The recording studio on the third floor smelled of ozone and desperation.
It wasn't a sleek, million-dollar facility. It was a renovated storage room lined with egg-carton foam. Yoo-jin sat at the mixing board, staring at a blank Pro Tools session.
"500 Billion Won," he muttered, rubbing his temples. "That's 50 million albums sold. Or a billion streams. In one month."
"It's impossible," Kai leaned against the wall, drinking a protein shake. "Even BTS numbers don't hit that fast. You need a viral miracle."
"I don't believe in miracles," Yoo-jin opened a folder of samples. "I believe in data."
He played a beat. It was heavy, distorted industrial bass.
"Too dark," Sae-ri commented from the couch. She was reading scripts for the reality show. "People are scared right now. They don't want dark."
Yoo-jin switched to a bubbly synth-pop track.
"Too fake," Min-ji scowled, cleaning her bat. "Sounds like Zenith propaganda."
Yoo-jin slammed the laptop shut.
"We need a new sound," he stood up and paced the small room. "Zenith owns 'Perfection'. They own 'Happiness'. What's left?"
"Rage?" Kai suggested.
"Sorrow?" Sae-ri offered.
"Chaos," Yoo-jin stopped pacing. He looked out the window at the black Zenith Tower across the street.
"We need a song that sounds like a riot."
Downstairs, the lobby was a war room.
David Kim had set up a command center on the reception desk. Six monitors displayed real-time stocks, social media trends, and the legal countdown clock.
[LAWSUIT DEADLINE: 29 DAYS, 14 HOURS.]
"We're burning cash," David yelled into a phone. "No, I can't liquidate the crypto yet! The market is down!"
Ha-eun walked past him, leading a line of trainees carrying yoga mats.
"Move it!" Ha-eun barked like a drill sergeant. "Stretch or die!"
The "Ragtag Dozen" plus the forty new refugees were now a small army. They didn't have matching uniforms, so they wore Starforce Hoodies—the grey ones Yoo-jin had sold in the Metaverse.
They looked like a cult. A cult of exhausted, hungry teenagers.
"Where's lunch?" a girl named Ji-soo whined.
"Lunch is earned!" Ha-eun shouted. "Ten more laps!"
Sol and Luna watched from the stairs.
"She's terrifying," Luna whispered. "I like her."
"She's stressed," Sol noted. "She's trying to prove she's worth the lawsuit money."
Suddenly, the front door opened.
A man walked in. He wore a courier uniform, but he wasn't carrying pizza. He was carrying a violin case.
And he was wearing a mask. A smiling, white theatrical mask.
"Delivery for Han Yoo-jin," the man said. His voice was muffled.
"Leave it at the desk," David waved him off without looking up.
The man didn't leave it. He opened the case.
It wasn't a violin. It was a submachine gun.
"Down!" Min-ji screamed from the balcony.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT.
Bullets shredded the reception desk. David dove to the floor, covering his head with a pizza box.
The trainees screamed, scattering like birds.
Min-ji vaulted over the railing. She didn't take the stairs. She dropped ten feet, landing in a crouch.
"No guns in the lobby!" Min-ji roared.
She swung her bat.
CRACK.
She hit the gunman's wrist. The gun clattered across the floor.
The assassin didn't flinch. He pulled a knife with his other hand.
"Zenith sends its regards," the masked man hissed.
He lunged at Min-ji.
Min-ji side-stepped. She was used to fighting perfectly choreographed idols. This guy moved messy.
She slammed the bat into his ribs. He grunted but kept coming.
"Kai! Flank him!"
Kai slid across the polished floor, kicking the man's legs out from under him.
The assassin hit the ground hard. Min-ji pinned him with her bat against his throat.
"Who sent you?" Min-ji snarled.
The man laughed. "It doesn't matter. The contract is open. Every hitman in Seoul is coming."
He bit down on his collar.
"Don't!" Kai tried to stop him.
Too late. The man convulsed. Foam spilled from his mouth. Cyanide pill.
