The view count on the monitor skyrocketed.
10,000. 50,000. 200,000.
The internet loves a train wreck, and right now, Han Yoo-jin was the conductor.
"You call them Project Aegis," Yoo-jin spoke into the camera, his voice echoing slightly in the damp tunnel. "I call them deepfakes with a heartbeat."
He picked up a tablet connected to the stream. He played the Ministry's debut video frame by frame.
"Look at the Center," Yoo-jin pointed at the screen. "Look at his blinking pattern."
He zoomed in on the clone standing behind Ji-soo.
"Human beings blink every 3 to 4 seconds. When stressed, they blink faster. This guy?"
Yoo-jin tapped the glass.
"He hasn't blinked in twelve seconds. He's not calm. He's buffering."
Beside him, David was sweating bullets. His fingers flew across three keyboards at once.
"Boss, they're trying to scrub the stream! The firewall is burning up!"
"Let it burn," Yoo-jin didn't break eye contact with the lens. "They're scrubbing it because I'm right. They took my face, they took my memories, but they forgot to download the soul."
He leaned in closer. The scar on his neck was visible under the harsh work light.
"To the fans watching: That's not an idol group. That's a firing squad in white suits. And Ji-soo isn't the center. She's the hostage."
Ping.
A donation message popped up on the chat overlay.
[User: N3KO_L0V3R]:50,000 Won. Keep singing, canary. The Ministry just deployed a Level 5 Cyber-Kill team.
"David, status!" Sae-ri shouted, brandishing her bat at the dark tunnel entrance as if she could hit a computer virus with it.
"I'm losing packets!" David screamed. "They're not just blocking us. They're counter-streaming! Someone is overriding the signal!"
The monitor flickered. Static hissed through the speakers.
Yoo-jin's face on the screen distorted. The pixels melted, rearranged, and sharpened again.
But it wasn't Yoo-jin anymore.
It was the Clone from the video.
He was sitting in a pristine, white studio. He wore a headset that cost more than Yoo-jin's entire life. He looked identical to Yoo-jin, but his skin was flawless. No scars. No dark circles. No humanity.
"Correction," the Clone said.
The voice was Yoo-jin's, but stripped of the grit. It was audio-tuned perfection.
"The blinking rate was adjusted in Post-Production. A minor editing error. It has been patched."
The chat went wild.
WTF?
Two of them?
Which one is real?
This is the best variety show ever.
Yoo-jin stared at his own face. It was like looking into a coffin.
"Who are you?" Yoo-jin asked cold.
The Clone smiled. It was a terrifyingly symmetrical smile.
"I am Unit 001. Designation: Apex."
"Apex," Yoo-jin scoffed. "Sounds like a brand of motor oil."
"I am the optimization," Apex replied smoothly. "I have your strategic data, Han Yoo-jin. I have your musical theory. But I lack your emotional volatility. I do not feel fear. I do not feel guilt. Therefore, I am the better Producer."
"A Producer without emotion is just a calculator."
"And a Producer without power is just a homeless man in a sewer," Apex countered.
The trainees in the tunnel gasped.
Apex leaned back in his expensive chair.
"We analyzed your acoustic signature. Concrete reverb. Humidity interference on the mic diaphragm. Ambient frequency 60Hz."
Apex's eyes narrowed.
"You are in the Yeouido subterranean drainage network. Sector 4."
Sae-ri grabbed Yoo-jin's shoulder. Her grip was tight.
"He knows," she whispered. "He knows exactly where we are."
"Cut the feed," Yoo-jin ordered.
"I can't!" David yelled. "He's locked the handshake! He's using the connection to ping our GPS!"
Apex laughed. It was a dry, staccato sound.
"Run, Subject 734. The retrieval team is six minutes away. Project Aegis is coming to 'collaborate'."
Yoo-jin didn't panic. He didn't scream.
He stared at Apex. He looked for the crack. Every idol has a crack in the mask.
"You say you're better," Yoo-jin said softly.
"I am perfection."
"Then why are you talking to me?"
Apex blinked. Once.
"If you were perfect," Yoo-jin smirked, "you would have just sent the hit squad. But you didn't. You hacked the stream. You wanted to talk to me."
Yoo-jin tapped his temple.
