The glass wall of the Bridge didn't shatter, but the illusion did.
Below, on the docks, the VIP tent was collapsing under the weight of a furious crowd. It wasn't a riot; it was an eviction. The fans weren't hurting anyone, but they were tearing down the velvet ropes, the champagne towers, and the screens. They were dismantling the barrier between the "gods" and the people.
Mason Gold stared at the monitors. His face was pale. For the first time, his calm mask cracked.
"You turned the audience against the sponsors," Mason whispered. "Do you know what you've done? You've demonetized the entire industry."
"I didn't demonetize it," Yoo-jin leaned against the console, his heart pounding but his voice steady. "I just changed the currency. We're not trading in engagement anymore. We're trading in truth."
"Truth is volatile!" Mason snapped. "Truth crashes markets!"
"Then let it crash," Yoo-jin said.
He pulled the USB drive from the elevator panel. The doors slid open.
"I'm leaving," Yoo-jin said. "And I'm taking my artists. Try to stop me, and I'll leak the beta-test list. I'll show the world exactly which politicians agreed to be optimized."
Mason flinched. That was the leverage.
"Go," Mason hissed. "But this isn't over. You won the episode, Yoo-jin. But the season is long. And I still own the network."
Yoo-jin didn't look back. He stepped into the elevator.
"Cancel the show," he said as the doors closed.
By the time Yoo-jin reached the dock, the battle was over.
The Siblings had retreated up the ramp, confused by the lack of orders from Mother. The Zenith guards were busy evacuating the terrified investors.
Sol and Luna were sitting on a stack of crates, exhausted, drinking water from a shared bottle. Min-ji was inspecting a dent in her guitar case. Eden was standing at the edge of the water, looking at the ship.
"Did we win?" Luna asked, wiping soot from her cheek.
"We survived," Yoo-jin corrected. "Which is better."
Sae-ri walked over. She still held the heavy camera. Her arms were shaking, but her eyes were bright.
"I got it all," she said, patting the camera body. "The fight. The investors running away. The fans tearing down the barricades. It's raw footage. Unfiltered."
"Don't upload it yet," Yoo-jin said. "We need to edit it. Not to hide the truth, but to sharpen it."
He looked at the crowd of fans. They were still buzzing with adrenaline, filming the wreckage with their phones.
"Let's go," Yoo-jin said. "Before the police arrive."
They melted into the crowd, slipping back into the drainage tunnel just as the sirens began to wail in the distance.
Two days later, the basement in Mullae-dong felt different.
It wasn't a refugee camp anymore. It was a studio.
The thirty trainees weren't just eating ramen. They were working. Some were splicing cables. Others were painting soundproofing panels. A group in the corner was arguing over a script.
"Starforce Studios," David Kim walked in, carrying a box of fresh donuts. "We're officially incorporated. Paperwork filed in a shell company in Estonia. Zenith can't touch our assets."
"Do we have assets?" Min-ji asked, tuning a bass guitar.
"We have content," David tapped his tablet. "Sae-ri's footage from the dock is viral. 50 million views in 48 hours. The comments are calling it 'Cinema Verité K-Pop'. Advertisers are actually calling us."
"Ignore them," Yoo-jin said from the server rack. "We're not taking ads yet. We need to build the brand."
He looked at the big screen. Sae-ri was there, reviewing footage with Ji-hoon (the trainee turned actor).
"The pacing is off," Sae-ri pointed to a clip. "The silence needs to be longer. Let the discomfort sit."
Yoo-jin walked over.
"You're a natural director," he said.
Sae-ri looked up. She had washed the grease off her face, but she hadn't put on makeup. She looked tired and real.
"I'm not directing," she said. "I'm just organizing the mess."
"That's what directing is," Yoo-jin sat next to her. "We need a slate. A schedule. We can't just rely on guerrilla stunts. We need a show."
"A drama?" Sae-ri asked.
"A counter-drama," Yoo-jin corrected. "Zenith is launching Starlight Destiny. It's perfect, sterile, and addictive. We need to launch the antidote."
"What's the concept?"
Yoo-jin looked at the trainees working in the room. The discarded, the broken, the imperfect.
"The concept is 'Glitch'," Yoo-jin said. "An anthology series. Every episode is a different story about someone who refuses to be optimized. A trainee who screams. A politician who tells the truth. A teacher who fails a student on purpose."
"Who writes it?"
"They do," Yoo-jin pointed to the trainees. "They've lived it."
Sae-ri smiled. It was a slow, dangerous smile.
"I can cast it," she said. "I know every blacklisted actor in Seoul. The ones who got too old. The ones who gained weight. The ones who refused the sponsors."
"Bring them in," Yoo-jin said. "We're building an army of the ugly."
"Boss!" So-young shouted from her corner. "You need to see this."
She pulled up a news feed on the main monitor.
