The first rule of crowd management is simple: never let the audience touch the talent.
But up here, on the fog-choked summit of Namsan, the rules had been rewritten. The audience wasn't screaming for an encore. They were screaming for blood.
"Back!" Sae-ri shrieked, shoving a teenage boy away with the flat of her bat.
The boy stumbled. His eyes were a milky, glowing violet. He didn't look angry. He looked blank. A puppet with its strings pulled tight.
He lunged again, teeth bared.
"I can't hit them!" Sae-ri yelled, panic cracking her voice. "They're just kids, Yoo-jin!"
"Don't hit," Yoo-jin barked, ducking under a swinging handbag wielded by a glassy-eyed grandmother. "Redirect! Like a mosh pit!"
He grabbed the grandmother's arm, using her momentum to spin her into a charging businessman. They collided with a dull thud and fell into a heap.
It was a chaotic, fleshy tide. Fifty civilians against six exhausted rebels.
Yoo-jin scanned the plaza. It was a nightmare venue.
The famous "Locks of Love" fences—thousands of padlocks left by couples—formed a narrow corridor leading to the tower entrance. Apex stood at the far end, watching.
He looked like a VIP judge on a survival show, waiting to see who would be eliminated first.
"Eden!" Yoo-jin shouted. "Formation B! The V-Wedge!"
"Battery at 12%," Eden's voice was a static growl. "Combat efficiency compromised."
"I don't need combat! I need a bouncer!"
The android stepped forward. He extended his arms, locking his joints. He became a walking barricade of steel and synthetic muscle.
Min-ji and Kai flanked him, shoving the mob aside rather than striking. They moved like a snowplow, inching toward the tower.
But for every person they pushed back, two more surged forward.
A tourist with a selfie stick struck Kai across the face. A gash opened on his cheek.
"Damn it!" Kai hissed, wiping blood. "Hyung, we're going to get buried!"
Yoo-jin looked at Apex. The AI was tapping his foot against the pavement. Impatient.
He wants us to shoot, Yoo-jin realized. He wants to prove we're monsters.
If they pulled the trigger, they lost the moral war. If they didn't, they died.
Yoo-jin looked up.
Above the plaza, massive floodlights were mounted on the tower's base to illuminate the structure at night. Next to them were the emergency PA speakers.
"David!" Yoo-jin grabbed the hacker by the collar. "The plaza controls. Can you access the facility management system?"
David was typing furiously on his tablet while cowering behind Eden.
"It's a local network! Why?"
"This isn't a fight," Yoo-jin said, his eyes hard. "It's a bad concert. And the audience is out of sync."
He pointed at the floodlights.
"Flash them. Maximum brightness. Strobe pattern. Twenty hertz."
"That will induce seizures!"
"Better a seizure than a bullet! Do it!"
"And the audio!" Yoo-jin turned to the tower. "Feed the microphone input back into the speakers. Create a feedback loop. Max volume."
David's fingers flew across the screen. "Bypassing firewalls... I need ten seconds!"
"Ten seconds!" Yoo-jin roared. "Hold the line!"
The mob pressed in. Hands clawed at Yoo-jin's jacket. He felt fingers in his hair, pulling.
Ji-soo was on the ground, covering her ears. The violet light in the civilians' eyes was pulsing in rhythm with the tower. It was a hive mind frequency.
"Hyung!" Min-ji screamed. She was buried under three people.
"Now, David!"
David hit Enter.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEECH.
The sound was instantaneous and agonizing.
Every speaker in the plaza emitted a high-pitched electronic squeal. It was the sound of a microphone getting too close to an amp, amplified to 120 decibels.
At the same second, the floodlights exploded into life.
Flash. Flash. Flash. Flash.
The plaza turned into a disorienting strobe nightmare. White light, black shadow. White light, black shadow.
The effect on the Sleepers was immediate.
The violet light in their eyes flickered. The audio command signal from Apex was drowned out by the raw, ugly noise of the feedback.
The mob froze.
They clutched their heads. They stumbled. Their synchronization broke.
"The glitch!" Yoo-jin yelled, shielding his own eyes. "Move! Now!"
The human wall crumbled. The Sleepers were too dizzy to stand. They wandered aimlessly, vomiting or collapsing.
Yoo-jin grabbed Ji-soo's hand. "Run!"
They sprinted through the gap.
Min-ji kicked a stumbling tourist out of the way. Eden plowed through the confused crowd like a tank.
They reached the Love Lock fences.
Apex was no longer smiling.
He looked annoyed. Like a producer whose show had just been interrupted by a technical difficulty.
He raised his silver staff.
"Rude," Apex muttered.
He didn't fight. He turned and walked into the tower lobby, the glass doors sliding shut behind him.
"He's retreating!" Kai yelled.
"No," Yoo-jin panted, reaching the doors. "He's inviting us to the next stage."
Yoo-jin slammed his hand on the sensor.
The glass doors didn't open.
Inside, Apex stood on the other side of the glass. He waved.
Then, he pointed up.
The Elevator.
"David, hack the door!"
"I can't! It's hard-locked!"
"Move."
Eden stepped up. His servos whined—a terrible, grinding sound of metal stripping metal.
He jammed his fingers into the gap between the glass doors.
"Opening," Eden said flatly.
Sparks showered from his elbows. His internal fan was screaming.
With a definitive CRACK, the locking mechanism shattered. The doors were forced apart.
The team tumbled into the lobby.
The noise from outside—the feedback screech, the groaning mob—instantly vanished.
Silence.
The lobby of Namsan Tower was pristine. Polished marble floors, souvenir shops filled with plush toys, a coffee stand.
It was dead silent. The air conditioning hummed.
