by Jiny Lee
We went inside his office. He offered us to have a seat. On the table, there were a bunch of notes and drawings that he was making. He was organizing the combat skills that he'd learned and trained from the rebel. He said Fox was helping him.
Fox was also in the Academy. While Alex was mostly in charge of the hand combat training, she was in charge of the enhanced combat training, which was another way of saying weapon training. He asked me which one I thought would be better for the name of the book between 'Alex's comprehensive combat training' or 'Combat Training by Master Alex.' Both were not my kind of thing, so I said, 'Take your time until you finish the book first.'
After these little talks and some catch ups, I asked him if he could join me in finding the hidden passages.
He said, 'Are you sure there is a hidden passage in the building? You said the sister said it's something like a myth.'
Wonder said, 'That's true but beside the hidden passages, this building survey thing needs to be done anyway. And who knows? If there is such a thing, no one knows what's inside or where would it lead to. It could just be a panic room for the escaped sisters, or maybe a hideout for the possible remaining members of the cartel. Or there might be a hidden treasure or something.'
I'd never heard anything about the cartel hideouts or the hidden treasure. I looked at Wonder and said, 'What are you talking about?' Then she poke me on my side. It took a while for me to understood what she was doing. She was baiting Alex with a little bit of mystery. And it seemingly worked. Alex wanted a bit of adventure in his life. He liked his job as a trainer, master or whatever, but he was probably getting bored a little bit. He moved his metal arm as if he was warming up. He definitely wanted to see the full capacity of his new arm.
I went to see Fox after that. She was in her office. We knocked on her door. She said, 'Come in.' It looked like she wasn't expecting to see us coming in by the way she looked so surprised when she saw our faces.
She said, 'Hey! Brothers! Come on in,' with a big smile on her face. Since we knew that she wasn't a person who enjoyed small talks, we told her directly what we were up to and. I told her that we'd be really glad if she helped.
She said she'd think about it. and after five seconds or so, she said she would. I said, 'Really? Will you really help us?' She said, 'Yeah, why not? Brothers gotta help each other.'
So it became four of us, but we needed one more guy to do the job. We needed a tech support.
He was a day walker called Bertie. He was a mechanic. He was the one who made Alex his mechanical arm and basically, all the mechanical arms and legs in the building were made by him. He also made delicate mechanical fingers for Kimmy as well.
He was a genius. That was why we needed him on the survey. After listening to our request, he quickly made a device to scan the surroundings and make a 3d map.
To talk more about Bertie, he was a short guy. He was about five feet tall. But he looked taller than that when seeing him in the distance. He was short but not stout. He was well proportioned that he even looked like a six feet guy. Well, six feet is too much. He looked at least 5'7''. He reminded us of the halflings in fairy tales.
Before he was put in to the building by the city government, he was the CEO of a company called Irves Industry. It started as a robotics company producing primarily for the handicapped or the wounded soldiers, but turned into a defense company specialized in powered exo-skeletons to make augmented soldiers. Bertie didn't tell us the reason exactly why they put him in the building. Politics, I guessed. We didn't ask him any further at that time. But we found out the reason later.
....
We decided to start from the bottom and end at the top. So we went to the first floor and gathered in a little bar.
The first floor had changed a lot. The counsel made a new agreement with the city and the first floor turned into a port where the trucks from the city came in and out every day.
There were some members of the counsel who worried at first the city might dislike the fact that the prisoners they put in the building was actively getting involved in running the building. And to be honest, I was one of them. But the city didn't seem to care at all. As the productivity and the volume of the total transaction increased, they seemed to even like it better. To them, the building was nothing more than a slave plantation. They monitored the building 24 hours a day from all sides. They had the power to demolish the building if they wanted to. It didn't matter who was running the building. Or at least, it seemed that way at that point.
So, the first floor was always busy with the workers. The huge gate we made on the first floor opened twice a day. They came in everyday with the containers full of supplies from the city and dropped it off on the first floor at 5 o'clock in the evening. Then we took out the supplies and sent it upstairs for distribution and fill those empty containers with the products we made during the night until the trucks came in at 8'o clock in the morning to pick them up.
Any personal contact between the truckers and the residents of the building was strictly prohibited, but some people were secretly selling Wax to the Truckers. The counsel tried to eradicate those drug dealings, but their efforts weren't so effective.
22
We started surveying the building from the basement level. The basement had turned into a sort of warehouse. A lot had changed. I couldn't see the old rebel base in it anymore.
The surveying process wasn't any difficult. We just had to move around and that was it. Bertie did all the jobs himself. He asked us to do this or that at times, but they were just small things like 'hey hold this for a moment,' or 'check if you can see any openings.' It didn't even take long hours.
For the few weeks, we surveyed almost every floors in the building. It was a boring job. I mean, seriously. It was so boring that I got worried. The building didn't seem to have any secret passage, secret place, or whatsoever. We went up and up and finally we reached the top of the building. We even searched the roof, right here where I'm lying right now, but we couldn't find anything suspicious.
