Friday fiction: The Incheon Port Road

AI is replacing waiters, taxi drivers, ticket vendors, and truck drivers in Korea. It's not always smooth.

An LED screen with green text marked every moment. Row after row from the moment he turned the ignition key in Seoul.

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 16.45 (37.384, 126.697) Right turn>>

There are events in life wholly unbelievable. Events we look back on and imagine everything would be so different, if only there were five words, four meters, three cars, or two seconds separating one action from another.

No person is so lucky to escape chance impacting their destiny, for even to be conceived and survive forty weeks to enter the world, is an improbable and haphazard event. Such is the banality of our existence. Yet, when we look back at these unlikely events, our simple minds inevitably come to the conclusion that it was not chance, but rather destiny. And it is there, at the point at which chance turns to destiny, that Mr. Kim felt an insuppressible urge to piss.

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 16.47 (37.382, 126.694) Speed 65 km/h>>

The old man slowly shut his eyes and opened them. This would normally be a dangerous act to perform while driving a semi-trailer with a 20,000 kilogram container load at 65 km/h, but it was Saturday and the long, straight, dusty port access road had fewer vehicles than on weekdays. He stared unflinchingly forward from behind a permanently stern and solitary sadness. Lines from where anger had once exploded and evaporated were carved deep into his aged leather work saddle face to form an unending scowl. A resting, lonely, scowl. He mayn’t have been angry, but he looked it – always.

He imagined for an instant somebody watching the continually recorded video footage of him driving. What would they think as he shut his eyes? The cameras recorded his driving and all events in the cab, the road in front, behind, and one lane on either side. His bony, stressed, knuckles, tightly gripping the steering wheel. Together, they were continuously uploaded to a database and stored, and there analyzed by the artificial intelligence that would soon replace him. He wasn’t being replaced by someone younger he could teach; he was being replaced by a machine which learned his mistakes and stole his secrets. Or most of them outside human ingenuity and an insuppressible urge to piss.

It is impolite to discuss a man’s bodily urges. To do so without introductions is even worse. Mr. Kim Bum-suk. Surname Kim, first name Bum-suk. An unknowingly awkward combination which, surely would have been different if his parents had an inkling that English would one day become second nature to subsequent generations of Koreans or that Bum-suk would one day leave their rural hamlet for the city. Bum-suk was a strong name in the Korean language. It was only when an American exchange student laughed that he learnt his new reality. His grandson would much later recommend that he change the English spelling to Kim Beom-sok, but it did not bother him. Least of all, it did not bother him at that particular moment. What bothered him was an insuppressible urge to piss.

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 16.49 (37.378, 126.690) Speed 74 km/h>>

That an insuppressible urge to piss has ended three paragraphs in the opening of a narrative should prompt the reader to recall the very physical nature of how such urges accumulate and reverberate. What started as a vague, passing sense for Kim Bum-suk had already turned into a time-metered torture.

“Ayyyy… fuck! What the hell? How long is this cursed road?”

The road was long. It was a unique road. A uniquely Korean road. A perfectly engineered road within the realms of urban-industrial design best practice – wide footpaths and roadsides, environmentally conscious and safety-focused lighting with passive safe poles, sign supports, and forgiving safety barriers, all built on land reclaimed from seaside mudflats in a national infrastructure project. Or rather, half built. Maybe it was the change of presidential administration, council mismanagement, or corporate bankruptcy? Somewhere along the line from plan to perfect road, it was abandoned. It was a forgotten, incredibly long, abandoned dusty road stretching from the highway to the container terminal port. And it seemed even longer, as Mr. Kim still had an insuppressible urge to piss.

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 16.50 (37.374, 126.687) Speed 81 km/h>>

The result was this time sudden. A stab in the lower abdomen, which inflicted an intense and sudden searing pain. This was followed by the sweats. Mr. Kim wiped away the moistness on his upper lip and forehead. The back of his bony hand was now wet. Sweat was steadily building in anticipation of the next stabbing pain.

