The midnight rain began as a dull drizzle, slickening the asphalt outside the boiler room exit into dark, reflective sheets.
Sua pushed the rusted door open just enough to scan the alley.
She slipped her sawed-off shotgun under a oversized canvas jacket she’d dug out of a storage chest in the back of the room.
It hid the barrel completely, though her right arm hung stiffly against her side.
”Keep your face low,” she muttered, tossing me a dark baseball cap she’d grabbed alongside the coat.
“City Hall is twenty blocks south.
Walking takes too long, and taking a taxi with your bruised face is begging the driver to call the cops.”
”How do we get there then?” I asked, pulling the brim of the cap down over my forehead.
She pointed toward a rusted iron door down the alley marked Maintenance Entrance — Metro Line 3.
”The subway tunnels run straight under the municipal plaza,” Sua said, taking the lead without waiting for my answer.
“It’s past midnight, so the trains aren’t running, but the service tracks are open if you know which lock to pick.”
We moved quickly through the drizzle.
Every time a pair of headlights swept down the main road, we melted into the shadows between the brick buildings.
My ears were constantly straining for the heavy, rhythmic thud of combat boots or the quiet electronic hum of those black masks.
Sua pulled a small set of silver tension wrenches from her apron pocket.
In less than ten seconds, the padlock on the subway access door popped open with a dry, metallic snap.
We slipped inside, descending a cold concrete stairwell that led into the damp subterranean dark of Seoul’s transit network.
The air down here was thick with the smell of iron filings, wet dust, and ozone.
A single row of low-wattage emergency bulbs cast long, orange shadows along the rail bed.
As we walked along the wooden ties between the steel rails, I pulled the Death Log from my inner pocket.
I opened it to the last page, studying the fresh black text from earlier:
Run 47.
An anomaly detected.
Sua did not survive the shop attack in the previous 46 timelines.
The timeline has fractured.
You are now in uncharted territory.
”What are you reading?” Sua asked, her voice echoing softly off the curved concrete walls of the tunnel.
”Just checking the log,” I said, tilting the page so she could see the dark script.
“In every other run before this one…
you died when the van crashed into the storefront.”
Sua stopped walking for a fraction of a second, her shoes crunching on the gravel ballast before she picked up her pace again.
She didn’t turn around.
”How did I die?” she asked quietly.
”You took a hit from the first blast,” I admitted, my throat feeling dry.
“My past self was too slow to react.
He was focused on his own survival.
By the time he got out from under the counter, you were already gone.”
Sua paused, staring down the long dark stretch of the tunnel where the twin rails converged into the shadow.
”Then I guess you’re better than your past selves,” she said softly.
Her tone wasn’t sarcastic for once.
It was quiet, grounded, almost tender.
She turned her head slightly, her dark eyes catching the dim orange light of the emergency bulbs.
“Or maybe you just got lucky.”
”It wasn’t luck,” I said, meeting her gaze directly.
“I remembered the smell of your shop before the crash even happened.
I wasn’t going to let them take you.”
A faint blush touched her cheeks, but she quickly turned away, clearing her throat to hide it.
“Don’t get sentimental on me, Ji-hoo.
We still have an assemblyman to stop from turning into a skin-suit.”
Ten minutes later, we reached a steel ladder leading up to a utility grate directly behind the City Hall plaza.
Sua climbed first, holding the heavy grate slightly open to look outside.
Warm light flooded down the metal rungs.
Above us, the noise of press crowds, camera flashes, and idling engines hummed through the iron bars.
”The rally just wrapped up,” she whispered, stepping back down a few rungs to make room for me.
“There are four black sedans idling near the VIP ramp.
The security team is moving Assemblyman Kang out through the rear glass doors right now.”
I squeezed up beside her, peeking through the grate.
Assemblyman Kang Min-seok was a broad-shouldered man in his late fifties with slicked-back gray hair and a sharp, tailored navy suit.
He was smiling for the cameras, waving to a group of late-night supporters while flanked by eight men in matching black suits and earpieces.
”Which one is the fake?” Sua murmured.
“Or are they all human right now?”
I reached into my jacket and pulled out the folded scrap of Page 12, re-reading the last line: They don’t use their own faces…
The assemblyman isn’t dead yet because they need to put on his face first.
The man leading the strike teams is—
Suddenly, the book in my pocket flared again—not with heat, but with a sharp, rhythmic vibration, like a heavy heartbeat against my chest.
I pulled it out and flipped to the next blank page.
Fresh red ink began to flow rapidly across the paper:
Look at the head of Kang’s security detail.
The tall man with the scar over his left eyebrow.
His name is Commander Han.
