News of Sung Woo arrived before Sung Woo himself.
It came through the mouth of a man called Blacksmith — not a name, a function, what remained of a name once the function became identity, the same process that had happened to the Hunter — who had reached Bó two days before the Wilson siblings, carrying hands burned by metalwork and the information that there was a South Korean in the settlement of Vau drinking through the settlement’s alcohol reserves at a pace that made him either a problem to solve or a resource to relocate, depending on how one chose to look at the situation.
The Hunter heard this and merely said:
— How long before the reserves run out?
Blacksmith estimated three days.
— Then we leave tomorrow — said the Hunter.
They went as two: the Hunter and Morgan, because the Hunter had decided that two was the correct number for this specific mission — enough for security, not enough to look like confrontation.
Eliot stayed in Bó with Ruth, which was negotiated with the seriousness of a diplomatic matter by both sides: Eliot wanted to go, Ruth wanted him to stay, and the final agreement was that he would remain with unrestricted access to the library and the old cartography section, plus the promise that Ruth would explain the Latin pages of the untitled book to him.
It was a good deal.
Eliot accepted with the dignity of someone conceding because the terms justified the concession.
Elisa, without invitation and without asking permission, went with Morgan and the Hunter.
The Hunter looked at her when she appeared at the edge of Bó with a backpack slung over her shoulder.
— I wasn’t the one who called you.
— No.
— Elisa adjusted one of the backpack straps with the automatic gesture of someone accustomed to leaving places.
— But I know Sung Woo.
A pause.
— From where?
— Seoul.
Before Day Zero.
— She started walking.
— He was famous.
I stole his watch at a charity gala.
— A pause.
— It’s a long story.
The relevant point is that he won’t want to listen to strangers, but he may listen to someone who once stole something from him, because that’s at least interesting.
The Hunter and Morgan exchanged a glance.
Then followed.
Vau was twelve kilometers from Bó, down what had once been a national highway and was now a road only in the sense that it could still be crossed without specialized equipment.
The settlement was smaller than Crest had been — twenty-something inhabitants, improvised structures around a central building that had once been a gas station and was now storage, communal kitchen, and meeting hall depending on the hour.
Sung Woo was outside the central building when they arrived.
Sitting on the ground — not on a chair, on the ground — with his back against the concrete wall and a bottle between his knees containing something amber and translucent that Morgan identified as locally made liquor from the smell reaching them three meters away.
He was twenty-six years old and looked like someone who had once possessed, at some point not very far in the past, that specific quality of presence that makes people look — not beauty in the conventional sense, but something more dynamic, more active, the kind of face that knows it is being watched and has a functional working relationship with that fact.
Now he looked like someone who had temporarily decided to stop caring what he looked like, which was different from not caring at all — it was an active decision, a deliberate suspension, like someone carefully placing an expensive instrument on the floor while still placing it there.
He looked at the three approaching with eyes that processed faster than the rest of his face revealed.
An expression crossed his face — not immediate recognition but the slightly delayed version of recognition belonging to someone who needed an extra second because the context differed enough from the memory stored.
— You — he said.
— Me — said Elisa.
— The watch — he said.
— You never got it back because you weren’t worth the effort of searching for.
— She sat on the ground beside him with the natural ease of someone who has no problem with floors.
— How are you?
Sung Woo looked at the bottle.
— Philosophically or practically?
— What’s the difference right now?
He genuinely considered the question.
— Philosophically, I’m having a fairly substantial crisis of purpose.
Practically, I’m trying to drink enough for the crisis of purpose to feel less urgent until tomorrow.
— Is it working?
— Not especially.
Elisa extended her hand toward the bottle.
Sung Woo handed it over without protest — the gesture of someone attached not to the object itself but to what the object represents, and who realizes the representation is failing anyway.
Elisa drank.
Made the expression of someone conducting an honest evaluation of quality.
— This is terrible.
— It’s what exists.
— It was always what existed.
Was this what you were doing when the world was different?
A long pause.
— No.
— Sung Woo looked toward the horizon with the expression of someone reviewing something he would rather not revisit but would rather still less ignore.
— When the world was different, I was involved in other things.
Things with more light and more noise and more people looking.
— A pause.
— And now there isn’t enough light or enough noise, and the people who look do so for reasons that don’t interest me.
— What reasons would interest you?
Sung Woo finally looked directly at Elisa.
— Tell me first why you came.
You and them.
— He tilted his head toward the Hunter and Morgan, who had remained standing at a respectful distance.
— It wasn’t about the watch.
— Then what?
Elisa stayed silent for a moment — the silence of someone calculating not what to say but the order in which to say it, because the order mattered as much as the content when the person listening was someone whose interest was the only thing that needed activation.
— Because there is something that needs to be done — she said — and you are one of the seven people in the world capable of being part of it.
Sung Woo looked at her.
— Why me specifically?
— Because you carry what you carry.
— A pause.
— And because what you carry is necessary.
— What I carry?
— His voice was dry, not defensive.
— According to whom?
Elisa looked at him with those inventorying eyes, and at that moment they were inventorying something she herself did not want to see but saw anyway.
— According to someone who carries the same kind of thing — she said.
— Except mine is not yours.
Sung Woo stayed silent for a long moment.
Then said:
— What is yours?
The word fell with the specific weight of words not often used because the cost of speaking them is higher than the benefit of avoiding them — and which, once finally spoken, reorganize the space around the person who said them.
— Envy.
Sung Woo looked at her differently than before.
— And mine is what?
— he said.
Not as a question.
Like someone who already knew the answer and was merely checking whether the other person knew it too.
— It’s not my place to name it — said Elisa.
Sung Woo remained silent another moment.
Then he rose from the ground with the movement of someone who had been sitting long enough that standing required genuine effort, but who was doing it anyway because he had decided to.
— When do you leave?
— he asked the Hunter.
The Hunter answered:
— Tomorrow morning.
Sung Woo nodded.
Looked at the bottle still in Elisa’s hand.
— You can keep that.
It really is terrible.
Then he walked into the building.