And so, the game's afoot.

Chapter 8

He hated traveling.

Moreover, he hated leaving Seoul – but Hoseok found that he truly detested traveling in general.

Where it came from, he didn’t know – he merely figured that it was rooted from his near constant need to be in touch with the center of imperial power, or from his abject hatred of uprooting himself. Perhaps it was some gnarled hybrid of both. All he knew was that in the many years that he’d been at the apex of the Praetorian Guard, there had been very little in the way of threats to the empire that could possibly draw him from his perch in Seoul. He’d been content with dispatching his underlings to whatever fires required high level attention, and then dealing with them over the phone. It was unfortunate for him that those same minions were no longer trusted enough, but besides that – he found that this was a journey that he’d need to make.

The past two days of his trip had served to do nothing but firmly cement his hatred of travel.

Hoseok had managed to take a bit of delight in the shocked expressions on the faces of people who knew who he was, frightened expressions usually followed the shock, and they were everywhere. He assumed that they were either frightened by the sight of him outside of Seoul, or frightened by the very idea of something that so significant that it managed to draw him out.

But even the sadistic amusement couldn’t manage to lift his spirits.

When he’d arrived in Hong Kong, he’d been ferried to the naval base – and he was met by Jackson Wang.

In the midst of his lieutenant’s constant shadowing, that city too seemed to be in the midst of a rainstorm. When he'd boarded the ISS Stoneheart, the destroyer that would take him to his final destination, he was shown off by a billowing font of rain and fog. That storm seemed to follow him across the ocean, and all the way to the center of the exclusion zone. To his consternation, it only seemed to finally stop just as the ship came into visual proximity with the lone, converted oil-rig. The rig seemed to be some macabre reward after thinking about it for far too much time.

Despite the fact that the rain had finally stopped, the oil-rig, which possessed the unofficial moniker of Ghost Prison, seemed to be just that: a lone, ghostly figure in a dense soup of blinding fog that hung over the ocean.

So, needless to say – by the time he actually stepped foot on the steel plated deck of the facility, Jung Hoseok was in a mood that could not be described with any other word other than agitated.

His political situation notwithstanding, he was tired of being followed, he was tired of being questioned by his subordinates, but most of all, he was dreading what he came here to do.

His hatred of travel usually kept him from traveling, but when he did travel, the idea of coming to this place wasn’t even on the list of places that he would dare to deign to grace with his presence. There was a certain logic in not stepping foot in an terribly isolated, maximum-security prison that had been born from his mind. That logic extended to the fact that it was one that he’d personally filled with its permanent inhabitants. It wasn’t that Hoseok held any fear of them, but the facility was stacked with hundreds of people that would love nothing more than to kill him.

Given the isolation, and the sheer amount of prisoners – he had no wish to remain.

Flanked at his right by Jackson, and at his left by Warden Hu Li, Hoseok strode down the steel plated corridor. Hands clasped firmly behind his back, his gaze was affixed on the red plated door at the very end of the path. Naturally, Jackson had done his best to dissuade him from doing this, but that had only served to affirm that this was the correct course of action. He didn’t have any apparent reason to distrust Jackson, save for the fact that he was one of his station chiefs.

That, in itself, torpedoed any sort of trust – given the circumstances.

“Director, I have to protest,” Jackson fretted. “This prisoner, he isn’t an ordinary man.”

Holding up a hand, Warden Li stopped in place, keeping his gaze firmly ahead, like the loyal, discreet solider that he was. Hoseok turned to look over his right shoulder, and after a single moment of pause, turned to fully meet him. Puffing his chest out, and pulling himself up to his full height, he took a certain amount of pleasure in the fear that cast itself over Jackson.

The amusement in the irony of Jackson’s statement not escaping him notwithstanding.

