CLANG.
The sound echoed off the damp concrete walls of the pump station.
"Harder," Yoo-jin ordered. "Don't hit it like a drum. Hit it like you hate it."
Min-ji gritted her teeth. She swung the heavy pipe wrench again, slamming it into the hollow casing of the rusted turbine.
CLANG.
It was ugly. It was metallic, dissonant, and sharp. It sounded like a car crash set to a rhythm.
"Good," Yoo-jin pointed his baton—a broken antenna—at Kai. "Bass line. Go."
Kai plucked the strings of a bass guitar they had salvaged from the BK Building. It wasn't plugged into an amp. It was plugged into a distortion pedal and then directly into a blown-out speaker ripped from the tour bus.
Womp. Womp. Womp.
The sound was muddy and thick, vibrating in their chests.
"Vocals," Yoo-jin turned to Ha-eun.
The pink-haired trainee stood in front of a microphone taped to a broomstick. She looked terrified.
"I... I can't sing this, PD-nim. It's too high. It's screaming."
"I don't want singing," Yoo-jin stepped closer. He looked into her eyes. "Ji-soo is surrounded by twelve perfect princes. If we sing pretty, we lose. We need to sound like a panic attack."
He grabbed the mic stand.
"Scream for her. Scream like they're dragging you away."
Ha-eun closed her eyes. She thought of the Clone's hand on her neck. She thought of the cold rain.
She opened her mouth.
SCREEEEEAM!
It cracked. It was raw. It was perfect.
"Cut," Yoo-jin pointed to David. "Loop that. Pitch shift it down one octave. Layer it under the kick drum."
David's fingers flew across the laptop keyboard. "Boss, this isn't a song. It's a noise complaint."
"Exactly," Yoo-jin smirked. "Project Aegis is a lullaby. We're the alarm clock."
They had been recording for six hours straight. The pump station smelled of ozone and sweat. Fifty girls were stomping their feet on the metal grating to create the percussion track. It was primal.
Yoo-jin looked at the waveform on the screen. It looked like a jagged scar.
Track Name: WAKE_UP.wav
"We have the weapon," Sae-ri wiped sweat from her forehead. She was holding a tambourine made of loose coins in a jar. "Now, how do we fire it?"
She pointed to the calendar on the wall.
"The debut is in 48 hours. The Gocheok Sky Dome holds 20,000 people. It's sold out."
"And the perimeter is locked down by the military," Kai added, unplugging his bass. "We can't just walk in with a bus full of fugitives."
Yoo-jin stared at the waveform.
"We don't need to walk in," he said. "We need to be carried in."
"By who?"
"By the virus."
24 Hours Later. An Internet Cafe in the Slums of Seoul.
The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of ramen.
Yoo-jin sat in the back corner, wearing a hoodie and a black mask. David was next to him, looking nervous as he typed on a sticky keyboard.
"N3KO is online," David whispered.
On the screen, a pixelated cat avatar popped up.
[N3KO]:You're crazy, Boss. The Ministry has a Level 10 firewall around the Dome's sound system. If I try to hack the speakers, they'll trace me and drone strike my mom's basement.
"We don't touch the speakers," Yoo-jin typed back. "The Ministry controls the hardware. But who controls the software?"
[N3KO]:What software?
"The Lightsticks," Yoo-jin typed.
In modern K-Pop, lightsticks were Bluetooth-controlled. The central console changed their colors to match the beat. Zenith's new "Aegis Wand" was state-of-the-art. It had vibration motors and a small internal speaker for sound effects.
[N3KO]:The internal speakers are tinny. They can't play music loud enough to fill a dome.
"One lightstick is quiet," Yoo-jin replied. "What about twenty thousand?"
He looked at David.
"Physics, David. Constructive interference. If 20,000 tiny speakers play the same frequency at the exact same millisecond..."
"...it amplifies," David's eyes widened. "It becomes a wall of sound."
"And if we hack the official concert app," Yoo-jin continued, "we can turn every fan's phone into a subwoofer."
[N3KO]:You want to turn the audience into a human sound system?
"They want to control the crowd," Yoo-jin leaned back. "I'm going to let the crowd speak."
[N3KO]:I need 12 hours to code the payload. But how do you get the update onto their phones? The App Store takes days to approve patches.
Yoo-jin pulled a USB drive from his pocket. It contained the raw, ugly track they had recorded in the sewer.
"We don't use the App Store," Yoo-jin said. "We use the rumor mill."
He turned to Sae-ri, who was standing guard by the door.
"Leaks," Yoo-jin said. "I want you to leak the 'stem files' of the new Aegis song. Fake ones."
"Fake ones?"
