The Memory Being Erased

There were nine white lines drawn on the training ground floor. The gap between each line was a step and a half. Saebyeok stood in front of the third line and counted how many times he'd stepped on it.

Over four years, it had been about four hundred times. He'd believed for a long time that he'd never once stopped.

Yesterday, that belief had cost one oxygen tank.

"Before we start, I have one thing to report." he said.

Dohyeon took his hand off the measuring device. Igyeol folded up a blueprint. The three of them stood under the training ground lights, while Yura sat in a chair against the wall.

"On the first entry to floor eight, I didn't move for three seconds." Saebyeok said. "Right after I heard the ceiling drop for the first time. I estimate the time was between 05:37:41 and 44."

He gave the verdict first. The reason came after.

"The reason I didn't report it was because of the ruling four years ago. On the record alone that a halt had occurred, I was pulled from the front line for six months. So I made a rule that I'd fix any problem with my own body myself, first. Yesterday that rule cost me an oxygen tank."

While he spoke, his hand went to the velcro strap on his glove. He pressed it twice. He said that too.

"Right now I pressed the velcro twice. It's a motion that comes out when I'm anxious. You can record it as an observable signal."

No one said anything right away.

Saebyeok had expected comfort to come. It's fine, everyone's like that, you did well back there. If sentences like that came, he was going to slide right back into his own rule. Once comfort was given, the variable disappeared, and the disappeared variable came back as an oxygen tank at the next site.

Dohyeon spoke first.

"Three seconds is one sample." he said. "One sample can't be used for anything. We need two more."

"How do we make two more." Saebyeok asked.

"We make them. Here." Dohyeon set the measuring device down on the floor. "There's a collapse sound playback device. It uses the actual recording from floor eight. Saebyeok, you listen at the third line, and I'll time the stop."

"Are you experimenting on me." Saebyeok asked.

"Yes." Dohyeon said. "You can refuse. Then I have no other method, and we go into the next entry not knowing again."

That answer was good for Saebyeok. It was a sentence with a condition attached.

"Let's do it." he said. "One condition though. Whatever the number of seconds turns out to be, don't judge my qualifications by that number. Judge it by whether it can be handed off."

"That's exactly what I was about to say." Dohyeon turned on the measuring device's screen.

First playback. The collapse sound bounced off the training ground walls. Saebyeok's body froze in front of the third line.

"Point eight seconds." Dohyeon said.

Second playback. Same source, different timing.

"Three point one seconds."

Third.

"Three point four seconds. Margin of error two point eight to three point four. Reproducible."

The word reproducible straightened Saebyeok's back. Something reproducible wasn't a malfunction, it was a trait. And a trait could be built into a design.

"Then we'll use three seconds." Dohyeon said. "Conservatively, four. Assume the point man freezes for four seconds, and we decide who does what in those four seconds."

"Four seconds is how long it takes the ceiling on floor eight to drop thirty centimeters." Igyeol said.

"Then the decision has to be finished within those four seconds."

"If I stop, the team stops." Saebyeok said. "If the point man stops, everyone behind stops too."

"So we just need to make sure only the point man doesn't stop."

Dohyeon drew a chart on the white line in chalk. One time axis, three role axes.

"When Saebyeok stops, route decision authority automatically comes to me. There are two conditions. First, someone has to see that the stop has started. Second, Saebyeok has to know that I've started deciding. If we can't see each other, we both stop."

"What about the signal." Saebyeok asked.

"If it's sound, it gets swallowed by the collapse noise. If it's a hand signal, it's invisible in the dark." Dohyeon put down the chalk.

Yura spoke from the chair.

"What about a tap on the back." Yura said.

The three of them turned around.

"I was under the pipes for two days." Yura said. "I couldn't hear or see anything, but I could tell when the person next to me tapped my shoulder."

Dohyeon drew another line on the chart.

"Contact signal. This doesn't get swallowed by the collapse sound and it doesn't die in the dark either." he said. "Yura, where did you learn this."

"I didn't learn it." Yura pressed a hand against the top of the splint. "You don't do that, you die."

Before the drill, Igyeol asked one thing.

"Saebyeok. Is there a reason you gave this report with all three of us here instead of telling me first."

"If I tell the surveyor first, the surveyor will consider my situation and change the placement." Saebyeok said. "Then I end up working in a placement I don't understand the reason for."

"That's my habit."

"I know. You did the same thing with Yura's eye color yesterday."

Igyeol paused for half a beat. This time, the half beat wasn't about a name.

"You're right." he said. "Then I'll hand over two things I disclosed yesterday as measurement items. The missing target, and the three cases out of eight rejection notices where I couldn't remember the name. The disclosure is done, the measurement isn't."

