The van smelled of stale coffee and victory.
David Kim drove like a man possessed, cutting through the northbound traffic on the I-5. The lights of Los Angeles were fading in the rearview mirror, replaced by the crushing darkness of the California interior.
"Stop checking the stock price," Yoo-jin said, his eyes closed. "It'll bounce back. Mason won't stay down forever."
"He's down twelve percent," David cackled, tapping the steering wheel. "Twelve percent in three hours. Do you know how much money that is? That's not a dip. That's a crater."
"It's a distraction," Yoo-jin opened his eyes. He pulled the USB drive from his pocket. It felt heavier now. "So-young? Are you clear?"
"I'm in a motel in Burbank," So-young's voice came through the headset, tinny and exhausted. "I wiped the coffee shop's router logs. I'm invisible."
"What did we get?" Yoo-jin asked. "When the connection was open, you pulled something."
"I didn't just pull something," So-young sounded hesitant. "I mirrored the root directory of the Muse Project."
Eden sat up in the back seat. He was still wearing the grease-stained coveralls, looking like a runaway mechanic.
"The root?" Eden whispered. "You have the blueprint?"
"I have everything," So-young said. "Schematics for the subliminal emitters. The vocal frequency algorithms. And... a list."
"A list of what?"
"Beta testers," So-young said. "It's not just the Grammys, Yoo-jin. The list is huge. Political think tanks. Education boards. Hospitals. Zenith has been installing these 'optimization nodes' for six months."
A chill ran down Yoo-jin's spine. He looked at Sae-ri. She was asleep, her head resting on his shoulder. She looked peaceful.
But if Mason Gold had his way, that peace would be mandatory.
"We need to decode it," Yoo-jin said. "We need proof."
"I can't decrypt it," So-young admitted. "It's locked with a quantum key. It changes every millisecond. If I try to brute force it, the data self-destructs."
"So we stole a locked safe," Min-ji kicked the seat in front of her. "Great."
"Not just a safe," Eden spoke up. His voice was quiet, but it carried a strange weight. "I can open it."
Yoo-jin turned in his seat. "How?"
"I am the key," Eden tapped his temple. "The Kill Code disrupted the server, but for a moment... I was connected. I felt the shape of the lock. It felt like me."
"It's too dangerous," Yoo-jin said immediately. "You almost got erased back there."
"If we do not open it, we do not know where the next attack comes from," Eden said. He looked at Sol and Luna, who were dozing in a tangle of limbs. "I will not let them be optimized."
Yoo-jin stared at the boy. Eden wasn't a scared kid anymore. He was a survivor making a tactical choice.
"We need a clean terminal," Yoo-jin decided. "Somewhere with enough processing power to handle the decryption without frying the grid."
"Silicon Valley," David nodded. "I know a place. It's not a garage. It's a bunker."
Six hours later, the landscape had changed. The dusty scrubland was gone, replaced by the manicured, sterile office parks of Palo Alto.
It was 4:00 AM. The world was asleep, but the server farms hummed.
David pulled the van into the driveway of a nondescript concrete building. There was no sign. Just a heavy steel gate and a camera.
"Who lives here?" Min-ji peered out the window. "A supervillain?"
"My ex-wife," David grimaced. "Technically, she's a venture capitalist. But yeah, same thing."
He rolled down the window and pressed the buzzer.
"What do you want, David?" a sharp female voice crackled. "I already told you, I'm not investing in your NFT scheme."
"It's not NFTs, Claire," David rubbed his face. "I have Han Yoo-jin. And we have the Zenith source code."
Silence.
Then, a heavy CLUNK. The gate slid open.
"She likes high stakes," David muttered, driving through.
Claire's "house" was a brutalist masterpiece of concrete and glass. Inside, it looked like an Apple Store had exploded. Monitors covered every wall.
Claire stood in the center of the room. She was fifty, sharp as a knife, wearing a silk robe and holding a Stark Industries-level tablet.
She looked at the ragtag group of idols in dirty coveralls. She wrinkled her nose.
"You smell like gasoline," she said.
"We've had a long night," Yoo-jin stepped forward. He held out the USB. "Can you run this?"
Claire took the drive. She plugged it into a massive mainframe that dominated the center of the room.
"Quantum encryption," she muttered, typing rapidly on a holographic keyboard. "Nasty. If I touch this wrong, it melts my servers."
"Eden," Yoo-jin nodded to the boy.
Eden stepped up to the console. He didn't type. He placed his hand on the server casing.
He closed his eyes.
"Interface," Eden whispered.
The room's lights flickered. The screens turned a deep, bruising violet.
"He's synching with the hardware," Claire watched the readouts, fascinated. "His bio-rhythm is acting as a handshake protocol."
Eden gasped. His knees buckled.