“I don’t like that you’re implying Chief Wang,” Hoseok’s curt reply was tinted with a thinly veiled note of warning. “Your implication that I don’t know how to interrogate a prisoner, your implication that I don’t know how to interrogate this prisoner, your implication that I don’t know how dangerous this particular prisoner is, or your incorrect assertion that you have the authority to tell me what I can or cannot do, or where I can or cannot go in this prison.”

The prison that he had designed – truly, every faucet of the facility had been born from the deepest depths of his mind.

But still, Hoseok found that he took great offense at the notion that Kim Heechul could be anything more than a glorified nuisance to the likes of him. Jackson was very correct in that his direct predecessor possessed the necessary skill that all who helmed the Praetorian Guard needed to have. To his credit, Heechul had it in spades. That had allowed him to develop a reputation that was not unlike the one that Hoseok had – but what separated himself from Heechul was the fact that he had always done it better. It also helped that he possessed a gift for manipulation, a skill that Heechul professed to abhor. What Heechul had always failed to grasp was that without that manipulation, his vaunted political shrewdness could be rendered completely toothless.

Hoseok punctuated his rebuke with a dark glare.

Jackson shrunk, but he nonetheless had the courage to continue – shaking his head.

“That’s not what I meant – all I mean is that Prisoner Heechul is best left isolated from outside events, if you insist on keeping him alive.”

Scowling, Hoseok thought back to the flack that he’d received for not ordering Heechul’s death.

Ever since the beginning of the guard, it had been something of an unwritten tradition that all of those that headed it needed to inherit the position by killing the last occupant of the chair. That had been the pattern, the grand tradition, that was followed for centuries, until it got to them.

Hoseok bore the unique distinction in the annals of the guard of being the only leader to gain the position by not killing his predecessor. Kim Heechul he had the distinction of being the only leader to lose his position, and thanks to Hoseok, not lose his life in that rough, grating process.

If he was being honest with himself, he didn’t know why he’d spared Heechul.

When he gave it extended thought, he usually chalked it up on his need to never waste a potential resource – though he suspected that if he were to examine it further, it could be for other reasons.

“If you have so little stomach, then maybe you should return to the Stoneheart?” Hoseok pressed.

Jackson sighed. “He’s a former Director of the guard, sir – he’s not to be underestimated.”

“That is true,” Hoseok found himself smiling, it was a genuine smile – the first one that had graced his lips in days. “Kim Heechul once headed the Praetorian Guard, but I head it now – and there is a very good reason for that.”

Silence met him, and Hoseok sensed that he was close to his goal by the look of uncertainty that crossed over his underling’s conflicted face.

“Go back to the ship, wait for me there,” Hoseok ordered.

“But sir?” Jackson asked.

He pointed back in the opposite direction, back towards the lift that had taken them to this level, “That’s an order.”

Jackson seemed to hesitate again and looked as if he had something else to say – before he surrendered and bowed to him at the neck. He watched as Jackson his heels and seemed to waste no time in his stride back towards the elevator. It was only after Jackson had stepped on the elevator, and only after he was departing the level, that Hoseok broke away back towards the cell door at the other end. He allowed himself to dwell on his uncertainty. Unlike much of what he had been submerged in for the last few days, he had a very good idea of why he was unwilling to go through that door and stand face to face with the man that he had succeeded.

More than anything, to go through that door would be an admittance of failure.

Perhaps Heechul wouldn’t view it in that light, but he would – he knew that going through that door would feed that little bit of insecurity within him.

He didn’t wish to stand before Heechul and allow him the opportunity to judge him, the opportunity to think that had he still been in charge, none of this would have happened.

But he had to remember that he had kept Heechul alive for just an occasion like this.

Hoseok nodded to himself.

He had to go through that door – and face his past.

 

Park Hyunjin didn’t hate his job.

Normally, things ran smoothly – his team inspected semitrucks, and attended to accidents on the roadway. The idea of shutting down Seoul and searching every single car that passed through the limits of the city was not in his ordinary pattern. He commanded one station – inbound traffic station seven in the northeast section of the city. He couldn’t envision what it would take to inspect all incoming traffic into the capital city. The thought stretched the limits of what his imagination could possibly conjure and would surly require more than what he had on hand.

