The industrial district of Seongnam was a graveyard of rusted pipes, cracked concrete, and forgotten warehouses. The rain had not stopped since Incheon. It fell in heavy, freezing sheets, drumming a relentless, chaotic rhythm against the roof of our stolen sedan.I sat in the driver’s seat, staring through the water-streaked windshield at the abandoned water treatment facility sitting at the end of the dead-end road. It looked like a rotting concrete fortress. Weeds choked the chain-link fences. There were no exterior lights.In the passenger seat, Kim Soo-Yeon opened her laptop. The pale glow from the screen washed over her face, highlighting the deep shadows under her eyes. She plugged a thick black cable into a high-capacity portable hard drive, her fingers trembling slightly in the damp chill of the car.My head rested against the cold glass of the window. The throbbing behind my eyes was a constant, heavy drumbeat. The System was still in a fractured recovery state. Every time I

The heavy steel slab of the blast door was freezing under my palm.I pounded my left fist against the thick metal, but the sound was swallowed entirely by the vast, dark vault. The industrial cooling fans remained dead. The only illumination came from the silent, pulsing red emergency strobes mounted on the high ceiling. They bathed the rows of towering black server racks in rapid, bloody flashes.Beside me, Kim Soo-Yeon clutched her canvas bag to her chest. Her breath came in short, frantic gasps, loud in the sudden quiet of the locked room."Tae-Rin," she whispered, her voice trembling. "We're trapped."I stepped back from the door, wiping a thin layer of cold sweat from my forehead. My right shoulder burned with a constant, deep heat beneath my soaked clothes. The sniper’s graze was pulling tight against the medical tape.A loud, heavy mechanical clank echoed from the far end of the vault.It wasn't the blast door. It came from the back wall, hidden behind a maze of servers. A seco

More importantly, the portable hard drive sitting in Soo-Yeon’s lap would be destroyed. The water and the pressure would ruin the magnetic disks inside. The blackmail vault would be erased forever, just like CEO Cha Seung-Ho wanted.I could not let them take the drive into the river.I looked at the center of the avenue, right where the road split to funnel traffic onto the bridge.A massive, wedge-shaped concrete median divided the lanes. It was thick, solid, and entirely immovable. A large yellow warning barrel filled with sand sat directly in front of the heavy stone block.It was a dead stop.I looked in the rearview mirror. The two black SUVs were falling back slightly, lining up side-by-side, preparing for the final, synchronized push the moment our tires touched the bridge.I looked over at Soo-Yeon.She was staring straight ahead at the looming bridge, her face pale and terrified. Her knuckles were stark white as she gripped the canvas bag holding the master drive. She had ris

My right wrist strained against the heavy steel police handcuffs. The cold metal bit deeply into my raw skin, the short chain clinking against the thick bed rail. My left hand was weighed down by the IV line taped to the back of my palm. If I tried to jerk my arm away, he would simply grab it. I was pinned to a stiff mattress, my fractured ribs burning with a searing fire every time I took a shallow, panicked breath.I couldn't fight him physically. If I threw a punch, my broken chest would collapse.I forced my eyes away from the syringe. I looked at the ceiling, drawing in a slow, ragged breath through my nose. I held it for two seconds, letting the pain wash over me, and exhaled slowly through my cracked lips.The frantic rhythm of the heart monitor began to slow down. I was forcing my biology to lie.The assassin’s eyes narrowed slightly. He paused, the needle hovering just above the rubber port. A dying man chained to a bed wasn't supposed to calm down. He was supposed to thrash.

The heavy steel police handcuffs were finally gone, leaving behind a deep, dark purple bruise wrapping entirely around my right wrist.I lay in the dim light of the intensive care unit. Han Do-Woon had stormed back into the room twenty minutes after chasing the fake doctor, furious, soaked in freezing rain, and completely empty-handed. The assassin had slipped into the hospital’s underground laundry levels and vanished into the city. Han hadn't spoken a word. He had simply walked over to the bed, pulled a key from a terrified precinct captain's hand, and unlocked my chains.Now, two of Han’s most loyal, heavily armed detectives stood right outside my door. Through the frosted glass window, I could see their dark silhouettes resting their hands on the grips of their assault rifles.The sterile, sharp scent of bleach and iodine still burned my nose, but the lingering, musky smell of the assassin’s cheap cologne had faded.My heart monitor beeped in a slow, steady rhythm. The blue static