Chapter XXXVI: Tribute
9 Oct 0610 KST
Incheon, South Korea
Ji-hye was the first to wake up this time as Sergei had the midwatch overnight and had just laid back down a couple hours ago. Damn Russians threw off her sleep schedule yesterday and it would be a bitch getting back into routine, Ji-hye thought. It wasn't likely that there would be a need for a routine anytime soon however. A 17 year old boy stood watch by one of the temple windows with one of the salvaged Korean army rifles the harnessed kids had been using. It was still dark out so the brightness of a mech searchlight passing by them, lighting up one window after another in sequence in the temple, was made more apparent. This also meant that an enemy patrol was passing by right now, and should leave them somewhat of a window to escape after it had passed. Ji-hye waited a few minutes until near silence returned and started quietly waking everyone up. Once the party was roused from their slumber they armed themselves the best they could. Since the rifle ammunition was designed to pierce standard mech armor the rifles were given to the most competent shooters out of the group. Ji-hye kept Tae-won's old rifle, Sergei and Officer An also were armed with K2 rifles. The 17 year old boy and his father who both claimed to have experience hunting were also given rifles but the ammunition allotted to them was that which was taken off the bodies of the harnessed kids and as such it was not mech-piercing. There were several other rifles but they did not have enough bullets for anyone else. Those people were told to hang back and play it safe until more bullets could be located. Ji-hye, Sergei and Kyung-seok each gave their pistols to another member of the group as the ammo for those was more plentiful. With the pistols they had taken from their enemies the group had a total of 13 shooters and 19 other persons. As such they needed to avoid a fight as much as possible. Improvised melee weapons wouldn't help much against an enemy that was faster, stronger and more resilient than they were. "Everyone stay together, keep quiet and try not to draw any attention to yourselves. I will lead the way." Ji-hye instructed everyone.
Ji-hye led them out onto the streets and into the maze of giant high rises in a largely residential part of Incheon. Alien activity was heavy near the industrial and commercial quarters of the city so she hoped that by going through what had been densely populated areas with little to nothing of military value in them that they would be less likely to encounter opposition. There weren't as many mechs but skitters abounded, crawling into and out of the shattered windows and doors of the towering apartment complexes like ants. Ji-hye kept the jeep ahead of the group just close enough that Kyung-seok could keep eye contact with it and scouted ahead, many times doubling back when the concentration of skitters became too great. They eventually came to a wooded park which offered them cover from the occasional aerial patrols that came around. The drawback was that there was no way to get the jeep through it and after trying to go off road a couple times the group eventually decided to head around the edge of the park instead. As they were leaving the park a gunshot was fired at the front passenger side tire of the jeep from a concealed position in the trees. The shot punctured the tire causing it to blowout and forcing Ji-hye to stop. She got out and quickly sought shelter behind the driver's side of the jeep while everyone else hid behind trees, trash barrels and a park billboard. "Show yourself! We mean you no harm!" Ji-hye shouted out. Her demands were answered by another bullet shattering the passenger side window of the jeep. "What do you want?" Ji-hye cried out. Again, the answer was simply a gunshot, this time from the other direction that struck the door of the jeep less than a foot away from Ji-hye. "Oh great there's more than one of them." Ji-hye silently grumbled. "If you're going to shoot me then shoot me! Otherwise I'm leaving!" Ji-hye called out. The gunman on her side of the jeep fired two more shots into the jeep, one of which punctured a hole in the gas tank causing the jeep's fuel reserves to leak out. So much for a quick getaway, she thought. Still nothing, not a word from her assailants. Their silence made her think that these were harnessed individuals shooting at them, however their tactics made her think otherwise. The behavior of the shooters did not match what she and the others had seen before when dealing with alien infested humans. The aliens would usually attack them head on and if they took a shot they shot to kill, none of this beating around the bush, an alien sniper would have struck her dead with the first round. This led her to believe she was dealing with a human foe. They haven't made any demands, nor had they moved from their hiding places, so what could they want? She kept silent and waited, no further shots were fired. She slowly looked around, scanning the treetops to see if she could find out where the last shot came from. As her eyes drifted to a particular tall tree a fourth gunshot shattered the driver's side window of the jeep. They apparently didn't want her looking at them either. A red flare was fired into the air from somewhere in the woods. This drew attention, but not the kind the gunmen were seeking. A passing beamer