"He's dead," Kai checked for a pulse. "Professional suicide."
The lobby was silent. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air.
Ha-eun and the trainees peeked out from behind the overturned tables. They were shaking.
"He... he shot at us," Ji-soo whispered.
Yoo-jin walked down the stairs. He looked at the dead body. He looked at the bullet holes in the wall.
He didn't look scared. He looked angry.
"David," Yoo-jin said calmly. "Call the police to pick up the trash."
"Yoo-jin!" David crawled out from under the desk. "They're trying to kill us! We need security!"
"We have security," Yoo-jin pointed at the trainees. "We have fifty witnesses. And we have a camera."
He pointed to the CCTV in the corner.
"Did we get that on tape?"
"Yes, but—"
"Upload it," Yoo-jin ordered. "Title it: 'Zenith Sends Assassins to Trainee Dorm'."
"You're going to use an assassination attempt for marketing?" Sae-ri asked, horrified.
"If they want to make this a war," Yoo-jin buttoned his jacket. "We'll broadcast the casualties."
He turned to the terrified girls.
"Training is cancelled today."
"Because of the gunman?" Ha-eun asked.
"No," Yoo-jin walked to the center of the room. "Because you're not angry enough yet."
He looked at the bullet holes.
"Everyone, to the recording studio. Now."
Fifty girls crammed into the small studio. It was hot. Suffocating.
Yoo-jin stood at the mic.
"You saw the man with the gun," Yoo-jin said. "He came here to kill you because you inconvenience a billionaire."
The girls murmured. Fear was turning into something else. Resentment.
"They think you're products," Yoo-jin continued. "Disposeable. Replaceable. Broken toys."
He hit record.
"Tell them they're wrong."
He didn't give them a melody. He gave them a beat. A simple, stomping rhythm. Boom-Boom-Clap.
"Ha-eun," Yoo-jin pointed. "Start."
Ha-eun walked to the mic. She thought about the gun. She thought about her parents' debt. She thought about the "A-Rank" badge she threw in the trash.
"We are not your dolls," she spoke. It wasn't singing. It was a statement.
"Louder," Yoo-jin urged.
"WE ARE NOT YOUR DOLLS!" Ha-eun screamed.
"Good. Next line. Sol, Luna."
The twins stepped up. They harmonized, adding a haunting, eerie layer to Ha-eun's rage.
You cut the strings...
But the puppet still sings...
"Chorus!" Yoo-jin shouted. "Everyone!"
Fifty girls opened their mouths. They didn't sing pretty. They yelled. It was a choir of the rejected.
BREAK THE FACTORY!
BURN THE SCRIPT!
It was discordant. It was messy. It was powerful.
Yoo-jin mixed it in real-time. He added the sound of the gunshots from the lobby CCTV. He added the sound of glass breaking from the Zenith Tower windows.
He was building a symphony of violence.
"Min-ji," Yoo-jin signaled. "The bridge."
Min-ji grabbed her electric guitar. She didn't play a solo. She played noise. Feedback. Distortion.
SCREEEEEEE.
"It hurts!" David covered his ears in the booth. "It's too aggressive! Radio will never play this!"
"Radio is dead," Yoo-jin turned the volume up. "This isn't for radio. It's for the streets."
He layered the track.
Bass: The low hum of the water tank resonance.
Rhythm: The stomping of fifty combat boots.
Melody: The scream of a generation fed up with perfection.
He hit 'Stop'.
The room was silent. The girls were panting, sweat dripping down their faces. They felt lighter. The fear of the gunman was gone, replaced by adrenaline.
"What do we call it?" Sae-ri asked, looking at the waveform on the screen. It looked like a jagged scar.
Yoo-jin typed the file name.
[TRACK: ERROR 404]
[ARTIST: THE GLITCH]
"Release it," Yoo-jin said.
"Now? Without a music video?"
"The CCTV footage is the video," Yoo-jin said. "The gunman. The panic. The defiance."
David hesitated. "This is going to start a riot."
"Good," Yoo-jin leaned back in his chair. "I love a lively audience."
