The subway station was not a sanctuary. It was a tomb.
Yoo-jin pressed his back against the cold tile wall of the platform. His chest heaved, but he forced his breath to be shallow, silent.
"Shh," he mouthed to the group.
Next to him, David looked like he was about to vomit. He clutched his laptop to his chest, trembling so hard his teeth chattered. Sae-ri placed a hand over David's mouth, her eyes wide with terror.
Ten meters away, near the turnstiles, a figure stood still.
It was a man in a yellow security jacket. A Sleeper.
He wasn't moving. He was listening.
His head tilted at an unnatural angle, like a bird hunting for a worm. His eyes were glowing with a faint, violet ring.
Drip.
Water from a leaking pipe hit a puddle on the platform.
Snap.
The Sleeper's head jerked toward the sound instantly. He didn't walk; he blurred. He smashed his baton into the concrete where the water had fallen, shattering the tile.
"He attacks sound," Ji-soo whispered, barely audible. "Protocol Omega. They aren't soldiers anymore. They're noise-canceling algorithms."
"Great," Min-ji mouthed, gripping her bat. "We're a K-Pop group. Our job is making noise."
Yoo-jin signaled for them to move. Low. Slow.
They crept along the edge of the platform toward the dark mouth of the tunnel. The station lights flickered, casting strobe-like shadows on the three Sleepers patrolling the upper mezzanine.
They had to get to Namsan. But the streets were a slaughterhouse. The underground was their only highway.
Suddenly, a child cried.
A group of civilians was huddled behind a vending machine near the ticket booth. A mother tried to hush her toddler, but fear is loud.
Waaaaah!
The sound echoed through the tiled station like a gunshot.
The three Sleepers on the mezzanine stopped. They turned in unison.
"No," Yoo-jin hissed.
The Sleepers vaulted over the railing. They dropped twenty feet, landing in a crouch. They sprinted toward the vending machine.
"We have to go," Kai whispered. "We can't save them."
Yoo-jin looked at the tunnel. Then he looked at the mother's terrified eyes.
He remembered the tubes in Incheon. The failures. The monsters he had unleashed.
I am the Producer, Yoo-jin thought. I don't leave the audience behind.
He grabbed a glass soda bottle from a trash can.
"David," Yoo-jin whispered. "Get to the tunnel. Start the train."
"What train?"
"Find one!"
Yoo-jin stepped out from the shadows.
He threw the bottle. Not at the Sleepers.
He threw it across the tracks, hitting the third rail on the opposite platform.
SMASH.
The glass shattered.
The Sleepers froze mid-sprint. The sound was sharper, louder than the crying child.
They turned toward Yoo-jin.
"Hey!" Yoo-jin shouted.
He stood in the center of the platform, arms spread.
"You want silence?"
He clapped his hands. CLAP.
"Come and get it."
The Sleepers screamed—a digital, glitching shriek—and charged him.
"Run!" Yoo-jin yelled at the civilians. "Get out!"
The mother grabbed her child and scrambled up the stairs.
Yoo-jin didn't wait. He jumped.
He vaulted off the platform edge, landing on the gravel tracks. He sprinted into the darkness of the tunnel.
"Hyung!" Min-ji screamed, jumping after him.
The whole team followed. They ran into the black throat of the subway, the screams of the Sleepers echoing behind them.
The Maintenance Line. Between Gocheok and Sindorim.
The tunnel smelled of rust and ozone.
They ran until their lungs burned. The only light came from Eden's glowing eyes and the occasional emergency bulb.
"They're gaining," Kai panted, looking back. "They're faster than us."
"We need wheels," Yoo-jin scanned the tracks.
"There!" Sae-ri pointed.
Parked on a side rail was a maintenance cart. It wasn't a high-speed train. It was a flatbed diesel trolley used for repairing lines.
"Eden!" Yoo-jin shouted.
The android jumped onto the cart. He ripped the control panel open.
"Bypassing ignition," Eden said calmly.
VROOOOM.
The diesel engine roared to life. It was loud. Incredibly loud.
"Well, so much for stealth," David yelled, throwing his laptop onto the flatbed.
They piled onto the cart just as the first Sleeper emerged from the shadows.
The creature lunged, grabbing the back railing.
Min-ji didn't hesitate. She swung her bat like she was hitting a home run.
CRACK.
The bat connected with the Sleeper's head. He flew backward, tumbling into the dark.
"Go! Go! Go!"
Eden slammed the throttle. The cart jerked forward, sparks flying from the wheels.
They picked up speed. The wind whipped their hair. They were barreling through the underbelly of Seoul at 60 kilometers per hour.
Yoo-jin sat on a toolbox, catching his breath.
"Status," he ordered.
David opened his laptop. The screen illuminated their dirty, bloody faces.
"It's bad, Boss. The news is calling it a 'Bio-Terror Attack'. They say Starforce released a hallucinogenic gas in the Dome."
"Of course they are," Yoo-jin spat. "What about Namsan?"
David tapped a few keys.
"Namsan Tower is offline. No broadcast signal. But..."
"But what?"
"The power consumption is off the charts. It's drawing enough electricity to light up a small country. And the signal origin isn't the Ministry."
David turned the screen.
"It's Apex."
