The dormitory smelled of bleach and fear.
It was a concrete bunker painted pastel pink. One hundred cots were lined up in neat rows, monitored by cameras that blinked red every three seconds.
Sae-ri lay on her cot, staring at the ceiling speaker. It was emitting a faint, rhythmic pulse—the Violet Signal.
Be perfect. Be obedient. Be loved.
She felt her eyelids getting heavy. A warm, fuzzy numbness was creeping into her brain. It felt nice. It felt like giving up.
ZZZT.
A sharp static shock in her ear woke her up.
"Don't sleep," Yoo-jin's voice buzzed through the bone-conduction earring. "The signal works best during REM cycles. If you sleep now, you wake up a Zenith drone."
Sae-ri blinked, her heart racing. She tapped the earring twice. Understood.
She looked around. The other ninety-nine girls were asleep. Their breathing was synchronized perfectly with the pulse of the speaker. It was terrifying.
"Phase 1," Yoo-jin whispered in her ear. "Disrupt the order. You need contraband."
Sae-ri slid off her cot. She crawled on the floor, staying below the camera's sightline.
She reached into her oversized hoodie pocket. It wasn't empty. Before entering, David Kim had sewn hidden compartments into the lining.
She pulled out a packet of Spicy Ramyeon powder.
"Ramyeon?" Sae-ri mouthed. Really?
"Food is morale," Yoo-jin's voice was serious. "Zenith feeds them tasteless nutrient paste to keep their emotions flat. Spicy food spikes adrenaline. It breaks the numbness."
Sae-ri crept to the bathroom. She met Ha-eun there. The pink-haired trainee looked exhausted, dark circles under her eyes.
"Unni," Ha-eun whispered. "I can't sleep. The humming..."
"I know," Sae-ri pulled out the powder. She filled the sink with hot tap water and dumped the red dust in. It wasn't ramyeon noodles—just the spicy soup base.
"Drink this," Sae-ri ordered.
Ha-eun hesitated, then cupped her hands and drank the red water.
She gasped. "It burns."
"Good," Sae-ri smiled grimly. "Burn the signal out."
They went cot to cot. Like prison dealers, they woke up the girls Yoo-jin had flagged as potential allies. The outcasts. The rebels.
Sol and Luna (still wearing helmets) sat up. They cracked open a hidden stash of chocolate bars.
Sugar. Spice. Caffeine.
The chemical rush hit the girls' bloodstreams. The synchronized breathing stopped. They started whispering. Giggling. Complaining.
"Chaos," Yoo-jin said in Sae-ri's ear. "Now, give them something to bond over."
The Midnight Meeting happened in the laundry room.
Twenty girls sat on top of vibrating washing machines. The noise of the spin cycle masked their voices from the audio sensors.
"Why are we here?" a girl named Ji-soo asked, shivering. "If the instructors catch us..."
"They won't," Sae-ri stood in the center. She wasn't acting like the 'Tragic underdog' anymore. She was acting like a leader.
"We're here because we're hungry," Sae-ri said. "And because we're bored."
She pulled out a deck of cards.
"Who knows how to play Poker?"
"Cards are banned," Ji-soo gasped. "Everything fun is banned."
"Exactly," Sae-ri shuffled the deck. "That's why it's fun."
They played. They bet with chocolate bars and hair ties. For an hour, they weren't trainees fighting for survival. They were teenagers at a sleepover.
The Violet Signal's influence waned. Laughter—real, messy laughter—filled the room.
"Report," Yoo-jin's voice cut in.
"Morale is up," Sae-ri tapped her earring.
"Good. Now, weaponize it. You need to hack the vote."
"How?" Sae-ri whispered, pretending to cough.
"The show is live-streamed 24/7, but there's a delay on the 'Dorm Cam'," Yoo-jin explained. "Mason edits the footage to create narratives. He makes Ha-eun look mean. He makes you look weak."
"So?"
