Six People, Five Names

Six people came back.

The manifest's total count was also six.

But adding up the names came to five.

The return desk was on the west side of the first floor of the Administration Bureau. Three reception windows, an electronic ledger above them. 04:12. Igyeol stood in front of the window and looked at the two lines on the screen.

Total: 6

Names: Kang Dohun, Im Dohyeon, Yun Saebyeok, Han Igyeol, Park Mirae

Those five were also the registered number who had entered the eighth floor. Six people had come out.

Igyeol looked below the list. It wasn't a blank space. There was no space at all. Below the fifth line, there was no place on the screen to even draw a sixth line.

"File name first." Mirae raised her camera. "ReturnDesk_TotalSix_ListFive_0412hours."

"If we only shoot the screen, they'll say later it was a display glitch." Dohyeon spoke. "Get the paper handover sheet in the frame too. And the thermal imaging device."

Mirae fit all three into one frame. The electronic ledger, the handover sheet written by hand by the receptionist, the thermal display Dohyeon was holding. On the thermal image there were six human shapes.

"One, two, three, four, five, six." Dohyeon counted aloud. "The total field also says six. Only the name field says five. This isn't a margin of error. Two fields are counting two different things."

Kang Dohun raised his own device beside the window. He'd handled communications relay, and his screen showed five lines each for entry time and exit time.

"I saw six people." Kang Dohun said. "But my device only writes five lines too. I can't make a sixth line by hand. There's no field for it."

"I'll photograph that statement too." Mirae said. "Name, affiliation, position, in that order, please."

The receptionist looked at Yura.

"Please tell me your name."

"Jin Yura."

The receptionist typed it in. After typing, he looked at the screen. There was no name input field.

"...One moment."

He closed the window and reopened it. The second time, it still wasn't there. The screens at the other windows had a name input field. Only at this window, only for this case, that field had disappeared.

"That field used to be here." The receptionist said. "I've worked this desk for five years."

"Could you say that again, please." Mirae turned her camera toward him. "Your name and position too. Later this will end up being the most important statement here."

The receptionist hesitated for a moment. Then he spoke.

"Return reception window three, Bae Seongho. This screen originally had a name input field."

Igyeol wrote the name down in her notebook. The second new name she'd written today.

The entrance to the emergency treatment room was twelve steps from the desk. While they carried Yura, Gyeongmin came dragging equipment from behind. Someone she was seeing for the first time today. Someone who checked the cargo straps twice, and checked the name tags twice.

"They said to check the ownership device first." Gyeongmin said. His speech was slow and formal. "Confirm attribution before bringing in equipment."

The device was mounted on the wall beside the treatment room door. Gyeongmin scanned Yura's bracelet.

Screen: Original owner lookup failed

A second line appeared below it. Pending conversion to unclaimed property. Assign to nearest registrant?

In the nearest registrant field was Gyeongmin's name.

"What is this." Gyeongmin said.

"It means the item is being transferred as ownerless property." Dohyeon read the screen. "If you press confirm, the bracelet goes into Oh Gyeongmin's account."

"It's on this person's wrist."

"The device doesn't recognize that wrist as a person."

Gyeongmin lowered his hand. Three seconds over the confirm button.

Gyeongmin pulled a piece of paper out from the cover of the ledger. A date from eight years ago, three pieces of equipment, and beside them, one erased name. He showed it to Yura.

"I saw this screen eight years ago too." He said. "Back then, I pressed it. One of the three pieces went to my house."

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Because there needs to be someone to ask me why I'm not pressing it now."

"I'm not pressing it." Gyeongmin said.

"If you don't press it, the equipment can't be brought into the treatment room." The reception assistant said. "Unresolved status means no entry."

"Then I'll remove this device."

"Do you have the authority." The assistant asked.

"No." Gyeongmin said. "Instead I'll write my own name down. That I removed it without authority. That's easier to fix than letting this person's name disappear."

Gyeongmin unplugged the device's cable, pulled out an evidence bag, and put the whole device in it. On the outside of the bag he wrote the time and his own name.

"Oh Gyeongmin, 04:19. Sealed with unclaimed property conversion unresolved." He said. "A name on the ledger. Not an item's name. A person's name."

"What about the bracelet." Yura asked.

"Leave it on your wrist." Gyeongmin said. "Take it off and it becomes an object. Keep it on and it's still something worn. That difference will get us through today."

Yura turned the bracelet inward on her wrist. The scratched engraving faced inside.

Treatment began with minimum signal. Patients of unconfirmed identity were assigned only two things: oxygen and bleeding control. Fixation equipment required approval, which was pending.

"When will the left foot be fixed." Saebyeok asked.

"After identity is confirmed."

"Then which comes first, the bone setting or the paperwork order."

