It took Jiang Han about ten seconds to talk his heartbeat back down from his throat.
Squid Game. He was sitting on the Squid Game bus. First world, D-level difficulty, survival test—The Narrative had dropped him into a Korean drama he'd watched at least three times. That son of a bitch.
The bus rocked on its suspension, engine vibration crawling up through the seat frame and into his teeth. He clamped down on the panic trying to claw its way up his chest and forced himself into observation mode—a convenience store night shift teaches you at least one useful thing: when you can't handle the situation, figure out what the situation actually is first.
About a hundred people on this bus. One batch of several, being transported in waves. All kinds. Diagonally across from him, a middle-aged man in what had been an expensive suit before someone made him change into a green tracksuit. The creases on the suit jacket hanging from his arm were fresh, reluctant—he hadn't wanted to take it off. His fingers tapped a rhythm on his thigh, the kind of tic that belonged in a boardroom, waiting for a quarterly report.
Further back, a man built like a wardrobe. Tattooed neck, tattooed hands, limbs spread across his seat in a way that said the surrounding space was his by default. The person next to him was pressed against the window, folded small. The wardrobe's tracksuit read 101.
Up and to his left, a young woman. Ponytail pulled tight, clean jawline, the kind of face that gave you nothing unless she wanted it to. She wasn't crying. Wasn't cursing. Wasn't staring blankly ahead. She was watching. The same way he was—eyes moving in careful sweeps across the bus, cataloguing.
Number 067.
Three rows ahead, window seat, sat an old man. White hair, thin frame, the green tracksuit hanging off him like it was two sizes too big. Seventy at least. And on his face—a gentle, misplaced smile. Like a grandfather who'd been dragged along to a neighborhood event and was making the best of it.
Number 001.
First number.
Jiang Han's gaze lingered on 001 for an extra half-second. In the original show, 001 was the creator of the entire game—a billionaire so bored with living that he'd inserted himself into his own death game just to feel something again. The only contestant who knew everything from the start.
But this isn't the original. Corruption at twelve percent. The rules changed. Did the people change too?
He was still turning that over when a translucent panel materialized in his field of vision—visible only to him. Same cold monospace font, floating in the air like a sticky note pasted on nothing:
===================================
WORLD: Squid Game
DIFFICULTY: D
CORRUPTION LEVEL: 12%
MAIN QUEST: Survive to the end.
HIDDEN QUEST: [Locked — Discover through observation]
ABILITY SLOTS: Locked (D-level world restriction)
TEMPORARY COPY: Locked
NP (Narrative Points): 0
===================================
All abilities locked.
He stared at ABILITY SLOTS: LOCKED for three seconds, then swore internally with considerable creativity.
A killing game. No superpowers. Not even temporary copying unlocked. Bare hands and bare wits. This system is genuinely cruel.
He took a breath and pushed the panel to the edge of his attention. It didn't disappear—it shrank to the lower-right corner of his vision like a floating app icon on a phone screen.
Fine. No cheat codes then. He still had one thing going for him: he'd seen the show. He knew the rules of every game, knew who would betray, knew which stages killed the most people.
Assuming the corruption hadn't rewritten those rules beyond recognition.
The bus stopped.
Light poured in when the doors opened, sharp enough to make everyone squint. Outside was a long corridor, walls painted in aggressive candy colors—bubblegum pink, sky blue, pale yellow, mint green—like the inside of a giant daycare facility. The floor tiles were spotless. The fluorescent tubes overhead buzzed with institutional brightness. The air smelled like disinfectant and plastic.
If you ignored the white-faced adults and the armed figures in pink jumpsuits, the place could almost pass for cheerful.
Nobody walking through it looked cheerful.
The staff lined both sides of the corridor. Circle masks—lowest rank, basic soldiers. Triangle masks—carrying automatic rifles. Square masks—posted at every corner, watching. Three-tier hierarchy. Same as the show.
The corridor ended at a massive steel door. It opened, and behind it was the dormitory.
Not a dormitory in any civilian sense of the word. A cavernous space, ceiling at least thirty feet high, fluorescent lights arranged in a grid that turned the entire room into a flat white glare. Hundreds of bunk beds stacked in rows, upper and lower, with barely enough space between them for one person to turn sideways. Bare concrete walls. No windows. No decorations. No concessions to the idea that humans would be living here.
Four hundred and fifty-six people filtered in. The noise swelled like a kicked hive—crying, cursing, praying, hyperventilating, all of it layered on top of itself in different languages and registers until it became one undifferentiated roar.
Jiang Han picked a lower bunk in the middle-rear section. Not against the wall—wall spots had good sightlines but could be cornered. Not along the main aisle—the aisle was trampling territory if things went sideways. Middle ground. Unremarkable. Two escape routes.
Convenience store lesson number two: the shelf furthest from the entrance is the last place a robber looks.
He sat down and started scanning for faces he recognized.
001, the old man—sitting on a lower bunk near the north wall. Hands on his knees, expression serene. Around him, people were shaking so hard they could barely breathe. He sat there like a smooth stone that had been worn down by a long river, a pocket of stillness that didn't match anything around it.
067—the young woman, assigned a bunk less than five meters from his. She was organizing her sleeping space with efficient movements, nothing wasted. No visible emotion.
