DAY ONE — 14:42 KST
SEOUL — PRIVATE NETWORK ACCESS HUB, YONGSAN DISTRICT
The underground server room was meant for one thing: secrets.
Han Tae Kyung moved fast, eyes scanning the blinking routers and steel walls. Only three people in the country had access to this node. One of them had "resigned" under questionable circumstances. The second was the President.
And the third—was Tae Kyung.
He inserted the memory chip into the port beneath the primary terminal. Instantly, a black-screen interface lit up with flickering Korean characters, followed by a biometric prompt. He pressed his thumb.
ACCESS GRANTED.
A single encrypted file unfolded.
> TO: AGENT HAN TAE KYUNG
FROM: OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT — LEE KYU MIN
SUBJECT: OPERATIONAL WAKE POINT
"If you're seeing this, it means the plan is compromised. I did not disappear. I was removed. Look into Phoenix. Trust no one in uniform—not even inside the Blue House. There is a mole on my executive team. Codeword: Artemis Wind. Begin at the train manifest. Villa was bait. Find the fourth shot."
The screen went dark.
Tae Kyung's breath caught. "Removed." That wasn't an accident. That wasn't even a coup—it was a sanctioned ghosting of a sitting President.
He quickly accessed the train manifest linked in the chip.
Thousands of names. Hundreds of routes. And one anomaly.
A confidential diplomatic train scheduled to depart 03:00 KST, the morning after the disappearance. No official passenger logs. No security detail. Destination: Daegu Industrial Hub.
He leaned back, mind racing.
That wasn't a train—that was an extraction route.
---
DAY ONE — 17:05 KST
SEOUL — SAFEHOUSE, MAPO DISTRICT
"I thought I'd never see you again," whispered Seo Yuna, a cybersecurity analyst and Tae Kyung's ex.
She wore a hoodie, her eyes bloodshot from sleepless nights. The room smelled like burnt ramen and exhaustion. Tae Kyung handed her the encrypted chip.
"I need it decrypted. The President left a message—he knew he'd be taken."
Yuna frowned. "If the President's been ghosted… then Phoenix is real."
She pulled up a server window, hands flying across the keyboard.
"Phoenix was a Cold War contingency—an executive-level erasure protocol. It gave the right people the power to make someone vanish under 'national interest.' It was meant for traitors, not Presidents."
"But who has authority to activate it?" Tae Kyung asked.
Yuna's screen blinked once.
A list of names appeared. Cabinet members. Generals. One name was circled in red:
Prime Minister Kwon Jin Woo.
Tae Kyung's blood ran cold.
"Why would Kwon ghost the President?"
Yuna didn't look up. "Because the President was preparing to expose Artemis Wind… whoever that is."
Outside, a motorbike engine roared past.
Inside, Tae Kyung stood and chambered a round into his concealed SIG Sauer.
"There weren't three shots that morning," he muttered.
"There were four."
---
Back in the Blue House, deep within a surveillance control center, Chief Im Jae Seok watched Tae Kyung on a grainy monitor.
"Asset has gone dark," a junior agent said.
Im nodded.
"Then send the cleaners. Tae Kyung's time just expired."