Three Strikes of the Permit Tag at the Closed Telegraph Bureau Door

The royal court's envoy struck the transmission permit tag three times against the closed telegraph bureau door.

Inside, the only sound was battery fluid being drained. The line had already been dismantled. Even with the permit tag, there was no current to send. Yi Gyeom looked back and forth between the red cord in the envoy's hand and the black liquid seeping out under the gap in the door.

"Open the door," the envoy said. "From this hour, every priority telegram must first bear the seal of the office designated by the Border Defense Council."

Yi Gyeom asked.

"Which office?"

"It is in the sealed dispatch."

"Who signed it?"

The envoy did not lower the hand holding the permit tag. Three names of Border Defense Council ministers were written on the outside of the sealed dispatch, but the actual name of the designated office appeared only on an inner attachment. It was a structure in which neither the operator at the door nor the dock supervisor could ever learn who had blocked the transmission.

"Order hates a blank space," Yi Gyeom said. "And yet in your order, the party holding transmission authority is left blank."

"It was decided within the court."

"And it will be carried out outside the court."

Yi Gyeom did not seize the permit tag from the envoy. Instead he unfolded the transmission hold sheet posted beside the door. The time the North Gate garrison and dock allocation telegrams had stopped, Baek Mujeong's work stoppage signature, and Yun Haejun's transmission order signature were all still there.

"Who approves these two, and when?"

"Bring them to the designated office and they will be reviewed."

"And the time for the round trip?"

"There are horses, are there not?"

"Sick horses and the feed shortage aren't in the order, so I suppose they don't exist."

The envoy pressed his lips shut. Yi Gyeom did not treat the silence as a victory. If he failed to block the permit system, every telegram from now on would carry the added time of a round trip to the court. If he blocked it outright, each site would go on sending its own needs first and colliding with the others, just as now.

It was one or the other. A monopolized order, or a competition with no accountability.

Yi Gyeom was used to cornering an opponent by leaving only two options. This time he had to answer, himself, what should go between them.

"I will have the door opened. But not to use the line. To make the order public."

The envoy shook his head.

"The attachment cannot be shown outside the designated office."

"Then this door will not open either."

"If you refuse this document, it will be recorded as treason."

"This is not refusal. It is a record of inability to execute."

Yi Gyeom wrote his own name under the transmission hold sheet. "Execution impossible due to nondisclosure of designated office, approval time, and party responsible for refusal." If the envoy wrote treason, it would stand alongside a record of exactly which blank had closed the door.

Inside, the bolt moved. Yun Haejun opened the door only halfway. Behind him, Baek Mujeong and Seokbeom were laying the dismantled battery plates down on the sand.

"I received the letter," Haejun said.

The envoy's eyes turned to Yi Gyeom.

"You contacted him privately, beforehand?"

"I meant to discuss terms for disclosure," Yi Gyeom answered.

"You proposed an alliance," Haejun said. "The price was left blank."

Yi Gyeom looked at him for a moment. It meant Haejun had no intention of concealing a secret proposal in front of the envoy. If Yi Gyeom had expected a companionable understanding, he had misjudged from the first sentence.

"That's true. I've come to fill it in now."

Haejun did not open the door any further.

"What does protection mean?"

"I will block the Border Defense Council from making a unilateral arrest or transmission ban. Without a separate record from both the Inspectorate and the Board of Revenue, they won't be able to pull you off the line."

"Does Lord Yi Gyeom's faction hold transmission authority instead?"

"To block their monopoly, our seal is needed too."

"Then the monopoly just changes hands."

The envoy gave a short laugh.

"So the man who sent a forged telegram now argues over transmission rights."

Haejun did not deny it.

"That's why I intend to make sure a priority telegram can't go out on my signature alone."

He brought a blank transmission form from inside the door. Sender, reason for priority, projected damage from delay, objector and reason. The last box was empty.

"Every priority telegram will have an objection signature box. An urgent transmission can still go out without agreement. But who objected, and why, will not be erased."

Yi Gyeom asked.

"And if the objector refuses to sign?"

"The witnessing operator records the refusal and the time."

"And if the operator is bribed too?"

"Two people record it separately."

"And if neither is present?"

"Then the priority code cannot be sent."

The envoy raised the permit tag again.

"You see. In the end transmission only gets slower. When the court could settle this by naming one person."

Haejun answered.

"What ends is the paperwork. The delay stays."

Yi Gyeom read the transmission form. A requirement for two operators present could hold up urgent orders during the night or during an attack. Even if his own faction tried to send army provisions first, the reason for objection would be made public. What he gained in exchange for the alliance was not simply Haejun's line. It was a rule that shackled his own hands as well.

"It's one or the other," Yi Gyeom said. "One designated office reads first and delays it, or two operators on site watch each other and delay it. Neither is fast."

"The difference is whether you can see who caused the delay," Haejun said.

"And the on site operator gains the power to refuse a court order."

"An objection signature is not a veto."

"Today it isn't."

Yi Gyeom did not close off what came after that. If the system survived, the objection box might one day become a mark that blocked transmission. But without any box at all, the faction issuing today's monopoly order could hide even the responsibility for delay.

Baek Mujeong took the transmission form with a sand covered hand.

"There's no line yet and already you're fighting over paper."

"We're deciding now who gets to use it first once the copper arrives," Yi Gyeom said.