detected the flare and precision bombed the location it came from. The blast burnt away a large patch of foliage and knocked over several trees at its center. Most importantly the man hiding in the trees was flung out of his hiding place and onto the ground. Ji-hye sprinted for the man before he even touched the ground. Two shots were fired from behind her, one striking the dirt several feet behind her and the second hitting the ground mere inches from her left foot. The silent threats did not deter her; she tackled the man on the ground and tossed his weapon away from him. Ji-hye wrestled with him, her skill compensating for his strength. One of the civilians, a brawny man in his late 40s saw that Ji-hye was being overpowered and left the safety of his hiding place to come to her aid. A gunshot fired ahead of the man scared him but did not stop him. The man beat the sniper in the chest and back of the head with a golf club until he submitted to Ji-hye and was handcuffed. Ji-hye's backup paid for his action by being shot in the hip. The man cried out and hunched down, almost to his knees. If the sniper wanted to he could have killed this man, or her, Ji-hye wondered. Why were they keeping them alive? "What do you want from us?" Ji-hye asked the fallen sniper as she stood behind him, using his body as a shield. The man did not answer. She repeated her question more forcefully than last time, still no answer. She struck the man in the back with her knee and demanded he tell her what they were doing. Once again the man was silent. Before she could answer a fourth time the man was shot in the chest and died. Ji-hye looked up to see where the shot came from to find an aged woman holding a bolt action hunting rifle. Behind the woman stood a chubby baby-faced man in his late teens wearing a bright yellow shirt and ripped skinny jeans and a haggard woman abound the same age as the shooter dressed in a soiled, torn, summer dress. The man carried two revolvers that were still holstered to a loose fitting belt while the haggard woman carried a spear fashioned from a kitchen knife heavily duct taped to a mop handle. "A pity you were too stupid to live." the woman said. "I see we have enough tributes for a month." she continued. "Don't you try anything silly now; my youngest son will shoot you. He was the smarter of the bunch." the woman warned Ji-hye who was contemplating an attack. Assuming there were no more of them hiding in the trees Ji-hye's group outnumbered these people by a large margin, though there were guaranteed losses if they chose to fight. Among those losses would be Ji-hye herself, a fact she was very well aware of. "I don't think that would be a very smart move of his behalf. We have you outnumbered and outgunned. If he takes a shot the rest of you would be dead before you can blink." Ji-hye shouted. The volume of her voice could draw some alien attention which could actually be beneficial for a change. She surveyed the area with her eyes while keeping her head still, facing the older woman while trying to formulate a plan in her mind. If every one of her people was on the same page as she was then her assailants would only have the chance to fire two shots and they only had two possible targets they could hit, her and the middle aged man standing beside her. She still held the dead sniper's body in front of her, while it offered no leverage it could still absorb bullets or at worst turn a kill shot into a wounding shot. This meant that the old woman would likely try and shoot the man next to her leaving her vulnerable on her right side to the other shooter concealed in the trees. "You're assuming we are only what you can see." the old woman laughed. "Don't try to shrug it off like a joke. Your boys already gave away their positions. They wanted us to know where they were so we wouldn't move." Ji-hye shouted back. "That's what you think." the old woman arrogantly replied. "Then go on, give us a warning shot. Show us what we're dealing with if you want this negotiation to continue, because I'm about ready to drop the hammer and make E.T. kibble out of all of you." Ji-hye said calling the old woman's bluff. She continued to strategize while speaking. The rest of her group had their weapons aimed at each of their attackers that were in the open along with a few of them focusing in on the general area where the sniper in the trees had fired from. She had her weapon close at hand and the dead snipers rifle was behind the foot of the man standing next to her. If he wasn't immediately killed then he could return fire as well. "Nothing they do can save you or your friend missy! They wouldn't let one of their own die, you're good people and good people don't sacrifice their friends." the old lady responded calling out Ji-hye in return. "That's where you are wrong lady! I'm no more important to these people than a housecat. You shoot me, that's just one less mouth to feed." Ji-hye shouted back. "What the hell aliens? Where are you?" Ji-hye whispered under her breath as she quickly looked down then back up at the old woman. Normally one of them sneezed and they would be swarming on them, now she's screaming at the top of her lungs and not a spider in sight. "I call bullshit on that! If that was the case then why haven't they shot us already?" the old lady asked. "No one has to die here today. All you have to do is come with