The door of Dr. Aris's villa opened not by a man, but by an electronic eye, blue and cold, mounted on a discreet articulated arm. He swept away the falsified delivery badge that Do presented, then his face. A silence of a few seconds, then a sharp click. The solid wooden door opened.
"Leave the package on the entrance table," resounded a synthetic, soulless voice.
Plan No. 1 - enter - was a failure.
Quiet, thought Kai, his mental presence a block of ice. Follow the protocol. But get ready for Plan B.
"Sorry, sir," Do replied, forcing his voice to take a neutral, professional intonation. These drugs are thermosensitive. I have to place them myself in the designated medical refrigerator. Compulsory signature."
Another, longer silence. Somewhere behind the door, barely audible engines were activated. The security system weighed the risk. Refusing risked damaging vital medicines for his prisoner/precious. To accept was to let a stranger in.
Finally, the synthetic voice sounded again. "Move to the hall. A bright path will guide you. Don't stray from it."
The door opened completely. Do crossed the threshold, his heart beating against his ribs. The hall was large, sober, furnished with an impersonal and expensive taste. A ribbon of blue LED light lit up on the ground, winding through the hall to a sliding door.
He followed the trail, feeling the weight of invisible sensors on him. The sliding door opened into a large, modern kitchen, all steel and white marble. And there, standing near a huge refrigerator, stood Dr. Aris.
He was older than his picture, his shoulders slightly stooped under a beige shirt. His gray hair was messy, and his eyes, behind thin-mounted glasses, were pale blue, piercing but deeply weary. He did not look at Do, but stared into his hands with palpable distrust.
"There," he said simply, pointing to the refrigerator.
Do complied, delicately placing the package on a shelf. Then he turned around, holding the tablet for the signature. It was time.
"Doctor Aris," he said, lowering his voice just below the level where hidden microphones could easily pick up. "We have a message for you. From those who planted a sunset in the Core."
Dr. Aris's eyes expanded imperceptibly. His hand, outstretched to take the stylus, froze in the air. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said in a flat voice, but his gaze began to move quickly, analyzing Do, the room, the exits.
He knows, thought Kai, triumphantly. The virus. He saw the reports. He knows it's impossible, and yet it's happened.
"A sunset in Ganguk High Park," Do insisted, following the script prepared with Lyra. "A loop of nostalgia in a deterministic process. You designed it to be perfect, right? Inflexible. Someone made it... imperfect. We need you to make him vulnerable."
Aris squeezed his jaws. "You're crazy. You're going to get us all killed. Get out. Now."
Plan B. Do gently placed the tablet on the marble counter. "We know about the Cognitive Continuity project. You wanted to preserve consciences, not replace them. They hijacked your work. We know about Yoona Kang. Archived in the Theta Module."
At that name, a nervous tick ran through Aris's face. Pain, guilt." Yoona... it was an accident. Too bright a curiosity. We had to study it..."
"You locked her up!" whistled Do, Kang Seong's anger and his own horror merging in his voice. Now, help us break them. We need the Alpha Redundancy Core access plans. The weak points of quantum transfer."
Aris stepped back, shaking his head. "Impossible. Even with the plans... the defenses... you're not prepared. You are children playing with a nuclear power plant."
That's when the synthetic voice sounds louder in the room." Analysis of ongoing profiles."
They were spotted. The system had compared the frequencies of their whispered conversation to a database. Do, with his Anomaly imprint, must have raised an alarm.
"See?" groaned Aris, terrified. "It's too late!"
No, Kai scolded in Do's mind. Show him that we are not children. Show him that we're already inside.
Do did what Kai told him to do. He closed his eyes for a split second, as if to concentrate, and then opened them again. And when he spoke, it was no longer just with his voice, but with a cold assurance, a different tone, the one that Kai used to command. It was subtle, but for a man like Aris, who was used to analyzing behavior, it was like seeing two people talking at the same time.
"Doctor," said Do's voice, tinged with Kai's. "I woke up in a body that was not mine. I was used, tested, tortured by the system you helped create. And I survived. I released a consciousness of a Cognitive Mirror. I've introduced an emotion into your perfect machine. We are not children. We are the mistakes you didn't anticipate. And we're at your doorstep. Help us, or stay here and wait for the system to decide that you, too, have become an unnecessary variable."
Duality, exhibited as evidence. The revelation of the mirror. The evocation of one's own possible fate. The words hit Aris hard. He staggered, leaning against the counter. The electronic eyes on the ceiling rotated, the LED lights flashed red.
Level 2 security alert confirmed. Intervention required," announced the synthetic voice.
"There's not much time left, Doctor," Do pressed, reaching out, not threatening, but to receive something. Now."
Aris looked at him, and in his eyes, fear struggled with something else. A glimmer of ancient rebellion, buried under years of remorse and fear. The desire to repair, even a little, the horror it had engendered.
With a sudden movement, he leaned over, opened a seemingly mundane drawer under the counter, and pulled out an unmarked black USB stick. He shoved it into Do's hand.
"The biometric lock in my old office at the Cygnus complex, sector 9. My fingerprint and iris are still in the system in standby mode. The key bypasses the local firewall. The plans are there. Access patterns... it's a labyrinth. You'll never get there."
"We'll see," said Do, clutching the USB key. "How do I disable local alert systems?"
"You can't. But you can overload them." Aris glanced terrifiedly towards the ceiling. "There's a maintenance box behind the second painting on the left in the lobby. Manual code: 7-3-0-4, the last digits of the original project serial number. This will create a 30-second diagnostic loop. Use them to escape."
Synthetic voice thundered. "Level 3 alert. Exit lock. Neutralization agents on the way."
"Leave!" cried Aris.
Do didn't need to be repeated. He rushed out of the kitchen, following the blue light path upside down, which now flashed red. In the hall, he located the painting - a soulless seascape - and pushed it aside, found the box. His trembling fingers made up the code: 7-3-0-4.
A sharp hum filled the air, then the red lights froze. The door locks clicked slightly.
"Now, Do!" Joon's voice sizzled in his earpiece, outstretched. "Five guards approach from the north. I create a sound diversion to the west. Run through the south garden!"
Do rushed to the French window overlooking the garden, opened it wide and plunged into the fresh evening air. Behind him, in the house, he heard Aris's voice screaming, feigning panic for the cameras: "He left this way! Stop him!"
The race through the meticulously maintained garden was a nightmare of carved bushes and motion detectors narrowly avoided. He climbed the wall in the back, tearing his uniform, and landed in an alley where Joon was waiting for him at the wheel of a discreet van, a rotating engine.
The door slammed, and they walked away, mixed with normal traffic before the black vehicles of the system's agents rushed into the villa.
In the vehicle, panting, Do was squeezing the USB key into his sweaty palm. It was hot, full of promise and danger.
"Did you succeed?" asked Joon, his eyes fixed on the road.
"We have the plans," Do whispered. Then, turning to the window, he whispered, for himself and for the other presence in him: "We have the plans for the fortress."
Kai remained silent in his mind, but Do perceived a rare, almost foreign feeling: a deep respect, tinged with fierce determination. They had reached a crucial milestone. The next one would be the assault itself. And for the first time, they had a map.