RAINBOW OF TEARS
SEOUL – THE UNDERGROUND FORTRESS, B2 LEVEL
The air in the planning room hummed with a different energy. It was the quiet, focused buzz of a predator diagnosing a new kind of prey. Not a street-thug or a corrupt official, but the polished, legalized venom of a chaebol civil war.
On the main screen, Ahn Go-eun had pulled up a complex web of connections: the Luxe Plaza Group family tree, interlocking directorates, stock holdings that shifted like sand. Kim Do-gi stood with his arms crossed, his gaze a physical pressure on the data. He was a man who understood violence as a concrete equation—a foot to a throat, a bullet to a brain. This corporate chess game was more abstract, but the stakes, he knew, were just as lethal.
"The uncle," Do-gi growled, pointing at the face of Park Yong-sik, Min-Ji's paternal uncle. "He's the one who lost the most when old man Park pushed Min-Ji into the director role. His division got folded into hers. Motive: clear."
"Motive, yes," Jang Sung-chul said from the head of the table, his fingers steepled. The CEO of Rainbow Taxi, its public face and its shadow mastermind, spoke with a calm that was more intimidating than any shout. "But evidence? The module in the car was a commercial-grade remote kill-switch, available on the darknet. Untraceable. The chauffeur is a company man with thirty years of clean service. He's terrified, but he knows nothing."
Min-Hyuk stood slightly apart, near the bank of monitors showing live feeds from Seoul's traffic cameras. He had changed out of his damp clothes into the standard black tactical gear of the team, but his mind was still partly in the rain, in the taxi, with the scent of fear and Chanel No. 5.
Perfect Memory replayed the spliced wire, the fried chip. Sub-Mind Archive cross-referenced: Common sabotage, amateur hour. But the placement… professional. They wanted it to look like an accident, but a discoverable one. A warning.
"It was a message," Min-Hyuk said, his voice cutting through the tactical discussion. All eyes turned to him. "Not an assassination. Not yet. The probability of a fatal crash at that specific curve was 31%. High enough to terrify, low enough to plausibly deny intent. They wanted her scared. Off-balance. Willing to make concessions at the next board meeting."
Sung-chul nodded slowly, a glint of appreciation in his eyes. "A psychological opening move. You read the boardroom like Do-gi reads a battlefield."
"It's just probability," Min-Hyuk said, shrugging. But his Instant Calculation was already modeling scenarios: if the warning failed, what was the next escalation? Poison? A staged scandal? The variables were many, but the patterns of corporate fratricide were depressingly consistent in his archival knowledge.
"So, what's the play?" Choi Kyung-goo asked from his workstation, a half-disassembled transmitter in his hands. "We can't exactly take revenge on a boardroom vote."
"We watch," Sung-chul decided. "The client—Park Min-Ji—hasn't asked for anything. But the attempt involved a vehicle on a public road. That puts it in our sphere of interest. Min-Hyuk, you're the point of contact. She knows you. Maintain it."
A flicker of something crossed Min-Hyuk's mind—an unexpected variable. Maintaining contact meant emotions. Complexity. "Understood," he said, neutral.
"Good. Now, while we monitor," Sung-chul continued, "we have other operations. The Bupyeong slumlord case is heating up. We need eyes inside his compound. That means we need a new face."
Do-gi grunted. "The old molds are too generic. His goons have seen our standard disguises in circulation reports."
An idea, cold and precise, formed in Min-Hyuk's mind. It was a synthesis of need and capability. Sub-Mind Archive accessed files: Biometric replication, polymer chemistry, 3D microfabrication techniques.
"We need a custom, real-time solution," Min-Hyuk said. He walked to a clear digital whiteboard on the wall. "Facial disguises. The current silicone masks are good, but they're static. One-size-fits-none. They don't capture micro-expressions, pore texture, the specific pallor of a living face."
He began to sketch with swift, sure strokes. Not an artist's drawing, but an engineer's schematic. "We build a two-part system. A capture device and a fabrication machine."
The team gathered around.
