed.

Grease stains on a work sleeve, a laptop bag, a folding cart, an elderly woman with a handkerchief, a woman with a camera.

The same order as the people inside the car right now.

The college student said, "Is that us?" Seojin corrected him. "It is the same arrangement."

Dogyeong tried to film the platform clock.

Doyun pressed the lens down.

"Don't film the clock." "Why not." "Because we don't know yet." The words for not knowing came out fast again.

Letters surfaced on the back of the card.

Do not disembark at the second terminal.

The platform announcement was courteous.

"The doors are open. Please disembark safely." The drunk man inside the car stood up. "It's telling us to get off. What is everyone doing." Go Jeongae caught his sleeve. "Young man, wait a moment." He shook her off, but he did not cross the threshold.

Dogyeong lowered the camera toward her own chest and kept only the recording running.

The toes of every passenger's shoes pointed toward the doors.

A rule that said do not get off was easy to remember.

That made it angrier.

Because outside the doors there was a normal announcement telling them to get off.

The aftereffect of the first case was still on Seojin's wrist.

Where Han Sua 3179 had been erased, the ink mark was faint.

Beside that mark she wrote this case's passenger count.

Actual inside the car 10, passengers 8, logs 7, team 2.

Dogyeong saw those numbers and said,

"If you release that now, people outside can count for you." Seojin answered, "I don't know whether more people watching means more record or a distorted one." "And if you hide it, all that survives is another agency report." Dogyeong was not wrong. Only, right now the doors were open, and the people in the same arrangement on the platform were coming closer a step at a time.

Dogyeong had introduced herself as a reporter but had not led with a business card. She checked her recording time, and when another passenger's face entered the corner of the frame, she changed the angle.

That alone did not make her a good person.

Only, she was not using the camera purely as a weapon.

Seojin wrote down that difference.

Dogyeong, pressure to publish, partial face protection performed.

Dogyeong looked at the notebook and said,

"You use people as a rating sheet." "It's a field record." "Did you learn that line about records saving people in Building 404?" Seojin answered, "There were times when people had to save the record."

Go Jeongae checked the paper ticket in her handkerchief several times over.

The ticket carried a station attendant's stamp, but the time had smeared.

She explained that "the card charging machine was broken." The college student showed his own transit card history and said, "I tapped in."

Having tapped in was being used like a safety confirmation.

Seojin did not miss that difference.

The people with digital logs proved their own existence easily. Go Jeongae had to unfold paper, and the paper was damp with sweat from the handkerchief. Between Eunchae's log of 7 and the 8 people in the car, one person's way of living had already wedged itself in.

When the doors did not open at the first terminal, the passengers directed their anger at the agency. One opening a complaints app, one searching for the station's emergency phone number, one calculating a taxi call fee.

Dogyeong tried to film that reaction and Seojin stopped her.

"Complaints are evidence for the case, but faces aren't needed." "Complaints without faces are weak." "Harm with faces is expensive." Dogyeong let out a short breath and lowered the frame toward the straps and the feet.

The passengers kept talking without knowing any of it.

There were times when publication had to arrive later than the field.

The people in the same arrangement on the platform moved slowly.

They were not running to threaten anyone.

Only when the people in the car right now swayed toward the doors did the platform side sway by the same amount. When the drunk man raised his hand, the man in the same position outside raised his hand too. When Go Jeongae pressed her handkerchief to her chest, the elderly woman outside made the same shape.

As with Sua, it would have been easy to declare it duplication.

Seojin wrote repetition of the same behavior.

When Dogyeong asked, "So they're not clones?" Doyun said, "Use words like that and they become a video title."

Dogyeong had no reply.

The card's red editing line was in this case too.

Below the terminal announcement wording, a red line ran across gray letters that seemed to have been there originally. In the last enlarged photo received before the connection to Eunchae dropped, part of an erased word was visible.

"All."

Seeing that word, Seojin thought of the early Building 404 notice.

All names, all records, all evacuate.

But she did not yet know what on this train had to be made all.