us; we'll give you hot food and a bed. We have a whole housing complex to ourselves. Just leave your weapons on the ground and walk towards us with your hands in the air." the old lady demanded in a soft voice. "You're not thinking clearly about this are you? Did it ever occur to you that they might want you to shoot us first, force you to give away your positions?" Ji-hye replied. The offer of hot food and a warm bed had to have been a lie. The aliens dominated this city; every apartment building they had seen was turned into a spider's nest. If these people had such obvious and expansive living arrangements then they most certainly were collaborating with the enemy. Perhaps that is what she meant by tribute. She was ransoming her own security with the lives of innocent hostages, either to the aliens themselves, Dong Zhao or some other self-important asshole that thought just because the modern world came to an end it suddenly made them king of what was left. That's what they were, not monsters but some desperate family that brokered a deal with the devil to save their own skin. Well most of them were not monsters; the old woman herself had just murdered her oldest son without batting an eye, not much maternal instinct there. "Just run." the man next to Ji-hye whispered. She didn't have time to argue with him, he seemed to have his mind made up. "That's all they are waiting for, so just shoot me like you did your own son!" Ji-hye mocked the old woman, deliberately attempting to tug at the heartstrings to provoke her. "We'll see about that." The old lady replied and fired her weapon at Ji-hye. Ji-hye jerked the dead sniper's body upwards at the sound of the blast while ducking down and starting to run back to cover behind the nearest tree. The old woman's bullet struck the sniper in the eye penetrating through the skull completely but not without having its trajectory altered even so slightly but enough to miss hitting Ji-hye. The bullet grazed the tip of her ear and took a few thin strands of hair with it before it struck the dirt. At the same time a volley of gunfire resounded throughout the park and peppered the chubby boy with bullet holes before he could reach for his weapons and struck the old woman's younger sister in both the front and back of the torso as she turned to flee, falling forward on her face. The old woman herself was hit it the left shoulder, right knee and left shin which brought her to the ground before she could take another shot. The large man next to Ji-hye covered her with his body as she ran away taking a hit to the right side of the chest from the sniper in the trees. The bullet pierced the man's lungs making it harder to breathe as he continued to shield Ji-hye while reaching for the rifle on the ground. Kyung-seok fired a 3 round burst towards the trees where the shot came from, shearing and snapping away tree branches but not hitting the sniper. A couple of the civilians also fired several shots from their pistols in the general area but did not hit anything. A second shot from the sniper hit the large man in the lower back forcing him to fall onto his side and roll around as he took up the rifle on the ground and returned fire. Not surprisingly due to the pain the large man was in the shot simply hit a tree trunk nowhere near where the sniper was located. Ji-hye sprayed bullets behind her as she jumped behind a large boulder. Her shots, the heavy mech rounds ripped through the base of several trees causing one to collapse on top of the branches of the tree where the sniper was reloading. The sniper was pushed from his hiding place and fell through the leaves to land on his feet out in the open. He exchanged shots with the large man, dying on the ground, hitting him in the chest again and taking return fire to the side of the throat. Another shot fired by Sergei struck the sniper in the side, through the ribs and killed him. Ji-hye ran to her protector's side while Sergei and Officer An pounced on the old woman before she could get up. They took her rifle away from her and tied her hands behind her back. Ji-hye meanwhile knelt down and exchanged a long look of silence with the stranger that traded his life for hers as the life left his body. Ji-hye clutched his hand as the man took his last breath. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she laid him down and shut his eyes. One of the civilians, a female college student dressed in her school uniform, knelt down next to Ji-hye. "Is his family with you?" Ji-hye asked. "He didn't have a family. He came to us alone, single, no kids." she told Ji-hye, recalling when that man had arrived at the police station the night the sky fell. His life was his own, Ji-hye thought, he had neither duties nor obligations to anyone and he laid it down for a complete stranger. His noble sacrifice would be held in honor and remembered so long as she went on living. "Will you help me bury him?" asked Ji-hye. While Ji-hye and a few of the unarmed civilians took the man's body and buried it in the small crater left by the beamer attack, covering it with tree branches and leaves the rest of them gathered in on the old woman. "You'll never get away with this." the old woman threatened. My husband and daughter, they will find you and kill you all." she screeched. "They don't need to find us. We will find them, and you will take us to them." Kyung-seok replied.