"So we give him footage he can't edit," Yoo-jin said. "We need a viral moment that happens in real-time. During the morning roll call."
"What kind of moment?"
"A protest," Yoo-jin said. "But make it K-Pop."
Morning Roll Call. 6:00 AM.
The trainees lined up in the courtyard. The instructors—AI drones hovering at eye level—scanned them.
"Trainee 403. Ha-eun. Your uniform is wrinkled. Penalty points."
"Trainee 499. Mi-so. Your posture is slumped. Penalty points."
Mason watched from the control room. "Good. Break their spirits. They look tired."
Suddenly, Ha-eun stepped forward.
"I have a request," she said loudly.
The drone paused. "Requests are denied."
"I want to change my evaluation song," Ha-eun shouted.
"Song selection is locked."
"I don't care," Ha-eun turned to the camera. "I'm not singing your song. I'm singing our song."
She started clapping. A slow, rhythmic beat.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Sol and Luna joined in. Then Sae-ri. Then the twenty girls from the laundry room.
The drone beeped. "Cease this disturbance. Penalty points increasing."
They didn't stop. They started stomping.
Stomp-Clap. Stomp-Clap.
It was the beat of Queen's We Will Rock You. Universal. Primal.
Ha-eun opened her mouth.
Buddy, you're a boy, make a big noise...
"Cut the audio!" Mason yelled in the booth.
The audio cut. But the rhythm didn't. You could see the stomping. You could feel the vibration through the screen.
And then, the other trainees joined in.
Not just the rebels. The obedient ones. The ones who had eaten the nutrient paste. They felt the rhythm in the ground and their bodies reacted instinctively.
One hundred girls stomping in unison.
BOOM. BOOM. CLAP.
It wasn't a riot. It was a performance.
"Sir!" A technician shouted. "Viewership is spiking! The chat is going crazy!"
WHAT IS THIS?
ARE THEY REVOLTING?
THIS IS SO COOL.
Mason stared at the screen. He couldn't punish them all. If he eliminated 100 girls on live TV, the show was over.
"Let it play," Mason hissed. "They want to be a rock band? Fine. Change the mission."
He pressed the intercom button. His voice boomed over the courtyard.
"Impressive energy," Mason said smoothly. "Since you have so much spirit... the next evaluation will be a Team Battle."
The stomping stopped.
"Team A: The Rebels," Mason announced. "Versus Team B: The Elites."
He smiled cruelly.
"The losing team will be eliminated. All of them."
Ha-eun paled. She looked at Sae-ri.
Fifty girls against fifty. Half the dorm would be gone by next week.
"And just to make it fair," Mason added. "Team A gets no trainers. No choreographers. You want to do it your way? Do it yourself."
The drones dispersed. The courtyard was silent again.
"He split the room," Sae-ri whispered. "He turned our unity into a war."
"It's okay," Yoo-jin's voice was calm in her ear.
"We don't need trainers," Yoo-jin said. "You have me."
That night, the BK Building was buzzing.
"Fifty girls," David panicked. "We have to choreograph for fifty amateurs in three days?"
"It's impossible," Kai shook his head. "Even professional groups struggle with synchronization at that scale."
"We're not aiming for synchronization," Yoo-jin stood at the whiteboard. "The Elites will be perfect. They will move like robots. We can't beat them at precision."
"So what do we do?"
"We build a choir," Yoo-jin drew a formation. "A flash mob."
He looked at Min-ji.
"Get the Pirate App ready. We're going to crowdsource the choreography."
"What?"
"We can't enter the dorms," Yoo-jin said. "But we can send data."
He turned to the screen showing the sleeping girls.
"Sae-ri," he spoke into the mic. "Wake up the Glitch Unit."
In the dorm, Sol and Luna sat up. Their helmets glowed in the dark.
"Connect your helmets to the Pirate App via Bluetooth," Yoo-jin ordered. "I'm going to upload the dance moves directly to your visors."