101—Kang Dae, the wardrobe. Already making his rounds with four guys trailing behind him. "Rounds" meant staking out the best bunks: wall-adjacent, upper level, good vantage points. If the current occupant objected, the objection was handled with fists.
A thin contestant accidentally brushed Kang Dae's arm. One punch. The sound was dull and wet, like slapping a watermelon. The thin man curled up on the floor, blood seeping between the fingers he'd clamped over his nose. Nobody helped him up.
The pink-suited staff by the door watched all of it. Didn't move.
They won't intervene. It's part of the design. Jiang Han's assessment came fast and clinical. Law of the jungle. Violence between contestants outside of official games is unrestricted. Same as the show.
Kang Dae's crew continued their circuit. When they reached Jiang Han's row, one of the henchmen—short, stocky, built like a fire hydrant—shoulder-checked him as he passed. Not accidental. The lazy kind of shove that was half testing, half asserting.
"Watch it, kid."
Jiang Han didn't respond. He stepped aside, turned back to his bunk, kept straightening his pillow.
The henchman snorted. "Another nobody." Moved on.
Jiang Han finished arranging his bedding and filed 101 away in the mental dossier he was building.
Kang Dae. Physical advantage, violent tendencies, enough organizational pull to keep four or five enforcers in line. In the original show, guys like him got weeded out in the later games. But the original rules are different here. How long he lasts—unknown.
Noted. Now isn't the time.
067 came over about ten minutes after Jiang Han sat down.
She didn't sit. Just stood next to his bunk, leaned against the bed frame's metal post, arms crossed. Quiet for a few seconds. Then she spoke.
"You're not scared."
Not a question. A statement. Her observation skills were sharper than he'd expected.
He looked at her. "Neither are you."
They held eye contact for about two seconds.
In a room saturated with fear, anger, and despair, two abnormally calm people had found each other. The kind of recognition that didn't need words—they were both watching, both analyzing, both keeping their heads above the emotional waterline. Same species.
She didn't press for more. A short nod, and she went back to her bunk.
Clean. No wasted words. Jiang Han updated her file with a single line: Can work with her. At least for now.
A while later, he noticed two more.
218—a thin man in glasses, the kind of thin that said metabolism, not exercise. When Kang Dae's crew had swept through his area, he'd folded himself into the corner of his bunk like origami trying to disappear. But his eyes hadn't stopped moving. He was counting heads. Estimating the room's square footage. His fingers tapped calculations against his thigh that had nothing to do with nervousness. Mathematician. Or accountant.
199—a middle-aged man. Buzz cut, face weathered like sandpaper, walked with a slight limp in his right leg. Old injury. But the way he sat on the edge of his bunk—spine straight, shoulders locked, bearing that came through even in a tracksuit—that was military. Former soldier, no question.
Both within a few rows. Both noted.
Waiting was the worst part.
No clocks. No windows. Time in this sealed concrete box turned into something thick and stagnant, like syrup that wouldn't pour. People lay on their bunks staring at the ceiling. People paced. People crouched in corners facing the wall. The air grew heavier as several hundred bodies pushed the temperature up, turning the room into something you had to chew your way through rather than breathe.
Then the intercom came on.
Every other sound in the room died in the same instant. Four hundred and fifty-six heads came up at once.
A synthetic voice—genderless, uninflected—poured from the ceiling speakers:
"Players. The first game will begin in thirty minutes. Please proceed to the game hall."
The dormitory became an overturned anthill. People scrambled to their feet. Voices overlapped—"What game?" "What do they mean?" Someone shoved toward the door. Someone else's legs gave out and they sank back onto their mattress, unable to stand.
Jiang Han didn't move yet. He closed his eyes and waited for the system panel to refresh.
It did. Red text this time—the first time he'd seen the system use red:
⚠ CORRUPTION ALERT ⚠
Game 1: "Red Light, Green Light"
Original rules have been MODIFIED.
Specifics unknown — adapt on site.
His stomach tightened.
Red Light, Green Light. He knew this game. He'd watched it on a screen more times than he could remember—the giant doll, the turn of the head, the people who didn't stop in time getting shredded by gunfire. He knew the rhythm of every round, knew the key to survival was controlling your momentum, knew the people at the front died first.
But "original rules have been MODIFIED" was a bucket of cold water dumped on his head.
His plot knowledge was not one hundred percent reliable. The rules had changed—how much? Which parts? He didn't know.
Can't rely entirely on memory. Have to be ready to adapt on the fly.
He opened his eyes and stood up.
The crowd was surging toward the main door. In the flow of bodies, he spotted Yoon Seo already near the front—she was studying the exit layout. 218, the accountant, was shaking but moving, swept along with the current. 199, the former soldier, limped forward with each step steady and grounded, like a tree whose roots went deep.
Kang Dae's crew had muscled their way to the very front, shoving people aside with their bodies, claiming the center of the corridor.
001, the old man, rose from his bunk with no particular urgency. He patted dust off his tracksuit—dust that wasn't actually there—and wore the expression of someone heading out for an evening walk.
That kind of composure, in this context, was wrong.
Deeply wrong.
Jiang Han gave the old man one last look, then merged into the crowd and walked toward the door.
In the corridor, under the candy-colored walls and the fluorescent buzz, he said one thing under his breath.
"Let's go."