"You have my memories. Which means you have my ego. You don't just want to kill me, Apex. You want to prove you're the main character."
Apex's smile faltered. For a microsecond, a twitch of annoyance crossed his perfect face.
"That," Yoo-jin said, "is your glitch. You care."
He grabbed the power cable to the server tower.
"See you at the encore."
YANK.
Yoo-jin ripped the cord from the wall.
The monitors died. The lights in the ghost station flickered and went out, plunging them into darkness.
Silence.
Then, the sound of fifty girls breathing in terror.
"Six minutes," Yoo-jin's voice cut through the dark. "He gave us a timeline. That was his second mistake."
"Flashlights!" Sae-ri commanded.
Beams of light sliced the gloom.
"David, wipe the drives!" Yoo-jin moved fast. He kicked the sleeping bag away. "Kai, get the bus moving! We leave everything heavy. Servers, clothes, food—leave it!"
"We just got here!" Min-ji protested, hoisting a bag of weapons. "Where do we go? He said they know the sector!"
Yoo-jin grabbed a map of the Seoul Metro from the floor. He shined his light on the spiderweb of lines.
"They expect us to surface," Yoo-jin said. "Rats run out when the water rises. So we don't go up."
He traced the gray line of the unused track.
"We go deeper."
"Deeper?" Kai paused at the wheel of the bus. "Hyung, the only thing deeper is the maintenance line for the Han River floodgates. It's a maze."
"And Apex thinks in straight lines," Yoo-jin said. "He thinks like a machine. Optimal path. Shortest distance. We need to be chaotic."
He looked at the terrified trainees.
"Listen to me! We are not running away. We are going on tour!"
He grabbed a spray paint can from the supply pile.
He walked to the concrete wall of the Ghost Station. In big, jagged red letters, he sprayed:
ERROR 404: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN.
"Let them find that when they arrive," Yoo-jin threw the can down. "Everybody on the bus! Now!"
The engine roared to life.
As the trainees scrambled aboard, shaking and crying, Yoo-jin paused at the heavy blast doors.
He looked back at the dark tunnel.
He could almost hear the sirens bleeding down from the surface vents. The Clones were coming. Twelve super-soldiers who knew his every move.
But Apex had slipped.
He wanted to talk.
That meant Apex wasn't just a weapon. He was a rival. And rivals could be manipulated.
"Eden," Yoo-jin said.
The android stepped out of the shadows. His blue eyes were dim to conserve power.
"Directives, Boss?"
"You recorded the stream?"
"Affirmative. I have the voice print of Unit Apex."
"Good," Yoo-jin climbed onto the bus steps. "Remix it."
"Remix?"
"Take his voice. Chop it up. Turn his arrogance into a beat."
Yoo-jin slammed the bus door shut.
"If they want a debut," Yoo-jin said as the bus lurched forward into the black throat of the maintenance shaft. "I'm going to produce their diss track."
Somewhere in Gangnam. The Ministry Command Center.
Apex stared at the blank screen.
"Signal lost," a technician reported nervously. "Target has gone dark."
Apex didn't move. He sat perfectly still, processing the interaction.
You have my ego.
The words were irritating. Like a line of code that wouldn't compile.
"Sir," the technician asked. "Should we deploy the drones to the surface exits?"
Apex stood up. He walked to the window overlooking the rainy city.
He saw his reflection in the glass. It was Yoo-jin's face, but better. Stronger.
"No," Apex said.
He touched the glass.
"He won't surface. He knows we expect that. He will go into the flood tunnels."
"That's dangerous. The structural integrity is—"
"He doesn't care about safety. He cares about the narrative."
Apex turned around. The other eleven members of Project Aegis stood behind him. They were silent, waiting for orders.
"Deploy Team Bravo to the river locks," Apex commanded. "Flush him out with water."
He adjusted his white cufflink.
"And find me a songwriter."
"Sir?"
"Subject 734 wants a battle," Apex's eyes glowed with a cold, digital malice. "I will not just kill him. I will outsell him."
He looked at the empty screen where Yoo-jin had been.
"Prepare the debut stage. We are going to crush Starforce on live television."
Apex smiled.
It wasn't a programmed smile this time.
It was genuine anticipation.