The Sound Empress: Chapter 17
Brief synopsis: The crew led by Kari and Nari discuss plans on reaching the Origin Force's headquarters prior to reaching the Korean shore and being interrogated by customs.
A few days later, I was on the bow of the ship, with Nari close by. Martha was still sleeping in our sleeping quarters that we found when we first got on the ship.
There was a good reason why I was here. Actually, there were two reasons why I was on the bow. Firstly, for the last day or so, the seas were quite rough. We must have been traveling through a storm of some sort. As a result of the rough seas, my stomach was churning like crazy. Often on this trip, I felt something try to come up from inside. I wanted to ensure that if I needed to throw up, I would do so into the water below, rather than on the floors of the ship, which would inconvenience the workers onboard.
The second, and perhaps more exciting reason, was that I was looking for the city of Busan. Although I do not remember if I ever have been to the city, I know from satellite imagery roughly what the city should look like, and what the ports should look like.
I wanted to talk to Nari, however, I could feel my stomach contents come up my esophagus. I managed to hold it down this time, but I still wasn’t feeling that good.
“Kari, are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
I began to reply: “Not really. The seas have really taken their toll on…” I dry heaved here, still doing my best to keep everything in me.
“The seas have really taken their toll on me, and in particular, my stomach doesn’t feel too good. The fact that we had some sushi yesterday doesn’t really help.”
“Maybe we should get off the bow, and get you to a place where your stomach can settle.”
“No, I really want to see the city of Busan from the ship.”
I was really struggling here. I really wanted to not throw up, but my stomach was not cooperating. Eventually, my body involuntarily gave in and just spewed out a bunch of fluid and partially digested food. After a few moments, the spewing stopped, and I felt a lot better.
“Are you okay now, Kari?”
“Much better now, although it sucks that I had to puke out last night’s dinner. It was quite tasty.”
“Agreed. Now, we should wake up Martha before we…”
Nari cut herself off here, as she saw something coming up in the distance.
“Kari, look off in the distance. There is something that you might want to see.”
I squinted my eyes and turned my head slightly to the right. I could just about make out a few tall buildings and some cranes coming up from the horizon. Is that the city of Busan?
“That’s the port of Busan, right Nari?”
“Indeed it is. We should be coming into the port within the hour.”
I wanted to jump up and down in excitement, as I wanted to see the city. However, I didn’t want to cause more stomach discomfort, so I decided to hold off on that. Instead, I would take a picture of the city, when we got a little bit closer to the port and we could more clearly see the buildings.
“We should probably get off of the bow of the ship and return back to our living quarters, so that we can wake up Martha and prepare to get off the ship. This includes planning out our route from the port to the headquarters.” Nari ordered.
We slowly made our way back to our living quarters, so that we wouldn’t cause more discomfort than absolutely necessary. When we got back, we saw Martha still sleeping on her bed, like a bear in the dead of winter. We would need to wake her up. First, I tried lightly rubbing her right shoulder, to try to wake her up. This didn’t work. I then tried rubbing a bit harder. This didn’t work, and in fact, it seemed to make her enter a deeper state of sleep, as I could hear her murmur in her sleep:
“Oh, that feels really good…”
I then tried to poke her in various spots of her body, avoiding certain areas which I know are forbidden to touch. This also didn’t work. Nari was growing quite impatient with my fondling, and then said to me: “You have to be more assertive. Say something!”
I reverted to the rubbing technique, and said: “Time to wake up. We are almost at our destination.”
This actually worked, as she opened her eyes and then yawned. She then said:
“Good morning Kari, and good morning Nari. I just had the best dream in a long while, where I was in a world renowned spa, getting a deep tissue massage.”
“Morning Martha. We came here to tell you that we will be coming into port within the next hour, and that we need to finalize our plan once we get off this boat and onto dry land,” Nari said.
She pulled out a map of the train lines in South Korea. On the map she marked a couple of key things, including the city of Busan, the city of Gyeongsan, and the rough location of the village where the headquarters was located.