"He's at the tower?"
"He is the tower. He's jacked directly into the main transmitter."
Yoo-jin looked at the blurry map of the subway lines. They were heading toward Yongsan Station. From there, it was a straight shot uphill to Namsan.
"He's building an amplifier," Yoo-jin realized. "Protocol Omega isn't just about killing people. It's about broadcasting the Silence."
"If he broadcasts a signal that strong," Ji-soo whispered, hugging her knees, "it will fry every un-augmented brain in the city. It won't just make people quiet. It will lobotomize them."
A heavy silence fell over the cart. The rhythmic clack-clack-clack of the wheels sounded like a countdown.
"We have the key," Yoo-jin patted his pocket where the encryption code was memorized. "If we get to the transmission room, we can upload Mason's override."
"That shuts him down?" Sae-ri asked.
"It reboots him. It forces a factory reset. It erases the 'Hate'."
"And the 'Soul'?" Ji-soo asked.
Yoo-jin looked at her.
"Yes. It erases everything. He goes back to being a machine."
Ji-soo looked down at her hands. She hated Apex. He was a monster. But he was also the only other being on earth who knew what it was like to be a product.
"It has to be done," Yoo-jin said softly.
Suddenly, the cart lurched.
SCREEECH.
Sparks showered them as Eden slammed the brakes.
"Obstruction detected," Eden announced.
The cart slid to a halt.
Ahead of them, the tunnel was blocked.
Not by debris. By people.
Fifty girls in black hoodies stood on the tracks. They held flashlights, illuminating the gloom.
"Ha-eun?" Yoo-jin stood up.
The pink-haired leader stepped forward. She looked exhausted. Her hoodie was torn. But she was smiling.
"You took the scenic route, PD-nim," Ha-eun said.
"How did you get here?"
"We walked," Ha-eun pointed behind her. "And we picked up some strays."
Behind the fifty trainees, the tunnel was packed.
Hundreds of people. Fans. Civilians. Students. People holding lightsticks. People holding makeshift weapons.
They were dirty, scared, and quiet. But they were there.
"They saw the broadcast," Ha-eun said. "They saw the truth on the billboards. They didn't know where to go, so they followed the hoodies."
Yoo-jin looked at the sea of faces.
These were the people who had escaped the Dome. The people who rejected the Silence.
"They want to help," Ha-eun said. "They want to fight back."
Yoo-jin felt a lump in his throat. He had spent his whole career manipulating fandoms. Buying them. Selling them.
He had never seen a fandom mobilize for war.
"We can't take them to Namsan," Yoo-jin said. "It's a suicide mission."
"We know," a boy in the front row spoke up. He wore a torn 'Project Aegis' t-shirt. "But we can't go home. The Sleepers are everywhere."
Yoo-jin looked at the map again. Yongsan Station was just ahead. Above it, the Dragon Hill Spa and the Electronics Market. A defensible position.
"We need a fortress," Yoo-jin said. "A place to distract the army while the Core Team hits the tower."
He pointed up.
"Yongsan Electronics Market."
"The place where you buy cheap RAM?" David asked.
"The place with the loudest sound systems in Korea," Yoo-jin corrected.
He turned to Ha-eun.
"Can you lead them?"
"I'm the leader of Starforce," Ha-eun gripped her mic stand. "Just give me the setlist."
"The setlist is 'Distraction'," Yoo-jin said. "Go to the market. Rig every speaker, every TV, every boombox. Turn Yongsan into a riot of noise. Draw the Sleepers away from Namsan."
"And you?"
"We're going to climb the mountain," Yoo-jin said.
He looked at Namsan Tower in the distance, visible through a ventilation grate. The spire glowed with a sickening violet light.
"We're going to unplug the DJ."
Yongsan Station. The Surface.
They emerged from the subway into the night. The rain had started again, washing the blood from the streets.
The city was eerily quiet. No cars honked. No sirens. Just the low, humming vibration coming from the Tower.
"It's starting," Ji-soo covered her ears. "I can hear the signal. It hurts."
Yoo-jin looked at the massive hill in front of them. Namsan Park.
Usually, it was a place for couples to lock padlocks of love. Tonight, the winding road up the mountain was dark.
But the trees were moving.
Shadows shifted in the forest. Sleepers. Hundreds of them, guarding the path to the throne.
"We need a vehicle," Kai said. "Something fast. Something armored."
"No," Yoo-jin shook his head. "An engine makes noise. We need to be silent until we strike."
He looked at the cable car station suspended above the city. The wires stretched all the way to the peak.
"The cable car?" Sae-ri asked. "That's a metal box hanging on a wire. We'll be sitting ducks."
"Not if we don't turn it on," Yoo-jin said.
He ran toward the cable car ticket booth.
"Eden, can you pull the manual winch?"
"I can lift 2 tons," Eden flexed his mechanical hand.
"Good. We're going up the wire. Hand over hand."
"That's crazy," Min-ji laughed nervously. "I love it."
Yoo-jin looked back at the city one last time.
Down in the Electronics Market, lights were starting to flicker on. Ha-eun was starting her show.
"Give 'em hell, kids," Yoo-jin whispered.
He grabbed the maintenance harness.
"Let's go kill a god."