Dust drifted down from the concrete ceiling, catching the red glare of the emergency strobes like cheap stage snow. The entire underground bunker was vibrating to the rhythm of a million marching feet.
Yoo-jin sat perfectly still in the dark control room. He pressed his bloody right hand against his torn left shoulder, trying to manually stem the bleeding. His physical body was failing rapidly, but his amnesiac mind remained terrifyingly sharp.
He didn't feel fear. He only felt the crushing, objective pressure of a live broadcast hurtling toward its climax.
His dark eyes were locked on Monitor 9. The screen showed the bunker's massive western loading dock. Kai and Min-ji were pressed flat against the heavy steel blast doors, their stolen rifles shaking in their hands.
Just on the other side of that metal wall stood twenty Ministry Special Forces soldiers. Yoo-jin could see the tactical squad on an external camera feed. They had their riot shields interlocked and their assault rifles leveled directly at the exit.
"Yoo-jin, we can't stay here," Kai whispered urgently into his earpiece. The idol's chest heaved with exhaustion. "I hear boots on the stairs behind us. The internal patrols are catching up."
"Hold your blocking," Yoo-jin replied, his voice a cold, mechanical rasp. "The stage is not ready for your entrance."
On the monitor, Min-ji flinched at his tone. She wiped a streak of dark soot from her bruised cheek. Her eyes darted up to the security camera with a look of desperate, wounded betrayal.
"They are going to shoot us through this door, Yoo-jin," Min-ji said, her voice cracking. "Let David open it. We can fight our way through the blockade."
Yoo-jin watched her trembling hands grip the heavy firearm. Her combat stats were terrible. She was an idol, not a mercenary.
"If you step out now, you are cancelled," Yoo-jin stated flatly. "You will not survive a direct firefight with twenty trained extras. Keep your backs against the door and wait for your cue."
Kai gritted his teeth, his knuckles turning white around his rifle grip. "You sound just like them. You sound like Zenith."
The accusation echoed in the small earpiece. Yoo-jin felt a strange, phantom ache throb in the center of his chest. His wiped memory files didn't know what Zenith was, but his body reacted to the name like a deadly poison.
He ignored the physical glitch. He had to prioritize the pacing of the scene over his cast's emotional comfort.
"I am keeping you alive," Yoo-jin said softly. "Do not miss your mark."
Before Kai could argue again, the broadcast room's internal comms shrieked with a burst of harsh static.
"You have nowhere left to run, Subject 734!" Dr. Oh's voice blasted through the overhead speakers. The scientist's voice was shrill and completely stripped of its former arrogant polish.
Yoo-jin didn't flinch. He slowly pulled his bloody hand away from his shoulder and typed a quick command on the master console.
"Your leads are trapped at the loading dock," Dr. Oh threatened, his breathing ragged over the microphone. "I will authorize lethal force the second those doors open. I will wipe your entire cast off the board."
Yoo-jin let out a wet, bloody laugh. The sound was entirely devoid of humor. It was the sound of a showrunner mocking a terrible script pitch.
"You can't afford the PR nightmare, Doctor," Yoo-jin answered smoothly.
He reached across the mixing board and dragged a hacked external news feed to the center monitor. The real world above them was burning down. The YouTube live stream he had hijacked earlier was currently dominating the screen.
The viewer count in the top right corner ticked from five million to seven million in a blur of red pixels.
"Look at your peripheral monitors," Yoo-jin commanded. "Look at the audience you just invited to the premiere."
The live chat was scrolling so fast it looked like a solid wall of angry red text. The public had seen Yoo-jin's bloody face and the glitching clone on national television. The existence of human clones was no longer a conspiracy theory. It was a live spectacle.
Below the YouTube window, a major news network ticker flashed in bold yellow letters.
UNAUTHORIZED MASS GATHERING AT NAMSAN PERIMETER. MILITARY ON STANDBY. CITIZENS DEMANDING TRUTH ABOUT CLONE PROJECT.
"This is a classified military operation!" Dr. Oh screamed over the comms, completely losing his composure. "I don't care about a live stream! My men have orders to shoot!"
"You really don't understand the entertainment industry," Yoo-jin whispered, his voice dropping to a deadly, icy baritone. "You think you're fighting a war. You're actually just fighting a bad review."
