The rain turned the mountain trail into deep gray mud.
We walked for two hours, sticking to the thickest part of the forest.
My boots were soaked, and every muscle in my legs burned, but we didn’t stop.
Beside me, Sua held her left arm close to her ribs.
Her lips were pale, but she didn’t complain once.
Behind us, Assemblyman Kang was panting hard, sliding on the wet leaves.
”How much further, Kang?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder.
”Just…
just down this slope,” Kang gasped, pointing a shaking finger through the wet pine branches.
“The Deep Creek ravine.”
We scrambled down the steep embankment, sliding through the wet dirt until our boots hit cold iron.
Buried under fallen leaves and rusted gravel were two parallel steel rails.
They stretched out through the narrow canyon, completely overgrown with weeds.
At the end of the line, built straight into the side of the granite mountain, was a giant, dark tunnel entrance.
Above the tunnel arch, faded white paint read: LINE 4 – CLOSED 2004.
”This is it,” Kang said, leaning against a rusted signpost to catch his breath.
“The old coal line.
It goes thirty miles through the mountain and ends right inside the old industrial district of Incheon, just west of Seoul.”
”No cameras,” Sua said, looking up at the moss-covered concrete arch.
“No sensors.
No connection to the Aegis Grid.”
”Just dark tunnel,” I added, checking my flashlight.
The battery was weak, casting a pale yellow beam into the damp gloom.
Suddenly, a loud, metallic screech echoed from inside the dark tunnel.
I instantly pulled my gun, pushing Sua behind me.
“Hold on.”
The sound came again—a rhythmic clack-clack-clack of heavy iron scraping against iron.
Something was moving inside the abandoned dark.
”It’s not a drone,” Sua whispered, her ears picking up the sound.
“Listen to the rhythm.
It’s mechanical.
Manual.”
It wasn’t a military vehicle.
It was an old two-man rail handcar—a heavy wooden platform on four iron wheels, operated by a large T-shaped wooden pump handle in the center.
It looked fifty years old, covered in red rust and coal dust.
Standing on the handcar was an old man in a filthy canvas jacket, his hands gripped tight on the pump handle.
He pumped it down once, bringing the heavy iron cart to a squeaking stop right in front of us.
He reached into his coat, pulled out an old oil lamp, and held it up to our faces.
”You three don’t look like coal miners,” the old man grunted, his voice sounding like dry gravel rubbing together.
“And you look like you’re running from the blue lights.”
I didn’t lower my gun.
“Who are you?”
”Old Man Yoon,” he said simply, spitting a dark blob of tobacco juice onto the rails.
“I used to maintain these tracks before the government shut them down.
Now I just live in the dark where the city can’t see me.”
He looked at Sua’s blood-stained arm bandage, then at my gun, and finally at Kang’s ruined suit.
”The blue lights hit the valley two days ago,” Yoon said softly.
“Every TV on the mountain stopped showing news.
Every camera on the highway started shining blue.
The young folks in the village down there…
they don’t know what’s coming.
But I remember 1998.
I know what military lockdowns look like.”
Sua stepped forward out of the shadows.
“You were here in 1998?”
Old Man Yoon looked at her.
His eyes narrowed as the yellow light of his oil lamp hit her face.
He blinked, staring at her for three long seconds.
”I know that face,” the old man whispered, his jaw dropping slightly.
“You…
you used to come up here with the young military officer.
The one with the clean hair and the cold eyes.”
My chest went tight.
“Director Baek.”
”Aye,” Yoon nodded slowly, his hand trembling on the lamp handle.
He was just a Captain.
He brought trucks of big metal crates into this mountain every night.
And you…” He pointed a crooked finger at Sua.
“You were the young engineer girl holding the blueprints.”
Sua froze.
Her eyes went wide as the old man’s words hit her like a physical blow.
”I…
I was here?” she breathed, her voice cracking.
”You built the subterranean relay line inside Tunnel 3,” Yoon said.
“You told me it was for a emergency communication network.
Then one night in the winter of ’98, the Captain came out alone.
He told us you had a terrible accident and died in the lab.”
Yoon looked her up and down, a look of pure fear washing over his weathered face.
“How are you still twenty years old, girl?
You’re supposed to be a ghost.”
”Baek lied to everyone,” I said, stepping between Yoon and Sua.
“He locked her away.
And now we’re going back to Seoul to tear his machine down.
Will you let us use the line?”
Old Man Yoon stared at us for a long moment.
Then, he spat on the ground again and stepped back on the wooden platform, making room.
”Get on,” he said, grabbing the T-handle.
“If you’re going to kill that bastard Baek, I’ll pump the iron myself.”
We climbed onto the heavy wooden handcar.
Yoon grabbed one side of the pump handle, and I grabbed the other.
Together, we pushed down hard.
CREAK-CLACK.
The heavy iron wheels turned, rolling the handcar forward into the pitch-black mouth of the mountain tunnel.
The wet forest, the cold rain, and the flashing blue lights vanished behind us as the darkness swallowed us whole.
We were under the mountain now.
Rolling straight toward the heart of Baek’s empire.