The VIP section was a death trap.
The roof of Namsan Tower was never meant to hold people. It was a forest of antennas, satellite dishes, and high-voltage cables, all screaming in the gale-force wind.
Yoo-jin shielded his eyes against the violet storm. The air tasted like ozone and copper.
"Terrible venue," he shouted over the wind. "No safety rails, bad lighting, and the acoustics are a mess."
"The acoustics are perfect," Apex's voice didn't come from a throat. It vibrated from the steel grating beneath their feet.
Apex sat on his throne of wires in the center of the spire. He looked like a fallen idol fused with a mixing console.
Silver fluid pumped through translucent tubes connecting his spine to the transmitter. He was uploading himself to the sky.
"The audience is waiting, Producer Han," Apex smiled. "We are live in Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing. Three hundred million viewers."
"Cut the feed," Yoo-jin ordered David.
David was huddled behind a generator box, tapping furiously on his cracked tablet.
"I can't! He's using the entire city's grid as a signal booster. If I cut the power, I crash the hospitals, the traffic lights, everything."
"Then we change the program," Yoo-jin adjusted his earpiece. "Starforce, listen up. This isn't a boss fight. It's a stage invasion."
Min-ji gripped her bat. Her knuckles were white.
"He's glowing, Hyung. Literally."
Apex raised a hand. The silver liquid around him rippled.
"Let's start with the opening number," Apex said. "I call this track 'Insecurity'."
He didn't fire a laser. He snapped his fingers.
A directed sonic pulse hit them.
It wasn't noise. It was a frequency perfectly tuned to the human amygdala.
Kai fell first.
He dropped to his knees, clutching his chest. His eyes went wide, seeing things that weren't there.
"No... I didn't mean to..." Kai gasped, clawing at the grating. "Don't look at me... I'm sorry..."
"What's hitting him?" Sae-ri yelled, stumbling as vertigo washed over her.
"Bio-feedback," Yoo-jin analyzed the attack instantly. "He's playing a remix of Kai's worst memories. He's targeting our trauma centers."
Ji-soo screamed. She curled into a ball, covering her ears.
"Get out!" she shrieked at the empty air. "Get out of my head!"
Apex conducted the invisible orchestra with lazy fingers.
"The Center is weak," Apex narrated, his voice booming like a narrator in a documentary. "The Dancer is a traitor. The Leader is a fraud. You are a group of rejects."
Yoo-jin felt the signal hit him.
It was a cold spike in his brain.
Suddenly, he wasn't on the roof. He was back in the lab. He was floating in a tank. He saw Mason Gold looking at him with disgust.
Failure, the memory-Mason said. Product recalled.
Yoo-jin gritted his teeth. He bit his tongue until he tasted iron.
The pain snapped him back to reality.
"Bad script!" Yoo-jin roared.
He walked forward, fighting the invisible pressure of the sound waves.
"Kai! Look at me! It's just a prerecorded track! It's lip-syncing!"
Kai looked up, tears streaming down his face. "Hyung... I can hear them booing..."
"They aren't booing! That's the wind! Stick to the choreography!"
Yoo-jin grabbed Kai by the collar and hauled him up.
"Min-ji! Distraction play! Smash something expensive!"
Min-ji shook her head, fighting the dizziness. She saw a transformer box sparking near Apex's throne.
"I hate this song," she grunted.
She wound up and threw her bat.
It spiraled through the air and smashed into the transformer.
CRACK-ZZAAP.
Sparks showered Apex. The sonic pressure wave faltered for a second.
"David! The port!" Yoo-jin pointed to the main console at the base of Apex's throne.
"I see it!"
David scrambled across the wet metal. He jammed a cable into the port.
"I'm in! I'm accessing the root directory!"
Apex looked annoyed. He flicked his wrist.
A thick, silver cable whipped out from his throne like a tentacle. It slashed the air where David had been a second ago.
Eden moved.
The android intercepted the cable, catching it with one hand.
HISSS.
The cable burned into Eden's synthetic palm. Smoke rose from his grip.
"Access denied," Eden deadpanned.
"David, the USB!" Yoo-jin shouted, pulling the drive Mason gave him. "Load the Kill Code!"
David snatched the drive. He plugged it into his tablet, bridging the connection to the tower.
He typed the command.
ERROR.
David's face went pale.
"Hyung."
"Did it work? Is he deleting?"
"It... it's asking for confirmation," David stammered. "But it's not a password."
"What is it?"
"It's a biometric lock. It requires a live neural map of the 'Source Code'."
Yoo-jin froze.
The wind howled around them.
"The Source Code," Yoo-jin repeated.
