The City Where Gray Rain Falls Chapter 9

Samuel, if it were him, would choose the latter without hesitation, but it might be different for those who championed the cause of the greater good or moved for the liberation of the city.

The Crime Prevention Unit recruitment, timed to coincide with that moment, was bait they couldn’t help but take, even knowing it was suspicious. Since Samuel had ascended to the position of Chief of Security, no better opportunity than this would come again.

So, would they really miss this chance, which could rightfully be called the last?

If they had any inkling of the gravity of the unfolding situation, those who had been assigned important roles within the city and lay hidden, biding their time, would have no choice but to reveal themselves.

If even a fraction of them could be caught, the full scope of the rebels scattered across the entire city would be exposed in a matter of time. The information Samuel had gathered over years and the informants planted in each district would, without missing the slightest opening, yield the best possible result.

If he could sweep up the rebels in one stroke and achieve the unprecedented feat of eradicating them from within the city. Then no one would be able to deny that the ‘eternal peace of the gray city’—the words the rulers always kept on their lips—had been brought about by the new Chief of Security from outside, the very kind they so despised.

‘How utterly ridiculous.’

At times like this, greater caution was needed. As Walter had said, there was little to gain by rounding up everyone who looked like a rebel based solely on suspicion.

If they were rebels who had hidden in the city for over a decade, they would be adept at playing citizens, and any confession extracted under torture would be slathered with a desperate desire to survive, making it difficult to discern the truth.

It was better to throw out a few options and wait for them to choose. At the very moment the opponent made their move. What they wanted, and what they wished to keep hidden even at the cost of great loss, would be laid bare starkly.

After a brief silence, an unexpectedly kind answer came back from his superior, who was smiling with the corners of his mouth stretched.

“This time, it’s not a net, but a fishing rod. So you have to use bait.”

Since everything so far had fallen into place exactly as anticipated, putting him in a good mood, he could afford his adjutant, who had followed him for years, that much leniency.

Besides, it wasn’t strange for his adjutant to have doubts. After all, for anyone other than Samuel, an operation using the entire Security Bureau as bait was a bold move they wouldn’t even dare to conceive.

“Ah. Understood.”

Walter, having grasped his superior’s intent through the concise metaphor, nodded his head vigorously, gathered the approved documents, bowed, and went outside.

“…Ahaha.”

Left alone in the office, Samuel suddenly laughed aloud as he looked out the window. It was because he recalled one of the applicants from the morning, who had worn a resolute expression as if heading off to war.

Whether he knew this was a death trap or not, the sight of him biting his lip and enduring to stay until the end had been truly amusing.

A young man with black hair, in baggy, coarse clothes—anyone could see he was a naive outsider. If there was a variable Samuel needed to consider, it was that man alone.

People from outside carried a distinct lack of restraint. Especially when standing among those who had grown up conforming their whole lives within hierarchy and order, it stood out all the more. The others mimicked citizens quite convincingly, it was said, but that young man in particular was not so.

Just as Samuel had openly thrown out the bait of the Crime Prevention Unit, perhaps the opponent had also pushed forward an unexpected figure to probe this side.

‘We’ll find out in due course.’

The board was set. Now all that remained was to arrange the circumstances for their rebel friends to move, and it would be over.

How big a catch would the fish that took the end of the line be, and what would the tug feel like when he reeled it in? A sly smile hung on Samuel’s lips in anticipation.

∞ ∞ ∞

Isaac, the only Crime Prevention Unit member from District 28, barely managed to return home just before the curfew siren sounded and reflected on the day.

‘How was I selected?’

Though he had hoped to be one of them, the inexplicable result was met first with bewilderment, even from himself. Looking at the other selected members, the criteria became even more unfathomable. Their assigned districts, ages, and appearances were all vastly different.

The woman who introduced herself as Sera, the Security Bureau’s public relations officer, left the successful applicants gathered on one side of the training ground, telling them to exchange greetings.

For those drained from standing all day, it was a moment to sit comfortably and rest for a while. Meaning, they didn’t even have the energy for innocent self-introductions or getting to know others.

As expected, there were no familiar faces. The one thing he could read from the strangers who had silently slumped down was that the dozens gathered there did not all wear the same expression.

Most were beaming at having obtained the job they wanted, but a few were plastered with a peculiar anxiety. Aside from that, there were those with blank faces, and some whose expressions were so erased it was hard to gauge their thoughts.

Isaac had no way of knowing where he fell among them. Pretending to wipe his face dry, he felt his face, haggard from exhaustion, with his fingertips, but he couldn’t quite discern what expression he himself was wearing.

When Sera returned and finished a brief orientation, the order to go home was soon given. The Crime Prevention Unit members, just as when they had come, returned to their respective districts under the escort of constables.

At any rate, the selection couldn’t be undone, and with not even a moment to catch his breath, he had to go back to the Security Bureau from tomorrow morning to carry out various tasks as a unit member.

‘Still, it’s a relief. I got this.’

In Isaac’s hand was a new identification card stamped with the Chief of Security’s seal.

It was a single sheet of paper with brief personal details—Joshua, Male, 22 years old, Height 178cm, Residing at District 28, Block 45, Building 12, Unit 307—with the added phrases ‘Security Bureau Crime Prevention Unit’ and ‘Permitted passage through gates during curfew hours.’ But even with just this, he felt one step closer to the hope of finding Asel.

The landscape shifting starkly with every gate crossed, shoulders squaring boldly then hunching easily, toes curling at the unfamiliar sensation of the smooth pavement, the freedom they didn’t have, the city still beautiful, the people gathered to grasp a thread-like hope with their own hands, the intensely beating sun and the training ground full of bright yellow sand-laden wind, the fierce glares that seemed ready to shoot him down at any moment, the eyes of the applicants emptied and exhausted from being unable to endure it…

‘Now, from tomorrow…’

The grueling day flickered past Isaac’s eyelids as they slowly, slowly drooped shut. He had to figure out what to do, at least make a plan. But his abused body rejected the very act of thinking and whispered that it was too troublesome, urging him to push it all into the darkness, onto tomorrow’s sun.

In any case, it was something he wouldn’t know until it was upon him. How much leeway he would have to search the city for Asel, whether another means to find that kid would appear. He knew nothing now, but wouldn’t tomorrow’s self, as a member of the Crime Prevention Unit, be different?

Like that, in a pitch-black room without a single sliver of light. On the shabby bed of planks belonging to the real Joshua, Isaac, for the first time in a long while, slept a deep sleep without dreams or tossing and turning.

∞ ∞ ∞

Ah, haah, ahh. Long after the siren signaling the start of curfew had sounded, from the room of the Chief of Security, as always, the coquettish moans of a guest could be heard. Their day, it seemed, was not yet over.

From the flashy dress fallen on the floor and the various jingling ornaments, one could guess that today’s guest was a woman of quite flamboyant taste, but who she was didn’t matter. The guests who came and went from this room were more than one or two, and most were people who needed neither identification nor surveillance.

“Harder, do it harder. Please, Samuel.”

“I wonder. It’s already time.”