The bus smelled like adrenaline and cheap perfume.
It was a hired tour bus designed for forty people. Currently, it held fifty-five trainees, four idols, one manager, and a cyborg. Girls were sitting in the aisles, hanging off the handrails, and weeping into each other's shoulders.
"We actually did it," Ha-eun stared out the window as the Olympic Arena faded into the distance. She was shaking. "We walked out on live TV."
"We didn't walk," Min-ji yelled from the driver's seat, swerving around a taxi. "We escaped!"
Yoo-jin stood at the front of the bus. He held a microphone plugged into the dashboard PA system.
"Listen up!"
The crying stopped. Fifty pairs of eyes locked onto him. Some were terrified. Some were ecstatic. All of them were waiting for orders.
"You are no longer Contestants," Yoo-jin said, his voice steady over the roar of the engine. "You are not Team Rebel. You are now trainees of Starforce Entertainment."
A cheer erupted from the back, but Yoo-jin raised a hand.
"This isn't a victory lap. You just breached the most expensive contracts in the industry. Mason Gold isn't going to send police. He's going to send lawyers."
The bus went quiet. The reality of the "Breach of Contract" penalty—millions of won per head—settled over them like a cold fog.
"But," Yoo-jin smiled. It was the smile of a man who had already calculated the odds. "I'm the CEO now. That debt is my problem, not yours."
He pointed to the coolers David had dragged onboard.
"Tonight, your only job is to eat. No diets. No weigh-ins."
David kicked the cooler open. It was full of kimbap, soda, and chocolate.
The girls screamed. It was a primal sound. They dove for the food like starving wolves.
Sae-ri sat in the front seat, pulling off her "Kim Mi-so" nametag. She looked exhausted. Her hoodie was stained with sweat.
"You just adopted fifty teenagers," Sae-ri whispered, watching the feeding frenzy. "Where are we going to put them? The BK Building has one bathroom on the second floor."
"We'll improvise," Yoo-jin sat down next to her. "We have the building. We have the talent. Now we just need to survive the night."
Sae-ri leaned her head on his shoulder. She didn't care who saw.
"I stole the drive," she tapped her pocket. "The Violet Signal source code."
"Good job," Yoo-jin took her hand. "Get some sleep, Actress. You're retired from the survival show."
The arrival at the BK Building was a logistical nightmare.
Fifty girls poured onto the sidewalk of Teheran-ro. Passersby stopped to film. The "Starforce Runaways" were already the number one trending topic on every social platform.
"Move! Move!" Kai ushered them inside like a shepherd herding cats. "Don't look at the cameras! Inside!"
The lobby was instantly overcrowded. It was a sea of luggage and bodies.
"Bathroom line starts here!" Luna shouted, standing on a chair. "Three minutes per person! No showers, just wash your face!"
"Sleeping arrangements!" Sol yelled from the stairs. "Vocal line on the third floor! Dance line in the basement practice room!"
David Kim was in the corner, hyperventilating into a paper bag.
"Yoo-jin," David grabbed Yoo-jin's sleeve. "I did the math. To feed them, house them, and train them... we burn through our crypto reserves in three months. That's if Mason doesn't freeze our accounts."
"Three months is an eternity in K-Pop," Yoo-jin walked to the whiteboard in the lobby.
He grabbed a marker. He wrote: PHASE 1: STABILIZATION.
"Order pizza," Yoo-jin commanded.
"What?"
"Fifty large pizzas. Pepperoni. Cheese. Everything."
"That's like... two million won!"
"Do it," Yoo-jin said. "And keep the receipt. We'll write it off as 'Company Morale'."
Half an hour later, the lobby was a campsite. Girls were sitting on the floor, eating pizza with grease on their faces. The tension of the survival show began to melt away.
Yoo-jin watched from the mezzanine balcony. He wasn't looking at them as refugees. He was looking at them as a lineup.
Ha-eun was teaching a younger girl how to stretch.
Ji-soo, the quiet one, was humming a melody in the corner, harmonizing with the hum of the vending machine.
"You're already planning the debut," Eden appeared beside him. The android was charging via a wall outlet.
"I see three potential sub-units," Yoo-jin murmured. "A performance team. A vocal ballad group. And a rap unit built around Ha-eun."
"They are untrained," Eden noted. "Zenith trained them to be robots. They lack soul."
"That's why we're here," Yoo-jin turned away from the railing. "Come to the office. Let's see what Sae-ri stole."
The office was dark, lit only by the glow of the monitor.
Yoo-jin plugged the USB drive into his laptop. A decryption bar filled the screen.
[Violet Signal: Source Code v4.0]
[Decoding...]
Sae-ri sat on the couch, eating a slice of cold pizza. "Is it mind control?"
"It's worse," Yoo-jin scrolled through the lines of code. "It's a feedback loop."
He pointed to a diagram on the screen. It looked like a map of the human brain, but highlighted in purple.
"Mason isn't forcing people to like his idols," Yoo-jin explained. "He's harvesting their insecurity."
"Insecurity?"