In Run 43, he was human.
In Run 46, he was replaced.
If he leads Kang into the third sedan, Kang will never reach his home.
I pointed through the iron grate.
“The security chief with the scar over his eyebrow.
Commander Han.”
”What about him?” Sua asked, her hand instinctively resting on the grip of her shotgun under her coat.
”He’s already one of them,” I said, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“If Kang gets into that car with him, the swap happens tonight.
They’ll kill Kang, peel his face off in a underground facility, and put the replica back on the street by morning.”
Through the grate, we watched as Commander Han opened the door to the third black sedan.
He bowed his head respectfully, gesturing for Assemblyman Kang to step inside.
Kang smiled, patting the commander on the shoulder as he began to slide onto the rear leather seat.
”We can’t shoot him from here,” Sua whispered fiercely.
“There are fifty civilians and thirty news cameras out there.
If I pull this trigger, the cops will put fifty rounds into us before we even climb out of this hole.”
”We don’t shoot him,” I said, my mind racing through the tactical options my past selves had logged.
“We create a scene they can’t control.”
I grabbed a heavy steel wrench hanging from a nearby pipe bracket on the tunnel wall.
”What are you doing?” Sua asked.
”Altering the timeline again,” I said.
I smashed the heavy wrench down onto the main electrical junction box mounted beside the utility ladder.
SPARK!
BANG!
A blinding flash of blue electricity exploded from the box.
The surge traveled instantly up the main conduit feeding the plaza’s power grid.
In a fraction of a second, every single floodlight, camera rig, and streetlamp surrounding City Hall went completely black.
Chaos erupted above us instantly.
Screams rang out from the supporters.
Security guards shouted into their radios over the sudden pitch darkness.
”Now!” I yelled, shoving the iron grate open and leaping up onto the rain-slicked pavement.
Sua scrambled out right behind me, her shotgun drawn.
Through the dark, I sprinted straight toward the open door of the third sedan where Assemblyman Kang was still sitting, confused by the sudden blackout.
Commander Han was reaching into his jacket—not for a gun, but pulling a long, pneumatic cylinder from his inner pocket, the same kind that fired green acid darts.
”Assemblyman!
Get down!” I roared.
I lunged forward, throwing my entire body weight into Commander Han just as he aimed the cylinder at Kang’s neck.
We slammed hard onto the wet asphalt together.
Han’s porcelain-like skin felt unnaturally cold against my arms as we rolled over the pavement.
He didn’t gasp or curse; he turned his head toward me with a sickening, mechanical smoothness, his eyes dead and unblinking in the dark.
”Run 47,” his voice rasped, vibrating straight through his synthetic chest.
“You are early.”
He grabbed my throat with a grip like a hydraulic vise, his fingers digging into my windpipe so hard my vision immediately began to spot with black.
BANG!
A sudden explosion of fire lit up the pitch-black plaza.
Sua had stepped right up to us, shoving the double barrels of her shotgun directly against Commander Han’s shoulder joint and pulling the trigger.
The heavy blast severed the machine’s arm completely, sending blue sparks and synthetic fluid spraying across my face.
The crushing grip on my neck instantly snapped loose.
I gasped for air, rolling away as Sua grabbed Assemblyman Kang by his collar and yanked him roughly out of the back of the car.
”What is the meaning of this?!” Kang screamed, stumbling on the wet pavement in absolute terror.
“Who are you people?!”
”Shut up if you want to keep your face!” Sua snapped, shoving him toward the shadows of the alleyway behind the plaza.
Commander Han was already pushing himself up from the ground with his remaining arm, wires dangling wildly from his ruined shoulder, his synthetic jaw clicking as he tried to speak.
I grabbed the pneumatic dart cylinder that had fallen onto the ground, turned toward the rising machine, and jammed the trigger button down.
A heavy green needle slammed straight into Han’s exposed neck joint.
The bright green acid hissed violently, melting his internal circuits in a blinding shower of sparks until the machine collapsed onto its face, completely motionless.
Breathing heavily, I turned around.
The plaza was in total pandemonium.
Flashlights were cutting through the dark in the distance as the rest of the security detail rushed toward us.
”Ji-hoo!
Move!” Sua called out from the mouth of the alley.
I snatched my Death Log off the ground where it had fallen, shoved it into my coat, and sprinted into the dark after Sua and the terrified assemblyman.
As I ran, I felt the book in my pocket grow heavy again.
I didn’t need to open it to know what it meant.
We had stopped the swap.
We had saved Assemblyman Kang.
But now we had a high-profile politician in tow, the entire police force looking for us, and the Apex Foundation knowing exactly where we were.