“You’ve been waiting for me?” Sua asked.
Her voice echoed in the wet tunnel.
Captain Min nodded slowly.
She clipped her heavy flashlight to her tactical vest and stepped closer.
“In 1998, Director Baek didn’t just freeze you, Architect.
He hunted down every engineer who worked on your team.
My father was one of them.”
Sua’s eyes widened.
“Min Jae-sung?
He was my lead hardware technician.”
”Yes,” Captain Min said softly.
“He escaped the purge and hid in these tunnels.
He started the Resistance.
Before he died ten years ago, he told us a secret.
He said the girl who built the machine was not dead.
He said she was sleeping, and one day, she would wake up and turn off the lights.”
Sua looked down at her hands.
The weight of twenty-eight years of history was heavy on her shoulders.
”I’m not a savior,” Sua whispered.
“I’m just a clock repairer now.
My memories are still broken.”
”You blacked out Sector 4,” I said, stepping up beside her.
“That is real, Sua.
You did that.”
Captain Min looked at me.
Her sharp eyes scanned my tactical gear, my weapon, and the way I stood between her and Sua.
”And who are you?” Min asked.
“You move like a ghost, but you hold that gun like a soldier.”
”My name is Ji-hoo,” I said simply.
“I keep her alive.
That’s all you need to know.”
Min gave a small, respectful nod.
She looked past me at Assemblyman Kang, who was shivering in the dirty water.
She frowned in disgust.
“An Assemblyman?
You brought a politician into our tunnels?”
”He has access codes,” I explained.
“And he helped us get out of the mountains.
He stays.”
”Fine,” Min grunted.
She turned around and waved her hand. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
“Follow me.
The patrol drones will start using ground-penetrating radar soon.
We need to get behind the lead-lined walls.”
We followed Captain Min deeper into the dark drainage pipe.
After ten minutes of walking, the round pipe opened into a massive, cavernous space.
It was the abandoned Line 6 subway station under Yeouido.
The tracks were rusted, and the old platform was covered in makeshift tents, sleeping bags, and stacked supply crates.
Faint yellow lamps hung from the concrete ceiling, powered by noisy, smoke-spewing gas generators.
About fifty people lived down here.
They wore dirty, mismatched clothes.
Some held old rifles; others were cooking rice over small campfires.
When Captain Min walked onto the platform, the camp went quiet.
The Resistance fighters looked at us.
Then, they looked closely at Sua.
An old man sitting on an ammunition crate stood up.
His hands trembled.
“It’s the face from the old photos,” he whispered.
“The Architect.”
Sua shrank back slightly, hiding behind my shoulder.
The stares were too much for her.
She wasn’t used to being a legend.
She just wanted to be normal.
”Medic!” Captain Min shouted across the platform, pointing at Sua.
“The Architect is wounded.
Get her fixed up, now!”
A young woman with a red cross painted on her jacket ran over.
She gently guided Sua to a clean cot near the back of the station.
I followed right behind them, refusing to let Sua out of my sight.
”I need to clean the wound and put in fresh stitches,” the medic told me, opening a first-aid kit.
“It will hurt.”
”Do it,” Sua said bravely, sitting on the edge of the cot.
She looked up at me.
“I’ll be okay, Ji-hoo.
Go talk to the Captain.
Find out what Baek is doing.”
I hesitated, but I knew she was right.
I squeezed her good hand once, then walked back to the center of the platform where Captain Min was waiting by a table covered in paper maps.
”She is the strongest person I know,” I replied.
I looked down at the maps.
“What is the situation up top?”
Min’s face turned grim.
“Because of your blackout, Director Baek is panicked.
He thinks a massive army is attacking his servers.
He just declared Martial Law across all of Seoul.
The Aegis Grid is locking every door in the city.”
”We can use the panic to our advantage,” I said.
“Sua needs a physical terminal connected to the main Apex Tower server to write her kill-code.”
”Apex Tower is a fortress,” Min said, shaking her head.
“But that is not our biggest problem right now.”
Min reached under the table and pulled out a cracked military tablet.
She tapped the screen, bringing up a blurry, hacked security photo from the street level above.
The photo showed a tall man standing in the rain.
He wore a perfectly tailored black suit, but his face was completely hidden by a smooth, featureless chrome mask.
He held a long, curved blade in one hand and a heavy hand cannon in the other.
My blood ran cold.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
”Baek just activated his personal hunter,” Min whispered, pointing at the photo.
“We call him The Cleaner.
He is a Phase-II cybernetic assassin.
He doesn’t track cell phones or cameras.
He tracks the iron in human blood.”
I stared at the chrome mask.
In my first 46 lives, I had fought many Aegis soldiers.
I had destroyed drones and hacked cameras.
But I had only met The Cleaner three times.
Every single time I fought him, I died.
”He’s already in the Mapo district,” Min said, her voice tight with fear.
“He is following your trail from the clock shop.
If he finds the entrance to these tunnels…
he will slaughter everyone down here.”
I looked over at Sua.
She was smiling tiredly at the medic, her arm neatly wrapped in fresh white bandages.
She had no idea the monster that was coming for her.
I took a deep breath, pushing the memories of my past deaths out of my mind.
”He won’t find the camp,” I said, loading a fresh magazine into my pistol.
My voice was completely cold.
“Because I’m going to go back up there and hunt him first.”