"Release a file called 'Aegis_Hidden_Track_Leak.mp3'. Post it on the fan cafes. Tell them it unlocks a secret light show at the concert."
"Fans love secrets," Sae-ri smiled dangerously. "They'll download anything if they think it's exclusive."
"Exactly. They download the file. The file contains N3KO's trigger code. When the concert starts..."
Yoo-jin mimed an explosion with his hands.
"...we hijack the Bluetooth network."
"But Hyung," Kai asked, crouching next to the desk. "Even if the audience plays the music... we still need to be there. Someone has to sing the live vocals. A recording isn't enough to break the trance."
Yoo-jin nodded. This was the hard part.
The music could be hacked. The presence could not.
"We need a Trojan Horse," Yoo-jin said.
Suddenly, the screen flickered.
N3KO's chat window vanished.
Static filled the monitor.
Then, a face appeared.
It wasn't a clone. It wasn't Apex.
It was a live feed of the Gocheok Dome backstage.
Sitting on a velvet sofa, wearing a pristine white suit, was Apex. He was looking directly into the camera.
"Hello, Subject 734," Apex said.
David yelped and tried to unplug the computer.
"Leave it," Yoo-jin ordered. He pulled down his mask.
"You're tracking my IP," Yoo-jin said calmly.
"You are at the 'PC Bang' in Mullae-dong," Apex replied smoothly. "Seat 42. I could send a tactical team. ETA 8 minutes."
"But you won't."
"No. That would be boring."
Apex swirled a glass of water.
"I saw your stream. The 'glitch' narrative. It was clever. It created a 4% dip in our pre-order sales."
"Only 4%?" Yoo-jin smirked. "I'm losing my touch."
"You are trying to get into the Dome," Apex said. It wasn't a question. "You want to disrupt the debut."
"I bought a ticket. Section B, Row 4."
"I cancelled it," Apex smiled perfectly. "Refund processed."
Yoo-jin leaned into the cheap webcam.
"Why are you calling, Apex? To brag?"
"To offer a deal."
Apex gestured to the empty stage behind him.
"You think you are the real Producer. You think emotion beats optimization. I disagree."
"So?"
"So, come to the Dome. I have left the South Loading Dock unlocked. No guards. No cameras."
The team froze.
"It's a trap," Sae-ri hissed.
"Obviously," Yoo-jin muttered.
"Bring your 'army'," Apex continued. "Bring your noise. Stand on the stage with us. Let the audience decide who they love."
Apex's eyes gleamed with robotic arrogance.
"If you win, the Ministry will back down. If I win... you surrender your biological rights and submit to deletion."
"Why give me a chance?"
"Because," Apex leaned forward, his face filling the screen. "Killing you in a sewer proves nothing. Defeating you on stage proves I am the Original."
The screen went black.
Yoo-jin stared at the reflection in the dark monitor.
"He's insane," David whispered. "He's literally inviting us to an execution."
"He's not insane," Yoo-jin stood up. "He's an idol. He craves validation."
Apex had just given them the key. The South Loading Dock.
"It's definitely an ambush," Kai said. "There will be snipers. Or a cage."
"He won't kill us before the show," Yoo-jin zipped up his hoodie. "He wants to humiliate us first. He wants to show the world that human imperfection is weak."
Yoo-jin turned to his team.
"David, get the virus ready. Sae-ri, start the leaks."
He walked toward the exit of the internet cafe. The rain outside was pouring harder than ever.
"Where are you going?" Min-ji asked.
"To the barber," Yoo-jin said, touching his messy, overgrown hair.
"If we're going to a debut," he said, his eyes sharp as glass shards.
"I need to look like the main event."
The Day of the Debut.
Gocheok Sky Dome.
The atmosphere was electric. Twenty thousand fans held white lightsticks, creating a sea of stars.
The stage was a massive white castle.
Backstage, in the shadows of the South Loading Dock, a rusty delivery truck idled.
Yoo-jin stepped out.
He had shaved. His hair was styled back, sharp and severe. He wore a black trench coat over a suit he had salvaged from a thrift store. It was tattered, pinned together with safety pins, but on him, it looked like high fashion couture.
Behind him, fifty girls in black hoodies emerged from the truck. They held bats, pipes, and microphones.
"Remember," Yoo-jin whispered to them. "We are not idols tonight."
He looked at the open loading dock door. It was dark, inviting, and menacing.
"We are the glitch."
Sae-ri stood beside him. She checked the time.
[Showtime: 5 Minutes]
"Are you scared?" she asked.
"Terrified," Yoo-jin admitted.
He pulled the guitar pick from his pocket.
"Let's go break some perfection."
He stepped into the darkness of the Dome.