By the time three months had passed in 2010,
I headed to a building in northern Seoul with Team Leader Chun Minjung.
[Captain PC Café]
The name flashed across a large signboard on the building—a franchise of internet cafés that Captain Kang had opened nationwide.
"I've never seen an entire building turned into a PC café before," I said.
"It was only possible thanks to your help, Chairman. We've set up over 1,200 computers. Everything's ready for the grand opening."
"I guess I ended up delaying it, then."
An enormous amount of money had gone into creating this massive PC café. But because of me, it still hadn't opened—just rows of idle computers sitting in silence.
"This size should be good enough for what we need, right?"
"More than enough," I said, glancing at Minjung.
She was speechless, staring at the scale of the place.
"Captain Kang's team will provide the personnel," I added.
"We've secured about 150 people," Kang said. "Mostly from the military's Cyber Operations Command and former administrative soldiers."
"We won't need that many. Most of the work will be handled by algorithms. The staff just need to take care of the peripheral tasks."
The PC café functioned as a sort of operations headquarters.
This operation was closely tied to the upcoming local elections.
"Isn't it better to have more personnel than fewer?"
"Security is the lifeblood of this operation. Even if you're busy, please oversee it personally."
"The staff don't even know what they're doing. They won't know once the operation ends, either. We chose people who keep their mouths shut. We've also prepared to use the IP addresses of outlets across the country."
The military-style approach was clearly well-suited for this kind of operation.
Captain Kang had long been an expert at this sort of work.
"Team Leader Chun, set up the system so it runs only on algorithms. Captain Kang will handle the rest."
"We'll have it ready for use starting today."
The operation to secure the National Economic Party's victory had begun.
Of course, various operations had been underway before, but now the tactics would become more active and aggressive.