“So we will be coming in right about here,” she said using her pointer finger to mark out the port that we would be coming in, “and we want to go here,” pointing at a point a few kilometers to the northeast of Hamyang. “Unfortunately, there is no train line that will take us directly there. However, there is a highway that will go over the village and will allow us to reach our target. So, here’s the game plan. We will board the train at Busan, which will be on the Gyeongbu line. We will take it all the way to the Gyeongsan station, which is located here. I chose this station as this is in a slightly less populated area, and so, we would likely be undetected by the force. Next, we will rent a vehicle, and then we will wait until the sun is about to set. Once the sun has set, we will leave the city, and take the main route 55 all the way until we reach Geochang. From there, we will take side roads until we get to a small reservoir. That is the main object in the village. The headquarters should lie somewhere around the reservoir. Understood?”
Both Martha and I shook our heads.
“Good. Now, take these.” She passed me a pistol with a built-in suppressor, a few clips worth of ammunition and a black scarf.
“Please conceal the weapon and ammo to the best of your ability. We don’t want to be caught sneaking on with it when we get on the train. The scarf will be used to conceal your face when we are near the premises. They likely know what you look like, so this will ensure only your eyes will be seen.”
I stuffed everything Nari gave me into the various pockets in my pants. It didn’t feel very comfortable. Then again, I’m doing official business, and as such, comfort is of second order here. The job came first.
After about 30 minutes, we could hear the roar of the engines in the back of the ship. We must be close to docking.
After another couple of minutes, we had gathered ourselves together, and proceeded out of our living space. I was ready to return back to dry land. The rough seas that we had experienced did not do me any wonders.
We then heard the clunk of the anchor, indicating to us that we had come to a complete stop. A crew member then came to our vicinity, and guided us off the ship. Compared to when we were on the ship this morning, the weather was beautiful, with only a few clouds here and there to break up the sunshine. It also felt nice temperature wise.
Now, we needed to fetch a train to get to our first destination, which was in Gyeongsan. Luckily though, there was a train station nearby, as the dock was right next to the train station. First, though, we needed to get through customs, which would be an interesting experience, thanks to the amount of security measures that the Koreans have set up.
First, we had to specify our reasoning for being in South Korea. We stated it was for official Japanese government business. The customs officers seemed to believe this without any sort of proof.
Next, they asked us to go through all of our belongings. Martha was selected to go first. All she had on her was her identification and some money. She passed, with no issues.
Next was Nari. They did go through everything she had, and they did find the pistol and ammunition that she had packed.
“Ma’am, this is a gun. Are you here to cause mass panic or to commit an act of terrorism?” the customs officer said in a stern voice.
Nari gulped. “No, your honor. We are here to get rid of an organization that is causing havoc in Japan, which is one of Korea’s closest allies. We were told by the Japanese government to get rid of the Korean Origin Force, and we have determined that the headquarters of said force are located in the confines of this country. As part of this, we need to either capture or eliminate the leader, hence why the gun is there.”
The customs officer didn’t buy this.
“Look, if you want proof, you can contact the emperor or representative Takagi, who had taken us to see the emperor, who gave us our mission.”
The officer crossed his eyes. He then said, in a voice that was more stern than last time:
“Okay, I shall contact the necessary officials in Japan. If they said you are telling the truth, you and your party can go through. But if not, you will be thrown away into confinement. Wait here, and I will come back when I am done with talking with them.”
We now had to patiently wait for the customs officer to return from his phone call. Until then, another guy ordered us to sit on a bench, while we await our judgment.
I don’t believe I have ever been more nervous in my life. If we were caught lying here, we could be tried for various things, either here, or, if we were particularly unlucky, back in Japan. I tried to act cool, but this was very hard. I had to resort to a tactic that my mother frowned upon: nail biting. My mother had to pull my hands away from my mouth.
“Bad daughter!” my mother whispered to me, with large amounts of enunciation. “You know better than that. Especially when we are out and about.”
“Sorry, but my nerves are not good right now. We could be considered criminals if we are caught lying to these people, and you know I don’t want to be thrown in jail.”
