UNFED

On the first day, he ate. It was rice and fish that Lee Jae-in had procured through Loro. Park Jeong-su ate it all without saying a word. As he ate, he looked around. The people sitting at the table. The people who weren't eating. He was the only one eating. It felt awkward. But he didn't let it show.

The next day, he toured Gong. Alone. No one offered to guide him. They knew it wasn't what Park Jeong-su wanted. He was the kind of person who had to see things with his own eyes.

* * *

First, he looked at the buildings.

Earthen walls and wooden pillars. They were simple. There was no waste. The space was used efficiently.

A soldier reads a space—understands the purpose for which it was designed. These buildings were not designed for defense. They were designed for habitation.

Yet, as a result, they were also advantageous for defense. He later learned that this was the method Lee Jae-in had designed them.

He looked at the entrance defenses designed by Carlos.

There was a single path. He observed how that path narrowed and widened. He nodded slightly. It was a method of designing defenses without violence.

If it had been him, he would have done it differently—a perimeter with overlapping fields of fire, choke points reinforced rather than merely shaped.

But he also knew this method wasn't bad. It slowed entry and blocked the line of sight. For a population that had no intention of holding territory by force, it was sufficient.

He found himself wondering, briefly, what David had been trained for, to design a thing this quietly competent.

He studied James's hydroelectric facility for a long time.

He didn't understand the engineering. But he understood what it meant to generate energy without damming the river. As a soldier, he had a concept of logistics.

Energy that required no logistics. Park Jeong-su quickly calculated what that meant tactically.

Even if external energy supplies were cut off, this basin would keep running.

Even under siege, there is energy. No food is needed either. They said even sleep patterns would change.

The tactic of cutting off supplies to bring them down won't work.

That calculation quickly took shape in Park Jeong-su's mind. As a soldier, he knew what this meant. The fundamental premise of tactics was changing.

Every siege doctrine he'd ever studied assumed a clock running against the besieged—hunger, thirst, dwindling fuel, the slow arithmetic of attrition.

He tried to picture the doctrine that replaced it and found, for the first time in years, that he didn't have one.

* * *

He went to Viktor's workspace.

Viktor was there. He was writing in a notebook. When Park Jeong-su entered, Viktor looked up.

Park Jeong-su spoke in English.

"I'm Hoon's friend. Can I look at the data?"

Viktor looked at him for a moment. Then he handed him a notebook. It contained blood test results. It contained EEG data. It contained graphs.

Park Jeong-su didn't know anything about neuroscience. But he knew how to read data. Soldiers are trained to quickly interpret various types of data.

He could tell that this data wasn't fabricated but was actual measurements—the kind of inconsistency real bodies produce, not the suspiciously clean curves of something staged.

He handed the notebook back.

"Thank you."

Viktor said.

"It's true that Hoon isn't eating. It's a fact that can't be explained medically."

Park Jeong-su nodded and left.

* * *

It was the second evening.

Park Jeong-su was sitting alone in a corner of the common area. People passed by. They were from various countries. They spoke different languages. Yet, there was something familiar about them. They moved in the same way. They didn't rush. They didn't compete. Because they weren't hungry.

Park Jeong-su watched this for a long time.

He knew what happened when supplies were cut off in the military. First came anxiety. Then came conflict. People refused to share what they had. Hunger turned people into that. He had seen it firsthand once, years ago, during a relief operation where a supply convoy had been delayed eleven hours—watched ordinary, decent people turn sharp-elbowed and suspicious of their own neighbors over a few crates of water. He had never forgotten how fast it happened.

But these people were different.

They shared. They didn't fight. Since they weren't hungry, there was no reason to hoard.

As a soldier, Park Jeong-su knew what kind of strength this was.

When hunger is gone, half the fear disappears. When fear is halved, judgment changes. When judgment changes, the way you fight changes.

This was not a strong army.

It was something else entirely.

* * *

Lee Jae-in walked past the crowd.

He was walking while holding something. It was a blueprint. An architectural blueprint. Park Jeong-su called out to him.

"Excuse me."

Lee Jae-in looked over.

"Are you the one who designed these buildings?"

"Yes."

Park Jeong-su stood up, stood side by side with Lee Jae-in, and looked at the basin.

"Is there a reason that building is in that location?"

Lee Jae-in looked.

"Sun direction and wind direction."

Park Jeong-su nodded.

"Did you also calculate what's visible from above?"

Lee Jae-in thought for a moment.

"David designed that part."

"The Israeli."

"That's right."

Park Jeong-su looked at Lee Jae-in.

"Are you military?"

Lee Jae-in looked at Park Jeong-su.

"I'm an architect."

A brief silence fell. It was a silence of mutual assessment—each of them running the other through a private set of questions neither would say aloud.

Park Jeong-su said.

"You did a good job."

Lee Jae-in nodded.

"It's still under construction."

That was all. Lee Jae-in walked away again, holding the blueprints.

Park Jeong-su watched his back. He had heard from Hoon that he was Hoon's "first person." He understood why he was the first. Even from a soldier's perspective, he was someone worth keeping—not because he could fight, but because he built things that didn't need to be rebuilt twice.