Chapter 12 — The Thirteenth Landmark

The old station is located at the end of an abandoned railway line, where the freight cars have long had their wheels removed. The water flooded half of the station platform, reflecting the pale yellow light poles. Bich walked in front with the camera, Khoi followed with a rescue bag, and An and Nam walked between the two.

“Where is the N source?” Khoi asked.

“The old box office,” Bich replied.

“What if this is a trap?”

“Then we are walking into a pre-announced trap.”

An held the walkie-talkie and heard noise and the distant train whistle. The station no longer had electricity, but a light bulb in the hallway was still on. That light looks so new.

The ticket office is slightly open. There was no one inside, only a phone placed on the chair. The screen was playing a recording of her father.

“An, if you hear it, don't believe the person who says there is only one option.”

The recording stops there. Bich checked his phone and saw that the memory card had been removed.

Nam looked at the window. “The source knew we were coming.”

Footsteps echoed on the corrugated iron roof. Khoi pulled An to hide behind the ticket counter. A heavy object fell onto the station platform. The man wearing a silver ring walked into the hallway, accompanied by two guards.

“Find them,” Duy ordered.

Khoi signaled the next exit. They ran through the luggage room, but the back door was locked. Bich used his foot to step on the latch, opening a narrow space leading down to the track.

The water on the tracks rose up to my knees. They ran between two iron bars, listening to the guards chasing behind them. An engine sounded. Tan Giang's maintenance vehicle is approaching from the bridge.

“Turn left!” Khoi shouted.

They climbed the embankment and hid behind a row of empty containers. The car stopped, its lights swept across the water. Duy got out of the car and made a phone call.

“An, do you want to know how your father buys you a night?”

An did not reply.

"He took a child out of the North Shore before the sewer opened. That child is you."

Ms. Hanh once said that Mr. Vu told An to leave the north shore. But An never knew why.

Duy continued: "Your house is located in the experimental flood zone. If you stay, you will die along with everyone else. Mr. Vu received money to take you and your mother out of the city at night. He knew that the order to open the sewer would cause the neighborhood to suffer from water."

“He didn't buy it for one night,” An said loudly. “He bought time for my family.”

“And sell other people's time.”

Khoi pulled An's hand. “Don't come out.”

“You wanted me to listen.”

Duy burst out laughing. “You've heard enough.”

He threw a glowing device down the embankment. The red light flashed, causing Bich's camera to reboot itself.

“Signal jamming,” Bich whispered.

An looked at the water. A small wave bounced across the tracks, pushing a plastic barrel into her feet. Inside is a stack of waterproof paper. She pulled it out and saw the list of residents evacuated on September 12. Her and her mother's names were at the top of the list, with a blue check mark. The remaining households are marked "not confirmed".

Duy didn't know the paper had fallen out of the car.

Khoi looked at An. “We have proof.”

“Not enough.”

“Enough to prove they were prepared.”

Nam stepped out of his hiding place. “Duy, what else do you want to say?”

Duy is back. “Mr. Nam, you have a chance to return.”

“I shot too many times.”

“What do you think a record will change?”

Nam raised the phone. “The recording is live.”

Duy glanced at the phone. Bich has restored the signal, the camera is recording the entire conversation.

Duy's face changed. He signaled the guard to come forward.

Khoi launched a fire extinguisher at the foot of the car. The car slid, the lights turned in the other direction. An pulled Bich ran to the small bridge, Nam followed. They heard the sound of shoes chasing them but were not caught.

At the beginning of the bridge, a rescue boat appeared. The driver was Phuc, even though An told him not to leave school.

“What are you doing here?”

"Take me home. Mom told me not to let you die on the street."

Khoi jumped down and pulled everyone up. Bless the machine running towards the school. The water flow became increasingly strong, carrying trash and warning signs with it.

“Where does the water come from?” Phuc asked.

“Door number three,” An replied.

“I just saw them opening the side door to the west lake.”

Nam checked the walkie-talkie. "The regulating lake overflows. If the banks break, the water will pour straight into Reed Street."

An looks at the map on the tablet. Sewer lines appear as red lines. A thin white line connects the lake with the old canal, but is marked "not in use".

“What is this white sugar?”

“Emergency drain,” Nam said. “Filled out twelve years ago.”

“Can you open it?”

“If open, water flows through the model urban area.”

“There are no people in that area?”

“There are workers, but no residential areas.”

Khoi leaned over and looked at the map. “Open then.”

Nam shook his head. “Tan Giang will say we destroyed private infrastructure.”

An looked at Bich's camera. “Let them speak in front of the entire city.”

They arrived at the regulating lake. The lake shore is only ten centimeters away from overflowing. Workers scattered, machinery abandoned in the water. Duy left, but the control door was still locked.

An found the mechanical lock box underneath the electrical panel. Semi-circular key fits snugly. She turned, but the mechanism was jammed with mud.

