Lee Young-jin stared at the monitor. The man’s breath kept hitting his ears and his shoulders twitched. He turned his nerves off as much as possible from that lukewarm breathing and stared at the monitor.
Decoding program.
An unknown cryptographic code.
He seemed to know what the man wanted from him.
Lee Young-jin turned his head and looked up at the man.
“How can you trust me?”
Then the man laughed softly at him.
“You want to save your colleagues.”
His voice was still bright and cheerful.
“I have to solve this.”
“Then…”
“It’s give and take. Simple.”
Lee Young-jin’s gaze returned to the monitor.
Simple?
In Lee Young-jin’s head, complicated gears rolled.
He didn’t know what’s hidden in this code, but it’s certainly not trivial. And if what the code was hiding was really important and fatal… What would be the easiest way to block Lee Young-jin’s mouth?
“If I solve this…”
“Lee Young-jin.”
The man cut off Lee Young-jin’s words with a voice filled with a strange hint of sullenness. Lee Young-jin’s shoulders twitched. He turned his head and looked up at the man. His pupils were blurred and his lips parted. How, that name, just when, no, how… The countless words he couldn’t say lingered between his parted lips.
The man spoke.
“I still don’t know what’s in it. So you choose.”
That impersonal face, sculpted in precise and perfect proportions, smiled faintly. A fake smile that looked like the real thing. A chill ran down Lee Young-jin’s spine.
Did he have a choice?
Contemplating between life and death was something a 12-century Danish prince would do.
A light of resignation flashed in Lee Young-jin’s dark wet eyes.
The man bent behind Lee Young-jin’s back and loosened the restraints on his tightly bound wrist. The thin plastic handcuffs caught on the man’s fingers swung a couple of times. Lee Young-jin touched his blood stained wrist for a while and then slowly moved it. Seeing his faintly trembling fingertips approaching the keyboard, the man stroked Lee Young-jin’s cheek a couple of times as if praising a pet, then backed off.
He ordered something with his glance at the subordinate behind him. The was it. There were no threats or an option that he’d be released. Soon, there were the sound of footsteps, the sound of a door opening, the sound of footsteps entering as if shifting, and the sound of closing again. Bump, buzz buzz, thump. Only the beating of the laptop’s mechanical heart filled the room.
Two gigantic figures towering like mountains stood with their backs to the wall. The two pairs of eyes staring at Lee Young-jin with their arms folded seemed like machines.
Sundried tomato man with his reddish and wrinkled face approached Lee Young-jin. He ferociously pulled out the chair next to Lee Young-jin and sat down with a thump.
“Start.”
The wrinkled tomato man ordered like an overbearing Nazi jailer. In any case, tomato man had that much power, at least in this two and a half square meter room. Lee Young-jin obediently followed the order.
Encrypted code. It had quite a capacity. Maybe it’s not compressed at all? It wasn’t up to Lee Young-jin to question the information the code would contain. He placed one hand on the keyboard and moved the mouse with the other hand, flicking around in the unfamiliar software.
“The computer is being monitored in real time, so don’t try to fool around.”
Sundried tomato man threatened. Lee Young-jin nodded his head obediently. Nevertheless, tomato man’s chatter about what he didn’t like continued. On this subject, you dare, you extraordinary species, do you know that blah blah blah. Woo woo woo. Woo woo, arf arf, woof woof, the sounds went through one ear of Lee Young-jin, then passed through his brain vaguely and exited the other side.
Sundried tomato’s expression which was sullen at first became serious with time. His chair moved closer to Lee Young-jin’s side and his nose pressed against the monitor. He wrinkled his forehead as much as he could and kept his mouth shut enough to hollow out his cheekbones, getting closer and closer to a real sundried tomato. Lee Young-jin tried to ignore him but when his shoulder hit his’ and his sharp knee pricked the outside of his thigh, he couldn’t ignore him so he timidly pushed his chair. Sundried tomato man made a slightly embarassed expression, then pursed his lower lip and glared at Lee Young-jin with a snort. An hour later, his thigh was being poked again.
Three and a half hours unpleasant for everyone.
Conclusion: The code was not finished code.
It was just a small part of some big, long, very complex code. It looked like the execution code or calculation code of some other program, but it was all Lee Young-jin’s guess.
“This!”
Sundried tomato man jumped up from his his seat, trembling. He grabbed Lee Young-jin by the shoulder and shook him.
“What the hell is this!”
It was an obvious attitude to know what this code was, which was only a part of it. Lee Young-jin repeated his words with the most obedient expression.
“What is this?”
“You don’t need to know!”
At the vicious reaction, Lee Young-jin couldn’t help but roll his eyes.
Sundried tomato man turned on the communication device in his ear and started talking quickly. “Yes. Yes. You can come down now.” And immediately glared at Lee Young-jin, shouting “there’s nothing hidden, right?” Lee Young-jin shook his head.
“Didn’t you say the computer is monitored in real time? Besides, you were watching the whole time.”
Lee Young-jin’s voice was submissive but sundried tomato’s face was still disapproving. He clenched his teeth and then loosened them. Then he thumped up and down the narrow room. At the same time, he kept saying something quickly to the communication device. This time it was in Chinese. Lee Young-jin kept one ear open in that direction, fearing that Korean might come out in the middle of the conversation, and returned his gaze to the monitor as quickly as he had ever done so far.
