Somewhere in the city, an alarm clock buzzed. Somewhere else, a mother shook her child awake. The city stirred, yawning into routine.
And then it stopped.
The post dropped.
At 6:01 a.m., the anonymous account lit up with images: spreadsheets stamped with the seal of a government subcontractor, cross-referenced against the flashy purchases of a minister's son. New car. Private trips. Receipts. His lifestyle laid bare against the crumbling economy.
The hashtag was immediate.#NepoBabies#TruthUnseen
By 7:00, it trended. By 7:30, newsrooms were buzzing, though half were told to ignore it. By 8:00, the police cyber unit was called in.
Inside the precinct, the tension was palpable. Officers hunched over glowing monitors, faces pale against the flood of hashtags. One slammed his fist.
"Whoever's behind this isn't a kid playing around," he growled. "This is targeted. Coordinated. Dangerous."
A senior official leaned in, voice tight. "We don't care about hashtags. We care about control. Find the source. Now."
"Sir—if we trace wrong, it blows back."
"Then don't trace wrong." His words cut like a knife. "I want a name. Before noon."
Already, directives rolled out: tighten surveillance on schools, track unusual network traffic, scan for burner phones, cross-check IPs. Students. Journalists. Anyone with a grudge.
In a dim safehouse, Jihoon read the reports pouring in on his encrypted feed. His eyes narrowed, but his voice was calm.
"They've taken the bait."
The others looked nervous. Daeho's hands shook against a paper cup. Soojin's pencil tapped restlessly against her notebook. Yeonhwa just stood near the window, scanning the alley below.
"What if they trace us?" Soojin whispered.
"They will try," Jihoon said. He pulled out a folded paper map, not a laptop. "But police play by rules. We don't."
He outlined their countermeasures:
Layered posting. Each document seeded through three accounts before the final upload.
Dead drops. Data passed by hand, not internet.
Noise floods. Fake hashtags scheduled to drop at the same time, burying the trail.
"This isn't about hiding forever," Jihoon explained. "It's about buying time. For every hour they chase shadows, another citizen reads the truth."
Yeonhwa crossed her arms. "You sound like you've been preparing this for years."
Jihoon's eyes flickered, remembering his sister's hand slipping from his arms. "I've been preparing since the day they killed her."
By mid-morning, the police announced an investigation into "foreign agitators" spreading lies online. State-run channels parroted the line, headlines twisting truth into smog.
But the streets were already alive. College students whispered in cafeterias. Factory workers scrolled during breaks. Parents muttered on buses. The posts weren't just noise. They were a mirror.
Back in the safehouse, Jihoon stood before the group, shadows from the lamp etching hard lines on his face.
"They'll hunt us harder now. This was just the first wave. The next one, they'll mobilize informants. Raids. Fear campaigns."
"And us?" Daeho asked.
Jihoon's lips curved into something between a grim smile and a vow.
"We adapt. We fracture. We scatter our signals. From today, we don't move as one group—we move as echoes. Dozens of voices, one message. They can silence a person. They can't silence a storm."
The room fell silent, their breaths heavy with the weight of what had just begun.
Jihoon leaned forward, his voice steady, unforgettable:
"They've declared war on the truth. Now we declare war on their lies."
Outside, sirens wailed. The city had woken u