The City Where Gray Rain Falls Chapter 30

“…Move him discreetly, at dawn. Fabricate a suitable fake identity as deceased—no need to create a new one. If anyone asks, well, just say I brought him in for some… novel amusement.”

“I will see to it immediately.”

Torturing and killing were easy options he could choose at any time. So why not take a small gamble to test whether his instincts were right?

For instance, why not keep his hands directly involved until his curiosity about these unprecedented anomalies was satisfied? Or, to grasp the full picture of a scene that seemed almost within reach yet eluded him, why not offer a conciliatory approach and use the young man as bait for yet another operation?

To do that, he needed a space where he could observe more comfortably—somewhere other than the basement, with its many watchful eyes. Someplace like his own residence, to which no one would attach any particular significance.

“Ahaha…”

Having made his decision, Samuel felt strangely buoyant. Forgetting even the fact that the operation had failed, he began to laugh with his whole face.

∞ ∞ ∞

Vigilance Corps members ‘Vincent’ and ‘Joshua’ were officially dead.

These two unfortunate citizens had been brutally murdered by rebels during a late-night cleaning shift, and for security reasons, their bodies had been immediately cremated internally.

The Vigilance Corps, having endured two rebel incidents, was naturally set on a course toward disbandment.

Citizens, trained not to question things, did not wonder how rebels had infiltrated the heavily guarded Security Department, nor why innocent people had ended up dead. And the Security Department, for its part, did not bother to explain to the citizens that this had been part of an operation, or that their usefulness had now run its course.

They had announced from the beginning that the Corps was being implemented on a trial basis, and they had even handed out generous compensation to the members—so there was no need to tack on any plausible justification.

The Corps members returned to their respective residential sectors and took the lead in cursing the rebels who had robbed them of their jobs. Thanks to this, the Security Department’s image of benevolence was improving to an unprecedented degree.

For the fellow citizens who had lost their lives at the hands of rebels, brief, subdued mourning followed—then was swiftly replaced by anger directed at the outside and the rebels, and by a sense of crisis that even the shabby rooms and stale bread they still possessed might be taken by the enemy.

Before long, the city grew feverish with voluntary surveillance and denunciations among citizens themselves, leading them to distrust one another even more.

The city’s rulers, who favored division and distrust among citizens for the sake of easy governance, regarded the entire sequence—from the recruitment of the Vigilance Corps, to the two rebel disturbances within the Security Department, to the post-incident handling—as an operation. Instead of making hasty criticisms or interjections, they chose to keep their mouths shut and watch for the time being.

In any case, the regular reports from each department were not far off. The new Chief of Security, Samuel, would have to do his utmost to prove how well he had kept the pledges he had made, before an assembly of all Party executives.

If the results fell short of expectations by even a fraction, it would mean he had presented falsehoods before the city and the Party, and he would have no choice but to accept whatever disciplinary action was meted out. Even without anyone stepping forward to take responsibility or raise their voice, a Chief of Security of outside origin who was, on top of that, incompetent, would surely be eliminated on his own.

Perhaps that was why. Most of the executives never imagined that he had let the ‘Head’ of the rebels slip away, nor that the person hidden away in his official residence was anyone of significance. The rulers, for all their suspicion, had a habit of remaining optimistic until the very moment a clear problem erupted and they were forced to assign blame.

They assumed the veiled Chief of Security’s operation was still in progress. A few among them even harbored the uncomfortable expectation that Samuel might truly root out the rebels infiltrated within the city—and that they might end up having to acknowledge a low-born Chief of Security from outside.

∞ ∞ ∞

“Nngh…”

Slowly regaining consciousness, Isaac realized that his body was no longer fixed to the cold chair.

He could feel a hard floor against his back, and his arms, which had been wrenched behind him, could now move at his will.

His retinas, grown dim from being locked in the dark basement for days on end, now registered a bright room and a high ceiling.

This place was neither the basement, nor the hell or purgatory he had pictured while sitting there.

It was an empty room, devoid of any furniture—but light poured in from a window set so high it was beyond his reach, and the air smelled fresh and clean, not of musty mold.

The same went for his body. His filthy, stinking clothes were gone, replaced by clean garments.

‘What on earth…’

He couldn’t make any sense of it. Just before this, when he had last been awake, he had been tied to a chair in the basement, imagining Asel waiting for him somewhere, resolved to survive by any means—and searching for a way to do so.

Isaac hadn’t even known that there was a ‘Head’ of the rebels within the city. And aside from a few circumstances, he might as well have known nothing at all about ‘Vincent’ as a partner.

Even if, by some chance, Vincent had been a person holding an important role in the rebels, and even if it were true that he had deceived him—how was Isaac, who had been nothing more than an errand boy, supposed to know how the rebels operated or whose orders they followed within the city?

Even if he were asked the same question a hundred times over and tortured until his flesh was shredded, he could hardly give the Chief of Security the answer he wanted. And he wasn’t creative enough to fabricate something plausible from start to finish, either.

‘If I could trade information about the camp instead…’

Fortunately, the rebel camp where Isaac had grown up was such a wretched collection of adults that he could sell them out at a moment like this without feeling the slightest pang of conscience.

The Misters of the rebels, who had fought for so long and risked their lives against the city to redistribute resources monopolized by the few, could be called remarkable men—but they were certainly not good men.

They were the first to taste the liquor, meat, and bread stolen from the city. They bathed in the hot water that orphans had laboriously carried with their small hands. And occasionally, under the pretext of being “for the cause,” they plundered the scattered dwellings of civilians and violated their women.

The rebel camp was overflowing with orphans. Some were likely the children of fallen comrades; others had probably been picked up while relocating base, or brought back from raids. But in the sense that there was no one to protect them from the adults’ unpredictable outbursts of rage or backbreaking labor, their circumstances were not all that different.

Before long, the orphans’ statuses split into two paths. Either they would become proud comrades of the rebels, or they would become errand runners attending to the comrades’ needs.

Children with sturdy physiques were selected as the next generation of rebels and taught how to become comrades.

Those kids soon ate greedily like the Misters, bellowed in loud voices, spewed thick curses, and insulted the friends they had been with just the day before. Isaac and Asel, who had not become comrades, were always on the receiving end.

The only time the willful comrades and their would-be successors showed any semblance of discipline was when the Commander visited.

The “Commander” who led the rebels was an older man of relatively small build. He always wore a hood and masked his face to conceal his identity.

However, whenever he opened his mouth, the rebel philosophy—”the cause for all,” “repay small kindness with great loyalty”—poured forth with a grand, resonant cadence. That alone had left Isaac with the vague hope that, unlike the other Misters here, the Commander might at least be a proper adult pursuing a noble ideal.

The Commander frequently traveled between the camps—there was no knowing how many there were. He would scout for comrades ready to be deployed in operations at once, inspect the plundered supplies, and then leave without telling anyone where he was headed. Perhaps that particular camp had simply been one of the smaller, less important outposts.

Whenever the rebels’ “ideal” vanished without warning, lawless times returned to the camp. Curses, violence, and insults all melded together to the point where one couldn’t even tell the wicked from the decent.