No answer came. Saebyeok took a splint out of her own bag and applied it herself. It wasn't Bureau equipment, it was personal, so it didn't need approval.

"This is mine." Saebyeok wrote on the handover sheet. "Yun Saebyeok's personal splint, used at 04:22."

Mirae photographed the sheet. Before photographing, she asked Saebyeok, and Saebyeok nodded her permission.

04:26. The waiting room before confiscation.

The Bureau designated all equipment recovered from the eighth floor as subject to investigation. They said ten minutes remained before notification.

One of the items from Yura's bag was a broken receiver. Palm sized, one side of the casing melted.

"Does this turn on." Dohyeon asked.

"It hasn't turned on in two days."

"The power section might be dead while the storage section is still alive." Dohyeon opened the case. "The problem is that the moment I open it, the residual charge is gone. Only one chance."

"You're going to use that one chance without knowing what's on it?" Saebyeok asked.

"That's Yura's call to make." Igyeol said.

Yura looked at the receiver. For a long time.

"My location is in there too." Yura said. "Where I was for those two days. I wasn't alone."

Dohyeon opened his mouth, then lowered his hand from the screen. Saebyeok tightened the splint strap one notch. Igyeol closed her notebook.

"Can I choose only the channel." Yura asked.

"That's possible." Dohyeon said. "I can split it by frequency band and amplify separately. Tell me which band to save and I'll only turn that one on. I won't listen to the rest. If you ask how you can trust that I'm not listening."

"If I ask?"

"You won't be able to trust it." Dohyeon said. "So I'll have Mirae watch my screen with me. The only proof that I'm not listening alone is that I'm not alone."

Yura chose one band. The shared emergency band.

Dohyeon amplified it. Twelve seconds of noise, then a fragment of a human voice.

"...seven eight three again, floor zero, seven eight three again."

A woman's voice. Repeated three times, then cut off.

The notebook fell from Igyeol's hand. It landed open to the page with the sixth field.

Seven eight three again. That was a code. A family emergency code he'd made the summer he was twelve. Made during a fire drill, and only two people had ever used it. Him and his younger sister.

His sister's name was Han Nari.

He knew that name. The name remained. But he couldn't judge whether that voice was Nari's voice. The place where he remembered her voice was empty.

Yesterday he'd said this was the second time he'd used this ability. He'd said when the first time was, but he hadn't said what he'd lost then. Now the answer had come.

"Dohyeon." He said. "You asked earlier when the first time was."

"You said last year."

"I just found out what I lost then." Igyeol said. "My sister's voice. I just heard it and I don't know it."

Dohyeon took his hand off the screen. He didn't attach a decimal point.

"I'll write that in that field." He said. "In the things not said field. Now I'm moving it to the things said field."

Igyeol made a new entry in her notebook. Pre use ability checklist, three lines. What might be lost, what has already been lost, and who will remember it in her place.

The third line was blank.

"Surveyor." Mirae said. "Do you know that code?"

"...I know it."

"Only as much as you're able to say."

"It's a family code." Igyeol said. "It's mine. The only people who can use it are me and my sister."

"What's your sister's name?"

"Han Nari."

Mirae didn't put that name in the file name. Instead she wrote it on paper and folded it.

"I'll only keep it." Mirae said. "I won't upload it. Not without your consent, Surveyor."

"What's floor zero." Saebyeok asked.

No one knew. There was no such thing as a floor zero listed in the Tower.

"No location was left." Dohyeon closed the display. "Only the band survived, direction data didn't register. Within the conditions Yura chose, this is as far as it goes."

"That's what Yura protected." Saebyeok said.

The door opened. Two Bureau staff came in.

"All equipment brought out from the eighth floor is being confiscated. Don't touch anything from this point."

Gyeongmin raised the bag. The one with the device inside.

"I sealed this." He said. "The sealer's name is written on it. If you want to take it, write your name on the receipt. I wrote mine too."

The staff member took out a receipt. There was a name field. Before filling it in, he called his superior, and the call was short.

"We're taking it away as sealed. It will be opened only with a witness present."

"Please include Jin Yura as a witness." Mirae said.

"Persons of unconfirmed identity can't be witnesses."

"Then what does she need to become one?"

The staff member didn't answer. Mirae photographed that too.

Seven equipment boxes went out. The bracelet turned once around Yura's wrist. The bracelet wasn't on the confiscation list. Because it was something worn.

04:41. Under the lights of the treatment room, Yura called out to Igyeol.

"Han Igyeol."

"Yes."

"Do you know what floor zero is?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I." Yura said. "But I heard that word two days ago too. That time, it wasn't a human voice."

Igyeol opened her notebook. Beneath the sixth field, she drew a new line. On that line, there was still no name.