Chapter 7

Seventeen Forms

The desk in the pumping station office was too small for two. The caretaker switched off his radio and retreated to a chair in the corner, glancing back and forth between the three of them with open curiosity. He didn't look like it had occurred to him yet that he might have been bitten if he'd gone down to the basement.

Moon Jaeseok pulled the forms off his clipboard one by one and laid them out on the desk. His hands were quick and precise as he did it. Something he did every day, then.

"Rift sighting report. Anomalous creature contact report. Voluntary physical anomaly report—this one's for suspected awakened persons. Site entry statement. Personal information collection consent form. Equipment entry confirmation—this one's because of that bat."

"You have to report the bat too?"

"It's a blunt weapon."

Doyun looked down at the pile. In ten years as a manager, he'd filled out every kind of form there was. Broadcast appearance consents, image rights authorizations, venue safety pledges. But these were templates he'd never seen. At the top of each one, the word PROVISIONAL was stamped in red.

"When did all these come out?"

"The day before yesterday."

"The day before yesterday?"

"After Seongsu-dong, the government set up an interim task force, I got pulled onto it, and I stayed up two nights making these. There's no law, so there should at least be forms."

Moon Jaeseok said it flatly. Behind his glasses, the skin under his eyes was as dark as Taeha's.

Taeha filled out the voluntary physical anomaly report. His hand was still trembling a little on the pen. Moon Jaeseok walked him through it item by item.

"Time of awakening."

"...10:46."

"Cause of awakening."

"Hit a rat."

"Specifically."

"With a bat. Twice."

"Physical changes."

Taeha's pen stopped. He thought about it for a long time.

"The world got slow."

Moon Jaeseok's hand paused for a moment too. Then he wrote it down exactly as said. World became slow. Next to it, he drew parentheses and added in small letters: presumed improvement in reaction speed.

Doyun got the site entry statement. His pen stopped at the purpose-of-entry box. He didn't know what to write. He couldn't write that he'd come to kill rats, and he couldn't write that he'd come to get someone awakened.

"...A walk."

"In a reflective vest?"

Moon Jaeseok said it without even looking up. He pointed the tip of his pen toward the caretaker.

"According to this gentleman, someone who said he was from the district office for an inspection told him not to go down to the basement until eleven. I checked with the district office. There is no inspection scheduled at Mangwon Reservoir today."

The office went quiet. In the corner chair, the caretaker flinched.

Doyun set the pen down. He needed time to choose his words, and there were none to choose. In ten years in the field, he'd lied more times than he could count. We're filming. It'll be over soon. Thank you for your cooperation. But this was the first time he'd been caught impersonating a public official by a public official.

"...I did impersonate the district office. That's true."

Moon Jaeseok looked up for the first time.

"But he didn't get bitten, did he?"

"That's the outcome. Impersonation is impersonation. And there's one more thing I'm curious about."

Moon Jaeseok pushed his glasses up.

"How did you know a rift was going to open here, sir?"

Doyun couldn't answer. He could say "gut feeling," like at Sillim Station. But he didn't think that would fly with this man. A man who'd stayed up two nights building seventeen forms didn't seem likely to write the words gut feeling down for him.

"...That's a little hard to explain right now."

"Then I'll leave this box blank."

Moon Jaeseok drew a slash through one box on the statement. And next to it, in small letters, he wrote: Declined to state.

The paperwork was done in an hour and a half. Of the seventeen forms, eight were completed on the spot. The other nine needed supporting documents. Resident registration abstracts, health checkup results, equipment purchase receipts, guardian consent.

"Guardian? I'm twenty-four."

"Suspected awakened persons are required to list a guardian or responsible party. The form was built around minors. There wasn't time to make a separate one for adults."

Taeha looked at Doyun. Doyun looked at Taeha. Moon Jaeseok looked back and forth between them.

"What's your relationship to each other?"

"...I'm his manager."

"Manager?"

"There's a contract. Fourteen pages."