I was so disappointed and desperate. The counsel seemed satisfied, though, since they got the latest 3d blueprint of the building. Their reconstructing process accelerated even faster. They designed the building in the most efficient way possible. They started to build roads and the ramps in the building to enable people to use vehicles up and down the building.
Everyone was busy in the building. They were full of energy and hope that they were making the building a better place. But I didn't feel like joining them. It was as if I lost every hope in me once again. I spent most of my days lying in bed and trying to maybe forget everything.
Kimmy worried about me. She thankfully didn't ask anything. Instead, she deeply showed her sympathy, since she knew what it was like to lose someone.
But that ended pretty soon. While she was cleaning up my room, Kimmy happened to open a drawer. There was the hand watch that Hannibal gave me.
'Who is this lady in the picture?' she asked me. I realized that I'd been only asking everyone about Diane and not her. There wasn't anyone who knew where Diane went, but maybe there could have been someone who knew about Rachel. I thanked Kimmy for reminding me of her and I got up out of my bed and started to look for her.
I went to Sarny Sum and asked if anyone knew Rachel. Those who were comparatively young didn't seem to know her but some of the older sisters definitely knew her. But they seemed reluctant to tell me anything at first. I consistently asked them about her. And finally, one of them told me to find a lady named Juno, saying she would know the most about Rachel. They said she was one of the sisters who chose to go out of Sarny Sum.
I headed down to the 50th floor since they told me that I'd be able to see her there. I asked people on the 50th floor if they knew a lady named Juno, and I was able to find her pretty soon.
She introduced herself as Rachel's old friend. She said she had known Hannibal and Rachel since they were kids.
She told me that Rachel was a
year older than Hannibal. She said, when Rachel and her self turned 14 and became a sister, Hannibal decided to join the cartel by becoming one of the guards.
I could easily see his motivation. He surely started out with a good heart, a good cause. But as time went by, he realized that there was a limit to what he could do. He couldn't go up any higher unless he got recognized by the cartel for being exceptional, highly competent, or whatever. And he chose the easiest way to stand out. He chose to become ruthless more than anyone else. He chose to abandon his humanity behind. He voluntarily did what no other guards would do. He killed more and more people to show that he was capable of doing whatever things for the cartel and the Reaper. That was the origin of the monster called Hannibal.
Juno told me to visit a guy called Mark on the first floor, saying he might tell me something important. So I went down to the first floor to find him.
He was a construction worker. He was a tall, muscular guy with a beard all over his face. It surprised me that he knew me. He said he thanked me for all these changes and wanted to buy me a beer.
I asked him how he knew me. He said everyone in the building did. Well, I had no idea until he told me that I had become some kind of a hero. It was not only me. Purple, Fox, Alex and Wonder had somehow become a hero, too. It was awkward because I didn't have any intention to be a hero.
I told him that I was looking for a woman named Rachel. I showed him the picture in the hand watch. He stared at the picture for a while and took a deep sigh. He said he wanted to talk in private. So we went to his place.
He was living in a small room all by himself. It only had a bed and a hanger which had only a small number of clothes. He had me sit by the bed and brought me a glass of water, and began to talk.
He said he was a childhood friend of Hannibal and Rachel. After Rachel became a sister, and when Hannibal was turning bad, he tried to stop Hannibal from joining the cartel. But he couldn't. Hannibal had become a different guy he used to know.
So he gave up on his old friend and tried to lead a quiet and peaceful life. He moved to a lower floor to settle down on where no one knew he was friends with Hannibal. He met a young lady and fell in love with her. He had a boy and a girl. He was poor, but he was happy with his family, until one day, it all ended when his family was murdered by a bunch of guards.
He got outraged. The reason his family had to be murdered was a nonsense. He was told that one of the guards tried to flirt with his wife, and she refused. The guard got mad and eventually hit her. He threatened her if she kept showing no respect, he'd kill her. She didn't stand back. The guard kept beating her until it gathered a crowd around. And when the poor kids happened to see their mother being beaten by the guard, they ran to the guards and cried, 'Stop hitting my mom you monster!' And that probably pulled the trigger.
Mark was working in the factory when he heard the news. One of his colleagues told him that his wife got into a trouble with a guard and he ran to the place, where he saw his wife, son, and little daughter lying cold on the floor.
He lost his mind. All his life, he wished for nothing bigger than a small happiness with his family, but suddenly, he lost everything. He tried to fight it. He knew that any of his effort wouldn't bring his family back but at least he tried to bring a little piece of justice. He requested for a rightful punishment of the guard. The chief guard came down to see the scene, and god, he was shocked to see the face of the chief guard. It was his old friend, Hannibal.
He asked Hannibal to bring justice, but he acted as if he didn't know him. He shouted in front of everyone.
'For god's sake, Hans! He killed my wife and my children! Please help me if you're still that old friend I've known!!'
He expected a little bit of humanity or a bit of friendship that might have remained in his old friend's heart. But the man standing in front of him wasn't his friend anymore.
