How to Persuade Gang Taejun

At 09:30, I wrote three predictions on paper.

First. A backup generator warning in the control room at 10:02. Mun Rahee moves to the left panel first.

Second. Director Hong Sanguk places a call to the security office at 10:40. The reason for the call is not the Hong Sanguk envelope, but the storage room sealing procedure.

Third. The infirmary cart moves from the right wall to the left wall at 11:15. Oh Sejin pushes it herself.

Gang Taejun didn't fold the paper I'd written right away. He made blank spaces next to the three sentences: Condition, Intervention, Record if wrong. There were more blanks than predictions.

"If you only disclose the items you got right, this cooperation ends."

"I'll write the wrong ones too."

"If I don't know why I was wrong, I'll write that I don't know."

"That's already what I'm doing."

He didn't say he believed my answer. Instead, he took out two envelopes. He put the prediction paper in one and a blank sheet in the other. The blank sheet was for the 18:00 experiment. An empty envelope with no content. Even a single sheet of paper had a tracking tag attached, a small silver dot Go Yura had made. She said it wasn't GPS, but something that left a contact log. It couldn't pass through walls, and it didn't reveal anyone's name. It only left a partial trace of where and whose hands it touched.

"The time limit runs in ten minute units."

Gang Taejun said.

"Why ten minutes."

"That's roughly the smallest unit in which you could use a prediction to move a person."

"So it's a unit of surveillance, not trust."

"I said mutual surveillance."

He sealed the prediction envelope. Both my name and Gang Taejun's name were written on the front. It was the first time. His responsibility was attached next to my statement. Those two small names felt strangely heavy.

Go Yura photographed the corner of the envelope. The seal sticker was gray, not red. If it stood out too much, the trap would be spotted first. Noeul looked at the envelope once from outside the security office and asked by text.

"If I see it, does that count as input?"

Gang Taejun read the screen and paused for a moment.

"It does. But it's a recorded input."

Noeul nodded and wrote his own name in the observer column. The person everyone had treated as background was now the one asking first whether he counted as input. Looking at that name, I thought it was a change that would outlast all three predictions.

"What about Dr. Mun Rahee."

Go Yura asked.

"We're not tracking her."

My answer came fast. Gang Taejun caught it immediately.

"Why so fast."

"Because I want to track her."

He wrote down the answer. Has an urge to track Mun Rahee. Verify 10:02 first. It was less embarrassing than an emotional word, but more accurate. If even the impulse to suspect someone counted as input, it had to be written down.

At 10:02, the control room alarm sounded.

The yellow light on the backup generator panel blinked. Mun Rahee reached the left panel before anyone else. She moved three seconds earlier than my prediction. Go Yura read her wristwatch and the local camera timestamp at the same time.

"It matches. 10:02:03. Panel warning."

My feet wanted to move toward Mun Rahee. The person who'd said 3127 first. The person who'd left a substitute answer about a design document. The person who'd moved before the warning even now. There was more than enough reason to press her.

Gang Taejun stepped in front of me.

"Verifying the prediction comes first."

"She moved first."

"We write down that fact only. We don't follow it further."

I stopped. This was how uncomfortable a ten minute cooperation was. I had to put off the question I wanted to ask and confirm the item we'd already agreed on first. Mun Rahee opened the panel and flipped the manual switch. She didn't look at us. Not looking was also an action. I wrote in the log. Mun Rahee ahead by three seconds. Confrontation on hold.

The warning itself didn't last long. Once Mun Rahee adjusted the panel, the yellow light went out. She spoke to Go Yura, who arrived late.

"The left auxiliary voltage fluctuated first."

"How did you know before you saw the screen."

Go Yura's question came fast. Mun Rahee pointed at the small vibration gauge next to the panel.

"The vibration came first."

The explanation was plausible. It was the kind of thing only someone standing in front of the panel could have felt. So it couldn't be ruled out entirely. Gang Taejun had the vibration gauge's position photographed. If Mun Rahee had lied, there would be something to refute it with. If it was true, the space for a wrong answer survived.

