The mirror showed a stranger.
Yoo-jin splashed cold water on his face, but the pallor didn't wash away. His skin was grey. The dark circles under his eyes looked like bruises.
He gripped the porcelain sink until his knuckles turned white.
[System Warning]
[Life Force: 8% Remaining]
[Estimated Time to Critical Failure: 6 Days]
Six days.
That was all he had left before the battery ran dry. Before he ended up like Version 1—a vegetable in a hospital bed, or worse.
He dried his face with a plush white towel. He put on his sunglasses to hide the bloodshot eyes. He adjusted his jacket.
He forced a smile. It was the hardest thing he had done all week.
"Showtime," he whispered to the reflection.
He walked out into the living room. The team was already awake, buzzing with nervous energy.
"Pack light," Yoo-jin announced. "We aren't coming back to LA."
"Where are we going?" Hana asked, zip-tying her suitcase shut. "New York? Vegas?"
"The desert," Yoo-jin said. "We're going on a location scout. For the music video."
It was a lie. A flimsy one. But they wanted to believe it. They wanted to believe this was still a career, not a death march.
"The desert is hot," Min-ji complained, putting on a wide-brimmed hat. "And full of scorpions. I hate scorpions."
"I have procured transport," Olivia Ray yelled from the terrace. She twirled a set of keys. "Come say hello to the Beast."
They went outside.
Parked in the sleek driveway of the glass mansion was a monstrosity.
It was a tour bus. But not a luxury coach. It was a vintage 1980s heavy metal touring rig. Painted matte black. Rust on the bumpers. The words HELL OR HIGH WATER were stenciled on the side in fading red paint.
"It's bulletproof," Olivia grinned, patting the metal flank. "And it has a mini-fridge. I borrowed it from a death metal band I used to date."
"It looks like a hearse on steroids," Director Park muttered.
"Get in," Yoo-jin ordered. "We lose signal in twenty miles."
The I-15 North was a ribbon of asphalt cutting through the wasteland.
Yoo-jin sat in the front passenger seat. The desert landscape rolled by—endless scrub brush, Joshua trees, and heat waves shimmering off the road.
He checked the map on his laptop. The red dot in Sector 4 hadn't moved.
"Yoo-jin."
He didn't turn around. He knew that voice.
Jung Sae-ri slid into the seat across the aisle. She held two bottles of water. She handed him one.
"You're lying," she said softly. The bus engine roared, drowning out her voice to everyone else.
"I lie for a living, Sae-ri. I'm a producer."
"You aren't scouting a location," she said. She looked at his hands, which were trembling slightly on the laptop. "You're looking for a cure."
Yoo-jin froze. He looked at her over the rim of his sunglasses.
"How much do you know?"
"I'm a Muse," she said. "I see energy. And right now? Your energy looks like a candle in a wind tunnel. You're flickering out."
She leaned closer. Her eyes were fierce.
"Does it hurt?"
"Yes," Yoo-jin admitted. The truth felt heavy on his tongue. "Every time I use the System, it eats a piece of me. If I don't disconnect it soon, I'm going to burn out."
Sae-ri took a breath. She looked out at the barren desert.
"And this place we're going... can it save you?"
"It's where I was made," Yoo-jin said. "If there's an off switch, it's there."
Sae-ri reached across the aisle. She grabbed his hand. Her grip was tight, desperate.
"Then we drive faster," she said.
In the back of the bus, the atmosphere was different.
Eden was sitting by the window, staring at the empty horizon. He hadn't spoken since the fight at the warehouse.
Mina sat next to him. She was peeling an orange. The citrus smell cut through the scent of old leather and diesel.
"You were scary yesterday," Mina said quietly.
Eden turned to her. "I was an error. I frightened the audience."
"No," Mina shook her head. She handed him a slice of orange. "You excited them. They liked the error."
Eden looked at the orange slice. He mimicked her motion and put it in his mouth. He chewed mechanically.
"Violence creates high engagement metrics," Eden said. "But it felt... chaotic. My internal temperature rose. I wanted to break the cage."
"That's anger," Mina said.
"Is anger a useful function?"
"Sometimes," Mina smiled sadly. "Sometimes you have to break the cage to get out."
Eden swallowed. "The orange is acidic. I like it."
Suddenly, the bus lurched.
Olivia swerved hard to the left. Tires screeched on the asphalt.
"Hang on!" Olivia yelled.
A black sedan had pulled up alongside them. Tinted windows. No license plates.
Yoo-jin's head snapped up.
