Welcome to the Undersea Base
Fly from Seoul to Jeju and you will find the Jeju naval base. Get through the gate, produce your letter of acceptance to the undersea base, and after a long ordeal of checks and waiting they finally let you onto a ship. Around the time seasickness has you vomiting and genuinely finished with being alive, they tell you to get off that enormous vessel and board a helicopter.
I had never been in a helicopter in my life. Only after I was inside one did I understand that a helicopter is essentially a flying motorcycle. You rattle along for hours, turning the same thoughts over a few hundred times—whether, with your luck, the thing is about to drop into the sea, and why you are riding it without life insurance—and then, at some point, it lands.
That is how, after more than three days, you arrive at the artificial island. I had spent two of those days throwing up. My legs had gone out from under me, and I came off the helicopter practically crawling. I still hadn't gotten my head together when someone took my arm.
"Welcome to the undersea base. Rough trip, wasn't it?"
A woman who had to be two meters tall was steadying my swaying arm. I looked up in surprise, and a woman with a short brown bob lifted one corner of her mouth.
"Kang Soojeong. Good to meet you."
"Good to meet you. Park Moohyun."
While we shook hands, she smoothly took the suitcase out of my grip.
"You're the new dentist, aren't you? We've been waiting."
"......Ms. Soojeong, are your teeth in bad shape?"
Taking in the corpse-green color of my face, Kang Soojeong shook her head. One poke in the ribs and I was going to be sick on the spot.
"I don't think your semicircular canals are doing you many favors. You look terribly seasick. Do you need medicine?"
"I'll be much better now that I'm off the helicopter."
"First thing—every medical facility on this island is free. If you need care, go to the hospital anytime."
It was heavy, so I asked for the suitcase back, but she lifted the thing—thirty kilograms if it was a gram—as lightly as a handbag. We walked from the helipad toward the buildings. With both feet on the ground, I felt I might live after all.
"Suhyeok drives a little rough."
She seemed to mean whoever had been flying the helicopter. I hadn't even known his name. Suhyeok is my enemy now. I swallowed the nausea climbing my throat and barely managed to speak.
"The helicopter did a full three-sixty."
"He must have taken a liking to you."
What was that supposed to mean? I had never seen a helicopter spin three hundred and sixty degrees and drop straight down out of the sky. Not even a roller coaster at an amusement park moves like that. The moment the pilot grinned and told me to buckle up so he could give me a proper show, I had to scream until my throat tore. The person in the other seat thought I was screaming because I loved it, threw both arms in the air, and screamed right along with me.
"Helicopters come over from the naval base now and then. If you time it right, you can get back to Korea. There's a bakery on the 3rd Undersea Base—bring them bread from there and they'll be happy."
So that was it. Kang Soojeong had been greeting the helicopter crew and handing over some enormous paper bag. Bread, apparently.
"What's that?"
When I asked about the shopping bag big enough to hold two people, she grinned.
"Parcels the Koreans staying at the undersea base ordered through the Jeju naval base. Every time a helicopter comes in like this, the deliveries come with it. You have no idea how long we waited for you—exactly the way you wait for the delivery truck."
"So the parcels were the point."
"Hey. What are you saying. You and the parcels were both the point."
Even as she said it, she couldn't hide a satisfied smile at the giant shopping bag stuffed with cardboard boxes.
"Would it be all right if I asked what you ordered?"
What could an undersea base possibly be short of? I'd been told you could get most things there, so I hadn't brought much luggage.
"Cosmetics and a few volumes of manga, for me. Other people ordered Korean snacks, ramyeon, that sort of thing. Ayoung said she bought a few pairs of earrings and some clothes, and Jihyuk said he was buying clothes too. Jaehee ordered shelf-stable banana milk by the case, but it doesn't look like it came this time."
Kang Soojeong stirred through the huge bag with one large hand, then gave up when she couldn't find her own things.
"Do they deliver food, too?"
"You never know when it'll actually show up, so it's better not to order any. Sending a helicopter back and forth costs a lot more than you'd think. If it's urgent, ask the Americans and order through them—it comes faster. They seem to have a helicopter in the air every other day."
"Do you miss Korean food a lot out here?"
"All the time. At night I sneak off and make tteokbokki. If it really gets too hard to bear, come by my room and I'll give you a cup of ramyeon."
"Thank you."
Once we were clear of the helipad, two large buildings that looked like a hospital came into view, along with another big building beside them. Kang Soojeong pointed at a distant structure with one fingertip. I, meanwhile, was busy staring at the massive muscle of her bare arms while an ocean wind cold enough to freeze me cut straight through my clothes. Isn't she cold? Only when she prodded me did I actually look at the hospital.
"Those three in front are the hospital buildings. The one beside them is operations. Since it's your first time, Moohyun, there'll be a few forms to fill out. Once that's done, go to Baekho-dong, Room 38. I'll put your suitcase in the room. Go into that one-story building over there and ask for Priya Kumari. She should be waiting."
Paperwork. Baekho-dong, Room 38. First floor. Priya Kumari. She clearly had no intention of coming with me. So I wouldn't have to ask twice, I crammed the flood of information into my head and asked her a question.
"What do you do at the undersea base, Ms. Kang?"
"I'm an engineer. Almost everyone here is an engineer, or on the natural gas and oil crews, or a marine researcher. I'm with Engineer Team A. Just keep going straight. The Central Elevator is on the way I'm headed. Remember it, and take it down later. See you!"
"Thank you! I'll see you later!"
She took in the farewell about as much as she didn't, and set off toward the hospital buildings at astonishing speed. My suitcase and the enormous shopping bag scraped along the ground and vanished just as fast. I was left alone beside a building painted a pale green. The sea wind was cold, so I hurried in on the first floor and found Priya Kumari's room without much trouble.