At 10:40, Hong Sanguk's call came exactly on time.

Only the recipient was different. It should have gone to Gang Taejun. Gang Taejun had switched the security office's designated receiver to Go Yura's terminal beforehand. The call's wording was the same, but the conversation changed.

"I'll confirm the storage room sealing procedure. Security officer presence required."

Go Yura read the screen and spoke right away.

"The prediction was right, but the outcome changed. Since we changed the recipient, Director Hong lowered his tone."

Gang Taejun looked toward me.

"Not an outcome. A branch point."

I wrote on the paper. Reason for call correct. Content of conversation changed by recipient change. A new column had appeared between right and wrong. That column mattered. The loop wasn't an answer sheet, it was a conditional statement.

Hong Sanguk never came into the security office. He left only the call. He used the phrase preservation of evidence for the entire institution twice, and dropped the subject the second time. Go Yura saved the call file. Baek Somyeong had been holding up a camera outside, but lowered the lens when he caught Gang Taejun's look.

"Was changing the recipient an input, or a defense."

Baek Somyeong asked from outside the tape.

Gang Taejun didn't answer him and looked at me instead.

"Both."

I said.

"Saying both is convenient."

"That's why I'm attaching evidence. The fact that Hong Sanguk called is the same, and the pressure of the conversation dropped once the recipient changed. What changed the outcome wasn't a defense, it was the recipient change."

Gang Taejun shortened the sentence when he wrote it down. Same call / different recipient / different pressure. I liked that he condensed my sentence instead of copying it word for word. The shared log couldn't be my monologue.

At 11:15, the third prediction was wrong.

The infirmary cart didn't move. Oh Sejin stood in front of it but didn't grip the handle. The small trickle of water under the cart's wheels was gone. The floor was dry.

Noeul explained by text.

"There was water pooled this morning, so I wiped it up. The cart could have slipped."

He was the first to say what input he'd changed. No one had told him to. The reason the cart didn't move wasn't that Oh Sejin had changed her mind. The water on the floor was gone, and there was no longer a reason to push the handle.

Oh Sejin looked at us and said.

"The hazard had already been removed."

"Did you know who removed it."

Gang Taejun asked.

"I only confirmed that the floor was dry."

She hid behind the clinical word safety. But this wrong answer didn't cover for Oh Sejin. It made it clearer that even a puddle of water on the floor could count as input. I didn't erase the wrong answer in the log. I didn't strike a thick line through it either. Wrong. Cause of cart movement removed by Noeul's prior cleaning.

Oh Sejin looked at the sentence and said.

"Removing a hazard is a good thing."

"A good thing and a change in input can go together."

I answered.

Noeul wrote on his phone again.

"What I changed was the floor. I don't know about inside the cart."

Seeing that sentence made the failure of the third prediction even clearer. A wrong prediction didn't erase one person, it widened the field of observation. Noeul had changed the floor, and Oh Sejin was still hiding what was inside the cart.

At 11:40, Gang Taejun closed the security office door.

On the table lay the prediction envelope, the wrong answer log, and the Q-13 key contact record. He looked first at the key around my neck.

"I'm not handing over the key."

I said it first.

"I'm not asking for it. Instead, we keep a contact record. Who saw it, when it heated up, when it vibrated. No solo secret access."

"Secret access is a broad term."

"The Han Dogyeong file, a private meeting with Yun Haewon, Mun Rahee's device, the infirmary drawer. I'm setting it broad."

He disliked broad terms, yet he'd deliberately set it broad. I couldn't refuse either. I had too many things hidden broadly.

"If you violate it."

"Cooperation ends. And your prediction envelope goes into my record."

"I have a condition too."

Gang Taejun's pen stopped.

"You don't isolate me on your own judgment either. If isolation is necessary, write down the reason and time first."

