The Han River didn't just flow above them. It roared.
"Water levels rising!" Kai screamed, wrestling the steering wheel. "Sector 4 floodgates just opened! They're flushing us out like turds!"
The stolen tour bus hydroplaned. Black water sprayed against the taped-up windows, sounding like gravel. The tires spun on the slick concrete of the maintenance tunnel.
"Faster," Yoo-jin commanded from the jump seat. He was watching the water creep up the door seal.
"I'm doing eighty in a sewer!" Kai yelled. "If I go faster, we drift into the wall!"
"If you go slower, we drown. Apex didn't call the police. He hacked the city infrastructure."
The bus hit a deep puddle. BAM. The suspension groaned. Inside, fifty girls screamed as luggage and equipment cases slid across the floor.
"There!" Sae-ri pointed through the windshield.
Ahead, a massive rusty blast door marked PUMP STATION 03. It was on an incline, ten meters above the rising waterline.
"Ram it," Yoo-jin said.
"What?"
"The lock is electronic. We don't have the key. Physics is the key. Ram it!"
Kai gritted his teeth. He slammed the accelerator.
The bus engine whined. The black water chased their bumper.
CRASH.
The bus slammed into the heavy iron doors. Metal shrieked. The doors buckled inward.
The bus skidded into the dry concrete chamber of the pump station, smoke pouring from the radiator.
Behind them, the floodwater surged past the ramp, a torrent of black sludge filling the tunnel they had just occupied. If they had been ten seconds slower, they would be dead.
"Engine kill," Kai gasped, resting his forehead on the wheel. "Everyone okay?"
"I bit my tongue," Min-ji complained from the back, checking her bat for scratches. "But we're dry."
Yoo-jin kicked the warped door open. He stepped onto the dusty floor of the pump station. It was a circular room filled with silent, massive machinery.
"Temporary base," Yoo-jin announced. "David, check the signal. Did we lose the satellite link?"
David stumbled out of the bus with a laptop. "Barely holding on. But Boss... you need to see this."
"The water?"
"No. The internet."
David placed the laptop on a rusted turbine. He turned the screen toward Yoo-jin.
"It dropped two minutes ago. While we were driving."
Yoo-jin leaned in.
[BREAKING] Ministry of National Defense x Zenith Global
Official Music Video: PROJECT AEGIS - "SANCTUARY" (feat. Ji-soo)
"Play it," Yoo-jin said.
The video started with white noise. Then, a pure, ringing bell tone.
The visual was blindingly white. A digital cathedral.
The twelve Clones stood in a circle. They wore white silk suits with gold embroidery—military insignias stylized into fashion. They looked beautiful. They looked holy.
And in the center stood Ji-soo.
She held a silver microphone. Her eyes were wide, glassy. She looked like a doll that had been broken and glued back together.
The world is loud, Ji-soo sang. Her voice was crystal clear, auto-tuned to perfection.
The noise hurts your head.
Close your eyes, let the silence spread.
Then, the Clones joined in. A twelve-part harmony that was mathematically flawless. It was thick, warm, and comforting.
Trust the shield.
Trust the wall.
In the Sanctuary, you will never fall.
Yoo-jin felt a strange heaviness in his chest. His headache, which had been throbbing since the car crash, suddenly faded. His muscles relaxed.
He felt... safe.
"It's beautiful," Ha-eun whispered. She was standing behind him, staring at the screen. Her eyes were unfocused. "It sounds like... sleep."
"Turn it off," Yoo-jin snapped.
David didn't move. He was bobbing his head slightly.
"Turn it off!" Yoo-jin reached over and slammed the laptop shut.
The spell broke.
Ha-eun blinked, shaking her head. "What... what was that?"
"It's not a song," Yoo-jin said, his voice trembling with rage. "It's a prescription drug."
He paced around the turbine.
"The Violet Signal. Mason used it to incite riots. He used high frequencies to create aggression."
He pointed at the laptop.
"Apex inverted it. He flipped the frequency. Low theta waves. Binaural beats hidden in the bass line. It triggers dopamine and serotonin. It sedates the listener."
"They're drugging the audience?" Sae-ri asked, horrified.
