The USB stick was a cold, heavy dot in Do's pocket. In the moving van, tension eased into dull fatigue, mixed with the echo of adrenaline. Joon drove with a concentration of war pilots, scanning the mirrors, taking random turns to blur any possible tracks.
"He betrayed us," Joon scolded after a long silence. His cries to denounce us."
But Do shook his head, thinking back to the old man's gaze. He was playing his part. He must have appeared victim, not accomplice. If he had remained silent, the system would have eliminated him for incompetence or collusion. There, he stays alive. And useful."
In his mind, Kai approved with brief assent. A survival maneuver. Correct.
Back in the convent, the atmosphere was electric. Lyra grabbed the USB key with almost religious gestures. Kang Seong stood aside, his gaze burning with restrained impatience. He didn't ask for anything, but his silent presence posed the only question that mattered to him: Does this lead us to Yoona?
The data was extracted in an isolated environment, protected by the best tinkered firewalls in regulators. On screens scrolled through dizzyingly complex patterns: architectural cross-sectional plans of a huge underground complex, quantum flow diagrams, security frequency lists, multi-factor authentication protocols.
It was the Alpha Redundancy Core. Not just a server room, but a digital cathedral carved into the rock, protected by layers of physical and virtual defenses that seemed insurmountable.
"The main access is here," Lyra pointed to a fortified entrance on the plans. "But it's a trap. A two-metre-thick steel door, guarded by thermal signature automata and reducing force fields. No conventional force can cross it."
"Then we don't use conventional force," said Do's voice, but it was Kai who spoke through him, his eyes running through the patterns with the instinct of a born strategist. Cooling ducts for the quantum core."
He pointed to a network of narrower, artery-like tunnels that crisscrossed the complex. Not as well guarded. Too narrow for a mass attack, but perfect for a small undercover team."
Cassiopeia, leaning over another terminal, nodded. "The air filters are changed every six months by specialized robots. The robots are authenticated by an encrypted signal, renewed with each mission."
"And we have this signal?" asked Orion, still pragmatic.
"No," Lyra replied. "But we have something better. We have Dr. Aris. Its biometric fingerprint is still valid for level 3 maintenance access. And we have the signal generation codes for the USB key. If we can fake a maintenance robot, or better, make us look like one of them..."
The plan began to take shape, bold and terrifying. They wouldn't launch an assault. They would slip inside, like a virus in a vein.
But there was another, equally crucial problem. Kang Seong finally stepped forward. "What about the Theta Module? Where is he in all this?"
Lyra zoomed in on a section of the plan, an isolated armored chamber in the very heart of the Redundancy Core, surrounded by symbols indicating an "area of high-integrity cognitive stasis."
"Here," she said simply. "In the center of the fortress."
The heart of their target was also Yoona's prison. The purpose of the rebellion and Kang Seong's personal quest were now inextricably linked. You couldn't reach one without the other.
"Well," said Kang Seong, his face impassive. "How do we falsify the robot?"
The days that followed were a whirlwind of feverish activity. Kang Seong, using his contacts, located a warehouse where the spare maintenance robots were stored. It was a private installation, but security was provided by one of the companies whose director he had compromised. A combination of blackmail and false commands allowed Orion and Vega, the most skilled regulators in physical engineering, to enter discreetly.
Meanwhile, in the "normal" world, Do had to maintain the facade. The Council meeting had calmed the spirits at Ganguk High, but Lee Min-Ji's curiosity was far from being extinguished. She met him again in the library, pretending to look for a book.
"Your friend Kang Seong has reappeared," she remarked, without looking at him. "He looks... changed. Less under observation. More on a mission."
Do felt Kai's warning. She's too close.
"People evolve," he replied, shrugging his shoulders, turning the pages of a book on ancient military strategy. "Maybe he has finally found something that deserves his full attention."
"What about you, Kim-Do?" she asked, turning to him, her eyes piercing. "What deserves your full attention?" Because clearly, it's no longer the factions, or even the power in this school."
It was a direct question, almost a challenge. Do looked at her, and for the first time, he wanted to tell her the truth. Talk about the machine, about rebellion, about the weight of sharing your mind. But he held back. To protect her was to keep her away.
"Survival, Min-Ji," he finally said, with a sincerity that made her shudder. "Sometimes the greatest battle is not the one you see. It is the one we deliver to continue to exist, day after day, without losing what we have left as human."
He left, leaving her alone, pensive and more troubled than ever.
In the Convent, the replica of the maintenance robot was taking shape. It was not a perfect copy - they did not have the materials or the time - but a credible shell, enough to trick the external sensors and interface with the entrance ports. Inside, there would be room for up to two people, in a fetal position. Do and Joon were appointed. Do for his connection to the system and his duality, Joon for his technical skills and his composure under pressure.
Kang Seong demanded to be part of the trip. "It's a mission of precision, not revenge," Lyra told him bluntly. "Your motivation makes you unpredictable. You stay here, at the controls of jamming and IT support. That's where you're most useful."
He agreed, but his acquiescence was dark, loaded with an unspoken promise: if they failed to free Yoona, he would find his own way, no matter what the consequences.
The night of infiltration came. The fake robot, loaded into an unmarked van, was driven near the Cygnus complex, the high-tech research center where the maintenance ducts were located, deep underground. Thanks to the codes of Aris, they were able to cross the first perimeter.
Do and Joon, dressed in black insulating suits, crept into the robot's narrow shell. The interior was oppressive, dark, smelling fresh glue and fear. Through a slit of vision, Do saw the sterile colors of the complex pass by, lit by bluish lights.
"Authentication of the ongoing DR-77N maintenance vehicle," announced a synthetic voice. Lyra, remotely, sent the stolen encrypted footage. A beep of acceptance.
They advanced through secure gates, descending from ramps that were sinking into the bowels of the earth. The air became cooler, more mechanical. After what seemed like an eternity, they reached a huge, circular room, in the center of which was a deep, rail-lined shaft. The main driver.
"It's here," Joon whispered in the earpiece. "We have to leave the vehicle and use the maintenance ladder on the side. The robot will continue on its programmed route to avoid suspicion."
They came out of their metallic hiding place, tiny in the cathedral of steel and concrete. The noise was deafening: a deep, constant rumble, the vibration of the quantum core of the Core beating somewhere below.
Do looked at the ladder that was descending into the darkness of the well, towards the rumble. This was the way to the Theta Module. Towards Yoona. Towards the nerve center of the system that had stolen their lives.
He took a deep breath, feeling Kai's presence in him, silent, focused, ready.
"Let's go," he said.
And they began to descend, step by step, into the bowels of the machine.