The air in the monitoring station was charged with the smell of ozone and the heavy, suffocating presence of the "Double" outside the door. But inside, the tension was sharper than any blade.
"The bait?" Seol-wol's voice was a low, dangerous whisper.
Miran didn't look back. He was already checking the seals on the ventilation hatch, his movements efficient and cold. "He's already compromised, Seol-wol. The Architect is using him like a puppet. If we leave him here, the Double follows the signal. We escape through the core while they fight over the shell."
In one fluid motion, Seol-wol was across the room. He didn't use the plasma-cutter—he didn't want to burn him. He wanted to feel him. He slammed Miran against the reinforced glass wall, his forearm pressed hard against the elite's throat.
"My brother is not a shell," Seol-wol hissed, his face inches from Miran's. The violet light in his eyes wasn't flickering anymore; it was a steady, burning flame. "And he is not your bait. Say it again, and I'll see if your heart is as digital as your grandfather's."
Miran didn't fight back. He didn't even raise his hands. He leaned into the pressure of Seol-wol's arm, a dark, amused smirk pulling at his lips. Even with his airway restricted, he looked like he was enjoying the view.
"There he is," Miran rasped, his eyes locked on Seol-wol's glowing ones. "The Master Key finally finds his teeth. I was wondering when you'd stop crying over the dead girl and remember that you're a wolf."
"Don't talk about Kyla," Seol-wol growled, his grip tightening.
"Why not? Her death gave you this, didn't it?" Miran's hand came up, not to strike, but to gently cover Seol-wol's hand on his throat. "Look at your skin, Seol-wol. You're not just syncing with the box anymore.
You're syncing with the facility. You felt the Double's signal before the monitors did. You felt my heartbeat accelerate when you touched me."
Seol-wol flinched. He had felt it. He could feel the vibration of the station's engines in his marrow, and he could feel the terrifyingly fast pulse in Miran's neck. He wasn't just a thief; he was becoming the ghost in the machine.
"I am saving him, you fool," Miran whispered, his voice suddenly dropping the arrogance. "The only way to cut the Architect's tether to Junseo is to reach the Vault's core and initiate a hard-reset. But to get there, we need the Double distracted. If we take Junseo with us now, the Architect will just pulse his brain until it melts to keep us from reaching the switch."
Seol-wol's arm trembled. The logic was cold, brutal, and—infuriatingly—correct. He hated Miran for being right. He hated him for making him choose between his brother's body and his brother's soul.
"If a hair on his head is touched," Seol-wol warned, slowly pulling his arm back, "I don't care about the heist. I don't care about the money. I will find every secret in your head and bleed them into the public net."
"I'd expect nothing less," Miran said, straightening his collar as if he hadn't just been pinned to a wall.
THUMP. THUMP. CRACK.
The steel door groaned. A hairline fracture appeared in the center, violet light leaking through like radioactive steam. The "Double" was no longer knocking; it was deconstructing the atoms of the door.
"Go! Into the hatch!" Miran shoved a heavy localized-EMP grenade into Seol-wol's hand. "This will mask our heat signatures for three minutes. Set it for sixty seconds and drop it when we hit the core."
Seol-wol grabbed Junseo, whispering a silent apology as he tucked his brother into a hidden sub-compartment beneath the floorboards of the station. It was shielded—the only place the signal couldn't reach.
"I'm coming back for you, junseo," Seol-wol whispered.
As they dropped into the vertical ventilation shaft, the monitoring station door exploded.
Seol-wol looked up one last time and saw the Double stepping through the smoke.
But it wasn't looking at the floorboards where Junseo was hidden. It was looking directly down the shaft at Seol-wol.
It wasn't holding the bolt anymore. It was holding a digital image of their mother, her face distorted and weeping static.
"Don't leave me in the dark, Junseo," the image of their mother cried out.
Seol-wol's heart shattered, but Miran's hand was suddenly there, gripping his shoulder, pulling him down into the blackness of the core.
"Don't look back," Miran commanded. "It's a ghost. And you're the only thing that's real."
They fell into the darkness, the 48-hour clock ticking like a heartbeat in the void.