Absolute darkness is just a blank canvas waiting for a sound designer to completely ruin it.
The instant Yoo-jin smashed the heavy steel pipe into the master lighting control panel, the cavernous loading dock plunged into pitch blackness.
Yoo-jin immediately dropped his weapon and threw his bleeding body flat against the cold concrete floor. He violently rolled sideways, sliding underneath the heavy metal chassis of the yellow industrial forklift.
"Now, David!" Yoo-jin screamed into his earpiece, clamping both of his bloody hands tightly over his own ears.
Miles away in Incheon, David slammed his hands down on his keyboard.
Every single PA speaker in the massive underground facility simultaneously blasted raw, uncompressed audio feedback at maximum gain. The sound didn't just fill the room; it hit like a physical, suffocating shockwave. The deafening, high-frequency screech vibrated the thick concrete walls, violently shaking a cloud of gray dust down from the high ceiling.
Yoo-jin gritted his teeth, his eyes squeezed tightly shut in the dark. The agonizing vibration rattled his ribs and tore at his eardrums despite his covered ears.
"The gain is at one hundred and ten percent, hyung!" David yelled over the comms, his voice barely audible over the screeching feedback. "The internal speakers are going to completely blow in thirty seconds!"
Yoo-jin didn't care about the hardware. He opened his eyes, using his restored Starforce tactical memory to map the pitch-black space around him.
The nine Zenith clones possessed perfect, bio-engineered physical specs. That meant their hyper-sensitive hearing was designed to process the minute clicks of a sniper rifle from a mile away.
The deafening wall of noise caught them completely off guard.
Their flawless, terrifying synchronization instantly shattered. The horrifying sound of nine perfectly identical voices screaming in absolute, agonizing unison echoed faintly underneath the screeching feedback.
Yoo-jin watched their dark silhouettes collapse. The physically optimized supersoldiers dropped heavily to their knees on the concrete, their massive hands clawing desperately at their bleeding ears. The weaponized audio assault was completely overloading their advanced nervous systems.
"Isolate the vocals," Yoo-jin whispered into his microphone, his cold producer brain treating the deadly assassins exactly like misbehaving idols.
David executed the next cue perfectly.
The sudden, blinding glare of a massive industrial crane spotlight snapped on near the high ceiling. David had manually hacked the automated lighting rig. The blinding white beam shot directly down through the gray dust, violently illuminating three of the writhing clones in the center of the loading dock.
The harsh, dramatic light cast long, terrifying shadows across the blood-slicked floor.
"Cue the wind," Yoo-jin ordered coldly.
David instantly triggered the master relay for the massive industrial exhaust fans mounted on the far wall. The giant metal blades roared to life with a deafening, mechanical grinding sound.
The massive fans created a violent, artificial hurricane inside the enclosed space. The sheer, terrifying force of the wind hit the remaining six clones hiding in the shadows. The sudden gale sucked them violently backward across the slick, dusty floor, pinning them helplessly against the heavy metal grates of the exhaust vents.
The stage was completely divided.
But a good showrunner knows that bio-engineered supersoldiers don't stay down for long.
The three clones trapped under the blinding spotlight recovered far faster than Yoo-jin had calculated. The terrifying Protocol Eve programming violently overrode their physical pain receptors.
They slowly pushed themselves up off the concrete floor. Fresh blood leaked freely from their ears, staining their pristine white tactical uniforms. Their identical, handsome faces were completely devoid of human emotion.
They simultaneously reached to their belts, pulling heavy, serrated tactical knives from their holsters.
They moved with terrifying, silent speed, instantly flanking the forklift where Yoo-jin was hiding.
Yoo-jin scrambled backward on his elbows, his boots kicking up dust. He reached desperately for the heavy steel pipe he had dropped, but his fingers only found empty concrete.
Suddenly, a massive, heavy hand reached violently under the metal chassis of the forklift.
The clone grabbed Yoo-jin directly by his wounded, bleeding left shoulder.
The agonizing, tearing pain was absolute. Yoo-jin let out a horrific, breathless gasp as the clone's iron grip crushed his torn muscles. He was violently dragged out from underneath the forklift and thrown brutally onto his back in the center of the blinding white spotlight.
Yoo-jin stared up, coughing violently as the dust coated his throat.
The clone standing over him looked exactly like a terrifying, soulless mirror. The supersoldier stared down at Yoo-jin with dead, unblinking eyes.
"Formatting error located," the clone stated.
The voice was Yoo-jin's exact, familiar baritone, but it was completely flat and dead, entirely stripped of any human inflection.
The clone raised the heavy, serrated tactical knife high above his head, aiming directly for Yoo-jin's throat.
Yoo-jin didn't try to overpower the massive supersoldier. His human muscles were completely exhausted. Instead, he violently twisted his body, rolling onto his side just as the blade descended.
The heavy knife plunged deep into the concrete floor, burying itself an inch from Yoo-jin's ear. Sparks flew as the steel scraped the stone.
Yoo-jin's right hand whipped out, finally grabbing the heavy steel pipe he had dropped earlier. He didn't try to stand up. He swung the jagged metal pipe upward with every last ounce of his remaining strength.
He smashed the heavy steel directly into the clone's perfectly sculpted, hyper-sensitive eyes.
The clone didn't scream, but the massive physical trauma broke his flawless posture. The supersoldier stumbled backward, dropping the knife and clutching his ruined face.
Yoo-jin scrambled to his knees, his chest heaving violently.
He didn't have time to celebrate the hit. The other two identical clones were instantly on him.
The second clone stepped into the spotlight and delivered a brutal, perfectly executed roundhouse kick. The heavy combat boot slammed directly into Yoo-jin's ribs with the force of a speeding truck.
Yoo-jin heard the sickening crack of his own bones breaking.
He was thrown completely off his feet, sliding violently across the slick floor. The heavy steel pipe was kicked uselessly away into the darkness.
Yoo-jin collapsed onto his stomach, coughing up a terrifying amount of fresh, hot blood onto the white tile. His vision violently blurred, the edges of the blinding spotlight dissolving into a fuzzy, agonizing haze. His physical body was finally, completely failing him.
The two uninjured clones stepped slowly forward, standing over his broken body. They raised their tactical knives in perfect unison, preparing for the final, synchronized strike.
Yoo-jin closed his eyes. He had successfully pulled the aggro away from the crowd. He had saved Sae-ri. The scene was over.
Suddenly, the massive metal loading dock doors at the far end of the room violently exploded inward.
A deafening, terrifying roar of heavy machine-gun fire ripped through the screeching audio feedback. A massive shower of sparks and shredded metal rained down across the dark room.
Someone else had just crashed the set.