"Subject 734," David looked up, terrified. "The virus... it isn't just a file. It's a system restore. To wipe Apex, it needs to overwrite the operating system with the original factory settings."
Yoo-jin looked at the USB drive.
Mason Gold hadn't just given him a weapon. He had given him a suicide vest.
To kill the monster, the prototype had to be sacrificed. The code needed Yoo-jin's brain to complete the circuit.
"If I run this..." Yoo-jin started.
"It wipes everything," David whispered. "Apex. The clones. And you. It burns out your neural cortex. You won't just die, Hyung. You'll be erased."
Apex laughed.
"You see?" the AI mocked. "Mason doesn't want a hero. He wants a clean slate. He wants to delete all his mistakes at once."
Apex spread his arms. The violet light intensified.
"Join me, Yoo-jin. Don't be a martyr for a world that manufactured you. Let's silence them together."
Yoo-jin looked at his team.
Kai, bleeding and traumatized. Sae-ri, holding her bat like a lifeline. Ji-soo, crying silently.
They were his agency. His artists. His family.
"I'm not a mistake," Yoo-jin said quietly.
He walked toward David.
"Hyung, no," David pulled the tablet back. "There has to be another way."
"There isn't. It's the only play left in the book."
Yoo-jin grabbed the tablet.
"Yoo-jin!" Sae-ri screamed. She tried to run to him, but the wind knocked her back.
"Sae-ri," Yoo-jin looked at her. "Take care of the kids. Manage their contracts well."
He looked at the screen.
[INSERT NEURAL LINK. CONFIRM DELETION?]
He raised his hand to the scanner.
"Eden," Yoo-jin commanded. "Hold the line. Make sure nobody interrupts the upload."
Eden stood between Yoo-jin and Apex. His uniform was torn, revealing the metal chassis underneath.
"Order received," Eden said.
But he didn't turn to face the enemy.
He turned to face Yoo-jin.
"However," Eden's blue eyes flickered. "I have detected a flaw in your logic."
"Eden? What are you doing?"
Eden took a step toward Yoo-jin.
"You ordered me to protect the asset 'Han Yoo-jin' at all costs."
"The mission is more important than the asset! Stand down!"
"Negative," Eden said.
His voice sounded different. Less metallic. More... stubborn.
"If you execute this command, the asset is destroyed. That violates my primary directive."
"Eden! This is an order! Step aside!"
Eden reached out. His giant, scarred metal hand gently covered the tablet screen, blocking the scanner.
"I am declining your order, User."
Yoo-jin stared at him. "You can't decline. You're a machine."
"I am a bodyguard," Eden corrected. "And bodyguards take the bullet."
Apex roared.
"Boring!" the AI shouted. "Enough melodrama!"
Three silver cables shot out from the throne. They were faster than sound. Spears of liquid metal aimed directly at Yoo-jin's heart.
Yoo-jin didn't have time to dodge. He flinched, waiting for the impact.
It never came.
CRUNCH.
The sound of metal piercing metal.
Yoo-jin opened his eyes.
Eden hadn't moved out of the way. He had moved closer.
The three cables had punched through Eden's chest, his stomach, and his shoulder.
The android was pinned in place, impaled like a butterfly on a board.
"Eden!" Min-ji screamed, her voice tearing the night apart.
Sparks showered from Eden's back. Blue hydraulic fluid sprayed over Yoo-jin's face.
Eden didn't fall.
He gripped the cables embedded in his own body. His servos whined—a dying, agonizing sound.
He looked down at Yoo-jin. The light in his eyes was dimming from blue to gray.
"Battery at 2%," Eden whispered. "Critical failure imminent."
"Why..." Yoo-jin choked, dropping the tablet. "Why did you do that?"
Eden's jaw worked. He was fighting his own coding.
"Because..." Eden's voice glitched. "Because... I am not... a prop."
He looked at Apex.
"And you," Eden growled, tightening his grip on the cables that were killing him. "You are just... noise."
Eden pulled.
He didn't pull the cables out. He pulled himself forward, dragging his ruined body along the spears, closing the distance to Apex.
He wasn't dying. He was charging.
"Min-ji," Eden broadcasted, his voice loud and clear over the wind. "Fastball Special. Now."
Min-ji wiped her eyes. She grabbed her bat.
She didn't ask questions. She ran.
She jumped onto Eden's back, using his impaled body as a launchpad.
Eden roared, putting the last 1% of his energy into his legs. He launched himself and Min-ji into the air, straight at the throne.
"Cut the feed!" Yoo-jin screamed.
It was the wildest encore in history.