"Part One: The Capture Rig." He drew a hemispherical array of sensors. "A compact dome with high-resolution LiDAR for sub-millimeter facial topography, multispectral cameras for skin tone and subsurface scattering, thermal sensors for vascular patterns. It takes a 90-second scan of a subject. The data is not just a shell—it's a living map."
Go-eun's eyes lit up with hacker fervor. "The data stream would be huge. I'd need to write a new compression and rendering algorithm. But… I could link it to my architecture databases. We could model how the skin moves over bone structure when talking, smiling…"
"Exactly," Min-Hyuk said. "Your computer creates a dynamic blueprint. Not just a face, but the behavior of the face."
"Part Two: The Fabricator." He switched to a new schematic. It looked like a refined 3D printer crossed with a makeup artist's airbrush. "It uses a medical-grade, hyper-realistic silicone polymer base. It prints the face layer by layer, from the skull structure outwards. But the key is the coloration." He pointed to a series of micro-nozzles. "It doesn't use paint. It injects pigmented silicone at different depths to mimic real skin layers—melanin near the surface, hemoglobin deeper for blush, faint capillary networks. Finally, it implants individual synthetic hairs for eyebrows and stubble using a magnetic follicle system."
Park Jin-eon, the other mechanic, whistled. "The precision… the machinery would have to be insane."
Enhanced Calculation ran through tolerances, material viscosities, curing times. "It's within our workshop capabilities," Min-Hyuk stated. "We have the CNC mills, the polymer baths. The software is the challenge." He looked at Go-eun.
She was already typing in a holographic window, lines of code cascading. "A challenge I accept. Give me the sensor specs and the nozzle schematics. I'll build the digital brain."
"What do we call it?" Kyung-goo asked, grinning.
"The Proteus System," Min-Hyuk said, the name arriving fully formed from some deep archive. "After the shape-shifting god."
For the next 36 hours, the underground base became a hive of focused creation. Min-Hyuk, Kyung-goo, and Jin-eon worked in the advanced workshop (B3, Sub-Level). The whir of CNC machines carving the sensor housing and the fab-unit's precise gimbals was a constant song. Min-Hyuk's hands, with their surgeon's steadiness and engineer's intuition, assembled the micro-nozzle arrays, calibrated the LiDAR pings.
On B2, Go-eun was in her element, walls of code flowing around her. She built the program that would translate a trillion data points into a living mask. She called it "Eidolon Core."
Do-gi watched, a silent guardian. Sung-chul observed, a satisfied investor.
Finally, it was time for the test. The Proteus Capture Rig, a sleek silver dome on a stand, hummed in the medical bay. The subject: Choi Kyung-goo.
"Hold still. Don't even breathe too hard," Min-Hyuk instructed.
The dome lit up with a constellation of soft lights. A scanning beam swept over Kyung-goo's face. On a monitor, a 3D model began to form, stunningly detailed—every scar from his mechanic's life, every laugh line, the unique pattern of stubble on his jaw.
Data flooded into Go-eun's "Eidolon Core." On her screen, the model deconstructed into muscle layers, skin elasticity maps, blood flow simulations.
"Blueprint locked," she announced.
Across the room, the Proteus Fabricator—a machine that looked like a futuristic breadbox—whirred to life. Nozzles dipped into reservoirs of flesh-toned gels. A transparent, featureless silicone blank rotated on a mandrel. The nozzles began their dance, depositing layers thinner than a human hair. Colour bloomed from within—the slight ruddy tone of Kyung-goo's cheeks, the darker circles under his eyes, the faint scar over his brow. It was eerie, watching a face be grown.
Twenty-three minutes later, the process completed. The mandrel retracted. Min-Hyuk, wearing sterile gloves, carefully peeled the mask from the form. It was warm, pliable, unsettlingly flesh-like.
Kyung-goo took it, took a deep breath, and applied it to his own face in front of a mirror. He used a special adhesive spray at the hairline and jaw. He blinked, adjusted.
The team fell silent.
It was him. Not a mask of him. It was him. When he smiled, the mask smiled with perfect creases. When he raised his eyebrows, they lifted. The skin had a subtle, living sheen.
"Uncanny valley?" Jin-eon whispered.
"No valley," Do-gi said, his voice tight with professional admiration. "That's the other side. That's real."
