Stable 9 smelled of manure and rubbing alcohol.
On a stainless steel table meant for thoroughbred surgeries, Eden lay motionless. His chest cavity was open. Under the synthetic skin, wires glowed with a faint, dying pulse.
Dr. Hwang, a disgraced surgeon with shaky hands and a cigarette dangling from his lips, poked a probe into Eden's heart.
"This isn't a racehorse," Hwang muttered, squinting through smoke. "This is military hardware wrapped in K-Pop skin. Where did you steal this, Han? Area 51?"
"Just fix the power coupling," Yoo-jin said, leaning over the table. "He's stuck in a boot loop."
"I can jump-start the battery," Hwang tapped ash onto the floor. "But the neural net? That's software. I don't do code. If his brain is wiped, he wakes up as a vegetable. A very strong, expensive vegetable."
Min-ji stood by Eden's head, stroking his hair. She looked like she was about to punch the doctor or cry. Maybe both.
"He's not a vegetable," Min-ji hissed. "He's dreaming. I can see his REM movement."
"That's just a servo twitch," Hwang dismissed her. He clamped a jumper cable to Eden's exposed ribcage. "Clear."
ZAP.
Eden's body arched. Sparks flew.
The fan in his chest whirred louder. WHIRRRRR-CLICK.
His eyes snapped open.
They weren't gray. They weren't violet.
They were blue. The bright, electric blue of the System Interface.
Yoo-jin froze. He hadn't seen that color since he lost his own powers.
"Eden?" Yoo-jin whispered.
Eden sat up slowly. The motion was robotic, precise. He looked at Yoo-jin. He didn't blink.
"Status Report," Eden's voice was synthesized, layered with static. "System Reboot Complete. User Identity: Han Yoo-jin. Threat Level: Critical."
"Eden, it's me," Min-ji grabbed his hand. "It's Min-ji. Your... sister."
Eden looked at her hand. He tilted his head.
"Scanning..." A beam of blue light shot from his eyes, sweeping over Min-ji. "Subject: Kim Min-ji. Role: Musician. Status: Emotional Compromise detected."
He pulled his hand away.
"Affection protocols are offline," Eden stated. "Memory core corrupted. Only factory settings remain."
Min-ji recoiled as if burned. "Factory settings? You mean... you don't remember us?"
"I have data on you," Eden said coldły. "Han Yoo-jin: Handler. Kim Min-ji: Asset. Jung Sae-ri: Donor."
Sae-ri, who had been sitting in the corner with the Clone Mother, looked up.
"Donor?" Sae-ri whispered.
"Correct," Eden looked at her. "Your genetic material was utilized for Model 734 stabilization. Thank you for your contribution."
It was a nightmare. The boy who had learned to laugh, to drum, to rebel—he was gone. Replaced by the machine Mason Gold had designed.
"Fix him back!" Min-ji shouted at Dr. Hwang. "Unplug him and plug him back in!"
"I can't fix deleted files!" Hwang threw up his hands. "He's reformatted! The data is gone!"
Yoo-jin looked at Eden. The blue eyes stared back, devoid of humanity.
"The data isn't gone," Yoo-jin realized. "It's just locked. The Muse Engine patch... it didn't overwrite him. It partitioned him. The 'Eden' we know is trapped behind a firewall."
"How do we break the firewall?" David Kim asked from the doorway, keeping a safe distance from the bio-weapon.
"We don't hack it," Yoo-jin said. "We trigger it."
He grabbed Min-ji's shoulder.
"Music," Yoo-jin said. "Music was the first thing that woke him up in the Incubator. It bypassed his logic centers."
"I don't have my guitar," Min-ji said, tears spilling over. "I broke it on the scooter kid."
"Use your voice," Yoo-jin ordered. "Sing Riot."
Min-ji swallowed hard. She looked at the machine wearing her brother's face.
She started to sing. It was shaky, off-key.
"They told us to be quiet... they told us to behave..."
Eden watched her.
"Audio input detected," Eden analyzed. "Decibel level: 60. Pitch: Irregular. Recommendation: Vocal training."
Min-ji flinched, but she kept singing. Louder. Angrier.
