Jang Mina's Screen Had Only Three Options

Jang Mina's screen had only three options.

Pursuit.

Concealment.

Forced recovery.

The Coordination Bureau told her to pick one of the three within ten minutes.

If she chose pursuit, she would privately restore the account and travel routes of 21 WITHDRAW-QUICK sale receipts to catch the recovery vehicle at the western logistics complex. Estimated success rate 82 percent. No withdrawal once the operation started.

If she chose concealment, the receipt numbers and macro hashes would stay sealed indefinitely. Victim information would stay safe, but the seller would disappear.

If she chose forced recovery, accounts on six platforms would be suspended en masse and stored data seized. Victims and buyers would be sorted out afterward.

"All three are fast," Mina said.

Ma Taeho zoomed in on the recovery vehicle's map. "Fast, sure. There's just no way back."

Mina recalculated the pursuit estimate. If she left the accounts unopened and used only the receipt numbers, the success rate dropped to 41 percent. If she opened a disclosure scope and a withdrawal window for each party, it dropped to 28.

"28, that's workable."

"Zero return seats for people, though?"

"It's an investigation that only checks accounts."

"There are people sitting behind those accounts."

Taeho started by reading the vehicle list.

Sealed transport vans, 2.

Regular passenger vans, 0.

Insurance approvals, 0.

Exits from the western logistics complex, 4.

Drivers whose livelihood could be cut off if platform accounts got suspended, at least 9.

"Recovery works, but nobody gets home. Send it back."

Mina bit her lip. If she let the fast pursuit slip, another caption about the team being slow would follow. Yesterday it was a line about the team not even being able to feed its own staff. If they lost the seller today, that was one more piece of evidence for incompetence.

"Then write conditions into it."

Taeho didn't upload one line. He uploaded seven.

Participants can withdraw before departure, during transit, and after arrival.

Withdrawing does not cost them their return seat or account recovery support.

Victim statements and sale receipts move into separate envelopes.

Drivers do not check whether someone is a buyer, a victim, or a witness.

Coordinates stay private during the operation; after it ends, each party chooses their own disclosure scope again.

Even if the seller is lost, the participant list will not be published as the cost of failure.

If return seats fall below 20 percent, logistics gets one vote to halt.

Mina said, "Add all that and the success rate is 19 percent."

"My number's different."

"How much."

"Human return, 100 percent. Evidence recovery, undetermined."

"We're going after the seller."

"I only ship operations where the people come back too."

Neither of them let it pass as a joke. Mina didn't close the success rate screen, and Taeho didn't talk about his conditions as if they were ethics that cost nothing. To make the seats work, they'd have to rent two regular passenger vans with their insurance canceled.

Estimated cost for rental, driver standby, and account recovery support: 740,000 won.

The team's budget was frozen.

Mina asked, "Where do we pull it from."

"Give up one sealed transport van. Half the evidence capacity."

"You can't fit the macro server if you do that."

"A plan that drops people to fit the server is just the forced recovery plan with a different name."

Mina deleted her own draft. Instead she made a fourth column.

A disclosed, amendable plan.

The Coordination Bureau's system drew a red border around it.

Not a permitted choice.

Mina left the border there and started writing the plan anyway.

On the first screen, only the first six digits of the macro hash and the sale receipt numbers would be disclosed. Buyer names, victim statements, and real time coordinates would not be disclosed.

On the second screen, the platforms would send notices directly to the receipt holders. Team 7 would not receive account identities.

Participate.

Hold.

Refuse.

Disclose receipt number only.

Add a statement about the sale process.

Withdraw at any time.

The third screen carried a button to change disclosure scope during transit and the return seat itself.

The fourth screen kept separate paths for withdrawing evidence disclosure, account disclosure, and statement disclosure, even after the operation ended.

"This isn't a secret operation," Taeho said.

"The coordinates are hidden."

"It's not a concealment operation either."

"The hash and the numbers are disclosed."

"And it's not forced recovery."

"If you don't come in, we don't take you."

Taeho pointed at the last empty box. "Exit condition."

Mina wrote operation failure, seller not secured, and conflict over party scope.

Taeho corrected it.

"Not team failure. Participant exit."

He added three conditions.

Failing to answer is not assumed to mean non participation.

Those on hold are not asked again during the operation.

If a participant withdraws, their own connecting key is separated and discarded even from evidence already secured.

"That last one drags the evidence value down," Mina said.

"By how much."

"Average network reliability drops 3.8 percent for every person who drops out."

"Disclose that number too."

Mina wrote next to the withdrawal button: "Estimated -3.8 percent network reliability per withdrawal, zero penalty to return or support."

She didn't hide the uncomfortable choice.

The plan went up to the citizen review panel. The Coordination Bureau notified her again to choose one of the three options. Mina went ahead and executed the fourth plan.

The system didn't count the fourth column as a plan.

Time remaining to choose: 60 seconds.

If no choice is made, the pursuit plan executes automatically.

Once automatic execution started, the identities behind 21 platform accounts would be handed over to the Coordination Bureau's pursuit team. The withdrawal window would open only after the operation ended.

Mina hit the data halt button.

"Halting account transfer for automatic pursuit."

The price came up immediately.

Special observation data access tier dropped one level.

