Episode 03. Neutral Port City
# Episode 03. Neutral Port City
From a distance, the neutral port city always looked like a floating heap of scrap metal.
Hundreds of docking bridges and transfer belts, temporary mooring layers patched with old hulls, mismatched signs and dock numbers, cargo lights that never slept even at night. The Empire, the Alliance, the border worlds — all tried to claim this place in their own language, but none ever fully succeeded. So it was always neutral, and always filthy.
The moment the collection vessel docked at the outer mooring layer, the people who'd been crouched inside scattered in their own directions. No one said goodbye. No one looked at anyone again. In this port, that kind of courtesy was suspicious.
Sion and Seorin didn't wait until last either. The two voices that had mentioned *archivist* beyond the front cabin door had already been moving toward the upper section of the ship since just before docking. Lose them now, and finding them again would be hard.
The air changed the instant they stepped down the steel ramp. Oil, salt, lingering exhaust heat, old wiring, the smell of spices burning somewhere — all mixed together. This place always had too many things piled into the same air. Languages, cargo, people, lies.
Seorin spoke low.
"Nice. Perfect neighborhood for hiding."
"That's why everyone comes here."
"You too?"
Sion laughed briefly.
"I was sent. Not my choice."
"That line — you believe it least of all."
Instead of answering, Sion lifted his gaze. The two who'd disembarked ahead were already half-blended into the crowd. Not completely lost. One was tall; the other had a slight limp in the left leg. He still didn't know which one had said *archivist*, but neither looked like a simple worker.
"Left."
Sion said it small.
Seorin didn't ask — she immediately widened to the right. In moments like this, the two moved like old partners. One reads the road; the other splits the field of vision.
Below the outer mooring layer, hand-drawn guide lines outnumbered official markers. Thin corridors linking warehouse to warehouse, unlicensed connecting stairs, back doors where a face worked better than a docking permit. Perfect for an archivist to slip into — and equally suited for a pursuer.
The limping man of the two ahead glanced back once. Sion immediately ducked his head and blended into a passing group of cargo workers. A beat later and he'd have been spotted.
Seorin clicked her tongue from the other side.
"Those two have chased people before."
"I know."
"What a wholesome port."
The two reconverged at the end of the mooring layer. The targets were descending toward the lower-level transfer bridge. At the end of that path: temporary lodging blocks, cheap bars, and warehouse-pawnshops. A zone where people vanished before records did.
Sion looked in that direction and said low:
"If it's an archivist, hiding there makes sense."
"Why."
"It's the last zone people looking for someone would check."
"But you're going."
"I'm the bloodhound."
Seorin smirked.
"Good. Official title deployed."
The two took the steel stairs heading down. Every time the iron plate underfoot creaked, the noise from below rose more clearly. Dice rolling, someone fighting, cargo-tag haggling, curses in another language. This city was always slightly overheated, and that was why it swallowed so much.
Halfway down the stairs, Sion stopped suddenly.
Seorin whispered from right behind.
"What."
Sion gestured with his chin toward the far end of the lower plaza. Two people in gray coats were briefly crossing paths with the pair from before. From their marks and movement, they weren't port brokers. Too clean. Too quiet. Less like people sniffing for money — more like people who'd already received instructions.
"Who are those."
To Seorin's question, Sion answered low:
"We're not the only ones here."
Before he finished, a short scuffle broke out below. The limping man shook off someone's hand and turned — one of the gray coats immediately dove into his inner space. A blade, a shock baton, something in between — a glint of light, very brief.
The crowd screamed and split apart.
"Run."
Seorin moved first this time. Sion followed, leaping down the stairs two at a time.
The plaza below descended into chaos instantly. Cargo crates spilled, bottles shattered, curses erupted as people shoved for clearance. The limping man pushed himself into the crowd's gaps; the two gray coats pursuing him split in different directions to follow.
Sion tried to track all three while running. Who was the archivist, who was the courier, who was the pursuer — he couldn't be sure yet. But one thing was clear:
**They were already chasing each other over the same object.**
Seorin cut right and shouted:
"I'll take the limping one!"
"Don't overdo it!"
"You first!"
Even in the middle of this, that comeback escaped — and Sion almost laughed. Not the situation for it, but those words in that moment were what kept his head together.
At the far end of the plaza, under a rusted guide tower, the limping man lurched and nearly lost his balance. In that moment, something fell from inside his coat to the ground.
A small record tag.
Sion changed direction. He scooped up the tag just before it was kicked under someone's feet — almost sliding — and felt residual heat detection against his fingertips. Freshly dropped.
Behind him, someone came running with a stream of curses. One of the gray coats.
Without time to think, Sion twisted his body and rolled into a side alley. Back against the wall with the tag gripped in his hand, the gray coat swept past the alley entrance. Not completely lost — but the crowd had scattered again, and the pursuer had lost the sightline.
His heart was still hammering.
Seorin slid in from the opposite connecting corridor.
"Alive?"
"Barely."
"Lost the limping one."
"But I got this."
Sion opened his hand. The record tag looked like cheap outer-logistics grade, but one side bore a soot-stained handprint. Part of the identification surface was scratched, and along the edge — very faintly — identical punctuation marks had been inscribed.
Seorin caught her breath and peered at the tag.
"Readable?"
"Surface is blocked."
"Nice. Nothing's been easy today."
Sion flipped the tag and found a tiny pressed groove on the opposite edge. Not a factory lock — more like someone had personally added a second seal.
He pressed the groove with the tip of his fingernail.
The tag surface trembled for a very brief moment, then a faint projection appeared. Not a complete sentence. Part of a destination code, part of a transfer time window, and one short line.
**Delivery on hold until archivist survival confirmed.**
Both stopped breathing at the same time.
Seorin cursed first, low.
"No way."
Sion said without taking his eyes off the projection:
"Still alive."
"For now."
"Yeah. For now."
The short blue text wavered in the air and vanished. The tag went cold in his hand again, like a dead object.
But it was already enough.
The archivist wasn't dead. At least in this port, they were still being treated as alive. And someone was holding back a delivery until that survival was confirmed.
Seorin lifted her head first.
"So what are we chasing now. The archivist, or the delivery."
Sion tightened his grip on the tag. This was no longer a pursuit to confirm one person's life or death. Someone needed to be kept alive for the next delivery to proceed — meaning the object, the person, and the sequence were all bound to the same line.
"Both."
"This just got bigger."
"It always gets bigger from here."
Outside the alley, the commotion still continued. Someone was searching for the limping man. Someone was searching for the dropped object. Someone was already preparing to cut their own line and disappear.
Sion watched the gray-toned crowd beyond the alley and exhaled, very slowly.
And right at that moment — on the upper connecting bridge across the plaza — several dark coats passing caught his eye.
Not port workers. Not brokers. Not civilian security. Their gait was too ordered, and they'd arrived too precisely on time.
Seorin followed his gaze upward.
"What's that now."
Sion looked at them briefly, then gripped the tag again.
"A more troublesome scent."
In the middle of the neutral port city's noise, Sion became certain for the first time:
This was no longer something that could be buried inside the Administration. And in this city, other hands — whose faces he didn't yet know — had already entered.