"You're going to teach them via HUD?" Kai asked, impressed.
"I'm going to turn Sol and Luna into dance instructors," Yoo-jin grinned. "They'll see the moves on their screens and teach the others."
"And the song?"
Yoo-jin looked at the whiteboard. He wrote one word.
ANTHEM.
"We need a song that fifty girls can sing," Yoo-jin said. "Something that doesn't need high notes. Something that sounds like an army."
He looked at Kai.
"Remember the track you wrote in the tank? The one that woke me up?"
"Yeah?"
"We're remixing it," Yoo-jin said. "But this time... add drums. Lots of drums."
Three days later. The Battle Stage.
The Elites went first. They wore matching white uniforms with gold epaulets. They performed a Zenith-produced song called Perfection.
It was flawless. Fifty girls moving as one organism. Sharp lines. Perfect smiles.
The judges (AI and Mason) gave them a standing ovation.
[Score: 98/100]
"Beat that," the Elite leader sneered as they walked off.
Team Rebel walked on.
They didn't have matching uniforms. They wore their training sweats, ripped and customized with safety pins and markers. They looked like a gang.
Ha-eun stood in front. Sol and Luna flanked her. Sae-ri was in the back.
They didn't take a formation. They stood in a messy crowd.
"Ready?" Ha-eun shouted.
"READY!" Forty-nine girls screamed back.
The music started.
It wasn't pop. It was tribal drums. Heavy, deep bass that shook the cameras.
BOOM-BOOM.
They didn't dance. They marched.
They stomped the stage, creating a thunderous rhythm.
Then, they started chanting.
We are the glitch! We are the noise!
We are the girls without a choice!
It wasn't singing. It was shouting. It was raw, angry, and undeniably powerful.
Ha-eun ran forward. She didn't do a dance break. She did a backflip—messy, dangerous, landing on one knee.
"SCREAM!" she yelled into the mic.
The fifty girls let out a war cry.
YAAAAAAHH!
The audience in the arena (and online) went feral.
GOOSEBUMPS.
THIS ISN'T K-POP, THIS IS WAR.
TEAM REBEL FOR THE WIN.
Mason watched from his box. His face was pale.
He looked at the Violet Signal meter. It was flatlining. The chaotic emotion of the performance was disrupting his mind-control frequency.
"Cut the feed!" Mason ordered.
"We can't sir!" the technician yelled. "The ratings are at 40%! Advertisers are calling! They want to sponsor the Rebels!"
Mason slammed his fist on the desk.
He had created a monster. He tried to build a factory, and Yoo-jin had turned it into a revolution.
On stage, Sae-ri looked up at the VIP box. She tapped her ear.
"Did you see that?" she whispered.
"I saw it," Yoo-jin's voice was warm in her ear. "You were perfect."
"We won," she smiled.
"Not yet," Yoo-jin said. "Check your pocket."
Sae-ri reached into her hoodie. She felt a small USB drive.
"While everyone was watching the stage," Yoo-jin said, "Min-ji broke into the server room. That drive contains the source code for the Violet Signal."
Sae-ri froze.
"You used the performance as a distraction?"
"Always," Yoo-jin said. "Now... get out of there. The show is over."
Sae-ri looked at the celebrating girls.
"We can't just leave them."
"We're not," Yoo-jin said. "We're taking the stage with us."
Suddenly, the lights in the arena went out.
A spotlight hit the exit doors.
Min-ji kicked the doors open. Behind her stood the Ragtag Dozen.
"Bus is leaving!" Min-ji shouted into a megaphone. "Anyone who wants to be a real idol... get in!"
Chaos erupted. The fifty Rebel trainees looked at each other. Then at Ha-eun.
Ha-eun grabbed Sol's hand.
"Run!"
Fifty girls sprinted off the stage, past the stunned cameramen, and toward the exit.
It was the greatest jailbreak in TV history.
And it was broadcast live in 4K.