The tea cup shattered on the temple floor.
Sae-ri stared at the woman wearing her mother's face. The Clone didn't flinch at the sound. She just stood there, staring at Sae-ri with eyes that suddenly held twenty years of lost time.
"Mom?" Sae-ri whispered, her voice cracking. "Is it really you?"
"I remember the rain," the Clone said softly. "The night I left you at your grandmother's. I told you I was going to an audition."
Sae-ri collapsed to her knees, sobbing. "You never came back."
"I couldn't," the Clone looked at her hands—smooth, unblemished, artificial. "I woke up in the dark. Then there were lights. And Mason. He told me to smile."
Yoo-jin watched, a cold knot tightening in his stomach.
"It's not her, Sae-ri," Yoo-jin said gently. "It's the data. The archive memories are integrating with the AI personality matrix. It's a simulation of consciousness."
"Don't say that!" Sae-ri snapped, hugging the Clone's legs. "She remembers! She knows me!"
"I know you," the Clone stroked Sae-ri's hair. The gesture was stiff, mechanical, but tender. "You liked strawberry milk. You were afraid of thunder."
"See?" Sae-ri looked up at Yoo-jin, desperate hope in her eyes. "Only she would know that."
Yoo-jin looked at Eden. The boy was watching intently, his gray eyes calculating.
"It is a Ghost," Eden said. "The memory file is overwriting the operating system. It thinks it is the user."
"Is that... bad?" Min-ji asked.
"It is fatal," Eden said. "The hardware cannot support a full human consciousness. The processor will overheat. She will burn out in... 48 hours."
Sae-ri froze. She looked at the Clone.
"You're dying?"
"I feel warm," the Clone admitted, touching her forehead. "Like a fever."
"No," Sae-ri stood up. "We just got her back. We can't lose her again."
She grabbed Yoo-jin's jacket.
"Fix her," she begged. "You fixed Eden. You hacked the systems. Hack this."
"I can't hack biology, Sae-ri. She's a bio-print. If her brain fries..."
"Then we cool it down!" Sae-ri yelled. "We upload her somewhere else! Anything!"
Yoo-jin looked at the desperate woman he loved. Then he looked at the Clone—a technological abomination that was currently the only mother Sae-ri had.
"We need a transfer," Yoo-jin said, thinking fast. "If we can extract the memory data before the hardware fails, we can save the... the Ghost."
"Extract it to where?" David Kim asked. "A hard drive?"
"No," Yoo-jin shook his head. "A hard drive is cold storage. She needs a living system to sustain consciousness."
He looked at Eden.
Eden stepped back. "No. My capacity is full. If I absorb her data, I will overwrite myself."
"Not you," Yoo-jin said.
He pulled out his phone. He opened the Pirate App.
"The Metaverse," Yoo-jin said.
"What?"
"Zenith just launched their VR world, The Sanctuary," Yoo-jin explained. "It's a massive server farm designed to host millions of users. It has the processing power to hold a human consciousness."
"You want to upload my mother into a video game?" Sae-ri asked, horrified.
"I want to upload her into immortality," Yoo-jin said. "In the Sanctuary, she won't burn out. She can live. She can talk to you."
"But Zenith owns the Sanctuary," Min-ji pointed out. "If we put her there, Mason controls her."
"Not if we steal the Admin Key," Yoo-jin said.
"We just blew up the tower, Yoo-jin! We can't go back!"
"We don't need the tower," Yoo-jin turned to the monk who was watching silently from the corner. "Abbot. Does this temple still have the old radio equipment?"
The monk nodded. "In the bell tower. From the war."
"It's analog," Yoo-jin grinned. "Un-hackable. We're going to use it to broadcast a signal to the Zenith satellite. We're going to force an upload."
"That requires a massive power surge," David Kim noted. "We're on a mountain. There's no grid here."
Yoo-jin looked at the massive bronze bell hanging in the courtyard.
"Min-ji," he said. "Do you know how a bell works?"
"You hit it," Min-ji shrugged.
"It resonates," Yoo-jin corrected. "It creates a frequency. If Eden hits that bell at the exact resonant frequency of the satellite uplink... we can turn the whole mountain into an antenna."
"That's physics abuse," David groaned.
"It's rock and roll," Min-ji corrected.
Night fell over Gwanaksan Mountain.
The team worked feverishly. They stripped wires from the temple's old generator and wrapped them around the massive bronze bell. They connected the wires to the radio transmitter.
The Clone Mother sat on the steps, watching them. She was getting paler. Her skin felt hot to the touch.
"I'm fading," she whispered to Sae-ri. "The memories are getting fuzzy. I can't remember your father's face."
"Hold on, Mom," Sae-ri held her hand. "Just a little longer."
"Ready!" Yoo-jin shouted from the bell tower. "Eden! Center mass!"
Eden stood in front of the bell. He held a heavy wooden striker—a log suspended by ropes.
"Target acquired," Eden said. "Frequency calculation complete."
"Min-ji!" Yoo-jin yelled. "The chant!"
