The Verifier Never Gave a Name

The verifier never gave a name.

At the door of the university lab, Mirae asked first, and the other side refused.

"I don't use my name," he said. "I'm not here as part of this university. Today I'm a private individual."

"Then what goes in the article." Mirae asked.

"The time and method of verification," he said.

Mirae wrote down that condition. Until yesterday, what Mirae had wanted was identity. With identity, an article got a shield, and with a shield, the people who received the article let it through.

That morning, the person in charge on the other end had asked again. Without the verifier's real name, this wasn't an article, it was a claim.

Mirae's answer was short. If it's a claim, we'll run it as a claim.

After saying that sentence, he thought about how his own name would print at the bottom of the article. If there was no verifier under a real name, the only real name left would be his own.

10 AM. Yura hadn't come. She'd been sitting beside the grate in the west ventilation room on the eighth floor since last night, and said she wouldn't leave that spot.

Dohyeon's text came that morning. Knocking interval holding at twenty seven seconds. Not increasing.

The last digit of the ground floor address Majun had mentioned still wasn't there. Only vibration remained on the waveform copy.

The waveform copy came out of the bag and went back in. On the permission chart, Majun's item was conditional, and conditional meant a box you filled in after asking. The person to ask today was beside the grate.

Three things sat on the desk.

First, the three sheets of the manifest Majun had pushed up yesterday. They'd gotten wet and dried, and the bottom two lines had smudged.

Second, four sheets that survived on the physical card among the photos of the printed ledger from chapter 16. Four of the six deleted ones were on that card.

Third, the hash list Eunchae had written by hand.

"Are the originals four." the verifier asked.

"There were six," Mirae said. "For two, only the hand written hashes are left. They're the near edge of page 231 and all of page 402."

"Are those two pages the core of this case."

"Yes."

The verifier looked over the list. Then he decided the order.

"I'll look at the hashes first," he said. "If I look at the photos first, I'll end up reading the hashes to match the photos."

He read the sixteen digit string on the paper first, then calculated the hash from the file on the card. All four matched.

"This much means your team's materials match your team's words," he said. "Nothing's been proven yet."

"Then what does get proven."

"From here on." He laid the ledger photos and the manifest side by side.

The two sources were different. One was a printed copy from the management bureau three years ago, one was a hand written manifest from a subcontracted worker four days ago.

"I won't be looking for the same content. I'll look for the same shape," he said.

He found three things.

First, the gap between total headcount and the number of names. The four survivors on the card showed 6 and 5, 11 and 10, 5 and 4, and a total of 8 with 7 names. The manifest showed 8 and 5.

"The manifest has a gap of three," Mirae said. "The printed copies all have a gap of one."

"That matters," the verifier said. "The printed copy is the finalized record and the manifest is the field paper. On site, three remained as numbers, but in the finalized record only one disappears."

"Then where did the other two go."

"I don't know. All I know is that there's a process where three shrinks to one at the finalization stage."

Second, a field. On the four printed copies, the compensation payment field was blank. The manifest had no compensation field, but had a daily wage field. On the three that remained as numbers only, the daily wage field was filled in.

"The daily wage went out. The compensation didn't."

"What's the difference."

"Daily wage is payment for labor, compensation is payment for disaster damage. They paid for the work done, they didn't pay for the injury."

Mirae's hand stopped mid write. If the daily wage had been paid, that meant the company had acknowledged that person was there that day.

"Then is their existence acknowledged."

"In the employment record, yes. Not in the disaster record. The two ledgers are counting different people."

He set the third one aside for last.

"A pencil," he said.

On the two pages that survived on the card, the ones missing one name, there was a short diagonal stroke in the left margin of the line. It had been drawn in pencil on the printed page.

Mirae looked at the three sheets of the manifest. The three lines that remained as numbers only had the same diagonal stroke in the left margin.

"Do you know what this is." the verifier asked.

"I don't know."

"Neither do I. But the position matches. Left margin of the line, same spacing, same slant. A mark drawn by hand won't line up in position unless you've been taught to make it."

"Is it the same person."

"No. It could be someone taught the same procedure. It could be several people. This is an observation, and that there's a manual is a guess. I only write observations in a verification statement."

Mirae wrote the two words apart. Observation and guess. It was the same distinction Dohyeon used.

"Do you know Dohyeon."

"No."

Mirae checked that answer twice. That two people who didn't know each other used the same distinction meant the distinction wasn't a personality trait of theirs, but a procedure this kind of work required.