He looked at me for a long time. There was no way that request could sit well with him. For someone with a habit of stripping away choice under the name of protection, a condition demanding he write first would catch on him like a wound to the wrist.

"If it's dangerous, I subdue immediately."

"Don't record after subduing. Write down beforehand whatever range is possible."

He added one line. Emergency subdual exception: reason recorded within 3 minutes after the fact. It wasn't perfect. Still, it was better than before. We hadn't gained trust. We'd gained a document to leave behind when either of us was wrong.

Go Yura looked at the list of conditions and raised her hand.

"Me too. I'll leave technical judgments under my own name. But don't write later that I knew something when I said I didn't."

"Approved."

Gang Taejun said.

Go Yura looked surprised, like someone who hadn't expected to be granted permission.

"What about you, Noeul."

Noeul looked at the screen for a moment. Then he wrote something short.

"I don't testify in meetings without interpretation."

Gang Taejun wrote that down too. Mutual surveillance wasn't only between me and Gang Taejun. To record input, the person watching the input had to have the right to speak too.

At 17:50, the empty envelope was placed in front of Door 4.

Go Yura checked the tracking tag's test signal. The envelope held nothing inside, no name, no secret. Gang Taejun didn't put the envelope into the printer intake. He placed it directly in Door 4's authentication tray. The system couldn't be allowed to mistake it for a real envelope. Only a person was supposed to be misled.

"We watch who reacts first."

Gang Taejun said.

"A person, not the system."

"A person and the system might move together too."

Go Yura added. She zoomed in on the screen. 18:00:00 was approaching. The central network ran 63 seconds slow, but this time they used an independent clock as the standard.

17:59:59.

No one was in front of the door. Yun Haewon was in the security office, Oh Sejin in the infirmary, Yi Juwan in the meeting room. Mun Rahee was in the control room. At least, that was where we saw them.

18:00:00.

Door 4's reader turned green.

A short line appeared on Go Yura's screen.

"Authentication complete."

Gang Taejun didn't go straight to the door. He checked our positions first. Me, Go Yura, Noeul, Baek Somyeong, Yun Haewon, Oh Sejin. At least the people we could see were each in a different place. A visible location and an actual authentication could differ. We'd learned that in chapter 14.

"Account name."

Go Yura tapped the screen.

"It's masked. But the authentication device registered not as a physical card but as an internal token from the tray."

"Did the fake envelope become the token."

"No. Someone's authorization that touched the envelope entered the tray first. The envelope was just bait."

Gang Taejun wrote the sentence down. I didn't touch the door. It was the first test of our ten minute cooperation. My instinct at 18:00 told me to open the door. The condition list told me to record first.

Yun Haewon was watching the alert from inside the security office's glass door. He didn't look surprised. I didn't want to simply write that he wasn't surprised. Instead, I wrote down how long it took him to get up from his chair. Two seconds after the alert. Too fast.

"The deputy director reacted first."

Go Yura said.

"We record the reaction. We don't write down intent yet."

Gang Taejun's voice was low. That statement was the first conclusion of this alliance. Not because we trusted each other, but because we moved together to keep from settling anything too soon.

An empty fake envelope had passed through the door, because of someone.

After moving that sentence into the log, I wrote down the time once more. 18:00:13. It matched exactly how long the alert had stayed active. I didn't open the envelope. If a hand touched it, we'd lose track of what we'd ruined first in the next loop.

"We only record positions."

Gang Taejun said.

In front of the door, the security office, the infirmary, and Yun Haewon's seat. Connecting the four points with lines made the hospital corridor look like a map. The lines didn't point to the killer. Instead, they raised the next question. Who reacted before that empty envelope was even opened. Who understood the envelope's meaning before the envelope itself did.

Go Yura zoomed in on the reader's green light and saved it. Gang Taejun measured the distance between the envelope and our hands. I wrote down even that number. 42 centimeters. A distance that seemed to mean nothing could turn out different in the next loop. So for now, we had to hold on to the smallest things first.