"And if the copper never arrives?"

"That shortage gets disclosed along with the approval decision too."

"If you take my workshop's measurements and pass them off as the office's own, I'm closing the door."

"The original process specifications stay in the workshop. Only the standard, the shortage amount, and the reason for the work stoppage go to the court."

Mujeong looked at Haejun. It matched the boundary they had agreed on the day before. Only then did he stamp his work stoppage seal in the corner of the transmission form.

"No plates, no transmission rights either."

The envoy said.

"You mean a craftsman's seal sits alongside the court's own seal?"

Yi Gyeom answered.

"When the hand that assembles the battery plates stops, the court's seal can't send a single code. They were already side by side. Only the paper hadn't shown it."

Contempt crossed the envoy's face first. But he could not erase Mujeong's seal. The dismantled plates and the empty copper crate proved the point on their own.

Yi Gyeom wrote the terms of the alliance on a new sheet of paper. First, no faction holds sole authority over priority telegram transmission. Second, every priority telegram carries an objection signature box and a record of delay damage. Third, two operators are present separately as witnesses. Fourth, the workshop supervisor's work stoppage record takes precedence over transmission approval.

Haejun stopped his finger while reading.

"There's no sunset clause."

"It lasts until the attempt at monopoly ends."

"Who decides it has ended?"

"The court."

"Then it never ends."

Yi Gyeom raised his brush. A sunset clause would end his own faction's influence over transmission along with everyone else's. There was a temptation, once the monopoly order was blocked, to keep the line as an achievement of the reformist faction. Writing today the date on which he would give up that power seemed foolish.

The envoy sneered.

"So even reform needs a rank order. The lower ranks set the date and the higher ranks follow it."

"Better than those who think even chaos needs a rank order."

Yi Gyeom, without smiling, drew a line for a sunset clause. "Effect terminates if not reapproved after three public reviews by the Border Defense Council." Since a fixed date could shift with line delays, he tied it to a number of reviews instead.

Haejun said.

"If only Lord Yi Gyeom's side holds the public review, it's the same as before."

"The Board of Revenue, the Inspectorate, the workshop, and a representative of the operators each submit their own records."

"The objection record from the field is also attached in its original form."

"Agreed."

"Even for priority telegrams on your side, my lord?"

Yi Gyeom set the tip of his brush to the paper.

"The same applies."

He drew the objection signature box beside his own faction's name first. The promise not to exempt his own side's orders was visible right there on the paper. Haejun signed the alliance participation terms below it. It was not a vow of loyalty, but a name placed on a rule that would limit both their authorities.

The royal court's envoy pushed the sealed dispatch's attachment back into his robe.

"That paper has no court approval."

"That's why I'll take your objection first."

Yi Gyeom held out the transmission form.

The envoy did not take up a brush. Haejun called over the two operators. One had just finished a night shift and had red eyes, the other had been carrying a canister of battery fluid. Neither wrote on the same line. The first wrote "court envoy refused to sign" along with the time, and the second confirmed the three seals on the outside of the dispatch and the nondisclosure of the attachment.

"Is this a transmission?" the envoy asked.

"No. It's the first record of a dispute over transmission authority," Yi Gyeom answered.

He pulled his own two guards back from the telegraph bureau door. If soldiers of the reformist faction occupied the door in the name of protecting Haejun, it would be no different from sole occupation. Instead he called in an Inspectorate liaison officer and a Board of Revenue clerk, and had them write their names on the shift witness sheet. The protection Yi Gyeom could offer was not the blade of his own soldiers, but making sure another agency saw an arrest order at the same time.

Haejun asked.

"What happens to today's North Gate telegram?"

"There's no line," Mujeong cut in.

"I'm asking about when the copper arrives."

Yi Gyeom looked at the North Gate hold sheet. The garrison was waiting, and the new rule pushed things back further, until two operators could be gathered.

"We write the reason for priority and the delay damage now. We can take an objection now too. Once the line is up, the two operators confirm it again."

The envoy said.

"If the North Gate falls in the meantime, who takes responsibility?"

"The side that tried to monopolize transmission, the side that broke the line, and all of us who demanded two witnesses, each bears responsibility according to their own record."

"If you spread the blame, no one gets punished."

"If you pile it on one person, only the weakest operator gets punished."

Yi Gyeom wrote his own name in the North Gate telegram's objection box. The reason for objection was: "Risk of appearing to guarantee urgent transmission while the repair limit and copper shortage remain unconfirmed." Even a telegram his own faction had demanded fell under the same restriction.

Haejun wrote not in the approval box but in the priority reason box. "Must arrive before North Gate's next shift change. If it does not arrive, withdrawal conditions are missing." The two records did not cancel each other out.

By the time the morning sun crossed the threshold, the transmission form had gathered more names, but not a single telegram had gone out. The alliance had not lost the line to anyone, but instead it had built rules that made using the line slower.

At the end of the alley, a messenger came running, out of breath. He was holding a piece of copper obtained from the repair workshop against his chest. The standard was right, but it was too short even for a single splice.

Of the two operators, the one who had worked the night shift had already dropped his head in the chair. Under the new rule, someone would have to wake him or wait for the other operator.

In the hourglass for the North Gate's priority telegram, the last grains of sand were falling to the bottom.