It was a press conference. Mason Gold stood at a podium. He looked calm, unruffled. The Leviathan incident hadn't broken him; it had just made him pivot.
"We apologize for the security breach at the showcase," Mason said smoothly into the microphones. "It was a coordinated attack by radical anti-technology terrorists. But we will not be deterred."
He gestured to the screen behind him.
"Zenith Global is proud to announce our acquisition of the largest film studio in Asia. We are launching 'The Muse Engine'."
A graphic appeared. It showed a human brain connected to a film reel.
"No more bad scripts," Mason said. "No more box office flops. The Muse Engine uses biometric data from test audiences to generate the perfect plot in real-time. It edits the movie while you watch it, tailoring the story to your specific dopamine triggers."
The room in the basement went cold.
"He's not just making fake actors," Sae-ri whispered. "He's killing storytelling. If the movie changes to give you what you want, there's no challenge. No growth. Just endless comfort."
"It's a narcotic," Yoo-jin said. "Visual heroin."
Mason continued on screen.
"To demonstrate the power of The Muse Engine, we will be remaking a classic. A film everyone knows. And we will make it perfect."
The title appeared on the screen behind Mason.
Sae-ri gasped. She covered her mouth.
"What is it?" Yoo-jin asked.
"That's... that's my mother's movie," Sae-ri whispered. "That's the film she won her Oscar for. Before she died."
Yoo-jin looked at the screen. The Moonlit Sonata was a legendary tragedy. A gritty, painful story about a pianist losing her hearing. It was famous for its raw, heartbreaking ending where the protagonist fails.
"We have analyzed the data," Mason smiled. "And we found that 80% of audiences were unsatisfied with the tragic ending. So, The Muse Engine has fixed it. In our version, she gets her hearing back. She wins the competition. It will be the happy ending you always deserved."
Sae-ri stood up. Her chair clattered to the floor.
"He can't do that," she shook. "That ending... that failure was the point. It was about acceptance. If he changes it, he kills the meaning."
"He bought the rights," David Kim checked his tablet grimly. "Zenith acquired the catalog of the original studio this morning. He owns the IP."
Sae-ri looked like she had been slapped.
"He's rewriting history," she said, tears pricking her eyes. "He's taking her legacy and turning it into content."
Yoo-jin stood up. He walked over to Sae-ri. He didn't offer empty comfort. He offered a plan.
"We're going to stop him," Yoo-jin said.
"How?" Sae-ri wiped her eyes furiously. "He owns the copyright. If we try to remake it, he'll sue us into oblivion."
"We don't remake it," Yoo-jin said. "We steal the production."
"Steal a movie?" Min-ji asked, looking up from her bass.
"Mason is filming the remake on the Leviathan," Yoo-jin pointed to the news ticker. "It says principal photography starts next week. He's using the ship as a closed set to protect his AI actors."
"So?"
"So," Yoo-jin looked at the map of the ship they had stolen from the source code. "We know the layout. We know the security blind spots."
He turned to the group.
"We're going to infiltrate the set," Yoo-jin said. "We're going to replace his perfect AI actors with real ones. And we're going to film the real ending."
"Hijacking a live broadcast is one thing," David Kim warned. "Hijacking a movie shoot? That takes days. We'll be caught."
"Not if we're the crew," Yoo-jin said.
He looked at Mr. Oh, the driver who had smuggled them in. He looked at the trainees who knew how to paint sets. He looked at Sae-ri, who knew every line of that script by heart.
"Mason needs extras," Yoo-jin said. "He needs stagehands. He needs a catering crew. He needs the invisible people to make his machine run."
He grinned. It was the smile of a producer who just found the perfect plot twist.
"We're going to audition," Yoo-jin said. "Not as stars. But as the help."
Sae-ri looked at the screen, at Mason's smug face. She looked at Yoo-jin.
The fire in her eyes returned. Hotter this time.
"I'll play the mother," Sae-ri said softly. "I'm too young for the role, but with makeup... I can look like her."
"You won't just look like her," Yoo-jin said. "You'll be the ghost that haunts his set."
He turned to the room.
"Starforce Studios is greenlighting its first feature film," Yoo-jin announced. "Operation: Sonata. We leave for the coast in two days."
"What about the music?" Eden asked. "The movie is about a pianist."
Yoo-jin looked at Eden. The bio-android who had learned to feel through vibration.
"You're not a drummer anymore," Yoo-jin said. "Start practicing scales."
Eden looked at his hands. He nodded slowly.
"I will play the imperfection," Eden said.
The basement buzzed with new energy. It wasn't just a resistance anymore. It was a production team.
Yoo-jin walked back to his desk. He opened a new file on the server.
PROJECT: DIRECTOR'S CUT.
The game had changed. They weren't just fighting for freedom. They were fighting for the right to be sad. For the right to fail.
For the ending that hurt, because that was the only ending that mattered.
"Let's make a movie," Yoo-jin whispered.