9 Oct 1246 KST
The survivors with the old woman as a prisoner crossed the park on foot and headed northwest. The jeep was abandoned on the opposite edge of the park for the time being, they didn't have the time to patch the fuel leak nor did they have a spare tire. It has been stolen off the jeep back when Williams and company first arrived in Incheon. Due to her injuries and uncooperative nature the old woman forced two of the men to carry her rather than walk. She led them through the park, across the lot of a concert venue and into another large wooded park before returning to the dense urban landscape they were familiar with again. These streets were not devoid of alien activity, the old familiar sounds of mechs and the skittering of skitters presaged patrol groups which were unusually large but few in number. These groups were also purely alien in composition; they carried with them no human minions of any sort, worker or fighter, slave or volitional collaborator. "Do you think she's even leading us to the right place?" Officer An quietly asked Ji-hye as they walked several yards behind the old woman and her escorts. "I think so. She needs 'tributes' and still thinks she's going to have us in the end." Ji-hye assured Kyung-seok. "We have other tributes; you're not that special sister. You are right, I will have you in the end." the old woman spoke up after overhearing the last bit of the conversation. "All the more reason to bust this outfit." Kyung-seok commented. Ji-hye and Kyung-seok still were police officers, and though law and order crumbled less than five days ago their sense of justice was as ardent as ever. These people were guilty of kidnapping, human trafficking, extortion, assault and murder. Might as well throw in resisting arrest charges at them too, that is, if this was the old world. There would be no trial here; justice would come swift and deadly. There were untold numbers of people being held by this family of outlaws. Furthermore they could not allow these people to continue abducting others. She understood the severity of their situation but even in the darkest of times there is still right and wrong. There are some depths people should never sink to lest they lose their humanity altogether. Their sense of justice was both their driving force and their weakness at the same time however. Despite the obvious guilt of the accused Ji-hye had a hard time convincing herself they were doing the right thing. She knew the harm of allowing these people to continue operating as they did, though in her heart she felt that simply going in and killing them would be wrong. The old mother here had shown them her wickedness, it wouldn't be too difficult to pull the trigger on her, but the others, there were at least two of them that Ji-hye was aware of waiting for them when they arrived. She couldn't know if they willingly went along with this or even knew the treachery this woman was engaged in or were forced into it. "How much further is it?" Kyung-seok asked after they entered into a third smaller park after they cleared several city blocks. "We're almost there." the woman said with a grin. There were no more alien patrols once they had crossed the park into the residential area beyond. Those weren't patrols they had seen earlier, Ji-hye pondered, those were prison guards. That explained why there were no humans with them, they couldn't have their new prisoners seeing their fate now could they? Kyung-seok and Ji-hye fell back away from the old woman so she could not hear them discuss strategy with Sergei and the others. "We know there are at least two more of them at this apartment complex, maybe more." Kyung-seok told Sergei. "Don't forget the aliens might make an appearance, they like to do that you know." Sergei mentioned. "Indeed. We're going to need to split up when we get there, at least two shooters per team. If the shooter goes down one of the others takes his weapon and goes on. Free the hostages first then deal with the shooters when you find them." Ji-hye proposed as a strategy. They had numbers on their side for a change, might as well exploit that fact. "I'll form teams." Sergei said then went and casually grouped the people in the back of the formation together. Ji-hye, Kyung-seok, the men carrying the prisoner and two others would stay together and approach the complex from the front.