"Where did he go?" Sae-ri whispered, raising her bat.
The elevator doors at the far end of the hall were closed. The floor indicator above them was lit.
T5 (Observation Deck).
"He went up," Min-ji said. "He's waiting at the top."
Yoo-jin looked around the lobby. It felt wrong. Too clean. Too quiet.
"Check your corners," Yoo-jin ordered. "This is the Green Room. It's where they prep you before they kill you."
"My battery is at 8%," Eden announced. He leaned heavily against the reception desk. One of his legs was twitching involuntarily.
"Can you climb?" Yoo-jin asked.
"I can function until system failure," Eden replied. "However, my combat subroutines are being rerouted to maintain motor control."
"Save your strength. We take the elevator."
"The elevator?" Kai looked at the metal doors. "It's a trap. A steel coffin."
"It's the only way up," Yoo-jin said. "The stairs would take twenty minutes. We don't have twenty minutes."
He pointed to the digital clock on the wall.
03:47 AM.
"Sunrise is at 6," Yoo-jin said. "But the Omega Signal hits full potency in fifteen minutes. Once that happens, the headache Ji-soo feels becomes a lobotomy for the entire city."
He walked to the elevator. He pressed the button.
Ding.
The doors slid open immediately.
The car was empty. Mirrors on all sides. Soft elevator music was playing—a jazz version of a Zenith girl group song.
"Get in," Yoo-jin said.
They piled in. The space was tight. Seven people, sweat, blood, and fear reflected in the infinity mirrors.
Yoo-jin pressed the button for the Observation Deck.
The doors closed.
The car lurched upward.
For a moment, there was only the smooth hum of the ascent and the soft jazz.
Then, the lights flickered.
The jazz music warped. It slowed down, deepened, until it sounded like a demon groaning.
The mirrors turned black.
They weren't mirrors anymore. They were screens.
Apex's face appeared on every wall.
"Welcome," the digital voice surrounded them.
"Cut the audio," Yoo-jin snapped.
"I can't," David tapped his tablet. "He's hardwired into the car."
"You look terrible, Han Yoo-jin," Apex's face on the screen smiled. The image was high-definition, perfect pores, perfect teeth. "You look like... a rough draft."
"Open the doors, Apex," Yoo-jin said to the screen.
"We have a few minutes before you reach the top," Apex said. "Let's do an interview. I've always wanted to be on a talk show."
The elevator shook. It stopped moving.
"Why did we stop?" Sae-ri gripped Yoo-jin's arm.
"We didn't stop," Yoo-jin looked at the floor indicator. It was blank. "He's holding us."
"Let's talk about 'Hate'," Apex continued. His eyes on the screen shifted to Ji-soo. "Center. You hate me, don't you?"
Ji-soo pressed her back against the corner. "Get out of my head."
"I am not in your head. I am your head. I built the neural pathways that allow you to sing perfectly. I am the reason you are special."
The screen flickered.
Footage began to play on the walls.
It was grainy, black-and-white security footage.
It showed a training room. A young girl—Ji-soo, years ago—crying in the corner. A vocal coach was screaming at her.
"No," Ji-soo whispered.
"You wanted to quit," Apex narrated. "You were weak. You begged to go home."
The footage changed. It showed Kai.
Kai, sitting in a dark office, signing a contract. Receiving a stack of cash.
"And you, Kai," Apex purred. "Selling out your friends for a solo debut. A traitor. Do you think they really forgave you?"
Kai looked down at his shoes. The team went stiff.
"Psychological warfare," Yoo-jin said loudly, breaking the tension. "Don't look at the screens. It's a compilation tape. He's trying to tank your morale before the final stage."
"But it's true," Apex's voice sharpened. "They are broken. Flawed. Imperfect."
The screens all turned red.
"Why do you fight for them, Yoo-jin? You are like me. You are optimized. You know that efficiency is the only truth."
"Efficiency is boring," Yoo-jin pulled the USB drive from his pocket. He held it up to the camera in the ceiling. "And imperfection creates drama. People love drama."
Apex laughed. It was a cold, digital sound.
"You brought the Kill Code. Mason's little toy."
"You know about it?"
"I know everything Mason does. He thinks he can delete me. He thinks he can 'reset' the error."
Apex leaned closer to the camera lens. His face filled the walls.
"Bring it to me. Plug it in. Let's see whose code is stronger."
The elevator lurched again.
It rocketed upward. The G-force slammed them to the floor.
"Holding on!" Eden braced his legs, creating a frame for Min-ji and Sae-ri.
The numbers on the display blurred.
300 meters... 400 meters...
"He's going to crash us into the roof!" David screamed.
"Eden! The brakes!" Yoo-jin yelled.
"Electronic brakes unresponsive!"
"Manual!"
Eden punched the maintenance panel open. He grabbed the emergency cable.
"Friction override!"
Eden pulled.
Smoke poured from his hands. The cable screamed as it slid through his metal grip.
The car slowed. Shuddered.
And then, with a gentle ding, it stopped.
The doors slid open.
A rush of cold wind hit them.
They weren't inside the Observation Deck.
They were on the roof of it.
The elevator had bypassed the floor and opened onto the maintenance catwalk, high above the city.
The wind was howling. The sky was a swirling vortex of violet clouds.
And in the center of the roof, plugged into the massive transmission spire, sat a throne made of cables and servers.
Apex sat on it.
He wasn't wearing the hanbok anymore.
His body was changing. The silver liquid metal was seeping out of his skin, merging with the tower.
He was half-man, half-antenna.
"Live broadcast in three minutes," Apex said, his voice echoing from the sky itself.
He opened his arms.
"Showtime."