He thought about the aptitude of the sundried tomato.
There was an easter egg in this code.
And Lee Young-jin uncovered it, avoiding the watchful eye of sundried tomato man.
It was clear that the aptitude of sundried tomato man was more suited to pasta sauce than to the vast binary world of 0s and 1s.
Lee Young-jin silently pressed a few keys on the keyboard.
A hidden command was executed and a new window popped up in the corner of the screen.
He didn’t know which vicious idiot made it, but they hid a ridiculous easter egg in this kind of important code! Besides, it wasn’t a silly prank, such as simply showing a flashing picture, replacing 0 in all codes with a random alphabet, or forcibly connecting to a porn site.
If you entered several repeated codes identically, several lines of crude ciphertext using base digits would appear.
1 〈- avt kpkvn efl0u 24auuje 1khn 5u8pv5 1khn avt
2 〈- avt j5r8r 2dnps0 1khn 1960vrhf6 5u8pv5 efl0u 5j1sd3hgg 1960vrhf6 1khn m8138r5 m8138r5 efl0u 5d3b9b 3u3b 49me9
It was a crude cipher text that didn’t even have the meaning of being used as a cipher text. It’s not even a SHA 3rd generation algorithm these days, or at least not even a hash function. It’s a simple arithmetic ciphertext that didn’t even need to be decoded. Did they want to reminisce about Enigma during Word War II? After all, anyone who could make this pitiful easter egg that could be found using obsolete methods like hiding it by repeatedly entering the hidden code a hidden number of times, would have written such a ciphertext that’s several centuries old. But whoever the author was, thanks to their stupidity, the easter egg provided Lee Young-jin with information that he thought would be quite useful.
1 and 2. The ciphertext corresponding to each of them. There were at least two objects. Each was a different kind of item, or one thing separated into two. Or maybe there were more.
The tension made Lee Young-jin’s fingertips weakly twitch.
He might be able to use this to make deal with that man. In the worst conditions of confinement, Lee Young-jin obtained a precious weapon to protect his and his colleague’s lives.
He crumpled the cipher text into the Papez circuit.
Time was tight.
The moment he shut down the easter egg ciphertext he had displayed on the screen and the firewall he had secretly set up, sundried tomato man turned towards him. At the same time, the door slammed open. Sundried tomato’s gaze immediately turned toward the door.
“You’re here.”
It was the same pitch, size, and vocalization as when Lee Young-jin first entered this room. He must have been programmed so that sundried tomato man could only say those words to the man.
The man opened the door and walked towards Lee Young-jin. His unstoppable movements in this confined space was daunting. It was like watching a killer whale or a man eater locked in a very small cage. In an instant, the man approached Lee Young-jin and looked down at him. The corners of his long eyes slanted downwards, forming a faint smile. Under the dim lighting, his eyes were a heavy gray, close to indigo or black.
The man stretched out his hand. Lee Young-jin stiffened at the unexpected movement. Unlike usual, a pair of wide open eyes stared at those fingertips. Unlike callused palms or rough knuckles, the man’s fingernails were neat and smooth.
“Well done.”
The hand patting his shoulder was as unexpected as the unexpected words.
Lee Young-jin was startled and threw his upper body back. The legs of his chair scratched the floor. The man chuckled. Lee Young-jin’s face lit up at that smile. Lee Young-jin didn’t know what to do and lowered his gaze. His cheeks, which had been pale, turned pink. At the same time, the man leaned his upper body towards Lee Young-jin. His face came closer.
“Pretty good since you look like you’ll be more competent in bed than here.”
Lee Young-jin’s gaze faltered.
He only looked at the floor.
The back of his neck was mottled.
The man tapped his cheek with the tip of his index finger. Lee Young-jin tried to tell him off, but failed because his lips were tightly pressed against each other. Instead he looked at the man with wet eyes. Moisture returned, and the shiny black eyes looked up at the man before falling back down.
One corner of the man’s mouth curled up. After a brief laugh, he lifted his upper body.
“Get up.”
The man snapped his finger at Lee Young-jin.
Lee Young-jin put as much strength into his knees as possible and tried to keep his body from staggering as he slowly lifted his hips off the chair.
Two hulking men who had been standing with their backs to the wall the whole time approached him. The black hood came in front of his eyes again.
Lee Young-jin hesitated and stepped back.
“Now, wait…”
If he’s dragged away like this, he won’t even have the opportunity to negotiate with the man about the easter egg. But the hands of the hulking men were ruthless and oppressive. A hood was placed over his head. His eyes darkened.
“Wai-, wait! I have something to say…”
Before he could finish his words, the big guys grabbed his arms from both sides to behind him, almost pulling his shoulders off. Ak! A scream came out. Plastic handcuffs were tightly wrapped around his wrists. His body was lifted enough that he could hear his heels, then he heard the door open. As he groaned at the pain of his shoulder joint almost breaking, his body was abruptly dragged. Every time Lee Young-jin said, “wait a minute”, the big guys violently bent his shoulders and arms. Unable to overcome the violence, his body sagged.
It’s all over.
As it was, he’d be dragged away and disposed of.
His life would be spared and his colleagues were still alive, the man said, as if giving Lee Young-jin a choice, but in reality, it was only delaying his time of death little by little.
And the moment despair pressed down on Lee Young-jin.
“Wait.”
His death sentence was delayed yet again.
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