The silence was heavier than the noise.
Ten minutes ago, the Gocheok Sky Dome had been vibrating with the screams of twenty thousand people. Now, it was a crime scene.
Smoke from the pyrotechnics still hung in the rafters. The smell of burnt rubber from Olivia's motorcycle drift lingered in the air.
Yoo-jin stood in the center of the control booth, staring at the black monitors.
Director Park was pacing behind him, hyperventilating into a paper bag.
"We are done," Park wheezed. "Finished. Fugitives. Did you see the agents? They had guns, Yoo-jin. Actual guns."
"They were tasers," Yoo-jin corrected absently. His eyes were fixed on the System interface floating in the air.
[Mission Complete: The Reboot Concert]
[Reward: Survival (Temporary)]
[Public Opinion: Chaos]
"Tasers are guns that shoot lightning!" Park shouted, throwing the bag. "And Eden! What was that? He hummed and people stopped moving. It was like mass hypnosis. The internet is going crazy. They're calling him an alien. A messiah. A bio-weapon."
"We stick to the script," Yoo-jin said, turning around. His face was pale, but his voice was steady. "It wasn't magic. It was technology."
"What?"
"Infrasound," Yoo-jin lied smoothly. "Tell the press we were testing a new immersive audio system. The frequencies caused temporary vertigo and euphoria. It was a technical malfunction."
"A malfunction?"
"Yes. And the Ministry agents? They were private security contractors we hired for a skit. The whole chase was performance art."
Park blinked. "You want me to tell the reporters that the government raid was... a skit?"
"The Ministry can't admit they lost control of a biological asset on live TV," Yoo-jin said coldly. "If we call it a skit, they have to play along. Otherwise, they have to explain why they were jamming the stadium signals and endangering civilians."
It was a gamble. A bluff built on mutual destruction.
"Go," Yoo-jin ordered. "Control the narrative before the truth gets out."
Park swallowed hard, straightened his tie, and ran out the door.
Yoo-jin was alone.
He gripped the edge of the mixing desk. The adrenaline was fading, and the pain was rushing in.
A sharp, stabbing headache drilled behind his left eye.
[System Warning: Hardware Overheating]
[Core Temperature: Critical]
[Cognitive Load: 98%]
He coughed. Blood splattered onto the sleek black mixing console.
It wasn't just a nosebleed this time. It was darker. Thicker.
His vision flickered. The room distorted. For a second, the mixing desk looked like lines of green code. The walls looked like wireframes.
"Not now," he whispered, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "I need more time."
The door opened behind him.
Yoo-jin straightened up instantly, hiding the blood with his body.
"Director Park, I told you to—"
"It's not Park."
It was Jung Sae-ri.
She locked the door behind her and walked toward him. She wasn't wearing her usual glamorous actress smile. She looked tired. Scared.
"You're bleeding," she said.
"It's just stress," Yoo-jin dismissed. "The concert was intense."
Sae-ri didn't stop. She walked right up to him, invading his personal space. She reached out and grabbed his wrist.
Her hand was cool.
"Your pulse is erratic," she whispered. "And your eyes... the pupils are dilating unevenly."
"I'm fine, Sae-ri."
"Stop lying to me," she snapped. Her voice cracked. "Everyone else sees the genius producer. I see the machine breaking down."
She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and reached up to his face. Gently, she wiped the blood from his lip.
Yoo-jin froze.
He was used to being handled like a tool. Version 1 had been used. He was being used by the System. Even the artists looked at him as a commander.
But Sae-ri was looking at him like a man.
"You pushed the command too hard," she said softly. "Ordering Eden to use the Particle... it backlashed on you, didn't it? Because you're connected."
"He needed authorization," Yoo-jin admitted, his voice raspy. "I had to override his safety protocols manually. My brain took the recoil."
Sae-ri's thumb brushed against his cheekbone.
[System Analysis: Jung Sae-ri]
[Affection Level: Rising]
[Status: Fear]
"Turn it off," she said.
"What?"
"The System. The windows. The stats. Turn it off when you look at me."
"I can't," Yoo-jin said. "It's always on. It's who I am."
"No, it's what you use." She stepped closer. The scent of her perfume—vanilla and cold rain—filled his senses, overpowering the smell of burnt electronics. "Who you are is the idiot who stood between an army and a kid."
She leaned her forehead against his chest.
"Don't break, Han Yoo-jin," she whispered. "If you break, who's going to save us?"
For a moment, Yoo-jin didn't know what to do with his hands. Then, slowly, he placed one hand on her back.
He felt her breathing. It wasn't a stat. It wasn't a waveform to be analyzed. It was just life.
The headache receded slightly. The wireframes in his vision solidified back into walls.
"I won't break," he said. "Not until I burn them down."
His phone buzzed in his pocket, shattering the moment.
It was an encrypted number.