The apartment complex was an irregular geometric configuration of moderately tall buildings surrounded by trees with entrances on the north, south and east of the complex. Sergei quietly motioned for three teams to go around, two to the east that would proceed to the northern entrance and attempt to sneak in through any open spots in the back of the complex on the east side, and one to the west to sneak in through the western entrance. Sergei then led a fourth group that branched off to a group of buildings to the west after they had entered the southern entrance. They each quietly made their departure so the old woman would not notice them leaving, though if she happened to turn around she would notice the diminished numbers, but by the time they were in the complex she could be faulted in believing they were merely hiding. Ji-hye and her group then followed the old lady's directions to the interior of a rectangular formation of five buildings, three large and two small ones. "Here we are." the old lady told them. Officer An dashed off to the left and hid behind a row of cars. The college aged woman, armed with a pistol and another unarmed man ran to cover in a grouping of trees at the center of the enclosed parking lot between the buildings. "So which one are they in? Ji-hye asked. "The far one on the north side but you better let me go on alone or you'll be shot on sight." the old woman replied. "Nice try." Ji-hye remarked. She dismissed one of the two men holding the woman and sent him off with Officer An to slip into the adjacent building to the west of the one the woman indicated. The other man held the woman in front of him and forced her to walk ahead of him. The woman did so but with great difficulty because of her wounds. Ji-hye slowly walked a distance behind them, scanning the windows and doors all around with her rifle aimed and ready.
Meanwhile Sergei and his team ambushed and killed a man armed with a shotgun in one of the other buildings on the west side of the complex. Inside the room the man was guarding they found cases upon cases of canned fruit juice, pallets of rice and boxes full of cans of beef stew. "So this is what they sold their souls to the alien devil for? Hmmph." Sergei commented. They then proceeded room to room finding most of the rooms empty until they reached the fifth floor. Sergei kicked in the first locked door they found in these apartments and scared a group of teenage boys playing chess and reading magazines half to death. Sergei and the other shooter with him pointed their guns at them as they entered the room. "What the hell is this?" asked one of the frightened boys. "We're getting you out of here." Sergei told them. "Why? We're safe here." another boy asked. "These people are trading you off one by one in exchange for sanctuary." Sergei explained. "That's bullshit!" cried out another of the boys. "Is it? Why do you think the aliens have left you alone when there are at least sixteen walkers and space crabs making rounds within a kilometer of this place?" Sergei rhetorically asked. His companion repeated what he had said in Korean in case any of the boys didn't speak English or couldn't filter out his accent. "You're just some asshole with a gun. These people took us in and fed us. Screw you!" one of the boys said. "Fine. Stay here if you want, the rest of you can come with us." Sergei said. Four boys left immediately and a little over half the boys left with Sergei after thinking it over a few minutes leaving the remaining ones behind to suffer their fate. A few rooms down the hall Sergei's team discovered the boy's female counterparts. "Holy shit!" one of the girls screamed as she recoiled in horror when armed men entered the room. "What happened to Sun-hee?" asked another of the frightened teenage girls. "Yeah she's been gone since last night." another girl chimed in. "Sun-hee was sacrificed to the space spiders. I'm sorry." Sergei lied as he bowed his head in shame. Really it was more of a half-truth than a lie, as he didn't really know but it was a good possibility that is what happened to her. "We're here to get you out of here." Sergei told them. The girls were much more willing to be rescued than the boys in part due to the recent departure of their friend and Sergei's apparent acting ability. Sergei then cleared the apartment building, rescuing all the willing people he discovered and went on to the next one.