"But we are the noise... we are the wave..."
She screamed the chorus. She poured all her fear and rage into the melody.
Eden's blue eyes flickered.
A twitch in his cheek. A glitch in his perfect posture.
"Error," Eden whispered. "Logic conflict. Why does this frequency cause... heat in the chest unit?"
He clutched his chest.
"It's not heat," Min-ji stepped closer, grabbing his face with both hands. "It's feelings, you idiot! Remember!"
Eden trembled. The blue light in his eyes wavered, turning a murky gray for a split second before snapping back to blue.
"System unstable," Eden pushed her away gently. "I require maintenance. I require... a target."
He stood up off the table. He looked around the stable.
"Where is the enemy?" Eden asked. "Combat protocols are active."
"We are safe here," Yoo-jin said.
"Negative," Eden pointed to the stable door. "Proximity sensors detect multiple hostile units approaching. Distance: 200 meters."
Dr. Hwang dropped his cigarette. "Hostiles? Who followed you?"
"We weren't followed," Yoo-jin realized. "We were baited."
He looked at his phone. No signal.
"They tracked the van," David Kim said, panic rising. "The GPS on the rental. We didn't disable it."
Outside, headlights cut through the darkness of the racecourse. Black SUVs.
"It's the 707th," Sae-ri stood up, pulling the Clone Mother with her. "They found us."
"We can't fight the military," David whimpered. "Not with a half-broken robot and a horse doctor."
Yoo-jin looked at the table. He saw a syringe of horse tranquilizer. He saw a scalpel.
"We don't fight," Yoo-jin said. "We race."
"What?"
Yoo-jin pointed to the back of the stable. Through the wooden slats, he could see the racetrack. And in the adjacent stalls... actual racehorses.
"Hwang," Yoo-jin asked. "Are those horses fast?"
"They're champions," Hwang stammered. "But they're not saddled!"
"We don't need saddles," Yoo-jin grabbed a bridle. "We need speed."
He turned to the team.
"Ride," Yoo-jin ordered.
The scene was pure chaos.
Four racehorses burst out of Stable 9, galloping onto the dirt track under the moonlight.
Yoo-jin rode the lead horse, a massive black stallion. He held the reins with one hand and clutched Sae-ri's waist with the other—she was riding behind him, holding on for dear life.
Min-ji rode the second horse, with Eden sitting behind her like a stiff, heavy backpack.
David Kim and Mr. Oh shared the third horse, screaming.
The Clone Mother sat alone on the fourth horse. Surprisingly, she rode with perfect elegance.
"Muscle memory!" Sae-ri shouted over the wind. "She filmed a historical drama! She knows how to ride!"
Behind them, the SUVs smashed through the stable fence. Soldiers leaned out of the windows, rifles raised.
"Do not fire!" The Commander's voice boomed over a loudspeaker. "The assets are fragile!"
They chased them down the straightaway. The horses were fast—40 miles per hour—but the SUVs were faster.
"They're gaining!" David screamed.
"Eden!" Yoo-jin shouted back. "Target practice!"
"Directives unclear," Eden's synthesized voice replied. "I have no weapon."
"Use the environment!"
Eden scanned the track. He saw the starting gate—a massive metal structure on wheels—looming ahead on the side of the track.
"Calculating trajectory," Eden said.
As they galloped past the starting gate, Eden reached out. He didn't just touch it. He grabbed the metal frame.
With a roar of hydraulic effort, he ripped a loose steel beam from the structure.
He didn't throw it at the cars. He threw it at the floodlight tower next to the track.
CLANG.
The beam sheared through the support leg of the tower.
The massive tower groaned. It tipped.
"Timber!" Min-ji yelled.
The tower crashed down across the track, directly behind them.
BOOM.
Sparks showered the dirt. The SUVs slammed on their brakes, swerving to avoid the wreckage. Two cars spun out, crashing into the infield.
The barrier of steel and electricity blocked the pursuit.
"Objective complete," Eden stated flatly. "Obstacle created."
They galloped into the darkness, leaving the military behind in a cloud of dust.
They abandoned the exhausted horses three miles later in a dense forest park.