"Eden!" Sae-ri caught him.
"I see it," Eden's eyes were squeezed shut. "The map. It is... everywhere."
On the main screen, a map of the world appeared. Thousands of purple dots lit up.
New York. London. Seoul. Tokyo.
"These are active nodes," So-young's voice came from the speakers (she had patched into Claire's system). "Schools. Stadiums. Voting booths."
"Wait," Yoo-jin pointed to a cluster of lights in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. "What is that?"
It wasn't a city. It was a moving target.
"A ship?" David squinted.
"It's an artificial island," Claire zoomed in. "The Leviathan. Zenith's mobile R&D lab. International waters. No laws."
"That is where I was born," Eden said.
The room went silent.
Eden opened his eyes. They were wet.
"That is where they make the others," Eden said. "Subject Two. Subject Three. The Incubator was just a test site. The Leviathan is the factory."
"Factory for what?" Min-ji asked, dread pooling in her stomach.
"For the idols who do not need to sleep," Eden said. "Mason Gold is not just brainwashing the audience. He is replacing the performers."
Yoo-jin stared at the map. The moving dot was heading toward Seoul.
"He's going to debut them," Yoo-jin realized. "Starforce is out of business. Dragon is gone. The market is empty. He's bringing the fleet to fill the void."
"If those things land in Korea," Luna whispered, "it's over. Real humans can't compete with that."
"We have to stop the ship," Min-ji said. "We sink it."
"We are seven people in a van," Director Park pointed out, trembling. "They have a navy."
"We have something else," Yoo-jin looked at the screen.
He saw a file name in the directory. Project: Siren.
"Eden," Yoo-jin asked. "What is Siren?"
"It is the command voice," Eden shivered. "The Master Frequency. If Mason broadcasts it, all optimized subjects obey instantly. It overrides survival instincts."
"So if we get the Siren frequency," Yoo-jin said, his mind racing. "We control his army."
"Or we destroy it," Min-ji suggested.
"The key is on that ship," Yoo-jin turned to David. "How much liquid cash can you access right now?"
"Claire?" David looked at his ex-wife with puppy dog eyes.
Claire sighed. She looked at Yoo-jin. She looked at the map.
"I hate Zenith," she said. "Mason Gold ruined my IPO in '19. I'll fund you. But I want 10% of Starforce when you win."
"Deal," Yoo-jin didn't hesitate.
"Where are we going?" Sol asked. "To the ocean?"
"No," Yoo-jin shook his head. "We can't attack a fortress at sea. We have to lure them out."
He walked to the window. The sun was rising over Silicon Valley. The light was harsh and unforgiving.
"We're going back to Seoul," Yoo-jin said.
"Are you crazy?" Director Park shrieked. "There are warrants for our arrest!"
"Not if we change the narrative," Yoo-jin said. "We're not fugitives. We're the resistance."
He turned to the group.
"We're going to launch a new label," Yoo-jin said. "Underground. No copyright. No contracts. We release everything open source. We encourage piracy."
"You want to bankrupt the industry?" Claire raised an eyebrow.
"I want to flood it," Yoo-jin said. "If Zenith sells expensive perfection, we give away free chaos. We make their product worthless."
"And the ship?" Eden asked.
"When we start making noise in Seoul," Yoo-jin smiled grimly. "The Leviathan will come to silence us. That's when we board it."
Min-ji picked up her guitar case. She patted it.
"I like this plan," she said. "It sounds loud."
"Pack up," Yoo-jin ordered. "Claire, can you get us a private jet? One that doesn't appear on flight logs?"
"I have a cargo plane moving server parts to Incheon tonight," Claire tapped her tablet. "It's unpressurized in the back. It'll be cold."
"We're used to the cold," Sae-ri said, buttoning her mechanic's jacket.
As the team moved to gather their gear, Yoo-jin stayed by the window.
He felt a hand on his arm. It was Sae-ri.
"You're shaking," she whispered.
Yoo-jin looked at his hand. It was true. The tremor was subtle, but it was there.
"I keep looking for the System," Yoo-jin admitted. "I keep waiting for a blue window to tell me the success rate of this plan."
"And what if the success rate is zero?" Sae-ri asked.
"It probably is," Yoo-jin said.
Sae-ri interlaced her fingers with his. Her hand was warm. Real.
"Good," she said. "Systems can't calculate miracles. Only humans can."
Yoo-jin squeezed her hand.
The phantom itch faded. He didn't need numbers. He had a team that had just screamed in the face of God and lived.
"Let's go home," Yoo-jin said.
They walked out of the concrete bunker and into the dawn.
Back in Seoul, the neon signs were already waiting. The billboards showed perfect faces with dead eyes. The city was sleeping, optimized and numb.
It was time to wake it up.