Taekjoo was shown to a room, and he got to work the moment he stepped inside. He stood with his back to the door, scanning the layout of the room. He walked along the wall, inspecting the windows, their sills, and the type of glass. He tugged a window inward, then pushed outward. It did not budge an inch. Just beyond the glass lay a steep cliff. Taekjoo had anticipated all of this—even the cliff. Sergey had no reason to offer a nice guest room to a stranger. Unless Taekjoo took the hallways, which were heavily guarded, it would be difficult for him to get anywhere within the mansion.
Taekjoo retrieved a lighter from his pocket. It was a compact tool designed to slice through glass or thin metal sheets by generating intense heat. He had used it previously at the Bogdanov estate. Gripping the torch head, he pulled out a slender rod and shaped it into an L. He spun the flint wheel. Sparks jumped from the combustion chamber, quickly igniting a scorching flame. Taekjoo used it to make a hole in the window that faced the cliff.
He set the clean-cut glass on the windowsill and slipped his left wrist through the hole. Taekjoo flattened himself against the window, extending his limb as far as he could, and aimed his watch at the sky. When he pressed the dials on the side, the watch face opened, and something shot up. It drew a straight line through the sky and quickly disappeared from sight. Not long after, a camera shutter clicked in the air.
Taekjoo took off the watch, opened the back, and pulled out a micro memory chip. He inserted it into his phone and pulled up the files. The mansion’s floor plan now appeared on his phone. As if equipped with X-ray vision, it revealed the mansion’s interior, including hidden spaces between walls and floors.
Taekjoo shared the floor plan image with Zhenya and began guessing where SS-29 might be. He identified four likely locations: the basement, the attic at the top of the tower, the space behind the second bookshelf in the study, and the hidden room in Sergey’s bedroom.
Taekjoo pressed the radio to his ear to talk to Zhenya.
“We’ve got no choice but to look into them one by one.”
- I’ll take the study. It’s heavily guarded—it’ll be fun.
“Don’t kill unless you have to. It’s difficult to take care of the mess.”
- I’ve never killed when I didn’t have to. All my kills are in justified self-defense.
The word “justified” isn’t meant to be used by people like you. Taekjoo clicked his tongue in disapproval before wrapping up the trivial conversation.
“I’ll take the basement, then. Good luck.”
As soon as he disconnected the radio, Taekjoo looked back and forth between the doors of the room and the bathroom. It didn’t take him long to make up his mind. He headed toward the bathroom. Given the purpose of the residence, Taekjoo assumed there would be cameras watching him everywhere—in the stairs and hallways, of course, as well as in fire extinguishers, picture frames, and flower pots. Now that there were unwelcome guests in the mansion, the security would’ve been tightened even more. Taekjoo couldn’t tackle this head-on without knowing where SS-29 was. When outnumbered, the best move was to avoid a direct encounter.
According to the floor plan, there was an air vent in the bathroom ceiling. All vents in every room were connected to the tower, releasing indoor air, including from the basement, into the open.
Taekjoo locked the bathroom door and turned on the shower. The water poured down and hit the floor. He drew the translucent shower curtain to hide his absence.
After finishing his little ruse, he stepped onto the toilet and removed the vent cover. He shoved his head inside and saw a dark tunnel stretching ahead. It wasn’t spacious, but it was wide enough for Taekjoo to crawl through.
Taekjoo quickly pulled himself up. The low ceiling of the air vent pressed against his back. Just a bit of squirming stirred up the dust, tickling his nose and throat. Taekjoo buried his nose in his arm and stayed still, fighting back the urge to cough.
He turned on his headlamp, casting light on the path ahead. The light was enough to illuminate about three feet in front of him. Taekjoo took a sharp breath and began crawling through the duct, pulling himself forward by alternating his arms. He was careful to avoid making any noise as he crawled along the ceiling.
As he reached the duct above his room and neared the hallway, Taekjoo heard voices—guards stationed outside his door. Ignoring their idle chatter, he moved forward stealthily.
Soon, the path forked. Taekjoo pulled out his phone and quickly checked the floor plan. To reach the basement, he had to turn left. As he shifted in that direction, he noticed that the floor of the duct sloped downward. Taekjoo must be above a staircase. Bracing himself on one elbow, as he had been doing, he pulled himself forward. But then, the duct floor suddenly dipped.
“...!”
He must have put his weight on a weakened section of the air vent. Taekjoo quickly grabbed the wall to steady himself, but in doing so, he made quite a bit of noise. Coincidentally, a guard was passing by and stopped dead in his tracks. Through the mesh-like floor of the vent, Taekjoo could see the guard tilting his head from side to side. He turned to look behind him, then tilted his head again. Another guard asked him what was wrong.
“Didn’t you hear something just now?”
“Hear what?”
“I thought I heard something clank...”
The guard looked to his left and right. Then, suddenly, he looked up. He saw that the floor of the vent was hanging a bit low. It had been like that for quite some time, but it still wasn’t fixed. Sergey, the owner of the mansion, had put the task off again and again, saying he’d attend to it after finishing his other important business.
It could’ve been a rat, the guard thought to himself. But it sounded too heavy to be one. He couldn’t shake off his suspicion. He tapped the vent with his rifle. If the vent was empty, it would make a hollow sound, and the low-hanging air duct did shift noticeably at just a light tap. Since he was already checking, the guard tapped on the other ducts as well—he might as well be thorough. No part of the vent gave any indication that something was inside.
“What’s up with you?”
The other guard, who’d been feeling nervous, grumbled.
“There’s nothing there,” he added.
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like rats showing up is anything new.”
With a sour look on his face, the guard glanced up at the vent once more, inspecting the vent, before letting his colleague drag him away.
Meanwhile, Kwon Taekjoo was fighting for his life, struggling against the dust inside the duct. His head, back, butt, and arms were pressed against the vent ceiling, leaving only the tips of his feet to support the entire weight of his body. His palms were sweating, slowly losing their grip. If he fell again, the vent would rattle. All Taekjoo could do was hope that the two guards would be gone from the hallway before that happened.