The old man again slowly shut his eyes and opened them again. This time, he did so for an instant too long. A sharp, high-pitched tone filled the cab. A computer-generated voice commanded him to state his identification number, name, and the date. His pulse, facial heat signature, voice patterns and response timing were all measured.

“1 – 3 – 1 – 4 – 6 – 9 – 9 – 8 Kim Bum-suk 13 July”

The artificial intelligence determined he was on this occasion allowed to keep driving.

Kim Bum-suk was always a truck driver. Like most Korean men, he’d served in the military. There he was assigned as a truck driver. With the promise of an immediate job and higher pay than civilian equivalents, he stayed on as a truck driver in the army beyond compulsory military service, then invested in his own trucking company. After a failed marriage and bankruptcy, he arrived as an older contract driver, and settled into what had become his standard route – a pickup and return between the Incheon Seongwangsin Container Terminal and the Seoul DaeBae LogiTech Distribution Hub.

Each morning from Monday to Saturday, containers arrived before sunlight at the Incheon Seongwangsin Container Terminal. The trucks lined up to be loaded on a first come, first serve basis. With an oversupply of trucks, contract drivers raced to secure a load. This meant starting work at 4.00am, when the company bus picked up drivers from the nearest subway station, then driving frantically from wherever their assigned truck was parked, and in turn, waiting up to four hours in line for container loading.

After loading, there was a set time to deliver, unload, reload for a return, and then repeat this up to a limit of four trips in a day. Most drivers only made two. Contractors had to rent a truck from the company and take responsibility for indemnities, such as loading and motor vehicle insurance, liability, sickness and health, and retirement. Trucks were rented by the hour, meaning that from the moment drivers were picked up, they were indebted until they secured a load. With long lines at the container terminal, heavy traffic, and delays at the drop-off, a driver making only one trip could owe the company money at the end of the day.

Every minute counted. Drivers had to speed, cut corners where possible, eat while driving, and well, as could be expected, take no toilet breaks. An inevitable and uncomfortable result was a regular insuppressible urge to piss.

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 16.52 (37.381, 126.679) Speed 86 km/h>>

Kim Bum-suk squeezed his legs together. He winced as one contortion increased the pain, and then sighed as another relieved it.

His mind started to race. At the end of this road, he would make a turn and meet a line of trucks all waiting to be unloaded. Around three trucks were always lined up on the approach, and around six more at the terminal gate. A strictly enforced rule prohibited drivers from exiting the vehicle, unless unloaded and parked in break bays – something never done because of the time required to again join a line. From gate-in to gate-out for dropping and reloading a container, inspecting the truck, completing documentation, spray down to remove dust and remnants, and then exiting the terminal, it usually took around three hours. He could not wait a further three hours. To wit, at this stage only human ingenuity could overcome the insuppressible urge to piss.

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 16.54 (37.371, 126.684) Speed 89 km/h>>

The LED screen with green text marked his increasing speed. With a 20,000 kilogram container load now at 89km/h, Kim Bum-suk shuffled to the left. He opened the window. He reached behind the driving seat to pull out a very large wide-brimmed straw hat. He placed the hat on his head and leaned forward as if taking in the road.

The hat flapped with the full force of the open window. The brim rapidly flicked up and down. He pulled it down tighter to prevent it blowing off.

If one were to look from the outside, he would appear as a crazed hipster cowboy leaning forward and surely threatening the control of a semi-trailer with 20,000 kilogram container load. But drivers on this road knew exactly what he was doing. The hat and the lean forward momentarily hid his lower body from the cab camera and the stern condescending judgment of artificial intelligence.

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 16.55 (37.350, 126.663) Speed 90 km/h Cam 4 Nil View>>

He had five minutes. Others had timed it. Five minutes before a second camera positioned on the passenger side turned on to take in the entire cab.

