The basement smelled of wet wool and instant ramen.
Thirty "discarded" trainees sat on the concrete floor, huddled in blankets. They were shaking. Not from the cold, but from the withdrawal. Their implants—cheap, older models from the Titan and Dragon eras—were itching as the Zenith signal tried to ping them from across the city.
"Drink," Min-ji ordered, passing out paper cups of broth. "It helps with the static."
The boy from the alley, Ji-hoon, took a cup. His hands were covered in spray paint stains.
"Why are you helping us?" Ji-hoon asked. "We're garbage. That's what Director Alice said. We have 'irregular emotional baselines'."
"That means you have feelings," Eden said, sitting cross-legged next to him. "It is a compliment."
Yoo-jin stood by the server rack, watching the scene. It looked less like a label launch and more like a refugee camp.
"We can't debut thirty people," David Kim whispered, scrolling through a stolen Zenith budget report on his tablet. "I can barely afford to feed them pizza. And frankly, half of them were cut because they actually can't sing."
"We don't need them to sing," Yoo-jin said. "We need them to be the audience that talks back."
He turned to Sae-ri.
She wasn't looking at the trainees. She was staring at a monitor So-young had set up. On the screen, a trailer for Zenith's new flagship K-Drama, Starlight Destiny, was playing on loop.
The actors were beautiful. Their skin texture was mathematically flawless.
"Look at this," Sae-ri said, her voice tight.
Yoo-jin leaned in. On screen, the male lead was crying over a dying lover. The tear rolled down his cheek at an exact, aesthetically pleasing velocity. His facial muscles moved with symmetrical perfection.
"It's good acting," Yoo-jin noted. "Technically."
"It's not acting," Sae-ri tapped the screen. "Look at the eyes. The pupil dilation doesn't match the emotional state. The micro-expressions are smoothed out. It's a deep-fake filter applied in real-time over a human actor."
"Like auto-tune," Yoo-jin realized. "But for faces."
"They're optimizing the drama industry," Sae-ri turned to him. Her eyes were furious. "No more bad takes. No more ugly crying. Just perfect, algorithmic emotion that triggers a dopamine hit in the viewer. They're turning actors into puppets."
She pointed to the release date on the trailer.
PREMIERING TOMORROW NIGHT. EXCLUSIVE BROADCAST BEFORE THE LEVIATHAN SHOWCASE.
"They're hooking the audience with a drama first," Sae-ri analyzed. "Get them emotionally compromised with a sad story, then hit them with the idol debut when their defenses are down. It's a psychological one-two punch."
Yoo-jin felt the gears turn.
He had been focused on the music. But media was a hydra. You couldn't cut off one head and ignore the others.
"If we disrupt the music, the audience will just switch channels to the drama," Yoo-jin said. "We have to hit both."
He looked at Sae-ri.
For months, she had been his anchor. The sensible manager. The girlfriend who bandaged his hands. He had almost forgotten who she was before she joined Starforce.
She was Jung Sae-ri. The actress who had been blacklisted for refusing to sleep with a sponsor. The woman who had acted her way into a high-security vault to save him.
"Sae-ri," Yoo-jin said. "Do you still remember how to act?"
Sae-ri looked at him. She didn't smile. She just tied her hair back.
"Give me a script," she said.
"No script," Yoo-jin said. "Improv."
He turned to the room.
"Everyone, listen up!"
The trainees looked up from their ramen.
"Zenith wants to show the world perfection tomorrow," Yoo-jin's voice echoed off the concrete walls. "They're going to air a drama where nobody stutters, nobody looks ugly, and nobody fails. We're going to air the deleted scenes."
He pointed to the corner of the basement where water was dripping from a rusted pipe. The lighting was harsh, yellow, and unflattering.
"Sae-ri," Yoo-jin said. "That's your set."
"What's the scene?" Sae-ri walked over, kicking aside a piece of scrap metal.
"The truth," Yoo-jin said. "The scene is: A producer telling an actress she's too old, too ugly, and too human to be a star."
Sae-ri froze. It wasn't a hypothetical scene. It was her life. It was what Dragon Entertainment had told her five years ago.
"I need a partner," Sae-ri said. She scanned the room.
She pointed at Ji-hoon, the spray-paint kid.
"You," she said. "You're the CEO. You're firing me."
Ji-hoon scrambled up, terrified. "Me? I can't act! I was a rapper!"
"You don't need to act," Sae-ri grabbed his collar and dragged him under the light. "Just look at me with the same disgust Zenith looked at you with. Channel that."
Ji-hoon swallowed hard. He looked at Sae-ri. He saw the desperation in her eyes. He remembered the cold, synthesized voice of Director Alice telling him he was 'waste'.
His face hardened.
"So-young," Yoo-jin signaled. "Camera."
So-young hefted a heavy 4K camera onto her shoulder. "Rolling."
"Action," Yoo-jin whispered.
Sae-ri didn't start big. She started small. She picked at a loose thread on her mechanic coveralls.