The idea made his head throb and his back ache.

Looked out of his small office window, he had a good idea of what it would entail.

He’d known fully well what was going to occur when the news broke – the news of an attempted assassination of the Emperor within the confines of the city. He’d known that Seoul would face a virtual lockdown, but somehow, he’d wanted to avoid contemplating the idea that it was going to ruin his week. He’d hoped for this, knowing full well that events such as the murder, or attempted murder, of a member of the Imperial Family were the only catalysts for this.

He sighed deeply and sat back in his chair – absorbing what silence he could before he knew he’d face interruption.

As the CO, it was he that had to field the complaints from incensed citizens, and it was he that had to promise to forward it to the central office. Whether or not it was followed through with on their end was out of his hands, but Hyunjin had to be the face of the operation, he had to wear the bland mask of a complacent civil-servant. He was the one that had to be screamed at by people from all walks of life, who were just trying to get into the city for whatever purpose.

“Captain Hyunjin,” His radio buzzed on his hip – and Hyunjin fought through the ensuing headache that the noise brought to him. “We have erm… a situation at station three, and I need you to come and verify something for me.”

“What is it?” Hyunjin snapped as he managed to unbuckle his radio and bring it up. “Another unruly citizen?”

“No, they have a government clearance card, a red-coded one,” The officer said, and Hyunjin wished he cared enough to remember the poor boy’s name. “It needs your verification.”

“I’ll be right down.”

He found himself almost murmuring the words.

It was well known that government officials operated on another metric from the ordinary civil-service worker, or citizen. Equipped with clearance cards, they were color-coded, consisting of yellow, red and black. Yellows were handled by low-level functionaries, who were usually office workers, or aids to ministers. In abundance, they usually exempted the wielder from having to deal with civil authorities – on paper, it was to carry out the business of the higher ups. It was common to see them, and it was even more common for a fuss to be made when they were thrown around.

There was even a grass-roots attempt to have the coded system abolished, though it had been met with a withering death.

Black cards were the rarest, they were wielded strictly by government-brass. The wielder of one of those was exempted from all civil laws, and even when criminal law was violated, they were tried on another court-tier.

It was the red-cards that usually indicated middle-management – usually carried by those directly under the ministers of state, or those acting in their authority.

Hyunjin grimaced.

After everything that he had dealt with today, he didn’t want to deal with this.

He still bore the look of a porcelain doll.

It had long been rumored that Kim Heechul was born from a far-flung, illegitimate branch of the Imperial Family. To his credit, he always played coy about the rumors, but never humored them in public. In private, Heechul had confided to him that the rumors were true.

Whether or not they were true was immaterial, Kim Heechul was able to control the flow of information around his roots. He’d reshaped the truth to suit his own desires. For his part, Hoseok had been dubious, and in certain ways, he flat out didn’t believe it. None of that mattered though, because as far as Heechul was concerned, it was true, he had made it true and anything that ran contrary to the truth he created was no longer valid.

Perception was reality, and to control perception was their trade.

Hoseok noted that the older man had not seemed to have aged a single day since he’d last seen him – in many ways, one probably wouldn’t be able to tell the fact that he was older.

It wasn’t as if he’d been imprisoned in a wind-swept turret, but he had been imprisoned.

His long black hair was still full of luster and shine and was pulled back into a lazy-top knot. His skin was without a single flaw, save for a slight line around his eyes. For anyone that hadn’t known him before he had been taken to the facility, it might not have meant anything. To Hoseok though, someone who had spent entire years of his life in total and completely constant proximity to him, it was perhaps the sole indication that he had aged.