Maintaining his lean, and head position, he contorted his body to reach once again behind the seat, this time to pull out an empty 2L plastic soda bottle.

It’s not the fill volume that was important, but rather the fit. An empty 2L soda bottle sat snugly within the leg of his track pants. It presented an adequate difference between the bottle width and the top neck width to laterally position the nozzle within striking distance. While Kim Bum-suk would have been better served with a longer neck and perhaps a narrower nozzle, the 2L soda bottle was for all intents and purposes, ideally suited to the purpose.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh… that’s good! Oh shit!”

The visuals may have been impeded, but the audios hid nothing. The sound of a machine gun fired in an empty warehouse echoed through the cab. He could not let go of the wheel, nor could he let go of the 2L bottle nozzle but had to silence the machine gun. The latter was the safer choice.

It was quick. He turned the radio on. Loud. A sermon.

“…AND the Lord said unto Moses, lift up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea…”

It was not quick enough. The waters did not part. Six hours of trucking life crashed upon the shores. Urine shot across his legs and track pants, spraying everywhere except the target bottle. It shot up in a crazed spray onto the underside of Kim Bum-suk’s straw hat and out onto the windscreen.

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 16.57 (37.350, 126.663) Speed 74 km/h Cam 4 Nil View; Alert>>

The truck swerved as Kim sought to reengage the bottle. The driving safety alarm went off again. Machine gun, sermon, and safety alarm screamed in syncopation.

“…AND they saw the great work which the Lord did upon parting the waters: and the people rightly feared the Lord…”

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 16.59 (37.347, 126.643) Speed 61 km/h Cam 4 Nil View; Cam 5 Initiating>>

Calm returned. There was but 30 seconds left.

Still leaning forward in a straw hat, and now sticky wet, Kim Bum-suk followed instinct.

It was the way of the road. The way of the road followed by truckers across the world – South Korea was no different. It was probably no different in North Korea just under 60 km away? The way of the road necessitated that he discard the bottle.

Since the installation of the cameras, discarding the bottle required an upwards lob across inside the cab to the upper reaches of the open passenger side window. This allowed a half-filled bottle to float just outside the range of the side mirror cameras and hit the ground just past the roadside safety area and before the sidewalk of the Incheon Port Road. At that particular stretch of road, he would later learn, the unkempt grass between the two contained a mix of those that maintained their integrity on impact, and those that fed the grass when they disintegrated on impact.

This particular time, the bottle was two-thirds full. He gave it an extra hard heave, and saw it lob at a perfect trajectory across the cab and then exit the vehicle towards the roadside.

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 17.00 (37.347, 126.635) Speed 52 km/h>>

Without the pain of an insuppressible urge to piss, he bounced back down from the forward leaning position he’d maintained, closed the window, turned off the sermon radio, pulled off the hat, threw it behind the driver seat, and then wondered whether the artificial intelligence that watched him could make any sense of the splatter marks on his shirt. Then he glanced at the rear view mirror.

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 17.00 (37.347, 126.633) Speed 51 km/h Cam 3 Hazard Warning>>

A cyclist was sprawled across the footpath in a puddle of what could have been anything but was undoubtedly pee.

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 17.01 (37.347, 126.632) Speed 32 km/h Cam 3 Hazard Warning; Brake Alert>>

Kim Bum-suk slammed on the brakes. The truck shuddered and groaned as it came to stop.

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 17.02 (37.347, 126.630) Speed 00 km/h Cam 3 Hazard Warning; RF Door Open>>

He exited the truck and hopped on one side. His left leg was asleep. His right leg wet. He hobbled in place of running, sometimes hopping for three or four paces, until he reached the cyclist. The cyclist performed what looked like a religious incantation, repeating a barely audible “yecch”, between spitting and coughing.

“Oh, oh, oh! Aygo! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, are you alright?”

“I have it! I have it! I have it on camera you bastard!”