Yoo-jin pulled away. Sae-ri stepped back, her eyes wet but her expression hardening back into the "Muse."
He answered. "Talk."
"Woohoo! Did you see that air time?"
It was Olivia Ray. The wind was rushing in the background.
"Olivia," Yoo-jin said, relief washing over him. "Status?"
"We are currently cruising at 140 kilometers per hour," Eden's voice chimed in. "Olivia is an inefficient driver. She swerves unnecessarily."
"It's called style, Robo-Cop!" Olivia yelled. "Hey, Boss. We shook the tail. But we can't go back to the dorms. The police scanners are wild."
"Go to the safe house in Paju," Yoo-jin ordered. "Ghost has already scrubbed the location from the GPS grid. Stay off the internet. Do not use your powers, Eden. Not even to toast bread."
"Understood," Eden said. "But... I am experiencing a new error."
"What is it?"
"I feel... lighter," Eden said. "Is this what crime feels like?"
"Yeah," Yoo-jin smirked. "That's freedom, kid. Get to Paju. I'll meet you there."
He hung up.
"They're safe?" Sae-ri asked.
"For tonight." Yoo-jin looked at the map on the wall. "But the Ministry won't stop. We embarrassed them. They won't send agents next time. They'll send a cleanup crew."
"What do we do?"
"We leave," Yoo-jin said. "Korea is a trap. The Ministry controls the media, the police, the networks. We can't win a home game."
"Where can we go? They'll block our passports."
"They can't block cultural ambassadors," Yoo-jin said, his eyes gleaming with a dangerous plan. "Starforce just had a number one hit on Billboard. We have an invitation to the American Music Awards pending."
Sae-ri's eyes widened. "You want to flee to America? On live TV?"
"We don't flee," Yoo-jin corrected. "We expand. We take the war to a battlefield they don't control."
He walked to the door, checking his System one last time.
[Objective Updated]
[New Region: Los Angeles]
[Target: The Source Code Key]
He looked back at Sae-ri.
"Pack your bags, Actress. You're making your Hollywood debut."
The Ministry of Culture. Deep Storage Facility.
The room was cold. It smelled of ozone and antiseptic.
Section Chief Kang stood before a massive glass tank. Inside the tank, a black liquid swirled, suspended in zero gravity.
"Subject One escaped," Kang said to the darkness. "Prototype HYJ-001 intervened."
A voice came from the speakers. It was synthetic, distorted.
"The prototypes are evolving too fast. HYJ-001 is displaying unpredictable attachment patterns."
"Shall we activate the kill switch?" Kang asked. "We can detonate the cortex chip in Han Yoo-jin's head remotely."
"No," the voice rumbled. "If he dies now, we lose the data from Version 1. He still holds the encryption key."
"Then what is the order?"
The black liquid in the tank rippled. It formed a shape. A face.
"Initiate Protocol: Silence," the voice commanded. "If they leave the country, they are no longer domestic assets. They are foreign threats."
"Contact the Los Angeles branch. Tell them the 'Double' is coming."
Kang bowed. "Understood."
Paju Safe House. 3:00 AM.
The living room was tense.
Sol and Luna were sitting on the floor, still wearing their stage outfits. Mina was trembling slightly. Hana was cleaning a scratch on her arm with alcohol.
Kim Min-ji was smoking a cigarette by the open window, blowing smoke into the night.
The door opened. Yoo-jin and Sae-ri walked in.
"Boss!" Mina jumped up. She ran to him, then stopped, seeing the dried blood on his collar. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Yoo-jin said. "Where are the others?"
"In the garage," Hana pointed. "Olivia is teaching Eden how to play poker. He's counting cards."
Yoo-jin looked at his team.
They were tired. They were young. They were terrified.
They were the most powerful group in the world, and they were hiding in a basement like criminals.
"Listen to me," Yoo-jin said quietly.
The room went silent.
"Tonight, we won," he said. "We proved that their perfect machine has a heart. But tomorrow, they will try to turn you into monsters. They will say Eden is a weapon. They will say we are terrorists."
"Let them talk," Min-ji scoffed, flicking ash. "We'll write a song about it."
"This isn't about songs anymore," Yoo-jin said. "This is about survival."
He pulled a stack of plane tickets from his jacket. Director Park had printed them at the travel agency an hour ago, bribing the clerk with three months' salary.
"We are leaving on the morning flight," Yoo-jin said. "Destination: Los Angeles."
"America?" Mina gasped. "For how long?"
Yoo-jin looked at her. He thought about the kill switch in his head. He thought about the coordinates hidden in Version 1's data drive. Coordinates that pointed to a research lab in the Nevada desert.
"Until we find the thing that can stop them," Yoo-jin said.
He looked at Sae-ri. She gave him a small, almost invisible nod.
"Get some sleep," Yoo-jin ordered. "We have a six-hour flight. And when we land..."
His eyes flashed blue.
"We're going to burn Billboard to the ground."