She wrote no guess, only the word.

All, beneath the red line.

Doyun looked at that line and said, "Again."

Seojin did not ask the passengers their names.

She did not yet know whether names would become an input value for the anomaly.

Instead she asked about objects and positions first.

Laptop bag, work sleeve, cart handle, handkerchief, camera, black umbrella, paper bag, earplugs. The passengers asked why she wanted to know that, but while each of them named an object, they looked at one another once. Dogyeong filmed the process and muttered, "A way of confirming people without names."

Seojin corrected her. "It's a provisional standard. Avoiding names isn't the purpose."

Doyun measured the speed at which the people in the same arrangement on the platform were approaching.

Half a step per sentence of announcement.

By the end of the second terminal announcement they would be close enough to cross the threshold.

He pulled the passengers back toward the inside of the seats.

The drunk man said, "Why are you keeping those people from boarding," and the college student said, "Those people look like us." Doyun answered, "They may look the same, but the current car occupants are the people here."

It was a short sentence.

Seojin took the words and recorded them.

Current car occupant standard.

A principle learned in Building 404 had entered a different space.

Go Jeongae noticed the other passengers' eyes on her paper ticket.

She folded the handkerchief over to hide it.

"Is paying cash to ride wrong too." The college student said "No" right away, but his voice was small.

Dogyeong did not film that scene.

Instead she wrote "cash rider" in her own notebook and then struck a line through it. "Write off record passenger and it settles things too firmly." Seojin watched that line being drawn. Dogyeong was someone who wanted to publish fast, but she also knew a word could push a person out.

One text from Miran came in late.

No external sharing of the last train case until a cooperation request goes to the Transport Safety Corporation.

The moment Dogyeong saw that sentence she asked,

"If external sharing is banned, is my camera banned too?" Doyun said, "For now, yes." Seojin divided it out. "Victims' faces and real time location, banned. Rules and the originals of field errors, preserved." Dogyeong said, "You decide that?"

"No. Right now it's a proposal." Seojin separated an order from a proposal.

In this case, publication could become a larger cost later.

Even after the train stopped at the second terminal, the connection did not cut off completely.

Eunchae's messages came in a letter at a time behind.

Logs 7, field 8, team 2 separate.

Reading that sentence, Seojin also noted that she and Doyun were not counted among the passengers.

The system was counting passengers only.

If so, the omission might not end with Go Jeongae alone. Looking at the numbers, Dogyeong asked, "Isn't the team people too?" Seojin answered, "By the system's current standard, no."

That answer was unpleasant, but it was accurate.

The people on the platform side stopped in front of the threshold.

They did not take hold of the straps, and they did not ask for help.

They followed only as much as the passengers inside the car moved.

Seojin had the passengers stop shifting positions.

When everyone stopped, the outside stopped too.

This phenomenon was closer to reflection than to attack.

But reflection did not mean safe.

A mirror could make a person walk outside as well.

Seojin did not use the word reflection. She wrote motion linkage possible.

Doyun told the passengers not to make eye contact with the people outside the windows.

He did not explain why.

Seojin did not want to leave a prohibition without a reason standing as it was, but right now a warning ahead of verification was necessary.

In her notebook she attached provisional prohibition, basis undetermined.

A prohibition had to be recorded together with its basis so that it could be corrected later, even if it hardened into a rule.

Hearing that, Go Jeongae looked at her own ticket instead of the window.

The paper was not damp yet.

Seojin wrote that action down too.

The second terminal announcement began again.

"This stop is Seongan Depot. This stop is the last stop." The people on the platform side took one step toward the train at the same time.

Their faces still were not visible.

There were fewer footsteps than people.

Seven.

The same number as Eunchae's last log.

Doyun pressed the door close button, but the doors waited.

Seojin spoke to the passengers holding the straps.

"We are not getting off now. Don't say each other's names, just remember one object belonging to the person next to you." Dogyeong did not turn off her camera.

Only, she lowered the frame so Go Jeongae's face would not enter it.

The same passengers from the platform came right up to the threshold.