Real time lookup on official platforms suspended for 6 hours.

If the independent disclosure plan failed, the initiator bears responsibility.

"If real time lookup gets cut, we can't see the vehicle," Mina said.

Taeho pulled up the regular road sensors on his own map. "I'll watch the vehicle. You watch the people's window."

Mina refused the automatic pursuit to keep her access tier intact. Once the halt was confirmed, the Coordination Bureau's 60 second clock stopped, and only the party selection window remained on the platform.

"Data initiator: Jang Mina."

"Logistics initiator: Ma Taeho."

"Failure responsibility: scope design, Jang Mina; return and transit, Ma Taeho."

In platform notifications went out to the 21 receipt holders.

For the first three minutes, there was no answer.

The pursuit success rate dropped from 19 to 14 percent.

In the fourth minute, the first participant came in.

Receipt number disclosed. Statement not disclosed.

In the fifth minute, two refusals.

In the seventh minute: five participating, four on hold, three refusing, nine with no response.

Mina didn't count the non responses as refusals. Taeho didn't leave the four holders' seats empty. Since those on hold weren't in transit right now, he redirected those seats to the returning participants.

Five different boarding points were sent to the five participants. Team 7 looked at nothing but the last two digits of each receipt number instead of names.

The recovery vehicle at the western logistics complex started moving.

Six minutes earlier than expected.

The success rate on Mina's screen dropped to 11 percent.

"If we disclose the coordinates now, a citizen tip could stop it."

Taeho asked, "Who agreed to disclosing the coordinates."

"No one."

"Then we don't ship it."

Mina took her hand off the disclosure button.

The first van picked up two participants. One kept their receipt number disclosed, and the other pressed withdraw during transit.

Network reliability dropped 3.8 percent.

Mina separated and discarded that person's connecting key. The macro hash already sealed stayed in place, but which receipt connected to whose boarding record disappeared.

"What about the return?" the one who withdrew asked.

Taeho answered. "You're still going. Withdrawal isn't an order to get out of the car."

That was when anonymous accounts started calling the van an "accomplice delaying the seller's getaway."

Three separate accounts repeated the same role using part of the same vehicle number.

A "delay accomplice transport" tag was attached to the first van's transit screen. Instead of opening high speed lane access, the van was forced through the slowest checkpoint lane. Fast privilege and delay obligation arrived at once.

Taeho didn't erase the tag. Erasing it could shift the accomplice role onto the participants inside the car.

"Detour 12 minutes, 9 extra liters of fuel. Getting return consent again."

The first participant consented to the detour. The one who withdrew kept their return but also refused disclosure of the vehicle number.

Taeho sent alternate lane coordinates with the number blocked out. The van skipped the checkpoint lane and dropped onto a regular road. The gap with the recovery vehicle widened further.

The success rate on Mina's screen became 7 percent.

"There's really no catching it now."

"Better than catching it by loading people up as accomplices."

"I know."

Mina didn't smile as if agreeing with Taeho's conditions. She kept the responsibility for losing the seller in her own result column.

Three people rode in the second van. One of them switched their statement about the sale process to disclosed.

"They said buying the receipt would erase my role as a traitor."

Mina didn't disclose the line right away. The disclosure time the party had chosen was after the operation ended. Posting it now could let someone estimate the coordinates and time frame.

The recovery vehicle got out through the eastern exit.

Failure to secure the seller.

Pursuit success rate, 0 percent.

The Coordination Bureau immediately posted a caption.

"Team 7 lost the evidence vehicle while waiting on an amendment button."

Mina didn't erase the caption.

Instead she posted the operation results.

Sellers secured: 0.

All 5 participants returned.

1 withdrawal, connecting key discarded, completed.

4 on hold, re asked 0 times.

3 refused, 0 account access.

9 no response, 0 judgments made.

Macro hash preserved.

1 statement on the sale process, pending disclosure at the party's designated time.

She didn't turn a failure into a success.

That was when Taeho pulled a small shipping sticker off the empty sealed transport van.

The recovery vehicle had dropped it while pulling out in a hurry.

"RETURN-04."

Below it was a six digit batch number stamped in the same issuing format as the 21 sale receipts.

Mina didn't search the full number. Her real time lookup access was already suspended. She only compared it against the first six digits of the disclosed receipts and the character pattern rules.

Match, 6 digits.

Issuing entity, undetermined.

Vehicle owner, undetermined.

Meaning of RETURN-04, undetermined.

A lead had appeared, but three conclusions were still empty.

Mina almost smiled, then stopped. "This one's yours."

"We still lost the vehicle."

"That doesn't erase what you did."

"Your amendment window is why five people came home."

"That doesn't erase my failure."

The two of them wrote their own names in different columns of the results table.

Scope design, participant return success: Jang Mina, Ma Taeho.

Failure to secure the seller: Jang Mina.

RETURN-04 logistics lead secured: Ma Taeho.

Rental and standby cost, 740,000 won, joint.

The Coordination Bureau posted a second caption.

"Used party choice as an excuse for a 23 minute delay."

Mina didn't attach an amendment button next to that caption. The Coordination Bureau's words were the Coordination Bureau's responsibility.

Instead she sent a window to the five participants, asking them again about the disclosure scope for their own results.