"Is that something to be measured." Dohyeon asked.

"Measure it." Igyeol said.

"Then it's the same as a condition." Dohyeon said. "If we can't build a reproducible condition for when and how far the loss reaches, Saebyeok and I will double check the surveyor's judgment."

"Accepted."

They ran the drill eleven times.

First. Saebyeok froze at the third line. Igyeol was three steps ahead and didn't look back. Four seconds passed. One dummy was declared buried.

Second. Igyeol looked back, but the angle was too narrow to catch Saebyeok head on. He missed the freeze.

Third. Dohyeon noticed first and shouted. It got swallowed by the collapse sound.

"Same spot all three times." Dohyeon said. "The freeze itself isn't the problem, the observation fails."

On the fourth try, Igyeol changed his approach. He stood beside Saebyeok instead of behind him.

"Surveyor. The side puts you in the blast line." Saebyeok said.

"It does." Igyeol said. "But I can see the freeze. I'll take on the blast line risk, and I'll handle the freeze observation. If I have to pick one of the two, I'll pick observation."

"That's your life you're talking about." Saebyeok said.

"That's my choice. If you overrule it, I'll change it."

Saebyeok didn't overrule it. Instead he shifted his own position half a step to the left, reducing Igyeol's exposure to the blast line.

From the fifth try on, it worked. The collapse sound came, Saebyeok's shoulders froze, Igyeol's hand touched his back twice, and Dohyeon called out the detour coordinates. Saebyeok himself never knew the moment he started moving again. He wasn't the one who needed to know.

Yura tried to time it with her bracelet but the screen wouldn't turn on. Second day of the function being down. She counted using the wall clock's second hand.

"Three point nine seconds." Yura said. "Under four."

Sixth, seventh. Three point six, three point two.

On the eleventh, Saebyeok unfroze at two point two seconds. The stop time had shortened.

"That doesn't get recorded." Dohyeon said. "If we write down that it improved, then when it gets worse we'll write it down as a failure. I'm keeping it fixed at three seconds."

"It could get worse."

"I don't know. That's why we don't write down the improvement either."

"Thanks." Saebyeok said. "Since I didn't die, I guess I can write a failure report."

Dohyeon smiled for the first time.

"Nothing to thank me for. My calculations just say that's the safer way."

After the drill ended, Saebyeok wrote it in the handover log himself. Point man stop assumed at three seconds, contact signal twice, route decision handoff. On the last line, he wrote his own name.

An agency training supervisor was standing at the door. No one knew how long he'd been there.

"Agent Yun Saebyeok." he said. "That report you just gave, are you putting it in the official record."

"I'm putting it in." Saebyeok didn't set down the handover log.

"If you put it in, it goes into the qualification review. The field point man's delayed physical response gets combined with the ruling from four years ago."

"I know." Saebyeok said.

"You should think about the team's situation." the supervisor said. "If this gets wrapped up as one person's problem, the team license stays intact. If it goes down as a team structure problem, all four of you go."

Saebyeok understood the shape of that sentence. It was a proposal to close the case with just his own name. It was the same shape as the way the agency had tried to close the case yesterday with just Yura.

"If it gets wrapped up with one person, what happens to that one person."

"Typically six months."

"Four years ago it was six months too."

The supervisor touched his name tag. That was his answer instead of an answer.

"Supervisor." he said. "That proposal, can I record it exactly as you just said it."

The supervisor didn't answer.

Saebyeok held up the handover log. It was already written down. The supervisor's name, the time, the gist of what he'd said. His hand had been moving while the man spoke.

"If I got anything wrong, please correct it."

"There's nothing to correct." the supervisor said. "Except that record won't work in your favor."

"If only favorable records get left behind, the next person ends up alone in the same spot again."

The supervisor stepped back from the door. On his way out, he left one sentence.

"The review is tomorrow at six in the morning. A new item on chain of command has been added."

Dohyeon turned off the measuring device.

"That item, we made it today." he said. "More precisely, what we made today gets caught by that item."

"A new item appeared today."

"It wasn't there yesterday." Igyeol said. "It appeared after the three written objections were filed."

Yura stood up from the chair. She kept her left foot off the ground and steadied herself against the wall.

"Then we should write that down too." he said. "When it appeared."

One of the training ground lights went out. Of the nine white lines, only the third sank into darkness.

Saebyeok walked up and stood in front of that line. Even in the dark, his toes found the line. It was a spot he'd stepped on four hundred times.

A hand touched his back twice. It was Igyeol.

"Not a freeze." Saebyeok said.

"I know. It's practice."