The basement was silent except for the hum of the servers and the tapping of So-young's keyboard.
Eden was still live-streaming. He had been talking for three hours. He described the smell of the incubation fluid. He described the pain of the vocal cord surgeries. He described how the siblings were taught to smile by watching slowed-down videos of politicians.
The viewer count on the Pirate App hovered at 12 million.
"Zenith is trying to jam the signal," So-young muttered, her fingers blurring. "They're throwing DDOS attacks at us from every node in Asia. But the decentralized network is eating it. Every user phone is acting as a shield."
"It's working," David Kim said, pacing with a coffee cup. "Zenith stock is down another 4%. The hashtag #FreeTheSiblings is trending higher than the President."
Yoo-jin sat in the corner, watching Sae-ri.
She was scrolling through her phone. Her face was pale.
"What is it?" Yoo-jin asked quietly.
Sae-ri didn't look up. "The tabloids are pivoting. They realized the 'Predator' angle didn't stick because I defended you. So now they're going after the past."
She turned the screen to him.
The article detailed the gap in her resume five years ago. The year she claimed she was 'studying abroad.'
It was a lie mixed with a half-truth. The "Missing Year" was when she was blacklisted by Dragon Entertainment. She had been hiding in a tiny apartment, depressed, eating ramen, waiting for the phone to ring. But the tabloids made isolation sound like sin.
"They're going to dig until they find something ugly," Sae-ri whispered. "Or they'll invent it."
"Let them dig," Yoo-jin said. "We control the narrative now."
"Do we?" Sae-ri stood up, her voice trembling. "Yoo-jin, my mother's suicide note... the police report said it was depression. But the rumors... they said she did it because of a debt. A gambling debt."
Yoo-jin froze. He remembered the files from Dragon Entertainment.
"It wasn't gambling," Yoo-jin said. "It was a slave contract penalty. She tried to leave her agency, and they hit her with a breach fee she couldn't pay."
"I know that," Sae-ri's eyes filled with tears. "But the public doesn't. And now Zenith is leaking fake financial records saying she owed money to... unsavory people."
She pointed to a new comment thread.
"They're defiling her memory to hurt me," Sae-ri choked out. "I can take the hits, Yoo-jin. But not her. Not mom."
Yoo-jin stood up. The phantom itch in his eyes flared. He wanted to destroy something.
"We need to kill the rumor," Yoo-jin said. "Not with a denial. With evidence."
"The original contract is gone," David Kim said. "Dragon shredded everything before the raid."
"Not everything," Yoo-jin looked at Eden.
Eden stopped talking to the camera. He looked at Yoo-jin.
"The Leviathan," Eden said. "Mother stores everything. Every contract. Every blackmail file from every agency Zenith acquired. Dragon. Titan. All of it."
"The Archive," Yoo-jin realized. "Mason Gold didn't just buy the agencies for their talent. He bought their dirt."
"We need to hack the ship again?" Min-ji groaned from the couch. "We just left!"
"No," Yoo-jin said. "We don't need to hack it. We need to subpoena it."
He looked at David.
"You said you knew a prosecutor. The one who hates Zenith."
"Prosecutor Cha?" David grimaced. "She's a bulldog. She tried to indict Mason twice. But she needs probable cause to get a warrant for an international vessel."
"Eden's testimony is probable cause," Yoo-jin pointed to the livestream. "He just confessed to being a victim of human trafficking on that ship."
David's eyes widened. "If Cha gets a warrant... she can raid the Leviathan. Legally."
"Get her on the phone," Yoo-jin ordered. "We're going to turn this scandal into a federal investigation."
Prosecutor Cha arrived at the basement an hour later.
She was short, sharp, and wore a trench coat that looked slept in. She didn't blink when she saw the ragtag group of idols.
"You're the ghosts," Cha said, lighting a cigarette. "David says you have a smoking gun."
"We have the bullet," Yoo-jin pointed to Eden. "Subject One. Born in a tube. Trained on the ship."
Cha looked at Eden. She walked around him, inspecting him like a car.
"Can you prove it in court?" Cha asked. "Mason will claim you're just a kid with a sob story and a good script."
Eden rolled up his sleeve. He showed the barcode tattooed on his wrist.
ZENITH-BIO-001.
"It is not ink," Eden said. "It is embedded in the dermis. Scan it."
Cha pulled out her phone. She scanned the code. It pinged a Zenith inventory server. ASSET: VOCAL UNIT 1.
Cha smiled. It was a terrifying smile.
"That's kidnapping," she exhaled smoke. "Labor violations. Human rights abuse. I can get a warrant for this. I can get the Coast Guard."
"Do it fast," Yoo-jin said. "Mason is already moving the ship. He'll be in international waters by dawn."
"I'll have a team there in two hours," Cha pulled out her radio. "But I need you with me."
"Me?"
"You're the whistleblower," Cha said. "And you know the layout. If we raid that ship, I need someone to point me to the server room before they wipe the drives."
Yoo-jin looked at Sae-ri.
"Go," Sae-ri nodded. "Find my mother's contract. Clear her name."
"I'll be back," Yoo-jin promised.
The raid on the Leviathan was not subtle.
Three Coast Guard cutters swarmed the massive black ship. Helicopters circled overhead, spotlights cutting through the rain.
