The city didn't sleep.Not really. It only blinked — briefly — while the neon lights of Gangnam pulsed like arteries under the night rain.
Han Dae-Sung stood by the edge of an abandoned overpass, the roar of cars below drowning the sound of his heartbeat. His breath fogged in the cold air, mingling with exhaust fumes. In his hand, the half-burnt drive blinked faintly, the last ghost of something he couldn't name.
Harin crouched beside a portable decryptor — a palm-sized cube glowing faint blue, its inner circuits whirring softly. "It's only giving me fragments," she muttered. "Half of it's gone, maybe more."
"Fragments are enough," Dae-Sung said. His voice was low, steady, but his fingers trembled. "Run a scan for hidden partitions. Try shadow protocols."
"You think Genesis encoded something inside the corrupted data?"
He didn't answer. He just stared at the lights far below — Seoul, sprawling and indifferent, alive with millions who would never know how close their government had come to burning its own.
The Ghost Protocol
A ping.The decryptor projected a faint holographic grid in midair — fragments of letters, incomplete file headers, coordinates, and one clear signature.
"Transmission Relay: Langley Node-7""Secondary Access: MI6-Satellite Override / Active"
Harin's brows furrowed. "That's the CIA and MI6 joint encryption structure. Why would a Korean classified project be routed through them?"
"Because Project Eclipse wasn't Korean," Dae-Sung murmured. "It was global."
She glanced up. "You think your parents were working against it?"
He looked away. "I think they died because they were about to expose it."
Echoes in the Underground
Hours later, they descended into Seoul's undercity — a maze of decommissioned subway tunnels, rumored to connect to Cold War-era shelters. Few maps existed. None were official.
Their contact was waiting.An old man in a tattered coat, sitting beneath a flickering lightbulb. His name was Kim Joon-seo — former NIS cyber-division, exiled after leaking files on government surveillance experiments.
"You brought ghosts with you," Joon-seo said, voice gravelly. His left eye was cybernetic, glowing faint amber. "The docks were on every news channel."
Dae-Sung tossed a soaked jacket aside. "Then you know why we're here."
The old man smirked. "Project Eclipse. You're not the first to dig into it. But you might be the last."
He opened a dusty crate, revealing ancient hard drives and data wafers stacked like forgotten bones.
"Fifteen years ago, Eclipse was a multi-nation intelligence program. Started as a satellite coordination network for global surveillance — but it went rogue. Too much power, too much secrecy. Your parents were field agents assigned to monitor it, not lead it."
"What went wrong?" Harin asked.
"What always goes wrong," Joon-seo said, lighting a cigarette. "Someone tried to control it. Someone higher than any president."
Dae-Sung frowned. "Who?"
The old man leaned forward, smoke curling around his metal eye."The name they used internally was The Accord. CIA, MI6, and your own NIS had seats at the table. So did private contractors — biotech, weapons, AI labs. They were building something that could predict conflict before it started."
"Predict?" Harin asked. "You mean… control?"
He nodded. "Predict, control, and erase variables."
Dae-Sung's voice dropped to a whisper. "Variables like… people?"
"Exactly."
The words hung in the stale air.
The Ambush
The old man froze.The faint hum of the tunnel changed — the echo of soft mechanical movement.
Dae-Sung's instincts flared. He raised his pistol, motioning Harin to kill the lights. Total darkness swallowed them.
Then — the first beam of red laser sight cut through the gloom.
"Contact," Harin hissed.
A bullet screamed past her head, sparking against the concrete. Dae-Sung shoved her behind a column and fired two quick shots — silhouettes dropped, mechanical parts whirring as they fell. Not human.
"Automated recon units," he muttered, rolling to cover. "Who the hell—"
A voice broke through his comms, distorted, modulated.
"Han Dae-Sung. The Accord thanks you for retrieving our property."
The voice came from everywhere — through speakers embedded in the walls.
"Walk away from the drive, and you'll live."
"Not happening," Dae-Sung growled.
