The elevator doors slid open with a soft ding that sounded completely out of place after the deafening chaos of the roof.
We stepped out into the Ministry’s underground parking garage.
The air down here was heavy, smelling of cold exhaust fumes and damp concrete.
Rows of expensive black government sedans and armored SUVs sat in perfect lines under flickering fluorescent lights.
”We can’t take any of these,” I whispered, holding up a hand to stop Sua from walking toward a sleek black SUV.
“Every modern government vehicle has built-in GPS and digital dashboard nodes.
The moment we start the engine, the Aegis Grid will lock the doors and drive us straight back to the military police.”
Sua lowered her shotgun, scanning the dimly lit garage.
“Then we need something dumb.
Something old.”
We moved quickly between the rows of cars, keeping our heads low.
The adrenaline from the roof was starting to wear off, leaving a deep, painful ache in my ribs where the safety harness had caught me.
I could hear Sua breathing heavily beside me, her steps slightly uneven.
We were both running on fumes.
”There,” Sua pointed to a far corner, near a chain-link storage cage.
Sitting under a thick layer of dust was a boxy, faded silver sedan from the late 1990s.
It had manual door locks, roll-up windows, and an exhaust pipe coated in rust.
It was exactly the kind of forgotten commuter car a low-level maintenance worker would leave parked for months.
”No smart screens.
No wireless uplink,” I said, checking the dashboard through the dirty glass.
“But the doors are locked.
I don’t have the keys.”
”Step back,” Sua said.
She reached into her jumpsuit pocket and pulled out the small leather pouch of tension wrenches she used for her antique shop.
She didn’t look like a soldier right now; she looked like a mechanic focused on a delicate puzzle.
She slid a thin piece of metal into the driver’s side keyhole.
Click.
She opened the door, popped the plastic panel off the steering column, and pulled out two wires.
“Old cars are just like old clocks, Ji-hoo.
Just springs, gears, and a little bit of electricity.” She struck the wires together.
The engine sputtered, coughed out a cloud of black smoke, and roared to life.
We threw ourselves into the front seats, slamming the doors shut.
I took the wheel.
The fabric seats smelled like stale coffee and old mints, but right now, it was the most comforting smell in the world.
I put the car in drive and steered toward the concrete exit ramp.
As we rolled up the incline and burst out onto the street, the reality of what Director Baek had done finally hit us.
The city of Seoul was glowing.
The normal, warm yellow streetlights had all shifted to a cold, piercing blue.
Above the intersections, the traffic cameras were no longer resting.
They were constantly rotating, their lenses whirring as they scanned the license plate of every car passing by.
On the side of a tall skyscraper, a massive digital billboard displayed a calm, smiling cartoon mascot with the words: Aegis Grid: Watching Over You.
I reached over and pushed Sua’s head down below the dashboard.
I pulled my own gray cap down as far as it would go, keeping my face hidden from the cameras as we merged into the early morning traffic.
”What exactly did Baek turn on?” Sua asked softly from the passenger seat, staring up at the glowing blue lights flashing across the windshield. Visit novelping.com for the full chapter.
“Aegis…
like the mythic shield.
A shield meant to protect.”
”That’s just the lie he sold to the city council,” I replied, keeping my eyes glued to the taillights of a delivery truck in front of us.
“Officially, it stands for Automated Emergency Governmental Intelligence System.
To the public, it’s a shield against crime.
To the Apex Foundation, it’s a cage.
Every camera, drone, and traffic light is connected to one AI brain now.
If we step out into the open, it will scan our faces and send the Cleaner right to us.”
”So we can’t show our faces.
We can’t use our phones.
We can’t go to my shop or your apartment,” Sua summarized, letting out a long, exhausted sigh.
She leaned her head back against the dusty headrest, closing her eyes.
“I really miss my clocks right now.”
I glanced at her.
The tough, fearless woman who had just blasted a hole in a killer machine and jumped off a ten-story building suddenly looked very small and incredibly tired.
”We’re going to get through this,” I said gently.
”I know,” she murmured, keeping her eyes closed.
“Just…
give me five minutes to not be shot at, okay?”
”You got it.”
For the next twenty minutes, there was no gunfire, no running, and no alarms.
There was just the quiet hum of the old engine and the rhythmic thump-thump of the tires rolling over the wet asphalt.
I drove us carefully through the narrowest, oldest streets of the city, deliberately avoiding the main highways where the blue Aegis cameras were thickest.
It was a rare moment of peace.
A pocket of silence in a world that was trying to kill us.
I let my shoulders drop, finally taking a real, deep breath.
Eventually, I parked the stolen sedan in a dark, graffiti-covered alley two blocks away from the underground jazz club.
We slipped through the back streets on foot, sticking to the shadows, until we reached the rusted metal door with the saxophone sign.
I knocked a specific rhythm on the wood.
A moment later, the heavy deadbolt slid back, and Assemblyman Kang peeked out, looking terrified.
”You’re alive!” he gasped, pulling the door open to let us inside.
”Barely,” I muttered as Sua quickly pushed the heavy wooden crate back against the door, sealing us in the dark, dusty lounge.
Kang looked us up and down.
Our jumpsuits were torn, covered in glass dust, grease, and spots of synthetic blood.
“The news…” Kang stammered, pointing to a small, battery-powered radio he had found behind the bar.
“They said the Ministry was attacked by terrorists.
And the Aegis Grid…
it was approved without me?”
”Director Baek used an android wearing your face to cast the deciding vote,” I told him, walking over to the nearest booth and collapsing onto the leather seat.
If you walk outside, the cameras will flag you as an anomaly and Apex will kill you for real to clean up their mess.”
Kang sank into a chair, putting his head in his hands.
Sua walked over and sat down right beside me.
She didn’t say a word.
She just reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the Death Log, placing it gently on the table between us.
I opened the cover.
From the back pages, I pulled out the two scorched fragments of Page 12.
I placed them side by side on the cracked leather of the diary.
The pieces lined up perfectly, revealing the horrifying truth written by my past self.
—is Director Baek of the 7th Bureau.
He is not a machine.
He is human.
He created the Apex Foundation using military budget funds to build the skin-wearing androids.
He plans to use the Aegis Grid to monitor every citizen in the country.
To stop him, you must reveal the truth to—
The sentence ended abruptly where the third and final piece had been torn away.
”Reveal the truth to who?” Sua whispered, tracing the jagged tear with her finger.
“The police?
The President?”
”No,” I said, staring at the words.
“The police are already compromised.
And if Baek has the military budget, he probably has the President’s ear, too.”
I leaned back, staring at the dusty ceiling of the jazz club.
My 46th self had figured this all out.
He had found Baek’s weakness.
”Baek is human,” I said slowly, piecing the logic together.
“That means he has a human past.
Before he was a Director, before he built machines, he was just a man.
He has a hometown.
He has old records.
We need to find out where he came from.”
Suddenly, the Death Log lying on the table grew warm.
Sua and I both jumped as fresh black ink began to bleed onto the page right below the fragments.
Run 47.
You survived the launch of the Grid.
You now know the enemy’s name.
If you want to find the third fragment of Page 12, you must leave the city.
Go to the abandoned mining town of Taebaek in the eastern mountains.
That is where Director Baek was born.
But hurry.
The Cleaner is already tracking the stolen silver sedan.