The lights of the facility's mess hall flickered with a dying, rhythmic hum, casting long, distorted shadows across the dented metal tables. It was the "dead hour"—that brief window between shifts when the guards were rotating and the halls were mostly empty, smelling of ozone and floor wax.
Seol-wol sat in a corner booth, his fingers tracing the jagged, rusted edges of the metallic bolt in his pocket. He wasn't alone.
Peter sat across from him, staring into a cup of synthetic coffee that looked more like recycled oil than a drink. The usual bravado Peter wore—the loud jokes, the casual talk of killing—was gone. In its place was a man who looked every bit his age, his face a roadmap of scars and regret.
"You look like you're already dead, Seol-wol," Peter muttered, his voice gravelly.
"Even for a guy who just crawled out of a vent to threaten an elite."
Seol-wol didn't look up. "I'm tired, Peter. I'm tired of being a 'key' and a 'ghost.' I'm tired of the 72-hour clock ticking in my ears even when it's silent." He paused, looking at Peter's hands—heavy, calloused, and shaking just a fraction. "Why are you still here? You're one of the best mercs Borislav has. You could have walked away months ago. Why stay for a mission that smells like a mass grave?"
Peter let out a dry, hollow laugh. He reached into the inner lining of his tactical vest and pulled out a small, crumpled photograph. It was old-world paper, yellowed and fragile. In the image, a small girl with a gap-toothed smile was holding a stuffed bear that had lost an eye.
"Her name is Mina," Peter said, his voice softening into something so tender it felt out of place in this cold bunker. "She's seven.
She was born in the Low-Sectors, near the chemical vents. She's got the lung-rot, Seol-wol. The kind that turns your breath into liquid glass. Every six months, she needs a full synthetic lung scrub. It costs more than a merc makes in a year."
Seol-wol looked at the photo, then at the man he had thought was just a heartless gun-for-hire. The realization hit him: everyone in this room was a prisoner of something.
"Borislav didn't just offer me credits," Peter continued, his eyes glazing over with a desperate, feverish hope. "He offered me a permanent residency permit for the High-Cloud District. Clean air, Seol-wol. Real sunlight. No smog. No nitrogen leaks. He told me that if I see this 'Ghost Heist' through, Mina gets the transplant and a house where she can actually see the sky."
"You think a man like Borislav actually keeps his word?" Seol-wol asked quietly.
"I think if I bring him that vault, I'll have enough leverage to make him keep it," Peter said, tucking the photo back over his heart.
He leaned across the table, his eyes burning. "We all have something to lose, kid.
You have Wol-wol... I mean, Junseo. I have Mina. That's why we're going to survive this.
Not because we're the best, but because we're the most desperate. Desperate men don't die easily."
The moment of quiet humanity was shattered by the hiss of the automatic doors.
Kyla stepped into the room, looking like she hadn't slept since they left the train. When she saw Seol-wol, a visible wave of relief washed over her. She hurried over, her movements frantic.
"Seol-wol, thank god," she whispered, sliding into the booth next to him. She didn't just sit; she pressed her shoulder against his, her hand reaching out to grip his forearm. Her touch was ice-cold, trembling with the aftershocks of the Sync-Sickness. "I went to the infirmary. They wouldn't let me in. Junseo... they said his levels are spiking again."
"Miran dampened the signal," Seol-wol said, trying to offer a reassuring look, though he felt the lie tasting like ash. "He's stable for now."
Kyla didn't let go. She leaned in closer, her fingers digging into his arm as if he were the only thing keeping her from floating away into the dark. In this cold, mechanical hell, she was reaching for the only person who felt "real." "We're not going to make it, are we? Seventy-two hours... it's not a recovery period. It's a countdown to our execution."
Seol-wol was about to answer when the air in the room suddenly felt heavy. The temperature seemed to drop, and the low hum of the lights took on a jagged, aggressive edge.
Miran was standing at the entrance of the booth. He wasn't wearing his tactical gear, just a dark, high-collar tunic that made him look like a shadow given form. His dark eyes were fixed on the exact spot where Kyla's hand was gripping Seol-wol's arm. His expression was a mask of cold, egoistic stone, but there was a flicker of something raw in his gaze—a possessive, jealous tension that made the hair on Seol-wol's neck stand up.
"A touching scene," Miran said, his voice like silk over a razor blade. "The thieves huddled together in the dark, whispering about 'hope.' It's almost poetic, if it weren't so pathetic."
Kyla flinched, her grip on Seol-wol tightening for a second before she pulled her hand away as if she had been burned. She shrank back into the corner of the booth, unable to look Miran in the eye.
Miran stepped closer, invading their space.
He ignored Peter and Kyla entirely, his focus singular and crushing as he looked at Seol-wol. "You should be in the recovery tank, Seol-wol. Not playing savior in the mess hall. You're wasting the energy I just saved for you."
Seol-wol felt a spike of pure, unadulterated irritation. He stood up slowly, putting his body between Kyla and the elite. He felt the weight of the rusted bolt in his pocket—his lucky charm, bloodied by the man standing in front of him.
"She's scared, Miran," Seol-wol said, his voice low and steady. "Something you wouldn't understand with that heart of yours.
And last I checked, my 'free time' wasn't written into the contract."
Miran's eyes narrowed, a dangerous, predatory glint appearing in the darkness of his pupils. He stepped into Seol-wol's personal space, so close Seol-wol could smell the faint scent of ozone and expensive spice that clung to him. "Everything you are is part of the contract. Every pulse of your heart is a debt to my family's legacy. I told you, you are the key. And I don't like other people handling my keys."
"Stay in your line, Miran," Seol-wol interrupted, his voice cutting through Miran's aura of authority. "You might be the heir to this nightmare, but you don't own the way I breathe. You want the Ghost Heist to succeed? Then back off. I'm a partner in this heist, not a pet. Don't mistake the two again, or you can find another set of twins to fry."
The silence in the mess hall was absolute.
Peter's hand moved instinctively toward the holster at his hip. Kyla looked horrified.
Miran looked at Seol-wol as if seeing him for the very first time—not as a gutter-rat to be used, but as a variable that could no longer be controlled.
A slow, dark smirk spread across Miran's face. It wasn't a smile of friendship; it was the look of a collector who had just realized his prize had teeth.
"Stay in my line?" Miran repeated softly, his voice a dangerous purr. "Very well, Seol-wol.
I'll stay in my line. But remember this: the line for the Ghost Heist leads to a vault that hasn't been opened in fifty years. When we reach it, you'll be begging me to hold your hand."
Miran turned on his heel and walked out, his footsteps echoing with a cold, rhythmic finality.
Seol-wol sat back down, his heart hammering against his ribs. He looked at the clock on the wall.
[65:22:10]
"You've got a death wish, kid," Peter whispered, staring at Seol-wol with a mix of awe and pity. "But people with death wishes are the only ones who ever change the world."
Seol-wol didn't answer. He just gripped the bolt in his pocket. Peter had a daughter to save. Junseo had a life to reclaim. And Seol-wol? He was beginning to realize that to survive the next 65 hours, he would have to become the one thing Miran and Borislav feared most: a man who had already decided he was willing to burn everything down