He tapped the screen, pointing at the massive crowd gathering on the news feed.
"Shoot a teenager on a live stream, Doctor," Yoo-jin challenged. "Shoot a civilian while seven million people watch. Let's see how fast your government funding gets cancelled."
Silence slammed into the comms. Dr. Oh had no counter-argument. The government bureaucrat was completely paralyzed by the sheer terror of public accountability.
Yoo-jin muted the doctor's channel. He had successfully stalled the antagonist. Now, he needed his deus ex machina.
He shifted his focus to the external camera mounted above the loading dock. The pitch-black night outside the bunker was completely silent. The twenty Special Forces soldiers stood in perfect, deadly formation, their laser sights painting the steel door.
Suddenly, the encrypted burner phone line buzzed in Yoo-jin's ear.
"Producer," Ha-eun's sharp, fiercely loyal voice broke through the static. "We are on set."
Yoo-jin leaned closer to the monitor. "Confirm your numbers."
"Fifty trainees," Ha-eun replied, her tone practically vibrating with adrenaline. "And we brought the fan club. We followed your coordinates exactly."
On the external monitor, the dark tree line surrounding the military perimeter began to shift. It didn't look like an approaching army. It looked like a tidal wave of light.
Thousands of glowing smartphone screens broke through the darkness. They were mixed with the blinding, neon colors of custom idol lightsticks. Pink, blue, and green neon slashed across the gritty, tactical black of the military blockade.
"What the hell is that?" a Special Forces commander yelled on the external audio feed.
The soldiers instinctively raised their riot shields, completely confused by the approaching threat. They were prepared for gunfire and explosives. They were not prepared for thousands of screaming, unarmed fans charging directly at their barricade.
"They have their cameras rolling, Producer," Ha-eun reported, shouting over the deafening roar of the crowd. "Every single person here is live-streaming. We have them completely surrounded."
Yoo-jin watched the neon sea swallow the military perimeter. The fandom didn't throw rocks or punches. They simply walked right up to the heavily armed soldiers and shoved their glowing camera lenses directly into the guards' faces.
"Who are you hiding in there?" a teenage girl screamed on the audio feed, shining a flashlight into a soldier's eyes.
"Show us the clones!" another fan yelled, pressing her smartphone against a black riot shield.
The Special Forces squad completely broke formation. They lowered their weapons, terrified of accidentally discharging a rifle into a crowd of civilian teenagers on live television. The deadly military blockade dissolved into a chaotic, helpless panic.
Yoo-jin's bloody lips curved into a tiny, victorious smile. The audience had stormed the stage.
He pressed the intercom button linking him to the abandoned Incheon studio. "David. You have your distraction. Hit the locks."
"Hitting them now, hyung!" David yelled back, his keyboard clattering furiously over the line. "External firewalls are down! Opening the blast doors!"
Down in the loading dock, Kai and Min-ji jumped back as the massive steel doors behind them groaned. A deafening mechanical screech echoed through the concrete tunnel. The heavy metal barricade slowly split down the middle, grinding open to reveal the cool, chaotic night air.
Kai raised his rifle, stepping defensively in front of Min-ji. He expected a hail of bullets from the Special Forces.
Instead, a blinding wall of camera flashes hit them instantly.
The Special Forces soldiers spun around, suddenly trapped between Kai's aimed weapon and the crushing mob of thousands of screaming fans. The military unit was completely boxed in.
"Lower your weapons!" the Special Forces commander screamed to his own men, his voice cracking with panic. "Do not engage! Hold your fire!"
Yoo-jin watched the tactical squad drop their rifles to the asphalt. The soldiers raised their hands, covering their faces to hide their identities from the sea of live-streaming smartphones. The threat was entirely neutralized without a single bullet being fired.
The blinding glare of thousands of camera flashes washed out Yoo-jin's monitor entirely in pure, overexposed white.
He let out a long, ragged breath. He slumped back into the leather executive chair, feeling his own blood dripping slowly onto the floor. He had directed the perfect climax.
He leaned toward the microphone, his eyes locked on the glowing white screen.
"Cue the main cast," Yoo-jin whispered.