Khoi used a crowbar. Phuc called someone in the rescue group to pull the rope. Nam stood on the shore reading the water level every minute.

“Three minutes left!”

“Two minutes left!”

The locked door opened. Inside are large, rusted gears. An read the faded control diagram. To open the emergency drain, you must pull two levers at the same time, one in the east, one in the west.

“I went west,” Khoi said.

“Your shoulder is injured.”

“The hand can still be used.”

An ran to the handlebar. The gear was so heavy that she had to use both hands. The water outside rose to the edge of the shore.

"One!" Nam counts.

Khoi pulled the lever. The gear turns half a turn.

"Two!"

An pulled. A hissing sound rang out underground.

"Three!"

Both hands swing together. The emergency drain opened, water rolled into the white pipe.

The lake level drops slowly, but enough so that the banks do not burst. Water flooded into the model urban area, sweeping through the basements of buildings under construction. A crane tilted, falling into the lake with a terrible noise.

Bich pointed the camera at An. “Do you want to say anything?”

An panted, his hands were full of leaking oil.

"This is not vandalism. This is a sewer that was built to save the neighborhood, then locked because of the project. What you just saw is why it needs to be restored."

When the water receded from the lake yard, a waterproof package got stuck in the gear. An opened it. Inside is the order dated September 12, with three signatures: Lam Quang Vu, Hoang Nam and an electronic signature with code DQD-01.

Last note: “Controlled flooding to complete land acquisition.”

An looked at his father's signature. For the first time, she did not want to exonerate him at any cost.

She just wanted to know what he chose, and who made that choice his own sin.

An did not delete the video of the encounter at the station. She saved three copies, sent one to Thuan, one to Bich and one to her mother. In the video, Duy did not directly receive the order to open the sewer, but the sentence "no need for another person to die" proves that he knew the plan. planning can cause casualties.

“Why is he talking on camera?” Bich asked.

“Because we thought we wouldn't have a signal.”

“Or because you want someone to hear.”

An watched the frame of the guard throwing the jammer. Before the screen turned off, behind Duy there was a construction schedule board. The current date is circled, next to it is written “phase 2 — recall verification”.

They returned to the station and followed the timetable to an abandoned warehouse. The warehouse smelled of oil and iron dust, but there were fresh tire marks on the floor. Phuc found a small camera mounted under the roof, connected to the mobile network.

“What does this thing record?”

“Railways and ticket offices.”

An asked him to download the data. In the video, the person wearing the silver ring goes to the station three times. The last time, he put the phone on the chair before Duy arrived. The person standing behind him was a woman wearing a Department of Planning shirt.

Bich enlarges the face. “Not Trang.”

"Who?"

“Her assistant, Tran Vy.”

Vy once appeared in the provincial meeting room, always holding a yellow file. An remembers the extra signature on the land price maps.

Khoi found an alcove in the wall, inside there was a list of cars going in and out of the station. One vehicle had a different province license plate, but the driver's code matched the person who brought the water sample to the lab.

“They transported chemicals by ambulance,” Khoi said.

An called Thuan. He asked them not to pursue themselves, just save the license plate and send it to the investigation agency.

“The law will be slow,” Bich said.

“But if I make a mistake, they will use that mistake to erase everything.”

An knows Thuan is right. She wanted to open all the doors manually, but a wrongly opened door could drown the person inside.

While they were leaving the warehouse, a little girl ran from next door and gave An a cassette tape.

“My mother told me to give it to you,” the girl said.

On the label, the name Thao is written. Khoi admitted, his hands shaking. They listen in the car. Thao's young voice said to a woman in the rescue team:

"The south gate is locked. There is Tan Giang's car blocking the road."

Another voice replied: "Don't write down the company name. Call Mr. Vu."

Thao asked: "What if he doesn't listen?"

“Then call the person on last shift.”

The video has the sound of an ambulance and the sound of water. Thao said the last sentence: "I will take the children up the dike steps."

Khoi turned off the engine and placed his forehead on the steering wheel.

An did not touch him. She just said: "This record proves that your brother warned me."

“But it doesn't prove who blocked the road.”

“We will find.”

Khoi looked up. "You don't need to say you'll save my sister's name. Just say you won't let them erase it."

"I promise."

That night, they broadcast Thao's tape and Milestone 13 data. The people of the North Coast listened silently. Some people recognized their voices in the background, from the night of the evacuation.

After the distribution, Thao's mother called Khoi. She said she had never received any support from Mr. Vu. The person who signed the documents was not her, but a deceased relative.

An looked at the receipt. If Mr. Vu paid, someone forged his signature to turn the help into evidence of his silence.

“Does your mother still keep the original papers?” An asked.

"In the old house. I haven't dared to open it yet."

“Open tomorrow.”

Khoi nodded. Outside, the water had receded from the station platform, leaving the tracks exposed like bones. The city still has unread names.