Min-ji stood by the microphone connected to the transmitter. She wasn't singing pop this time. She began a low, rhythmic chant, mimicking the monk's prayer but laced with the binary code So-young was feeding her through an earpiece.
0-1-0-1... Om... 1-0-1-0... Mani...
It was a digital prayer.
"Hit it!" Yoo-jin commanded.
Eden swung the log.
GONNNNNNNNG.
The sound was immense. It shook the leaves off the trees. The copper wires wrapped around the bell glowed blue.
The air around the temple shimmered. The sheer acoustic energy was ionizing the atmosphere.
"Again!"
GONNNNNNNNG.
"Signal strength 40%!" So-young yelled over the radio. "Keep going!"
The Clone Mother gasped. She arched her back.
"It hurts," she cried. "It's pulling me!"
"It's the upload!" Yoo-jin slid down the ladder. He ran to Sae-ri. "Hold her! Keep her grounded until the transfer is complete!"
Sae-ri hugged the Clone tight. "I'm here, Mom. I'm here."
"Warning," Eden shouted, preparing for another strike. "Perimeter breach!"
Suddenly, floodlights cut through the darkness.
Helicopters. Three of them. Rising from the valley floor like angry hornets.
"Zenith Air Cavalry!" David screamed, diving behind a stone lantern.
"They tracked the resonance!" Yoo-jin realized.
A voice boomed from the lead chopper.
"CEASE TRANSMISSION. SURRENDER THE ASSET."
"Ignore them!" Yoo-jin yelled. "Eden! Hit the bell!"
Eden swung.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT.
Machine gun fire erupted from the chopper. Bullets sparked off the bronze bell.
Eden flinched, shielding his face. The log splintered in his hands.
"The striker is destroyed!" Eden shouted.
"Use your fist!" Min-ji screamed.
Eden looked at his hand. He looked at the chopper.
He punched the bell.
CLANG.
The sound was metallic, harsh, and incredibly loud. Eden's knuckles split, leaking white fluid.
"60%!" So-young yelled. "We need more power!"
The choppers circled closer. A soldier leaned out, aiming a rocket launcher.
"They're going to blow the tower!" David wailed.
Yoo-jin looked around. He needed a weapon. He saw the temple's firework stash—used for festivals.
"Min-ji!" Yoo-jin pointed. "Light 'em up!"
Min-ji grabbed a torch. she lit the fuse of a massive "Dragon's Breath" firework crate.
She kicked the crate toward the edge of the cliff, aiming it at the incoming choppers.
WHOOSH-BANG-CRACKLE.
Colorful explosions filled the sky. Red, green, and gold sparks blinded the pilots.
"Evasive maneuvers!" The lead pilot banked hard to avoid a starburst shell.
"Now, Eden! Finish it!"
Eden roared. He punched the bell again. And again. And again.
GONG. GONG. GONG.
His hand was a ruin of metal and wire. But he didn't stop.
The Clone Mother screamed. Her body began to glow with violet light. Data streams visible to the naked eye poured out of her eyes, spiraling up toward the bell tower.
"Sae-ri..." the Clone whispered. Her voice was fading. "I love you."
"Mom!" Sae-ri cried, trying to hold onto the light.
But you can't hold light.
With a final, blinding flash, the violet energy shot upward, piercing the night sky like a reverse lightning bolt. It hit the satellite dish.
ZAP.
The Clone Mother's body slumped in Sae-ri's arms. It was heavy. Empty. Just meat and plastic.
"Upload Complete," So-young's voice cracked in the earpiece. "She's in the Sanctuary."
The helicopters, blinded by the fireworks and the electromagnetic surge, pulled back.
"They're retreating," David gasped. "They think we blew ourselves up."
Silence returned to the mountain.
Sae-ri held the empty shell of her mother. She rocked back and forth, weeping.
Yoo-jin walked over. He knelt beside her.
He pulled out his phone. He opened the Sanctuary app.
On the screen, a digital avatar appeared. It looked exactly like Jung Soo-jin. She was standing in a field of digital flowers.
She looked at the screen. She smiled.
"Sae-ri?" the avatar said. Her voice was clear. Perfect. "Why are you crying?"
Sae-ri looked at the phone. She touched the screen.
"Mom?"
"I'm here," the digital mother said. "It's beautiful here. There's no pain."
Sae-ri looked at Yoo-jin.
"You saved her," she whispered.
"We saved her ghost," Yoo-jin corrected gently. "But now... she lives in Mason's world."
He stood up. He looked at the retreating helicopters.
"We just gave Mason a hostage he can't kill," Yoo-jin said. "But to get her back... we have to conquer the Metaverse."
He turned to the team.
"Pack up," Yoo-jin said. "We're done with the physical world. The next war is digital."
Min-ji helped Eden wrap his crushed hand.
"A video game war?" Min-ji grinned, wiping soot from her face. "I'm good at those."
"This isn't a game," Yoo-jin looked at the phone screen, where the digital mother was waving.
"It's a jailbreak."