The upload hit at 6:00 PM.
By 7:00 PM, it had 1 million views.
By 8:00 PM, it was trending worldwide.
#ZenithAssassin
#SaveTheTrainees
#ERROR404
The video was raw. Grainy footage of a masked man shooting up a lobby full of teenagers, cut with clips of those same teenagers screaming the chorus in a cramped studio.
It wasn't polished K-Pop. It was a documentary of survival.
In the Chairman's Office across the street, Mason Gold watched the video.
He saw the gunman—his gunman—fail. He saw the girls he had discarded looking fierce, dangerous, and alive.
"Sir," Director Park's avatar flickered on his desk. "Stock price is dropping. The public is demanding an investigation into the gunman."
"Deny it," Mason said, sipping his wine. But his hand was shaking. "Call him a crazed stalker. Distance the company."
"And the song?"
Mason listened to the track. The distorted bass rattled his expensive speakers.
WE ARE NOT YOUR DOLLS.
"It's noise," Mason whispered. "It's garbage."
"It's number one on the charts, sir."
Mason threw his wine glass against the wall. It shattered.
"They want noise?" Mason hissed. "Fine. I'll give them silence."
He stood up.
"Activate the sleeper agents."
In the BK Building, the celebration was cut short.
Ha-eun was scrolling through comments on her phone, beaming. "They love us! They're calling us 'The Survivor Group'!"
Suddenly, her phone screen turned purple.
Not just hers. Every phone in the room. Fifty screens lit up with a solid violet color.
A sound emitted from the speakers. High-pitched. Piercing.
EEEEEEEEEE.
The girls dropped their phones, clutching their heads.
"Make it stop!" Ji-soo screamed, falling to the floor.
"It's the signal!" Eden yelled. "He's broadcasting through the cellular network!"
"Turn them off!" Yoo-jin shouted.
But they couldn't. The phones were locked. The violet light pulsed.
And then, the girls stopped screaming.
One by one, they stood up. Their eyes were glazed over. Blank.
Ha-eun stood up. She picked up a pair of scissors from the desk.
"Ha-eun?" Sae-ri stepped toward her. "Put that down."
Ha-eun looked at Sae-ri. She smiled. It wasn't her smile. It was Mason's smile.
"Target acquired," Ha-eun said in a monotone voice.
She lunged at Sae-ri.
"Restrain them!" Yoo-jin yelled. "Don't hurt them! They're being controlled!"
Min-ji tackled Ha-eun, knocking the scissors away.
"Sorry, Unni!" Min-ji grunted, pinning her down.
But there were fifty of them. And only five of Starforce.
The trainees swarmed. They grabbed Kai. They grabbed David. They were tearing at clothes, scratching, biting. A zombie horde of teenage girls.
"Get to the roof!" Yoo-jin ordered, shoving a possessed trainee away. "Barricade the door!"
They scrambled up the stairs, dragging a kicking David with them. They slammed the heavy metal roof door shut and leaned against it.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Fists pounded on the other side.
"They've turned the army against us," Kai gasped, bleeding from a scratch on his cheek. "We're trapped on the roof."
Yoo-jin looked at the Zenith Tower. The violet light was pulsing from every window of the skyscraper.
"He hacked their phones," Yoo-jin realized. "He turned our viral moment into a Trojan horse."
They were besieged by their own artists.
"What do we do?" Sae-ri asked, terrified. "We can't fight them."
Yoo-jin looked at the massive water tank. He looked at the fried speakers.
"We don't fight," Yoo-jin said. "We jam the signal."
"How? We don't have the gear!"
"We have the source code," Yoo-jin pulled out the USB drive Sae-ri had stolen. "And we have a broadcast tower."
He pointed to the massive 5G antenna on top of the Zenith Tower across the street.
"We need to plug this drive into that antenna."
"That's across the street!" Min-ji yelled. "And thirty stories up!"
"I know," Yoo-jin looked at the gap between the buildings. It was fifty meters of deadly drop.
"Who feels like flying?"