"This is the Republic of Korea Prosecutor's Office!" Cha's voice boomed over the loudspeaker. "Heave to and prepare to be boarded!"
Yoo-jin stood on the deck of the lead cutter, wearing a windbreaker. The salt spray stung his face.
The Leviathan didn't slow down.
"They're running for the maritime border," the captain yelled. "They're ignoring the order!"
"Disable their rudder!" Cha ordered.
The cutter fired a warning shot across the bow. Then, a specialized drone flew from the cutter, attaching itself to the Leviathan's stern. It emitted an EMP pulse.
The massive ship shuddered. The lights flickered. The engines died.
"Boarding team, go!"
Zodiac boats sped toward the hull. Ladders were thrown up.
Yoo-jin climbed up the side of the floating city for the second time in a week. This time, he had the law behind him.
They swarmed the deck. Zenith mercenaries stood with weapons raised, but they didn't fire. They were contractors, not martyrs. When they saw the badges, they dropped their guns.
"Secure the Bridge!" Cha yelled. "I want Mason Gold in cuffs!"
Yoo-jin didn't go to the Bridge. He grabbed a team of forensic IT specialists.
"The Archive is on Deck 4," Yoo-jin led them down the corridors. "The server room is liquid-cooled. Look for the blue pipes."
They found the room. The door was locked.
"Breach it!"
A battering ram smashed the door.
Inside, the room was freezing. Rows of servers hummed with the stolen secrets of the K-Pop industry.
But there was someone else in the room.
Director Alice stood by the main console. She held a large magnet.
"You're too late," Alice said calmly. She slammed the magnet onto the hard drives.
CRUNCH. The sound of data dying.
"Stop her!" Yoo-jin tackled Alice.
He pinned her to the ground. The magnet skittered away.
"It's over, Manager Han," Alice laughed. "The corruption protocol is active. The drives are wiping themselves."
On the screens, progress bars were racing. DELETING... 80%... 90%...
"Stop the wipe!" Yoo-jin shouted at the IT team.
"We can't! It's hardware-level!"
Yoo-jin looked at the console. He saw a file name flash on the screen before vanishing.
JUNG_SOO_JIN_CONTRACT_VOID.
Sae-ri's mother. Gone.
"No," Yoo-jin slammed his fist on the keyboard.
He looked around the room. He saw a separate, isolated terminal in the corner. It wasn't connected to the main bank. It looked older. Dusty.
"What is that?" Yoo-jin dragged Alice up. "What is that terminal?"
Alice stopped laughing. She looked genuinely scared.
"Don't touch that," she whispered. "That's not the Archive. That's the Source."
Yoo-jin shoved her to the officers. He ran to the dusty terminal.
He turned it on. The screen flickered green. No fancy Zenith UI. Just raw code.
And a folder labeled: ORIGIN.
He opened it.
It wasn't contracts. It wasn't financial data.
It was videos.
Yoo-jin clicked the first one.
A grainy video from twenty years ago. A laboratory. A young man lying on a table. He looked exactly like Yoo-jin.
But he was alive. And he was talking to a doctor.
"I don't want to be a star," the Original Yoo-jin said on the screen. "I just want to make music."
"You will be more than a star," the doctor replied. It was a young Mason Gold. "You will be the template."
Yoo-jin watched in horror. This wasn't just his origin story. It was the proof that Mason Gold had been planning the bio-idol program for decades.
And in the background of the video... sitting on a chair... was Sae-ri's mother.
She was pregnant.
"The Subject requires a maternal bond for emotional baseline," Mason's voice narrated. "We are using the actress Jung Soo-jin as the donor."
Yoo-jin's heart stopped.
Sae-ri wasn't just the daughter of an actress.
She was part of the experiment. Her mother hadn't committed suicide over debt. She had tried to escape because they were using her unborn child's genetic data to stabilize the clones.
Sae-ri and Yoo-jin weren't just partners. They were linked by the same crime.
"Secure this drive," Yoo-jin whispered, his hand shaking. "Do not let it get wiped."
He pulled the drive out.
This wasn't just dirt. This was a nuke.
Back on the deck, Mason Gold was being led away in handcuffs. He looked annoyed, but not defeated.
"You have nothing, Cha," Mason sneered. "My lawyers will have me out by lunch. The data is gone."
Yoo-jin walked up to him. He held up the dusty drive.
Mason's face went white.
"You kept a backup," Yoo-jin said softly. "Sentimental?"
"Give that to me," Mason lunged. The officers held him back.
"This drive proves everything," Yoo-jin said. "The cloning. The human trafficking. And the murder of Jung Soo-jin."
Mason stopped struggling. He looked at Yoo-jin with pure hatred.
"She wasn't murdered," Mason spat. "She was a failed prototype. Just like you."
Yoo-jin didn't punch him. He didn't need to.
"Take him away," Yoo-jin said.
As the helicopter lifted Mason off the deck, Yoo-jin looked out at the ocean. The sun was rising.
He had won. But he felt sick.
He had to go back to the basement. He had to tell Sae-ri the truth. That her mother didn't die in shame. She died protecting her.
And that the man Sae-ri loved... the clone... was built on the foundation of her mother's tragedy.
Yoo-jin gripped the railing.
The scandal was over. But the trauma was just beginning.