Kyung-goo turned to them, his own mischievous grin on his own—yet not his own—face. "Well? Do I get a discount on my own taxi fare?"
The tension broke. The system worked.
Sung-chul nodded to Min-Hyuk. "A remarkable tool. It changes everything for infiltration. Well done."
Min-Hyuk acknowledged the praise with a slight nod, but his mind was already elsewhere. The Proteus System is complete. It serves the mission. But another, quieter part of his mind, the part that remembered the weight of a soaked jacket on his shoulders and the look in a woman's eyes in a rainy car, posed a different, more troubling question.
What else might it be used for?
---
SEOUL – THE NEXT NIGHT
Min-Hyuk was back in the Rainbow Taxi, patrolling. The legal case for the day—a tedious contract dispute between two tech firms—was filed away. The Proteus schematics were archived. Now, just the road.
A call came through the dispatch system. A premium, pre-booked ride. Pick-up: The VIP lounge of the Ascott Hotel. Destination: Luxe Plaza Tower, Gangnam.
The name on the booking: P. Min.
Instant Calculation: Coincidence probability: 2.7%. She was seeking him out.
He pulled up under the hotel's canopy. The rear door opened. Park Min-Ji slid in. She was back in her armor: a stark black dress, a pearl necklace, her hair a severe, perfect wave. But the shadows under her eyes were deeper, and the calm she projected had a brittle, glass-like quality.
"Good evening, Director Park," Min-Hyuk said, meeting her eyes in the rear-view mirror.
"Driver Kim," she replied, her voice cool. But her gaze held his for a beat too long. She'd done her research. She knew his taxi number. "Take the scenic route. I'm… in no hurry to get back."
He pulled into traffic. The silence wasn't empty this time. It was charged with everything unsaid: the sabotaged car, the shared near-death, the jacket.
"I had my security team look at the car," she said abruptly, staring out at the neon. "They found nothing conclusive. A 'tragic electrical fault.'" She imbued the phrase with infinite sarcasm.
"I could have told you that," Min-Hyuk said.
"Why didn't you?" She leaned forward, her perfume filling the space between the seats. "You saw what was done. You knew it wasn't an accident. Yet you just… dropped me off and drove away."
What was I supposed to do? he thought. Arrest your uncle with my vigilante badge?
"My role was to ensure your safety," he said aloud. "That was achieved."
"And what is your role now?" The question was sharp, direct. It was the same question from the courtroom, but now it was personal. "A lawyer who drives a taxi. A mechanic of justice on the side of the road. Who do you work for, Kim Min-Hyuk?"
The taxi stopped at a red light. The glow from a massive Luxe Plaza billboard—advertising a dream of unattainable luxury—flooded the interior, painting her face in cold, perfect light and deep, impenetrable shadow.
He looked at her reflection in the mirror. The queen in her gilded cage, feeling the bars tighten. The part of him that was all calculation warned: Maintain cover. Deflect.
But another part, a part he rarely acknowledged, saw the loneliness that mirrored his own. A different kind of isolation, born not of unnatural power, but of unnatural powerlessness amidst immense wealth.
"I work for the people in the backseat," he said finally, his voice low. "Trying to get them where they need to go. Sometimes it's a location. Sometimes it's… a conclusion."
The light turned green. He drove on.
Min-Ji sat back, absorbing his words. For the first time, she looked not at the lawyer or the driver, but at the man in between. The unshakeable calm. The impossible competence.
"I need to get to a conclusion," she whispered, almost to herself. "But I don't know the address."
Min-Hyuk didn't reply. He just drove, the Rainbow Taxi a quiet, steadfast vessel moving through the heart of her glittering, treacherous kingdom. He was, as advertised, a reliable night driver.
And in the underground fortress, a machine called Proteus waited, capable of crafting any face in the world. A tool for justice.
Or, perhaps, for something else entirely.
[End of Episode 3]
[Status: Operational]
[Legal Quota: Complete]
[Vigilante Quota: Monitoring Active]
[New Asset Developed: Proteus System (Facial Replication)]
[Relationship Variable: Park Min-Ji (Trust Seeker)]
[Next Episode: The Boardroom and The Garage.]