Chapter Twenty #3
After a moment, Seulgi sighed. “Did you at least bring me some banana milk?” she asked.
I hung my head, but Yejun was already heading for the elevator. “I’ll grab you some!” he said.
“No need,” Seulgi said, halting Yejun in his tracks. “I’ll just have to go get some myself, I guess.”
I looked up sharply. She’s going to leave her post?
“It would be unfortunate if someone slipped by the desk while I was gone,” she said. “But you two can keep a lookout, can’t you?”
“Yes!” Yejun said quickly as I rose to my feet, bowing again. “Yes, of course!”
“Good,” Seulgi said, winking as she stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind her.
As soon as she was gone, we raced down the hall and threw the doors open to Hong Gildong’s office. I froze in the doorway, as if Hong Gildong was going to pop out from a shadowed corner and kill us on the spot.
Yejun hit the light switch as the door clicked shut behind us. “It’s all yours,” he said, gesturing to the scrying pool.
I walked around the desk and sat in Hong Gildong’s chair, my heartbeat loud in my ears. My reflection stared back at me in the still water, my eyes wide and petrified. This is it, I thought, raising a trembling hand.
I dipped a finger into the surface, and the water rippled as four words appeared.
Please enter your signature
I held my breath, then traced the shape of Horologium into the water.
Descendants cannot afford to overlook a single moment, Hong Gildong had said. That is what this constellation reminds me.
It was the only good advice he’d ever given me, since that particular moment would be his undoing.
The water glowed white, brightness washing away my reflection. I held my breath as the light cast dizzy shapes across my vision, the water churning in a slow circle.
Then the light faded away, and all of Hong Gildong’s documents appeared in the water’s surface.
Yejun peered over my shoulder, gaping at the files. “How did you do that?”
“I’ll explain later,” I said as my watch beeped again. My fingertips ghosted over the surface as I pulled up the search bar and typed:
Yang Hana
A single file popped up in the search results.
I tapped on it with a trembling hand, and the document filled the screen. There, at the top right corner, was a picture of my sister.
It felt like something out of a fever dream—my own features stretched and pinched into a new face so similar to my own.
Hana had the same brown hair that turned copper in the light, the same wide medium-brown eyes, the same straight eyebrows.
Her cheeks looked softer and rounder than mine, her gaze kinder.
I touched the surface of the pool, forgetting for a moment that it wasn’t paper. The water rippled, distorting her face.
I don’t remember her, I realized, the thought pulling tight at my chest. I thought that the moment I saw her face, all the memories would come rushing back. But Hana was still a stranger to me, and she always would be. I scrolled down and read her file.
YANG HANA [1475B]
Aliases: Yamamoto Hana, Hannah Young
DOB: November 21, 2005
Status: Neutralized as of March 3, 2017
Lifetime Points: 345
Supervisor: Lee Siwoo [937]
Administrator Note:
Mission information has been encrypted indefinitely due to agent termination. Agent terminated on March 3, 2017, for following reason:
-[Violation 488] Accessing classified files without authorization (Operation 191H)
-[Violation 133] Verbally informing unauthorized agents of classified information (Operation 191H)
I tried to scroll down, but there was nothing left to read.
This can’t be it, I thought, my hands shaking, my whole body cold with sweat. There must be more.
“What is Operation 191H?” I said, looking over my shoulder at Yejun.
“Let me see,” Yejun said, reaching across the scrying pool and pulling up an advanced search alongside Hana’s profile. After typing in a few strings of commands I didn’t understand, he opened a file and stepped aside so I could read.
OPERATION 191H
Date of Execution: February 2, 2031
Sponsor: National Aerospace Industries Korea
Mission Objective: Korean government purchases arms from National Aerospace Industries, totaling no less than 100 billion won.
Adjustment Target: Declaration of war with North Korea
Butterfly Origin: Spilled bottle of chocolate milk at 37.50083, 127.02560, December 11, 2008
“National Aerospace Industries Korea?” Yejun said over my shoulder as he read. “That’s an arms manufacturer. I thought Hong Gildong was just taking Samsung’s money or something. He’s taking money from people who make bombs?”
“That explains why he wanted me to start a war,” I said, clenching my fists. “That would make a lot of money for people selling weapons.”
I held back the urge to dump Hong Gildong’s scrying pool out on the floor, or to take a hammer to it and shatter it into a thousand pieces.
All this time, he’d said we couldn’t save anyone because of the integrity of the timeline, but that had never been the truth.
We couldn’t save anyone because saving lives didn’t make him money.
As I clenched my jaw so hard that my teeth ached and my burning blood screamed through my veins, I felt closer to Hana than I ever had before. She had found out this same information, and I imagined she’d felt exactly as I did now. Even across timelines, I shared this moment with her.
I gripped the edges of the scrying pool, staring at Hana’s picture. I wouldn’t let everything she had lost amount to nothing at all.
Hana hadn’t been able to stop this war, but maybe I still could.
“Well, would you look at that,” a voice said from the doorway. “Right on time.”