[Threat Detected]
[Affiliation: Unknown]
"Is it the Ministry?" Director Park screamed, clutching his seatbelt.
"No," Yoo-jin saw the glint of metal from the sedan's window. "They're trying to run us off the road!"
The sedan slammed into the side of the bus.
BANG.
The heavy tour bus shuddered, but held its line. The sedan bounced off, sparks flying.
"They brought a car to a bus fight?" Olivia laughed maniacally. She downshifted. "Cute."
She slammed the steering wheel to the right.
The massive metal beast drifted into the sedan's lane.
CRUNCH.
The sedan was forced onto the shoulder. It hit the loose gravel, spun out in a cloud of dust, and slammed into a ditch.
"Roadie rule number one," Olivia shouted. "Never cut off the tour bus!"
Yoo-jin looked back. The sedan was a smoking wreck in the distance.
"They found us fast," Yoo-jin muttered. "David Kim's map must have tripped an alarm."
He looked at the GPS.
[Destination: 10 Miles]
"Off-road!" Yoo-jin ordered. "Turn right at the next marker. We have to lose any other tails."
"There is no road there," Olivia pointed out. "Just sand."
"The map says there's a road," Yoo-jin said, his eye twitching with pain. "Trust the map."
Olivia shrugged. "Hold onto your butts."
She cranked the wheel. The bus slammed off the pavement and onto the hard-packed desert floor.
Dust billowed up behind them like a smoke screen.
They drove for twenty minutes into nothingness. The bus rattled and groaned over the uneven ground.
Then, the glitch started.
Yoo-jin gasped. The landscape outside the window flickered.
The Joshua trees turned into wireframe models. The sky turned into static.
[System Error: Reality Sync Failed]
[Hallucination Protocol: Active]
"Yoo-jin?" Sae-ri's voice sounded distorted. Like a robot underwater.
"I can't see," Yoo-jin whispered. He rubbed his eyes, but the static remained. "The System... it's overwriting my vision."
"We're here!" Olivia slammed on the brakes.
The bus skidded to a halt.
The dust settled.
Yoo-jin blinked. The static cleared slowly. The world reassembled itself.
They weren't in the desert anymore. Or rather, they were, but it didn't look like it.
In front of them was a town.
A perfect, 1950s American suburb. White picket fences. Green manicured lawns (which were actually painted astroturf). brightly colored houses.
But there were no people.
Mannequins stood on the lawns. A mannequin father washing a car. A mannequin mother holding a baby. They were all smiling, frozen in plastic joy.
"What is this?" Hana whispered, stepping off the bus. "It's creepy."
"It's a nuclear testing site," Yoo-jin realized. "A Doom Town. They built these to test blast radiuses in the Cold War."
He walked toward the center of the fake town. The heat was oppressive. The silence was absolute.
He checked the coordinates.
The red dot was pulsing directly under the fake diner.
[Target Reached: The Incubator]
"Sector 4," Yoo-jin said. "It's underground."
He walked to the diner. The door hung off its hinges. Inside, mannequin patrons sat at booths with plastic milkshakes.
Yoo-jin walked behind the counter. He found a rug and kicked it aside.
There was a trapdoor. Heavy steel. A biometric lock.
"Ghost," Yoo-jin tapped his headset. "Can you bypass this?"
Static. No signal.
"We're completely dark," Yoo-jin said. "No internet."
"Let me try," Eden stepped forward.
He knelt by the lock. He didn't use tools. He placed his hand on the keypad.
"Interface," Eden whispered.
His skin glowed faintly. Blue light pulsed from his fingertips into the metal.
BEEP.
The light turned green. The heavy bolts clanked open.
"How did you do that?" Park asked, amazed.
"I do not know," Eden looked at his hand. "It felt familiar. Like... coming home."
Yoo-jin grabbed the handle and heaved the door open.
A rush of cold, stale air hit them. A ladder descended into pitch blackness.
"This is it," Yoo-jin said. He looked at his team. "Stay here. Guard the bus."
"No way," Min-ji racked the slide of an imaginary shotgun (she was holding a microphone stand). "We stick together. Horror movie rules."
"If you go down, we go down," Sae-ri said firmly.
Yoo-jin looked at them. They were terrified. They were out of their element. But they weren't leaving him.
He felt a pang in his chest that had nothing to do with the System.
"Okay," Yoo-jin nodded. "But don't touch anything. And if you see a ghost... punch it."
He stepped onto the ladder and began to climb down.
Down into the dark. Down into the belly of the beast that created him.