Kang Seong's integration into the Convent was a cold and methodical process, in his image. He did not try to make friends, nor did he participate in informal discussions. He moved to a terminal, plugged in his own encrypted hard drives, and immersed himself in the mass of data that Lyra and the regulators had accumulated. He was a self-sharpening tool, and his first target was the past.
Do watched, fascinated and worried. Kai's presence was on constant alert, analyzing every move of the newcomer. He's looking for a needle in a digital haystack. But he knows the shape of the needle. That's an advantage we didn't have.
Lyra had set clear boundaries: Kang Seong had access to historical system records, operating logs in their area, but not to future offensive plans, or to the locations of other dormant regulators. Trust, if there was confidence, was earned.
For two days, Kang Seong hardly spoke. Only the frenetic rattling of his keyboard and the hum of his fans broke the concentrated silence that surrounded him. Then, on the third night, he raised his head. His eyes were surrounded, but they shone with a strange glow, both triumphant and devastated.
"I found her," he announced, his voice hoarse with fatigue.
All eyes turned to him. Do, Joon, Lyra and Cassiopeia approached her screen. It displayed an encrypted recording, dated three years ago, from a school observation module.
Subject: Yoona Kang. ID #7741.
Status: Student, Ganguk High.
Notes: Levels of exceptional curiosity and analytical intelligence. Active survey of local demographic anomalies (disappearance rate, documented personality changes).
Assessment: Level 4 cognitive risk. Non-correctable deviance by standard means.
Recommendation: Extraction for further evaluation. Consciousness transfer protocol recommended.
Final status: Successful transfer. Original body disabled. Consciousness archived in the Theta Module for study.
The silence that followed was heavier than any that had preceded it. The words were monstrously cold. "Archived consciousness..." It was worse than erasure. It was a perpetual prison, like the one Kai had known, but for "research" purposes.
Kang Seong clenched his fists so tightly that his joints bleached." Where is he?"
Lyra quickly consulted her own databases, her face impassive but her fingers slightly shaky. "It's an old designation. A long-term storage subsystem for consciousnesses deemed "high study value." He was decommissioned eighteen months ago. The archives were migrated to..." She stopped, her eyes met with Kang Seong's." An annex of the main nucleus."
The cruel hope that had been kindled in Kang Seong's eyes immediately darkened. The Redundancy Core. A fortress in the fortress. The most protected place in the entire system, after the Core itself.
"It's impossible to access it," said Joon, pragmatically. "Even with all our resources combined. The defenses are of an order of magnitude greater than anything we've faced."
"There she is," whispered Kang Seong, staring at the screen as if he could cross the pixels to reach his sister. Locked in a box. And you say it's impossible?"
His voice was not full of anger, but of a chilling determination that was far more frightening. It was the voice of a man for whom the word "impossible" had just lost all meaning.
He will try, Kai thought, and Do felt a sinister recognition in that thought. He's going to try on his own, and he's going to fail, and he's going to betray us or make us all discover.
Do spoke before Lyra could answer. "It's not impossible. That's the end goal. The Main Core, or its annex, is where we have to hit to bring everything down. To free everyone. Yoona, the other consciousnesses archived... and to give us a chance to live without being pawns."
He looked Kang Seong straight in the eyes. "Your goal and ours have just converged. But we can't rush headlong. We need a plan. From an army. A way to strike that is not a suicide. Your information... they can give us that."
It was a call to reason, but also a reminder of the pact. Kang Seong blinked, as if emerging from a nightmare. The helpless rage slowly turned into fierce concentration. He turned away from the screen and opened a new file on his computer. A list of names, posts, stolen photographs.
"Very good," he said, his voice regaining some of its analytical calm. I know the chief warrant officer of the Area 7 police. He has a son. A son who "disappeared" five years ago, officially an overdose. But there are inconsistencies in the report. Inconsistencies that I noted. He knows I know. He will turn a blind eye to many things in exchange for my silence... and perhaps a hope for truth."
He scrolled." The deputy director of the Cygnus Corp, which provides the surveillance servers to the municipality. She's scared. She saw things in the data that she doesn't understand. It could be approached, with the right arguments."
One by one, he unveiled his cards. Levers of pressure, human weaknesses, people in positions of influence who, through fear, blackmail or a desire for truth, could be turned against the system. It was a network of shadows and compromises, the work of three years of obsessive observation.
Lyra was listening, her mind calculating at full speed. "It's a start," she admitted. "But they're just pawns. We need major parts. People within the system's own control structures."
Kang Seong nodded. "I'm coming. Dr. Aris. "He displayed a portrait of a middle-aged man in a white coat with an intelligent but tired face." He worked for the "Cognitive Continuity" project, an aborted precursor to the replacement system. He was discarded when the project became... more radical. He lives in a recluse, under surveillance. But he hates what his job has become. And he knows the architecture of the Core better than anyone else outside of his original designers."
A designer. That was the potential breakthrough they were waiting for. An architect who knew the plans for the fortress.
"Where is he?" asked Joon.
"In a house arrest on the edge of the city. A nice golden dungeon," said Kang Seong. "Approaching it will be extremely dangerous. The system monitors it like milk on fire."
A new plan, far more ambitious and risky than anything they had envisioned, was beginning to emerge. Hire a system architect. Use Kang Seong's network of influence to create distractions, obtain falsified permissions, open doors. Meanwhile, the Do/Kai dyad and regulators are expected to infiltrate the residence, convince or coerce Dr. Aris, and extract his knowledge before the system becomes aware of their intrusion.
The task seemed Herculean. But for the first time, she had a map, pawns to move, and a goal that united personal revenge and collective liberation.
"We have work to do," said Lyra, a glimmer of defiance in her gray eyes. "Kang Seong, you will draw up a hierarchical list of contacts, with their exact vulnerabilities and recommended approaches. Joon, Cassiopeia, you will begin to model the security of Dr. Aris's home from public data and eavesdropping that we may risk."
She turned to Do. "You... you have to go back to Ganguk High. The truce must hold. You must be the stable, predictable Kim-Do that everyone thinks they know. The more discreet we are outside, the more freedom we will have to maneuver in the shadows."
Do nodded, feeling the weight of the double game redoubled. Play the peaceful gang leader while, in his mind, he and Kai planned a coup against a divine artificial intelligence.
As the night progressed and the Convent buzzed with new activity, Kang Seong approached Do as he prepared to leave.
"You spoke to him, didn't you?" he asked in a low voice. "To the conscience in the mirror. To the other."
Do is frozen. How could he know? Then he understood. The observer had not only noted strategic changes. He had seen the duality in his eyes, in his hesitations, in the way his expertise seemed to fluctuate.
"Yes," admitted Do, also in a low voice. There was no longer any reason to deny with him.
"How is it?" The question was not intrusive, but loaded with a deep need. Kang Seong sought to understand his sister's fate through the closest experience he could find.
"It's... a constant fight," Do confessed. "Sometimes it's like having a counselor in your head. Other times, it's like being possessed. It's terrifying, and exhausting. But... it's not bad. He was just trapped, like your sister."
Kang Seong looked at him for a long time, then nodded his head, a sign of dark gratitude. "Release her," he said, his voice suddenly strangled. "When you hit the Core... release them all."
With these words, he returned to his screens, his right back betraying a new resolution.
Do left the Convent, his mind cluttered with plans, names, and the image of a brilliant young woman named Yoona, whose consciousness was perhaps still conscious, somewhere in the cold bowels of the machine. The rebellion was no longer an abstraction. She had a name, a face, and a family desperately waiting to bring her home. The stakes had just shifted from survival to redemption, and the price of failure had become infinitely higher.