The verifier stopped there and went back to the hash list.

"One thing remains," he said. "Of the six that disappeared, the four that survived in photos are pages missing one line of a name. The two that didn't survive are the near edge of the cut spot and all of page 402."

"Is that an observation."

"Yes. That among the deleted items, only the cut spot has no photo, that fact is an observation," he said. "That someone chose it is a guess. I only write what's in front of me."

Mirae counted on her fingers. Four printed copies, one mother of the resident at the bereaved families' gathering. Five. Dohyeon had said that if a sixth turned up, he'd change the observation to a determination.

"Is this manifest the sixth."

"No. The shape is the same but the ledger is different. The five printed copies are disaster records, this is a labor record. If you count them on the same line, the other side will point that out first."

"Then what is this."

"It's the first time the same shape has shown up in a different ledger. This is scarier than a sixth would be. It means this isn't the problem of one department."

11:40 AM. The verifier wrote the verification statement.

Four hash matches, three shape matches across different sources, two unconfirmed. The unconfirmed items covered the meaning of the diagonal strokes and the process by which three shrinks to one.

He didn't write his name in the signature field.

Verifier: Anonymous. Time of verification: August 17, 11:40 AM. Method: Hash comparison performed first, shape comparison across heterogeneous sources.

"This is weak," Mirae said.

"It's weak," he said. "But if I write my name, I can't do the next verification. Better to be weak today and do it again tomorrow than strong today and gone tomorrow."

He wrote one more line. A sentence stating he wouldn't retract this verification later.

"How do you prove you won't retract it."

"I can't. Instead, if this material gets deleted after this time, it will remain on record that I wasn't the one who deleted it."

At 11:55 AM, Eunchae arrived. She read the verification statement twice. Once top to bottom, once starting from the signature field and going backward.

"An anonymous verification statement is, on record, a verifier of unknown identity," he said.

"Then can it be used."

"It can. But there needs to be one person's name next to it." Eunchae took off her glasses. "As witness of record. I was here and I saw it verified by this method. I'll put my name on that sentence."

"This makes three times you're thanked, Eunchae."

"Two of those were for removal, this is witnessing. It's a different category."

"If you're suspended, you won't be able to file Yura's paperwork."

"If I can't, someone else will," Eunchae said. "But without this verification today, there's no paperwork to file. The order matters, and this comes first."

Mirae reworked the bottom of the article. Yesterday's draft had had a line reading "verified by an outside expert." She deleted that line and wrote two names. Bak Mirae, Jo Eunchae. In the verifier's place, a method went in instead of a name.

"How far does this material go out." the verifier asked.

"According to the involved party's permission chart."

"Can I see that chart."

Mirae stopped. The chart belonged to Yura.

"I can't show it to you. You'd have to ask her directly."

"Ask her, then let me know. I need to know how far what I've verified goes out, to decide the next verification."

The call lasted two minutes. Twice, a knocking sound mixed in from the background.

Yura's answer came item by item. Full disclosure of the verification statement, disclosure of the verification method, no disclosure of the verifier's identity. The waveform, hold. And she added one more thing.

"Why hold the waveform." Mirae asked.

"Majun's still inside," Yura said. "If a voice gets out, the other side will know what that kid's carrying."

Mirae moved that item from conditional to not allowed. She wrote the name of the person who made the change and the time next to it.

"Let him know my name."

"That's not on the chart."

"So we're deciding it now," Yura said. "I'm handing my material to someone whose name I don't know. He needs to know my name for it to be fair."

Mirae relayed that. The verifier paused for a moment.

"That's a risk for me. If I know a name, I become someone who knows that person."

"Then you don't have to hear it."

"I'll hear it," he said. "The riskier side is the fair one."

1:20 PM. Mirae left the lab.

There was a text from Eunchae on her terminal. Lab node operator's Tower access privileges suspended. Reason unlisted. Today, 9:40 AM.

Verification had begun at 10. The suspension came first.

The second text was about the withdrawal of the remaining two candidates. The third had no name in it.

Remaining candidates to hold the original: none.

Mirae looked up at the fourth floor window. She couldn't see who was standing inside.

She wrote the answer in three sentences. The verification statement exists as of 11:40 AM today. The verifier's identity is not in the article. If there is no remaining custodian, we become the custodian.

Before sending, she deleted one line. It was a phrase that hinted at who had had their access suspended.

She didn't throw away the deleted paper. She put it in the same envelope as the paper kept separately from chapter 14.