"They're pacifying them," Yoo-jin corrected. "That song makes you feel safe. It makes you want to stop thinking. Stop fighting. Just listen and obey."
He looked at the view count on the closed laptop.
1.5 Million views in 10 minutes.
"The comments," David said, opening the lid cautiously. "Look at them."
I feel so calm watching this.
My anxiety is gone.
Ji-soo looks like an angel.
The government finally did something right.
Project Aegis is saving K-Pop.
"They're winning," Kai whispered. "How do we fight that? We're a bunch of fugitives in a sewer. They're selling peace of mind."
Sae-ri walked up to the screen. She paused the video on a close-up of Ji-soo.
"Zoom in," she ordered.
David obeyed.
"Closer. On her hand."
The image pixelated. Ji-soo was gripping the microphone stand. Her knuckles were white.
But it was her index finger. It was tapping against the metal.
Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.
"She's off rhythm," Kai noted. "That's amateur. She's tapping against the beat."
"No," Sae-ri's voice cracked. "She's not off rhythm. She's signaling."
Sae-ri looked at Yoo-jin.
"You taught her Morse code. During the Zenith infiltration training."
Yoo-jin froze. He stared at the tapping finger.
Dot. Dot-dash. Dot.
P. A. I. N.
Then another sequence.
S. T. A. G. E.
"Pain. Stage," Yoo-jin translated. "She's in pain. And 'Stage'..."
"The Debut Showcase," David pulled up the press release. "It's live. Three days from now. At the Gocheok Sky Dome."
"The Dome?" Min-ji gasped. "That's twenty thousand seats. They're going to brainwash twenty thousand people live?"
"And millions more streaming," Yoo-jin added. "If Project Aegis performs that song live, with the full power of the Dome's sound system... they'll turn the audience into a cult permanently."
The room fell silent. The sound of the rushing water outside seemed louder now.
"We have to save her," Ha-eun said, clutching her arm. "But how? We can't get into the Dome. It'll be a fortress."
Yoo-jin stared at the frozen image of Apex. The perfect clone. The thief who stole his face and was using it to enslave his country.
Apex wanted to be the "Better Producer." He wanted to prove that emotionless perfection was the future.
"He made a mistake," Yoo-jin muttered.
"What?"
"He made the song too perfect. It has no friction. No grit."
Yoo-jin looked at his ragged team. They were dirty, bloody, and exhausted. They were the definition of imperfection.
"You can't fight a sedative with logic," Yoo-jin said. "You have to fight it with adrenaline."
He turned to Min-ji.
"Unpack the gear."
"Here? In the pump room?"
"Yes. We're recording."
"Recording what?" Kai asked. "A ballad? An apology video?"
Yoo-jin grabbed a marker. He wrote on the dusty casing of the turbine.
PROJECT: WAKE UP CALL.
"Apex is using low frequencies to put them to sleep," Yoo-jin's eyes burned with the old mania. "So we're going to use high frequencies to wake them up."
"We're going to make noise," Sae-ri realized, a slow smile spreading across her face.
"Not noise," Yoo-jin corrected. "Punk Rock."
He looked at the fifty trainees.
"Ha-eun, get the girls. I need a choir that screams. Kai, I need a choreography that looks like a riot."
"And Ji-soo?" Sae-ri asked.
Yoo-jin looked at the screen, at the girl tapping 'PAIN' in Morse code while the world cheered for her smile.
"She gave us the location," Yoo-jin said. "She invited us to the stage."
He picked up the guitar pick he had used to escape the handcuffs.
"We're not going to rescue her from the backstage."
He turned to the group.
"We're going to buy tickets. We're going to the Dome."
"That's suicide," David squeaked.
"No," Yoo-jin grinned. "It's a collaboration."
He tapped the screen on Apex's face.
"You want a debut, Unit 001? Fine. Let's see whose song the crowd sings along to."
"Min-ji," Yoo-jin barked. "Give me a beat. Something ugly."
Min-ji grabbed a wrench. She slammed it against the hollow metal of the turbine.
CLANG.
It wasn't pretty. It rang in their ears. It was sharp. It hurt.
"Perfect," Yoo-jin said.
He closed his eyes. The melody wasn't coming from a system anymore. It was coming from his gut.
"Let's write a monster."