Nari told us to cut out the bickering. She assured us that we would indeed be allowed into Korea, and then we would proceed with our mission.
Outside of a single clock ticking away, and a few signs written in Korean, basically telling us to avoid using any electronic devices, and to give us a few tips regarding how to behave when being inspected by the officers, there was nothing in the room to look at. This made my mind go even more crazy. I wanted to get out of here, and proceed with my life. However, I would have to wait until the guy comes back with the news.
Some minutes passed. I was wondering if perhaps the phone lines are busy, or if the emperor and the representative that we cited earlier are doing more important things than answering a phone call from mere petty citizens.
I remembered that one of the emperor’s assistants said there would be no government assistance in this mission. Is this going to be our downfall?
Finally, after a few more minutes, the guy came back, with a phone in hand. We could hear his last few words:
“...Oh, that’s why they are here, they are trying to protect the emperor and the current regime? Yeah, okay. Thanks. Bye.” A beep sounded, which signaled the end of the call. The officer turned his head towards us, and talked to us, in a slightly less stern voice than before.
“So, I talked to some people in the Japanese government.”
“And?” both Nari and I said, anxiously, as if we wanted an answer right away.
“Well, first off, your phone system is quite wacky. I started with the emperor’s main phone, and there was no answer. Then I tried his assistant, but his phone was off. I don’t have representative Takagi’s phone number, so I had to call the prime minister of Japan. He directed me to the right person, and then there was a bit of confusion. He told me that he met you two,” pointing at me and Nari with his pointer and middle fingers, “and then he took you to meet the emperor, which is apparently a rare feat. Now, there was a conversation between you two and the emperor, and he didn’t exactly remember what was said. He then gave me an alternate number for the assistant, and then I hung up with him.”
“So are we free…”
“Hold on a second! I’m getting to that. On the alternate number, I did manage to talk to the assistant to the emperor. I must’ve caught him at a bad time, as he was eating at the time. Damn glutton, eating on the taxpayer’s money. Now…”
“Come on now, get to the point,” I said.
“Don’t interrupt me, please. Now, I questioned him about the encounter you two had with the emperor. Then he told me everything, all of which matches what you had said. I still don’t really believe the story too much. However, the story is real, and you didn’t tell any lies. Now, I presume you will try to be in and out as quickly as possible, and not cause any ruckus in Korea while you are here?”
“That is the plan. We do know that the origin force knows the appearance of Jung, and so we can’t guarantee that we will get through unscathed. We might need medical services while we are here, but just presume for the moment that we won’t.”
“I don’t really care if you need medical care later on. All I care about is if you will be civil while you visit Korea.”
“Yes,” we all said in unison.
“Very well. You are then free to exit the interrogation room through the door in the back there, and you can exit the building. There is a train station that is roughly a 15 minute walk from here. You can pick up the train there and you can then travel to any major city in South Korea.”
The officer seemed a lot more friendly at this point, as we were now no longer seen as a potential threat. The door to let us exit the room opened up, and then we proceeded out with all of our belongings. It took us a few minutes to reach the other end of the building. When we exited the building, we could tell a good amount of time had passed since we entered the building. The sun was a bit higher up in the sky, and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. The sun must have burned off the clouds.
We could see the train station from where we were. There was a train that was just leaving the station as we got out of the building we were in. Hopefully by the time we get to the train station, another train would be almost there, so we could pick it up and head to Gyeongsan.
The officer was quite right, as it took about 15 minutes to get to the train station. There was a train coming into the station at this point, but this one was going the other way. We paid for our tickets and then we made our way to the platform. Based on the schedule, the next train would come in about 5 minutes. It wouldn’t be enough to get a bite to eat, so we just decided to wait for the train.
There was an ominous feeling in the air of the station, as the station was quite empty. This is understandable, considering the time of day. Most people were at work, and therefore, not riding the train. As a result, our train would likely be lightly loaded. Not necessarily a good thing for us, as a heavily loaded train would allow us to blend in, making us a harder target to hit. Oh well. We’ll just have to make do with the current situation.
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