His eyes were still so impossibly soft, his long, elegant nose still curved off into a petite, small button. Hoseok’s eyes drifted down to his lips, which were set into a full, open and inviting smile, which, incidentally, confirmed for him that Heechul’s teeth were still all in their places.

Oh, he had no doubt that he was getting favors from his guards.

He made a mental note to discover the true extent of it and gauge the threat.

“The world must be ending,” Heechul teased, crossing his legs. “For you to brighten my doorstep.”

The thought did occur to him that Heechul might have a hand to play in all of this, if his theory of his guard detachment and their willingness to bring him contraband had any more weight than beauty-products. He wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t probe the theory, but he doubted that it would play out that way. Heechul was without guile as Director of the Praetorian Guard, and Hoseok highly doubted that he’d developed a knack for it securely imprisoned within his cell.

Hoseok found himself chewing on his lip in thought, holding back whatever response he had.

Saying nothing, he broke eye contact with Heechul, and a made a sharp turn towards the far left-hand corner of the room. He knew very well that if he ordered the security recordings of the meeting destroyed, they would be, and no unwitting attendant would be foolish enough to spy.

He wouldn’t have gotten as far in life as he had been if he hadn’t been as utterly thorough as he had been. That was another thing that had separated himself from Heechul, another thing that had separated him from the legions that had followed them.

When Hoseok bit into something, he bit into it and bit into it until there was nothing left but bone – and then he’d chew the bone down into the marrow, consuming all traces of matter.

Besides, he had to break eye contact.

Their past aside, their present aside, Heechul was still so impossibly beautiful.

He could feel the eyes locked onto his back as he came upon the security camera.

“You look good,” Heechul commented. “I’m glad to see that the big job hasn’t stopped you from working out.”

Hoseok found himself fighting down a smile as he leaned up and plucked the power cord from the small-outlet connected to the camera.

“It comes with having the right people in the right position,” Hoseok countered lightly as he stepped away from the corner and began scanning the floor. “You know all about that, don’t you?”

He was looking for the trap panel that contained the audio device. Such measures weren’t usually found in prison cells, especially in prisons that were run by the Praetorian Guard – but then again, there was no other prison like this.

Looking up, he spied a glance towards Heechul, who was blinking at him with those doe-eyes, and then he back down to the floor.

And there’s never been a prisoner like him before.

“Center line, right in front of the door – if it’s the bug you’re looking for.”

He looked back to Heechul and quirked a brow.

Heechul winked at him.

He felt like a waterlogged rat.

But he trudged between the aisle of cars, approaching the inspection station in question.

There were so many faces, so many angry faces, it was easy for it to fade into the background when one forced it into the background. At the end of the day, they had to understand the position that they were in. They lived in the most important city in the world, it had to maintain some semblance of order. More often than not, order was achieved through appearances than actual results, and as long as they went through it for appearances sake, order could be restored.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel like a tightly wrapped sausage in his government issued poncho.

The honking of the horns, the hum of the engines, the pungent fumes of exhaust and gasoline filled and overwhelmed his senses as he came upon Officer Jaemin. The young man stood at the driver’s side of a sleek, black, four-door sedan – looking about as drenched as he was in the storm. His light blond hair was plastered to his forehead, and he looked to be on the verge of an episode. Not that he could blame him, but he found himself without a bit of sympathy for him.

Folding his arms behind his back, he came to stand next to Jaemin.

And when he looked into the car, he was met with the sight of man that chilled him.

He was nondescript and as benign as one could possibly think – but with the trimly tailored suit that he wore, along with the thick pair of aviator glasses, he managed to make alarms ring out.

He ignored Jaemin in favor of giving the stranger a nod.

“Hello there,” Hyunjin said. “Might I see your clearance card?”

The stranger said nothing, not giving him any reason to believe that he’d even heard Hyunjin give the order. It was only after a moment did the man reach down to his console and retrieve the red chip that had gotten his attention. Hyunjin took the chip in hand without a word and examined it in the palm of his hand. Incredibly light, i