The cyclist was alright. At least, not hurt. He was angry – furious. He was around the same age as Kim Bum-suk and just as bony. He appeared to be the most unhealthy cyclist. A body in irregularly weak and sorry condition adorned in the cycling world’s latest fashions. On his helmet sat a camera – a now broken camera, on which was affixed an empty plastic bottle. Its citrine contents spewed across the cyclist’s satin-smooth white shirt. A drop still sat on his face. The splash trajectory, the spitting and the coughing – the cyclist was not only covered in piss but had probably swallowed some of it.

He waved a finger at Kim Bum-suk. Shaking it repeatedly.

“You, you, you… you’re going to pay for this fool!”

<<13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 17.44 (37.347, 126.618) Speed 00 km/h Vehicle ignition disengaged>>

It took three days to disrupt his life. They recruited him, trained them, picked him up on workdays, forced him to wear a uniform, and told him where to pick up and deliver loads for ten years – that made him an employee his stained t-shirt wearing union legal adviser said. He rented the truck, paid for his own insurance, received no holidays, sick pay, or retirement benefits – that made him an independent contractor, the be-suited company lawyer explained.

They showed him the multiple video feeds. The hat hid nothing. He looked like a perverted cowboy pissing in a prairie wagon. They showed him the list of data. Line after line of it. Pages of it.

13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 16.45 (37.384, 126.697) Right turn

13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 16.47 (37.382, 126.694) Speed 65 km/h

13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 16.49 (37.378, 126.690) Speed 74 km/h

13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July 16.50 (37.374, 126.687) Speed 81 km/h

At the end of the meeting, they gave him the data and the video screenshots. The lawyer who prepared the file may still be laughing. On the front cover was the single line:

13146998 Kim B.S. 13 July Incheon Port Road

A line which started a story that he ran through every step. Over and over. From beginning to end. The result was always the same – no more standard route driving between the Incheon Seongwangsin Container Terminal and the Seoul DaeBae LogiTech Distribution Hub for Kim Bum-suk. He now had no income. His life had changed.

It took another three weeks until the cyclist contacted him. As he was an “independent contractor”, the cyclist received no compensation from the contracting company. Kim Bum-suk had no assets and no income. The cyclist was going to be disappointed if he were looking for money. Kim Bum-suk still agreed to meet him. It was the least he could do, he thought.

“Give me soju!”

His leathered face was already tinged red from soju. There were two empty green soju bottles on the table, as well as an empty metal bowl of cheap fluffed rice cracker crumbs. Together in the afternoon sun they reflected and refracted light to make an annoying display across the greasy plastic-covered wipe-down tablecloth – annoying enough that the old man squinted to avoid it. This was his local restaurant. It was cheap and was run by a lady from his home village. More than that, it predominantly served taxi drivers. This was, more than likely, his next job, although those around him had mentioned that artificial intelligence was also threatening their livilihood.

The server placed a bottle of soju on the table as she rushed by carrying a steaming dish. The old man stared for an instant at the bottle, then lifted up the empty rice cracker bowl with his bony fingers.

“What? Just one bottle? Bring two! And bring some snacks as well! Can you not see? I’m not alone. I have company coming.”

Kim Bum-suk stood up. He bowed deeply.

The cyclist introduced himself as Kim Bum-joon.

Kim Bum-suk poured Kim Bum-joon a drink. They talked. Over six hours and twenty-five minutes, and four bottles of soju, they devised a plan of revenge on the contracting company. By chance or destiny, what they remembered of it the next day, they forgot the following day. They drank again to rekindle the plan, but once again forgot.

Over the next six months, they cycled, went fishing, saw several baseball games, ate chicken, and drank. The LED screen with green text and the AI monitoring every moment, and even the Incheon Port Road, soon faded from Kim Bum-suk’s memory.

…

Sometimes fiction can be more speculative, but more often just reflects reality from a different perspective. Either way, sorting fact with fiction can help build the creativity needed in strategic analysis.