The other groups also infiltrated different buildings typically finding most of them to be empty. There was a brief firefight with several older men at the north entrance and a skitter attack that killed two civilians inside a building near the west entrance. Other than that the groups encountered zero resistance. The building where the skitters were found contained a tank filled with the alien parasites behind a locked and barricaded door. This was where the kids that were taken from other buildings were implanted with these things before they left. There were no people or supplies in this building or the five buildings immediately adjacent to it. The people who discovered it wanted to shoot apart the tank but did not have the bullets to spare. Instead they siphoned gasoline from non-functional vehicles in the parking lot and used it to set the room containing the harness tank on fire.
Jeong Seok-won and his son Seok-min, the only other civilians to carry loaded military rifles slipped in through a damaged section in the back of one of the buildings on the east side of the complex, very close to where the old lady had led Ji-hye's party. There they began freeing the hostages, each time having to convince the people that their comfort was an illusion and that they had to leave. They were not as successful as the other groups and only managed to lead a third of the would be "tributes" out of their plush confinement. It seemed that they hadn't touched this building to deliver their daily tributes; there were few kids and young adults there. It was mostly older women and men that had not been conscripted into guards for other areas of the complex. Meanwhile Ji-hye had met the old woman's husband in front of the north building after being in a standoff with shooters in the buildings to her right and left for some time. The husband had called off the snipers as he walked out into the parking lot. "You're not doing yourself any good by hiding behind my wife. Our daughter has a rocket launcher pointed right at you." the husband said as he nonchalantly approached Ji-hye apparently unarmed. "Now how about you let her go and we talk like civilized people." the husband said. "We're just here to free the people you've kidnapped. Let them go and we'll leave your wife here and be on our way." Ji-hye said though she had no intention of keeping that promise. Maybe she could just shoot them in the spine where they couldn't walk anymore, they would still be alive but they wouldn't be able to kidnap anyone anymore. Their daughter could be their last tribute, the sick bastards. "They're not our prisoners, they're our guests." laughed the husband heartily. "Then what's this tribute your wife told us about?" Ji-hye inquired. "The price of freedom. It's for the greater good, you understand that?" the husband happily replied. "I understand that you're selfish pricks that value no one's lives but your own." Ji-hye snapped back. The husband laughed. "Oh you are precious! Just look the way your face gets when you get angry. It's adorable!" the husband laughed. The old woman tried to get away but the man held on to her tight. "Easy now dear, we'll get you away from these loonies." the husband assured her. The sound of gunfire from elsewhere in the complex and smoke rising from the west disrupted their seemingly cordial encounter. "Now look what you did. I'm through with you now." the husband said. He turned his back on Ji-hye and walked back towards the apartment building on the north side waving his right hand in a circle above his head as he walked away. Before the snipers could take out Ji-hye and the man holding the old woman gunfire erupted from the building on the left as Kyung-seok shot the pair of snipers within that building, peeking out one of the windows to give Ji-hye the A-Okay hand sign. At the same time Seok-min shot the sniper in the right building straight up the butt from behind which made the sniper fall over the open balcony and down six stories to his death on the pavement. Ji-hye bolted to the right and the man holding the old woman threw her to the ground and sprinted to the south as a rocket was fired from the north building that consumed the old woman in its detonation. The man escaped with some minor burns on his back and Ji-hye emerged from behind several parked cars unscathed. She quickly shot the husband in the ankle before he went back inside and ran to catch up with him before his daughter could reload. Seok-min ran to the balcony and sprayed bullets into the north building to hold back the daughter from launching another rocket out into the parking lot. Ji-hye caught up with the husband and kicked him in the stomach and struck him in the chin with the butt of her rifle before he landed a right hook to the side of her face. The punch knocked her on her back. Ji-hye retaliated by shooting the husband in the crotch and then jabbing the gun into the wound. He hunched over and fell to his hands and knees as Ji-hye pulled herself back to her feet. She