Helix Crown began to rearrange itself.
The change wasn't announced. It never was. It showed in smaller ways—emails that came at different hours, department approvals that took longer than usual, security checkpoints that appeared where there had been open corridors before.
Tae-Hyun felt the shift through the routines.
Sanitation teams were reassigned without notice. Access badges updated. Floor permissions adjusted. The quiet freedom he'd had to move between lower levels narrowed.
He welcomed it.
Pressure meant attention.
Attention meant proximity.
On the fourth night after Dr. Seo uncovered the financial structure, his supervisor stopped him outside the supply bay.
"Han Jae-Min," the man said, glancing at the tablet in his hand. "You're being transferred."
Tae-Hyun waited.
"Temporary assignment," the supervisor continued. "Bio-storage. Sublevel eleven."
"B11," Tae-Hyun repeated.
The man nodded. "Higher clearance. Higher risk. Don't ask questions."
"I don't."
The supervisor studied him for a moment, then added, "Someone above requested it."
That settled into place quietly.
He signed the update form.
And followed the escort.
Sublevel eleven sat below even B9, accessed by a narrower elevator reserved for materials transport. The walls were unpainted steel. The lights harsher.
When the doors opened, the temperature dropped.
This level smelled of cold preservation—sterile, faintly metallic, layered with something chemical and old.
Storage units lined the corridor. Cryogenic containers. Sealed vaults. Transport capsules marked only by codes.
"This is intake and distribution," the escort said. "You clean, catalogue, and move. You don't open anything."
Tae-Hyun inclined his head.
The man scanned out and left him alone.
He stood for a moment, letting the environment settle.
The hum inside him responded immediately.
The signatures here were dense.
Compressed.
Contained.
Whatever fed Devil's Heir passed through this level.
He moved slowly, learning the layout. Monitoring station. Transfer docks. Automated lifts leading to underground loading tunnels.
He hadn't been here before.
Not in either life.
By the end of the shift, he had mapped the routine.
And by the second night, he heard the first useful conversation.
Two technicians spoke while unloading a reinforced crate.
"…next shipment's already behind schedule," one muttered.
"Port facility's on limited intake," the other replied. "They're rerouting to the western complex."
"The coastal site?"
"Yeah. Whatever's happening there, they want more material moved before quarter-end."
"What kind?"
The man snorted quietly. "The kind we don't label."
Tae-Hyun stored the words.
Port facility.
Western complex.
Movement.
That night, he didn't go home.
He went to the lab.
Dr. Seo listened without interrupting.
"Bio-storage is a convergence point," she said when he finished. "If they're increasing throughput, something's happening at one of the external sites."
She pulled up the logistics grid and began filtering transport routes.
"Western complex could mean three locations," she said. "Two medical parks. One maritime processing center."
She paused.
"Which one handles live intake?" he asked.
She hesitated.
Then highlighted a coastal facility on the map.
"This one," she said. "Officially, it's a rehabilitation research campus. Unofficially… it's where most candidate transfers are processed."
He studied the location.
It sat outside the city, near old shipping yards and private docks.
Isolated.
"You think that's where they're moving their focus," he said.
"I think something there is unstable," she replied. "And instability makes them consolidate."
He straightened.
"I need to see it."
Her fingers hovered above the keys.
"That's not something you walk into," she said. "Not like B9."
"No," he agreed. "But storage routes don't just move material. They move people."
She looked up at him.
"You're thinking about getting transferred again."
"I'm thinking about becoming useful," he said.
The words tasted familiar.
She closed her eyes briefly.
"Give me time," she said. "If they're accelerating shipments, there will be procurement anomalies. Staffing requests. Contracted specialists. Something that opens a door."
He nodded.
They stood in the quiet lab, the map glowing between them.
Outside, Helix Crown continued its subtle reorganization.
Above them, executives adjusted projections and authorized budget shifts.
Below them, sublevel eleven began processing larger volumes.
And somewhere along the coast, a facility prepared to receive what Helix Crown could no longer afford to keep close.