Then came the swarm.
Tiny drones spilled through the tunnel vent — metal insects with blinking sensors, wings slicing the air. Harin activated her wrist disruptor — a pulse of blue static filled the tunnel, frying the first wave midair. But more came.
Joon-seo threw a small case toward Dae-Sung. "EMP grenades! Two-second fuse!"
He pulled the pin and hurled it. A blinding flash. The tunnel shook as the remaining drones fell lifeless to the ground.
For a moment, silence.
Then — footsteps. Real ones.
Three men emerged through the haze — black tactical gear, British insignia half-hidden under mud.
"MI6 field retrieval," Harin muttered. "They tracked the transmission."
"Alive," one of them barked. "We need him alive."
"Not tonight," Dae-Sung said.
He dove behind the old generator, fired two shots — missed. A bullet grazed his shoulder. Pain seared through his arm. The second agent advanced with a taser rifle. Dae-Sung grabbed a metal pipe and parried the shot, sparks erupting.
Harin flipped over a crate, landed behind one attacker, and drove her elbow into his neck — clean, silent.
The fight became chaos — tight, brutal, efficient.
Dae-Sung disarmed one man, used the rifle's butt to slam him into the wall. Another lunged with a combat knife — Dae-Sung sidestepped, twisting his wrist until bone cracked. The knife fell; he caught it midair and drove it into the man's shoulder.
Blood sprayed across the tunnel wall.
Then the floor rumbled.The generator overloaded — Joon-seo shouted, "It's unstable! We need to go!"
Harin grabbed the drive, Dae-Sung covered her, firing down the tunnel as they ran. The explosion followed — a wave of heat and debris chasing them into the night.
The Aftermath
They burst through a maintenance hatch, collapsing on the wet asphalt near the Han River. Sirens echoed somewhere far away, blending with thunder.
Joon-seo didn't make it. The tunnel had collapsed behind them.
Harin leaned against the guardrail, blood streaking down her temple. "They knew where we were, Dae-Sung. That means they have access to NIS or—"
"Or someone inside Genesis is working for them."
He clenched his jaw. The rain hit harder now, masking the tremor in his voice.His parents had died fighting something buried deep enough to bend entire nations — and now it was hunting him.
"We can't stay here," Harin said. "They'll sweep the area within the hour."
He nodded, slipping the drive into his jacket. "Tokyo," he said quietly. "The last data node from the file fragment was in Japan. If Eclipse had a mirror server, it'll be there."
"And after that?"
"After that," he said, staring across the black water, "we burn the Accord to the ground."
Across the Sea
Two days later — Tokyo Station, 11:32 AM.
The platform buzzed with travelers, chatter, and the rhythmic announcement of departures. The bullet train to Osaka gleamed under the morning light, sleek and silver like a blade.
Dae-Sung adjusted the collar of his trench coat, scanning faces. Harin followed, blending easily into the crowd, her hair dyed dark auburn now.
"Everything clean?" she asked, voice low.
"Three tails cut since Narita," he said. "They're getting faster."
They boarded quietly, sitting opposite each other in the private cabin. Outside, Japan rushed by in streaks of color.
Harin opened a small case — custom tech, assembled from scraps. "Portable decryptor Mark-V. If the drive's got any surviving partitions, this will find them."
He smiled faintly. "You built that in two days?"
"I build when I can't sleep."
"Then you must've not slept at all."
She looked up — for a second, something almost warm flickered in her eyes.
Then the train entered the countryside, and the signal dropped.
Foreshadow — The Eye Above
Miles away, in a London command room, three MI6 officers watched the train feed through satellite relay.
"Target acquired," one said. "Shinkansen, Car 7. They're decrypting the data."
The man at the center — Director Mallory — steepled his fingers. "Initiate containment. Tokyo field team only. No civilian casualties."
"And if they resist?"
He glanced at the screen — at the faces of Dae-Sung and Harin, unaware they were being watched from half a world away.
"Then they don't leave Japan."