"I'm sorry," Yoo-jin whispered to the stallion, patting its sweaty neck. "Go home."
The team huddled under a bridge. They were breathless, muddy, and alive.
"Where do we go now?" Luna asked, shivering. "We burned the boat. We burned the van. We can't go back to the city."
Yoo-jin looked at the map on his phone. They were near the foot of Gwanaksan Mountain.
"There's a temple," Sae-ri said suddenly. "Yeonju-am. Up on the peak."
"A temple?"
"My mother..." Sae-ri looked at the Clone, who was standing blankly by a tree. "My mother used to go there when the industry got too loud. The monks don't watch TV. They don't ask questions."
"It's a sanctuary," Yoo-jin nodded. "We go up."
The hike was brutal. An hour of steep stone stairs in the dark.
When they reached the temple gates, the sun was rising. The morning mist clung to the mountain peaks. It was silent. Peaceful.
A monk was sweeping the courtyard. He looked up as the group of ragged fugitives stumbled in.
He didn't look surprised. He looked at Sae-ri.
"You have her eyes," the monk said softly.
He looked at the Clone Mother standing behind Sae-ri.
The monk dropped his broom.
"Soo-jin?" he whispered.
The Clone tilted her head. "Scene 5. The Monk enters. Is this a flashback?"
The monk looked at Yoo-jin. He saw the desperation. He saw the tech. He saw the tragedy.
"Come inside," the monk said. "The tea is hot."
Inside the main hall, surrounded by golden statues of Buddha, the team collapsed.
Yoo-jin sat by the door, keeping watch. But his eyes were on Eden.
Eden sat in lotus position, mimicking the statues. His blue eyes scanned the room, analyzing the structural integrity of the wood beams.
"He's still a machine," Min-ji whispered, sitting next to Yoo-jin. "The song didn't work."
"It worked a little," Yoo-jin said. "We saw a glitch. That means the old Eden is still in there."
"How do we get him out?"
"We need a bigger shock," Yoo-jin said. "Singing isn't enough. We need to confront him with his core directive."
"What's his core directive? Combat?"
"No," Yoo-jin looked at Sae-ri, who was feeding rice porridge to the Clone Mother.
"His core directive was 'Stabilization'," Yoo-jin said. "He was built to keep me sane. To keep the clones from breaking down."
He stood up. He walked over to Eden.
"Eden," Yoo-jin said.
"Yes, Handler."
"I am unstable," Yoo-jin lied. "My emotional baseline is critical. I am in distress."
Eden's head snapped up. The blue sensors focused on Yoo-jin's face.
"Scanning..." Eden said. "Heart rate elevated. Cortisol high. Diagnosis: Trauma."
"Fix me," Yoo-jin ordered.
Eden hesitated. The factory programming told him to administer a sedative. But the deep, buried code—the code learned from months of friendship—suggested something else.
Eden reached out. His hand trembled.
He didn't reach for a medical kit.
He reached for Yoo-jin's hand.
He squeezed it.
"It will be okay," Eden said. The voice wasn't synthesized. It was soft. Human.
Then, his eyes flickered. Blue to Gray.
"Yoo-jin?" Eden blinked. "Why are we in a temple? And why do I smell like horse?"
Min-ji burst into tears. She tackled him in a hug.
"You're back!" she sobbed.
"I was gone?" Eden looked confused. "I dreamt I was a calculator."
Yoo-jin let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
"Welcome back," Yoo-jin said.
But the moment of peace was broken by Sae-ri.
"Yoo-jin," she called out from the other side of the room. Her voice was shaking.
Yoo-jin ran over.
The Clone Mother was holding a cup of tea. But she wasn't drinking it. She was staring at a calligraphy scroll on the wall.
"I wrote that," the Clone said.
Sae-ri froze. "What?"
"That poem," the Clone pointed. "I wrote it. For the Abbot. Twenty years ago."
She turned to look at Sae-ri. The vacancy in her eyes was receding, replaced by a terrifying clarity.
"Sae-ri," the Clone said. "You're all grown up."
It wasn't a glitch. The memories weren't just data anymore.
The ghost was waking up.