When Doyun took out the document envelope, Moon Jaeseok's eyebrows went up. He took the contract and turned past the first page. Article 1, the pen marks from the typo fix plain as day. Moon Jaeseok looked at that for a long while, then stopped at Article 5.

"'Party B's working hours may not exceed eight hours per day...'"

Moon Jaeseok read the clause aloud. Then he closed the contract and handed it back to Doyun. His expression had changed slightly.

"Sir, did you write this yourself?"

"Yes. Fixed up an internet template."

"It shows."

Moon Jaeseok had Doyun write his name in the guardian-or-responsible-party box. Then he wrote a number in the registration number box at the bottom of Taeha's voluntary physical anomaly report.

Provisional Registration No. 14.

"You're the fourteenth self-reported awakened person in Seoul. The first thirteen were all workers from the Seongsu-dong construction site."

Taeha looked down at the number. A guy used to the number next to a server No. 1 ID, getting a kind of number he'd never been given before.

Moon Jaeseok clipped the forms back onto his clipboard and stood. At the office door, he turned back. He held out a business card to Doyun.

"A draft of the Special Act on the Management of Awakened Persons comes out next month. There'll be a corporation, too. Once that happens, anyone going around with an unregistered awakened person will be penalized. Manager or otherwise."

"...Understood."

"And once is enough for impersonation today. Next time, I can't let it slide."

With only that, Moon Jaeseok walked toward the pumping station gate. The back of his gray windbreaker was a little hunched. The back of a man who'd stayed up two nights.

Doyun looked down at the card. Interim Rift Response Task Force, Ministry of the Interior and Safety. Deputy Director Moon Jaeseok. In his past life, this man had become a section chief at the Hunter Management Corporation and hauled in unlicensed managers like Doyun one after another. And a few years later, without anyone asking him to, he'd written a draft system for a "Hunter management business" category all by himself, taken it to the National Assembly, and been turned away.

That evening, the second floor of the PC bang was still a pool hall. Dust lay white on top of four pool tables, and the cue racks and scoreboards were still on the walls. Oh Malsun unlocked the door with her key and said the electricity worked. The water, she wasn't sure.

Doyun perched on one of the pool tables and opened his notebook. He crossed out today's date and wrote what needed doing underneath.

Nine supporting documents. Two copies of resident registration, Taeha's health checkup, equipment receipts.

Business registration.

There his pen stopped. He didn't know how to register a business. Ten years as a manager, and he'd only ever been handed business cards with a company name on them. He'd never made a company.

"Grandma."

Oh Malsun, about to head down the stairs, turned around.

"How do you register a business?"

Oh Malsun stared at him for a long moment. Then she sighed.

"...You took my thirty million and you don't even know that?"

"Sorry."

"You go to the tax office. Pick a day and I'll come with you. Send you alone and you'll come back with seventeen more forms."

She went down the stairs. Doyun wrote Tax office, with Grandma in the notebook. Under it he wrote one more line. 20 days until April 30th.

The Gate at the Sillim-dong intersection. The day Taeha first awakened in his past life, and Grandma got hurt. This time Taeha had already awakened. Grandma had agreed not to stand in front of the first-floor glass. What remained was how to use that day.

Doyun picked up one of his two phones. He scrolled through his contacts for a long time, then dialed a number he hadn't called even once in this life. The number of a cable TV PD he'd run into at every drinking session for ten years in his past life. At this point in time, the man was a PD who'd just had two shows canceled back to back, with next month's contract renewal up in the air.

It rang three times, and a tired voice picked up.

"PD-nim, hello. My name's Han Doyun. This is my first time reaching out. ...No, it's not insurance. Not a pyramid scheme either."

"I know two of your shows got canceled. Ah, I saw the article. Yeah, sorry about that. ...No, I'm not calling to rub it in."

"Want to shoot something that makes good TV? All you have to do is put one camera at the Sillim-dong intersection, 4 p.m., twenty days from now."

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