"The signal scans the listener's brain for spikes of cortisol—stress, loneliness, fear. Then, it adjusts the music pitch to vibrate at a frequency that temporarily numbs that specific pain."
"Like a painkiller," Sae-ri realized.
"Exactly. It's digital opium. People aren't addicted to Zenith idols because they're good. They're addicted because the music literally stops them from feeling sad."
"That's genius," David admitted, horrified. "And evil."
"It creates dependency," Yoo-jin tapped the screen. "If you stop listening, the sadness comes back twice as hard. That's withdrawal."
"Can we shut it down?" Min-ji asked, swinging her legs off the desk.
"If we delete it, millions of fans go into cold turkey depression," Yoo-jin shook his head. "We can't just unplug it. We have to wean them off."
"How?"
"We give them a better drug," Yoo-jin closed the laptop. "Catharsis."
"Catharsis?"
"Mason numbs the pain," Yoo-jin stood up. "We're going to make them scream it out. We don't hide the sadness. We amplify it until it explodes."
Knock. Knock.
A heavy pounding on the front door downstairs echoed through the building.
"Police?" David squeaked.
Yoo-jin checked the security feed.
It wasn't the police. It was a fleet of motorcycle couriers. Dozens of them. They were unloading boxes.
"Pizza?" Min-ji asked.
"No," Yoo-jin zoomed in on the boxes. They were white. Stamped with the Zenith logo.
"Lawsuits," Yoo-jin said grimly.
They went downstairs. The lobby fell silent. The trainees stopped eating. They stared at the mountain of paperwork the couriers were stacking in front of the door.
One courier handed Yoo-jin a tablet. "Sign here."
Yoo-jin signed.
He picked up the top envelope. It was thick.
NOTICE OF CONTRACT VIOLATION.
PLAINTIFF: ZENITH GLOBAL.
DEFENDANT: STARFORCE ENT.
DAMAGES SOUGHT: 500 BILLION WON.
"Five hundred billion," David fainted. He actually collapsed onto a pizza box.
The trainees gasped. Ha-eun looked pale.
"We ruined you," she whispered. "We shouldn't have come."
Yoo-jin looked at the terrified girls. He looked at the stack of papers that represented enough debt to bury a small nation.
He laughed.
It started as a chuckle, then grew into a full laugh.
"CEO-nim?" Ha-eun stepped back. "Are you crazy?"
"He wants money," Yoo-jin tossed the lawsuit onto the floor. "He thinks this is a transaction."
Yoo-jin climbed onto the reception desk. He looked out the glass doors. Outside, reporters were swarming, attracted by the couriers. Flashbulbs popped like lightning.
"Open the doors," Yoo-jin ordered.
"What?" Min-ji asked. "They'll eat us alive."
"Open them."
Min-ji unlocked the doors. The press surged forward, microphones thrust into the lobby.
"Mr. Han! Is it true you kidnapped the contestants?"
"Are you facing bankruptcy?"
"What is your response to Chairman Mason's lawsuit?"
Yoo-jin stood on the desk, towering over the reporters. He adjusted his expensive suit. He looked calm. Untouchable.
"We did not kidnap anyone," Yoo-jin spoke clearly into the bank of microphones. "We conducted a rescue operation."
The reporters scribbled furiously.
"As for the lawsuit," Yoo-jin pointed to the stack of white boxes. "Chairman Mason values these fifty artists at 500 billion won."
He paused for effect.
"I agree."
The crowd murmured. Even David woke up.
"In fact," Yoo-jin smiled, looking directly into a camera lens. "I think he's underestimating them. These girls aren't worth 500 billion."
He gestured to the trainees huddled in the back, eating pizza in their sweatpants.
"They are priceless. Because unlike Zenith's inventory, these girls have free will."
He picked up a contract from the box. He ripped it in half.
RIIIP.
The sound was loud in the silence.
"Starforce Entertainment officially rejects the validity of Zenith's slave contracts," Yoo-jin declared. "We are counter-suing for emotional damages, psychological manipulation, and unpaid wages for labor."
"You're fighting Zenith in court?" a reporter yelled. "Do you have the funds?"
"We don't need funds," Yoo-jin grinned. "We have the content."
He spread his arms.
"Starting tomorrow, Starforce will air our own reality show. 'The Real Debut.' You want to see who wins the lawsuit? Watch the show."
"Where will it air?"
"Everywhere," Yoo-jin said. "On every phone. On every screen. We are going live."
He hopped down from the desk.
"Now, get out. My artists need their beauty sleep."
Min-ji slammed the doors shut.
The lobby erupted. The trainees cheered. Ha-eun was crying again, but this time she was smiling.
"You counter-sued?" David grabbed his hair. "With what lawyer?"
"We don't need a lawyer yet," Yoo-jin walked toward the stairs. "We just bought ourselves time."
He looked at Sae-ri.
"Get the girls to bed. Tomorrow, training starts for real."
"And you?" Sae-ri asked.
Yoo-jin looked at the torn contract in his hand.
"I'm going to write a hit song," Yoo-jin said. "We have 500 billion won to earn."
"And I know exactly who's going to sing the lead."