Chapter 3

Dock 5

"Foreman, where exactly are you right now?"

"I told you. Front gate. At the barrier."

Jeongwoo put his eye to the gap in the blinds. Across the parking lot, two headlights sat in front of the gate barrier. Foreman Kim's silver SUV. The security booth was dark.

"Don't get out of the car."

"I'm not getting out. You think I'm an idiot?"

"Can you go back home?"

"No. The intersection on the way here split wide open. Something the size of a calf crawled out of it. Barely managed to turn around. The road behind me's blocked."

Foreman Kim was out of breath. But every word came out clear. The same voice he used at day shift morning briefings.

"But Jeongwoo."

"Yeah."

"What's that white stuff in front of Shutter 3? It's showing up in my headlights."

"Water."

"Why'd you stack water there?"

"To keep the dogs out."

"Who stacked it?"

"...Me."

"By yourself? Without a forklift?"

Jeongwoo paused to pick his words. Explaining the skill over the phone would take too long.

"You saw the window in the sky too, right? What skill did you get?"

"[Pack]. Says it wraps box tape. Is this a joke?"

"Mine's [Tidy Up]. That's how I stacked it."

The line went quiet for a second.

"...Hey. Fine, whatever. But how many times have I told you not to stack in front of an emergency exit route? The emergency exit's right next to Shutter 3. You're blocking the forklift lane too. Tidying is so people don't get hurt. You stack stuff there and someone gets injured, workers' comp won't even cover it."

"Foreman, workers' comp is not the problem right now."

"In an emergency, routes are the whole problem. What did I tell you when you were a rookie?"

"...Keep the aisles clear."

"That's right."

Next to Jeongwoo, Boram mouthed a question. Is he nagging you right now? Jeongwoo nodded. Seven years of that nagging.

The problem was the parking lot.

The scattered Three-Eyed Hounds were drifting toward the gate. The headlights and the engine noise. Four of the five were prowling around the barrier.

"Boram, can you get their speed?"

"Hang on."

Boram pressed her face to the blinds. Her pupils clouded over for a moment, then cleared.

"Movement speed: 'Fast.' No numbers. F-rank info windows are lazy like that."

"Faster than a car?"

"About the same in a straight line, I think. On a curve, the dog wins."

Jeongwoo pulled the center floor plan off the wall and spread it on the floor.

From the front gate to Building B's outbound dock: 120 meters, straight line. All of it parking lot. Where the dogs were. Going the other way, if you took the perimeter road from the gate around the back of the building, you came out at Building A's inbound dock. Three hundred meters. Far from the dogs.

The inbound docks ran from 1 to 6. Dock 5 was closest to the break room. Sixty meters straight through the rack zone.

"Foreman. Take the perimeter road to Dock 5. I'll open the shutter."

"Five? That shutter's slow."

"I know. That's why I'm only raising it a meter. Open it all the way and it takes forever to close."

"A meter? I'd have to crawl in."

"Then crawl."

"...Fine. Three minutes."

The call ended.

"Boss, wait."

Boram caught Jeongwoo's sleeve. Her voice was small.

"If you open the shutter, they can get in too."

"That's why it's only a meter."

"Dogs crawl in if it's open even a hand's width. You saw that one shove its nose under Shutter 3."

"I know. It's not about the height. It's about closing time. I open it right before he gets there, and the second he's in, I close it. A meter shuts fast."

"And if a dog gets there first?"

Jeongwoo didn't answer. It could happen. They'd be punching a hole in a center the four of them had barely sealed.

Rajiv said nothing. He looked from Jeongwoo to Boram and back, waiting for Jeongwoo to make the call.

Mansik stood up first.

"I'll take the shutter switch."

"Hyung."

"Kim and me started the same year. You do your part."

Mansik left the break room without waiting for an answer. Jeongwoo looked at Boram.

"You stay here. Lock the door."

"...I'm coming too. Somebody has to count how many dogs show up."

Boram turned on her phone's flashlight. Her hand was shaking. Jeongwoo started to say something, then didn't. It was true. They needed someone counting.

"Rajiv?"

"I will guard the door. The door... must not be empty."

"What's the real reason?"

"...I am scared. Just that."

An honest man.

Dock 5 was dark.

Only the green emergency lights were on. Inside the shutter sat a single pallet waiting to be received. Thirty boxes of instant rice. Three kilos a box, a quarter of a water bundle.

Jeongwoo saw them and clenched his jaw. Nothing heavy. All the water was in Building B. No time to go get it.

Mansik opened the shutter switch box. Up, Stop, Down. Three buttons.

"All the way up, twenty seconds. A meter, about seven."

"And down?"

"Same."

Seven seconds. Fourteen to open and close.

An engine sounded in the distance. Coming around along the outer wall. Something else mixed in behind it. Claws scraping asphalt.

Boram was glued to the little viewing window beside the shutter.

"Car's coming! Dogs... two! No, three! They're following it!"

"Hyung, raise it."

Mansik hit Up.

The shutter rattled and started to rise. Headlight glare poured in through the gap between floor and shutter. Thirty centimeters. Fifty.

The SUV skidded to a stop in front of the dock. The door flew open. Foreman Kim jumped out.

And Jeongwoo realized what he'd missed.

The dock was high. One meter twenty, built to match a truck bed. Someone getting out of a car had to climb that wall. A fifty-year-old day shift foreman, with three dogs on his back.