Hannibal imprisoned him for being disrespectful to the chief guard and the system. While he was imprisoned, he heard that the guard who killed his family was simply transferred to another floor. What made him even angrier was that the guard was even transferred to a higher floor.
Hannibal visited the prison to see him. Hannibal said, 'I'm sorry my friend. You won't believe me, but I'm really sorry about what happened.'
Mark said, 'Why did you come here? Are you here to mock me? Laugh at me? To show me the gap between me and you? If you're here for redemption, you'll never get that from me. All you'll get from me is my rage, anger, and my exacerbation that will burn inside me until it burns you in the end. What would Rachel say if she saw what you have become?'
Hannibal didn't say anything for a moment. Then he said, 'It's all for Rachel.' and gave him a little piece paper.
...
'I was released from the prison after that. I didn't know what the note meant. I didn't show it to anyone. Maybe it's time I show it to you.' he said.
He gave me the note. It was sure that Hannibal wrote the note himself.
I expected a letter or at least a sentence. But it wasn't either. It was just a piece of paper simply written one letter. 'Growler,' it was.
23
What's the growler? Is it a thing or a person? I started to find more clues. I asked the sisters if they knew anything about a growler. Most of them said they didn't know. They asked me if I was talking about an animal. What was Hannibal trying to say? The note and the hand watch he gave me was sure to have a relationship, and Rachel was sure to have a relationship with Diane, too.
I thought maybe the watch itself could be a clue. I examined the watch carefully.
It wasn't running. It had three hands, an hour hand, a minute hand, and a secondhand, but it seemed a bit different from a normal watch. It was sure that it wasn't made to be a normal watch.
I took it to Bertie and asked him to examine it. He found out that it wasn't a watch but a small safe.
He said, 'I'm sure the hands are for a combination. With those hands, there could be 86,400 combination. I can find the right combination by trying one by one but it would take a lot of time.'
He said he wanted to examine it further. I told him to go ahead and I sat next to him. Then we heard a knock on the door.
Bertie said come in. It was the sisters. They told me that the abbess was looking for me.
...
I followed them to Sarny Sum to meet the abbess. She was a calm lady with an impression that she knew everything. She was old, but she looked much younger than her age.
Her name was Selene. She asked me if I knew the myth of the goddess and a shepherd boy. I said I did cause my name was named after the boy. She asked me if I knew what the story implies. I said I didn't know for sure.
'All the myths and the stories have deep meanings at the bottom of it. Some are made to give a lesson, and some are made purely out of human observation. People make stories just for fun at times, but at other times, they make stories in an effort to interpret and understand the world around them. The most interesting thing about myths is that, I think, it represents the unchanging human nature. The world changes, and so do all of us. But no matter in what world we're living in, there are things that do not change,' she said.
I nodded. But still, I didn't know what she trying to say.
'I'm sorry young man. It's been a while since I have a chat with a fine man like you. Forgive my manners. I personally love the story. I think the story implies the innate solitude of human beings. We have a tendency to rely on something to cover our misery. Life is a series of pain and agony, young man. That's why people try to find peace in religion.'
I asked her, 'Is it wrong?' She laughed and said, 'Not at all. I'm not trying to say it is wrong to rely on something. The human nature to find reliance is not wrong in itself. What I'm saying is, it's hard for people to embrace the natural suffering that we're all born with. Some people try to reason it. Some people try to justify. Some people try to challenge and change it, just like your friend, Jacques.'
'What a
bout you?' I asked. She smiled and said, 'Well what about me? I'd say I'm one of the people who pretend to be above everything. The worst type I guess. I believe in the goddess and try to live by the religion, but that doesn't mean I believe everything about her whether it has been passed down by word of mouth or a book. Unfortunately, even the sisters here in Sarny Sum tend to believe everything written on the book. Some of them even believe that we were born from the ashes of a dead man's body.'
I became completely speechless. I'd never seen a sister who spoke that way before. She saw me having a dumb look on my face and laughed even louder. She held my hand and continued talking.
'I'm truly sorry. Oh, excuse me. It's so good to have you here. Well, what the story implies, Endy, is that in our times of misery, when we're so desperate that we can't take it anymore, we all wish for someone to be watching us down and pity us. Perhaps, I could say that people are made to seek for pain, so that they can be consoled. We all want to be understood and pitied. Like the shepherd boy. He lived his entire life in a solitude until he died. He wanted to believe that the moon was always watching him down. That was his salvation, I suppose,' she said.
'I always thought the boy killed himself,' I said.
'Well, that's an interesting point of view. Maybe he did. But remember. The important thing is what you can find out inside the story, not how the story ends.'
I got puzzled. In the end, what was she trying to say?
'Well, Endy. I brought you here to give an answer to what you're looking for. Actually, it's not an answer but another question you have to find an answer of. Hannibal, he visited me one day and asked me a favor. He told me if I ever see a guy talking about growler, please tell the man to come find him. But, if anything happens to him before the man comes to me, tell him that the answer lies in the rise of the moon. That was what he said. But I don't think you're not the guy he was expecting. So tell me Endy. Where did you hear about it?'