contemplated killing the man but her good nature would not allow her to do it. Instead she kicked him hard in the face and turned him over facing her. She shot him twice in both knees and once in the hip, completely destroying one of his legs and crippling the other. "Consider yourself tribute." Ji-hye coldly declared. The daughter ran down the stairs from her apartment into the commons where she faced Ji-hye, both with guns drawn. The daughter laid down her pistol at her feet and raised her hands over her head. "Ji-yoon, what are you doing?! Shoot her!" her father shouted at her from the ground. "No." Ji-yoon answered softly. "I can't be a part of this anymore!" she declared sternly. "I can't believe I'm hearing this! I should have let your mother offer you up as tribute!" her father shouted in rage while desperately trying to get up to no avail. His legs were bloodied and useless; he could barely move them. "But you didn't. You let other people be taken. We deceived them and let them die in our stead! I wanted to tell them but mother would have killed me. I was a coward for following you!" Ji-yoon shouted. She then turned to Ji-hye. "You may kill me if you must. I deserve it. If I must die then I do so renouncing this evil I have been a party to." Ji-yoon told her. She held her head down and exhaled deeply, awaiting the piercing bullets that would come. "I'm ready." Ji-yoon said after several minutes and no shots were fired. At the same time Sergei came up with a large contingent of teenage boys and girls behind him. Seok-won and Seok-min also came out into the parking lot with their liberated guests as did Kyung-seok. "What are you waiting for? Shoot her." Sergei said. Ji-hye just stood there with her rifle pointed at Ji-yoon. Sergei drew his weapon and pointed it at Ji-yoon. "No! No one's shooting anyone else!" Ji-hye commanded. "Really?" Sergei replied, sounding a little disappointed. "She's not like them." said Ji-hye. "Take her weapon and tie her up, she'll be our prisoner until we know what to do with her." Ji-hye instructed the group. Officer An went in and bound Ji-yoon's wrists while another man took her gun off the floor. Sergei and his team entered into the building and freed whoever was inside. The rest of them waited in the commons for the remaining teams to join them and watched the husband struggle to sit up. "You're idiots you know that? You can't survive this trying to be good people. You will die, or will change. Mark my words, you will find yourself someday having sunk to far greater depths than I and you will look back on this day." the husband said, in a slow, deep cadence, struggling to contain his pain and properly form each and every word. "You judge me now. You will see your judgement come back around onto yourselves tenfold! I slept fine but how will you sleep at night? Sacrifices must be made. A life for a life that is a fair trade. Heh, heh, but what you will pay in those days..." the husband continued, pausing to cough several times. "A life can be adjusted for inflation but the price of a human soul, that is more than you can bear. You will abandon your outdated morality or you will be destroyed by it." the husband snarled. "You will be destroyed by it." he harshly reaffirmed. "Can someone please shut that guy up!" complained Kyung-seok. Just as the last team entered the parking lot, Sergei's team came back downstairs with a small group of would be tributes, 12 teenage girls in total this time. "Lookie what I found!" Sergei exclaimed as he came down the stairs with a rocket launcher and a golf bag full of projectiles for it. "I will call it Big Poppa!" Sergei announced. "Well let's get Big Poppa and all these people on the road. It won't be too long til the aliens realize the operation's been shut down here and swarm the place." Ji-hye said. Her group, now considerable enlarged in numbers filed out of the apartment complex and resumed course back to where the rest of Flight 1437 was hiding. They would have to find a new fortress to house all these people now, that little hardware store wouldn't suffice. They now had the manpower to expand their operation, the next step was to gather the resources and hope that Williams' team located the military. With a little bit of luck they could establish a network around half of the Seoul metro now. "She will betray you, you know. She is so much like her mother." Ji-yoon's father warned Ji-hye after Ji-yoon passed by, being led off by Kyung-seok. Maybe she had made the wrong decision; maybe she would live to regret sparing Ji-yoon's life. Maybe the old man understood the new world better than all of them. Regardless of the consequences Ji-hye did what she knew was right. Right and wrong did not die just because no one is around to enforce their existence. This was an immutable fact to her, something she would never fall back on, even at the cost of her own life. Truth and justice were not something to be sacrificed on the altar of expediency. The devil deserves no tribute.