"I can fix it," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I can get the surgery. I can lose the weight. Just give me one more chance."
Ji-hoon stared at her. He channeled his own self-hatred into the role.
"It's not about the weight," Ji-hoon spat. "It's the data. People don't like you. You make them uncomfortable."
"Because I'm real?" Sae-ri looked up. A tear formed in her eye. It wasn't the perfect, slow-motion tear of the Zenith drama. It was messy. Her face contorted. Her nose ran. It was ugly.
And it was magnetic.
"Real doesn't sell," Ji-hoon stepped closer, aggressive. "We don't want a person. We want a render. Get out."
Sae-ri stood her ground. She wiped her nose with her greasy sleeve.
"You can delete the file," Sae-ri said, her voice gaining steel. "You can scrub the internet. But you can't delete the memory. I exist. And I am going to scream until the glass breaks."
She screamed.
It wasn't a stage scream. It was a guttural, terrifying sound of a woman being erased.
"Cut!" Yoo-jin yelled.
Silence filled the basement.
The trainees were staring, mouths open. Some were crying. They had forgotten they were watching a scene. They felt it in their chests.
Sae-ri dropped her shoulders. She exhaled, shaking.
"Was that okay?" she asked, her voice raspy.
"It was terrifying," Min-ji said, wide-eyed.
"It was human," Yoo-jin corrected. He turned to So-young. "Can we inject this?"
"I can splice it directly into the Starlight Destiny broadcast feed," So-young was typing furiously. "Right over the climax scene where the couple kisses. Instead of the perfect kiss, the world sees Sae-ri screaming in a basement."
"Do it," Yoo-jin said. "We're not just a music label anymore. We're a production house."
"Starforce Studios," David Kim grinned. "I like the sound of that. I'll draft the incorporation papers. Assuming we survive the night."
"Boss," Eden interrupted. He was standing by the server rack, holding his head.
"What is it?"
"The Leviathan," Eden said. "It is hailing us."
"Hailing us?"
"Not on the radio," Eden pointed to the screen. "On the private channel. The one only optimized idols can hear. It knows I am here."
On the main monitor, the map of the Leviathan ship blinked red. A text box opened.
TO: SUBJECT ONE (EDEN)
FROM: MOTHER
MESSAGE: COME HOME. YOUR SIBLINGS MISS YOU.
"Mother?" Luna whispered. "Who is Mother?"
"The AI that runs the ship," Eden said. "The one that taught me how to sing. It thinks it loves me."
"It's a trap," Min-ji said. "They're trying to lure you out before the show."
"I know," Eden stared at the message. "But if I do not answer, they will widen the search. They will scan every basement in Mullae-dong."
Yoo-jin stepped between Eden and the screen.
"Let them scan," Yoo-jin said. "We're not hiding anymore."
He looked at the footage of Sae-ri's scene.
"We have the music. We have the drama. Now we need the variety show."
"Variety?" Sol asked, confused.
"The Leviathan showcase is a live event," Yoo-jin said. "That means there's an MC. A host."
He looked at David Kim.
"David, do you still have that press pass for the Blue House?"
"Expired three years ago," David shrugged. "Why?"
"Because tomorrow, we're not just hacking the signal," Yoo-jin said. "We're going to the docks. We're going to interview the ship."
"That's suicide," Mr. Oh, the driver, spoke up from the corner. "The Incheon port is a fortress. Zenith has private military contractors patrolling the perimeter."
"We're not going through the front gate," Yoo-jin looked at the trainees. Specifically, at the ones wearing torn hoodies and carrying skateboards.
"Ji-hoon," Yoo-jin asked. "You know the port area?"
"I used to tag the containers there," Ji-hoon nodded. "There's a drainage tunnel that comes out right under the loading cranes."
"Good," Yoo-jin said. "Sae-ri, you're the distraction. We upload your scene ten minutes before the show starts. It'll cause chaos in the control room."
"And then?"
"And then," Yoo-jin picked up a microphone. "We start the Open Mic."
He looked at his team. They were a motley crew of rejected idols, a blacklisted actress, a disgraced financier, and a glitchy bio-android.
They were the cast of the greatest drama never told.
"Get some sleep," Yoo-jin ordered. "Tomorrow, we start production on Season One of the resistance."
As the team dispersed to find sleeping spots, Yoo-jin stayed by the console. He watched the blinking red dot of the Leviathan.
Sae-ri walked up to him. She smelled of rain and adrenaline.
"You're enjoying this," she said softly.
"What?"
"Producing," she touched his arm. "Not songs. Chaos. You like rewriting the script."
Yoo-jin looked at her. He saw the smudge of grease on her cheek, the fire in her eyes. She was more beautiful now than she had ever been on a red carpet.
"I'm not rewriting it," Yoo-jin said, taking her hand. "I'm just fixing the editing."
He looked at the screen one last time.
Reply to Mother: We're coming.
He hit send.