"Stop!"

Mansik hit Stop. The shutter halted at one meter.

Jeongwoo ducked under the shutter. The instant rice pallet inside was in his field of view. So was the dock wall outside.

"Instant rice, location change. In front of Dock 5. Stepped."

【Location change request confirmed.】

The boxes lifted. Slid out under the shutter. One tier at the foot of the dock wall. Two. Three. Stacked like stairs.

Foreman Kim stepped onto the first tier. The box crumpled. Second tier. Third.

The first dog reached the bottom of the dock.

"Foreman, hurry!"

Jeongwoo sent the rest of the boxes toward the dog. To put a wall between Kim and the dog. The boxes stacked.

The dog plowed straight through.

The wall of three-kilo boxes scattered like paper. A ton of water had stopped a dog, but thirty boxes of instant rice didn't even slow one down.

Foreman Kim's hands caught the top of the dock. He hauled himself up. His knee hit the edge. Two meters to the shutter.

The second dog leapt up the stairs.

"Close it!"

Foreman Kim shouted, looking straight at Mansik.

"Not yet—!"

Jeongwoo yelled. Mansik didn't look at him.

Down was pressed.

The shutter began to come down. One meter. Eighty centimeters. Jeongwoo reached under it. Boram grabbed him around the waist from behind and pulled. Fifty centimeters. Thirty.

Through the gap he saw Foreman Kim's work boots. And gray fur.

The shutter hit the floor.

Foreman Kim didn't make it in.

5:11 a.m.

The sounds on the other side of the shutter went on for about a minute, then stopped. The dogs scratched at the shutter a few times. That stopped too.

No one inside Dock 5 said anything.

Mansik closed the switch box. Turned the handle and locked it. Then he looked at Jeongwoo.

"I closed it. Not you."

Jeongwoo couldn't answer.

The math ran in his head on its own. Seven seconds for the shutter to come down. The second dog had been right behind Kim. Three seconds later, and the dog would've been inside. Then sixty meters to the break room. One door. Push-button lock.

Hyung was right. Knowing that was worse.

"...Yeah."

Jeongwoo pulled the pen from behind his ear. Held it. Put it back.

"I'm sealing it."

"What?"

"The whole center. Fourteen shutters, six emergency exits. Only Shutter 3 is blocked right now. Everything else opens with one button. Dogs won't press buttons, but people might."

Boram blinked. Her face was still white.

"Now?"

"Now."

If he didn't do it now, he'd end up sitting and thinking. That could wait.

[Tidy Up] only worked within his field of view.

So Jeongwoo walked. One full lap of the center. Starting at Building A's inbound docks, ending at Building B's outbound dock. Boram followed with the floor plan, calling out numbers. Mansik drove behind them on the forklift. Any pallet too far to move with the skill, Mansik dragged into place.

"Dock 1."

"Water, location change. In front of Shutter 1."

"Dock 2."

"Canned goods. In front of Shutter 2. On the bottom. Water on top."

Heavy on the bottom. Light on top. In front of every shutter, a weight no human could push.

The emergency exits were different. Those doors opened inward. Jeongwoo didn't stack anything in front of them. He zip-tied the handles shut and stacked water beside each door. Push from outside, it won't open. Cut the tie from inside, it opens right away.

Keep the aisles clear.

Boram watched him do it and asked.

"Why not stack in front of the door? Wouldn't that be stronger?"

"If there's a fire, we can't get out."

"Oh."

When they reached the Dock 5 shutter, Jeongwoo didn't stop walking. He cleared away the instant rice boxes scattered in front of it and stacked water in their place. One ton. Same as Shutter 3.

He should've used this from the start. He'd known the water was in Building B.

Jeongwoo pressed his palm on every bundle, all the way to the top row, before he moved on to the next emergency exit.

When he tied off the last emergency exit, a window appeared.

【Sorted: 1,140. Stacked: 1,140.】

【[Tidy Up] proficiency has increased.】

"...Eleven hundred forty."

Boram murmured.

"Boss, you just redid the entire center in an hour."

"A normal inventory count takes all night. This was fast."

It was a joke, but no one laughed. Jeongwoo didn't either.

6:00 a.m.

Day shift start time.

Jeongwoo stood at the break-room window and watched the front gate. Not a single car coming in for work. Only the silver SUV in front of the barrier, door hanging open. The engine was still running. Its headlights lit up the empty lot.

The green window in the sky hadn't moved. If anything, it got sharper as the sun came up.

Rajiv poured water into cup noodles. Five of them. Then, quietly, he put one back in the cupboard.

Mansik sat in the chair farthest from the window, eyes closed. The fingers of his folded arms drummed against his forearm without stopping.

Boram held out her phone.

"Boss, the government made an announcement. Avoid going out, stay indoors. Awakened should report to the nearest government office."

"Which government office?"

"...It doesn't say."

"Then we stay put. Indoors."

Jeongwoo opened the work log. In the 06:00 slot he wrote: Full center lockdown complete. 20 entry points.

Then a horn blared from the front gate.

Long. Three times.

Jeongwoo looked up. Mansik opened his eyes.

Past the gate barrier, at the far end of the road, a car was tearing toward them like it was possessed. Its bumper was half off, flapping. Only one side mirror left.

A gray sedan.

And behind it, a dog with three eyes was closing in.

☾