The ventilation shafts were a labyrinth of vibrating tin, suffocating dust, and freezing air that smelled of ancient grease.
Seol-wol crawled through the narrow space on his elbows, his breath hitching in his chest every time his thin medical tunic snagged on a jagged screw. Below him, the facility hummed with the sound of a thousand machines—the heartbeat of a titan—but up here, in the dark, it was just him and the silence of his own racing heart.
His fingers were numb from the cold, but his right hand remained tightly clenched, locked in a white-knuckled grip. Inside his fist, the metallic bolt felt like a hot coal. It was jagged, rusted, and ugly—the complete and total opposite of the sleek, sterile, trillion-dollar walls of the Lab. He squeezed it harder, letting the sharp, rusted edges dig into the meat of his palm.
The sudden, sharp sting of physical pain was the only thing keeping the "thousand whispers" of the Sync-Sickness from dragging him under. It was more than a piece of trash now; it was his anchor to the physical world, a reminder that he wasn't just a "key" or a "ghost." He was a man who could feel pain.
[68:55:12]
He reached the heavy iron grating that overlooked the Observation Deck.
Through the thin slats, the room was bathed in a haunting, bioluminescent violet light that seemed to pulse in time with a slow, heavy breath. The "Cold Box" was resting on a central plinth forty feet below, surrounded by a forest of cables that looked like black, obsidian veins.
And there sat Miran.
He wasn't sitting in a command chair or standing at a console. He was perched precariously on the edge of the reinforced glass railing, one leg dangling over the abyss of the vault floor, looking down at the box with an expression of profound, egoistic melancholy. In the dim violet light, he looked like a fallen god mourning a kingdom he hadn't yet reclaimed.
Seol-wol didn't try to be silent. He didn't want to be a ghost this time. He kicked the grating open with a violent shove of his boot. It hit the floor with a heavy, ringing clang that echoed through the high-ceilinged chamber like a gunshot.
Seol-wol dropped down, landing unsteadily on his feet, his thin hospital slippers making a soft, slapping sound against the polished obsidian floor.
Miran didn't flinch. He didn't even turn his head. "You're thirty seconds late, Seol-wol," he said, his voice
smooth and terrifyingly calm. "I expected a master thief to be faster, even with a fried nervous system and a brother half-dead in the infirmary."
"Stop the interface," Seol-wol rasped, his voice a dry, desperate echo in the vast room. He marched toward the railing, his hand still buried in his pocket, his knuckles white around the bolt. "Borislav is downstairs right now trying to force a connection he doesn't understand. Junseo is screaming in his sleep, bleeding from the ears because of your 'grandfather.'
Stop it, or I'll break every piece of glass in this room until the vacuum sucks us all out."
Miran finally turned his head, his dark eyes cold and reflective. "Borislav is a child playing with a thunderstorm," Miran said, stepping off the railing with the grace of a leopard. "He thinks he can 'read' the mind inside that box. He doesn't realize the mind is reading him. It is sifting through his greed, looking for a way out."
Miran walked toward Seol-wol, his presence expanding until he seemed to swallow the light in the room. "I told you to stay in your hole, little thief. Why are you here risking a sensory deprivation tank?"
"I'm here because I'm not a ghost yet," Seol-wol spat. He pulled his hand out of his pocket, but he didn't show the bolt immediately. He kept his fist clenched, the metal hidden but ready. "You said you're the heir. You said this is your legacy. If that's true, you have the override. Save my brother from the feedback, or the Ghost Heist ends tonight. I'll kill myself and Junseo before I let you use us as disposable batteries."
Miran stopped inches away from him. He was taller, broader, and radiated an aura of absolute, unshakeable power. He looked down at Seol-wol's clenched fist, a small, amused smirk playing on his lips. "What do you have there? A weapon? A pulse-dagger stolen from a drowsy guard? Or perhaps a grand gesture?"
"Something better," Seol-wol said. He opened his hand, exposing the truth.
The rusted, twisted, and bent bolt sat in his palm. In the middle of the high-tech, billion-dollar observation deck, it looked like a piece of an ancient, forgotten bone.
It was dirty, oily, and completely out of place. Miran stared at it for a long beat, his eyes tracking the rust and the sharp edges.
"Scrap metal?" Miran laughed, a dry, melodic sound that held no warmth. "You come to threaten the heir of the Sync Project with a piece of a discarded radiator you found in the vents?"
"It's real metal, Miran," Seol-wol stepped closer, ignoring the instinct to flee. His voice dropped into a dangerous, low hum.
"Your world is built on code, ghosts, and amber fluid. It's all fake. But this? This is solid. I found it in the gutter, just like me and Junseo. We aren't your high-tech keys. We're this bolt—rough, broken, but sharp enough to draw blood. If you don't stop the feedback loop hitting my brother's brain, I'm going to jam this 'scrap metal' into your throat. I don't need a pulse-blade to make an elite bleed."
Miran's eyes flared—not with anger, but with a strange, dark respect. He reached out, his long, aristocratic fingers hovering over Seol-wol's hand. For a second, Seol-wol thought Miran would crush his hand. Instead, Miran pressed his thumb against the jagged, sharp head of the bolt, applying pressure until the skin broke. A tiny, perfect drop of crimson blood welled up and smeared onto the rusted iron.
"Solid," Miran whispered, looking at the blood on his thumb. "You really are a cockroach, aren't you? Fine. I will dampen the signal. Not for your brother's sake—don't mistake this for mercy—but because a broken key cannot open the vault I intend to enter."
Miran turned back to the primary console and swiped his hand across a hidden, black-glass biometric plate. He didn't use a password; his very genetic sequence was the master override. Below them, the violent, frantic violet pulsing of the Cold Box slowed instantly, the hum dropping from a scream to a low, melodic thrum.
Through the Sync, Seol-wol felt a sudden, cool wave of relief wash over his brain.
The white noise and the static vanished.
Miles away in the infirmary, he could feel Junseo's heartbeat settle into a regular, peaceful rhythm.
"Now," Miran said, turning back to Seol-wol, his face inches from the thief's.
"You've had your mercy. Now pay for it with the only currency that matters: the truth. What did you see when the Box spiked in the tunnel? Don't lie to me, Seol-wol. I can smell the air of the vision on your skin."
Seol-wol looked at the bolt in his hand, then back at the monster in front of him. "I saw a white room. An infinite one. And I heard a voice. It said 'The heir returns.' But it didn't sound like a grandfather, Miran. It sounded like something that has forgotten what it means to be human. It sounded like a monster."
Miran's expression went stone-cold. The mask of boredom was gone, replaced by a chilling, singular focus. He turned away, looking out at the dark horizon of the facility. "It is a monster. It's the monster that built this world. My grandfather didn't create the Sync to help people; he created it to live forever. And in sixty-eight hours, you're going to help me kill it."
Miran reached out and took the bolt from Seol-wol's hand. He held it up to the violet light, watching his own blood dry on the rust, then tossed it back. Seol-wol caught it out of the air, the metal still warm from Miran's touch.
"Keep your lucky charm, thief," Miran said, walking toward the exit. "You're going to need something solid to hold onto where we're going. The Ghost Heist doesn't just take your life. It takes your soul. And I'd hate for you to lose yours before I'm finished with it."
Seol-wol stood alone on the deck, the rusted bolt clutched in his hand. He had saved Junseo for now, but he realized with a sinking horror that he hadn't just made a deal with a savior. He had made a deal with the only person in the world more dangerous than Borislav.
[68:10:01]
The clock was still ticking. And the bolt was the only thing Seol-wol had left to remind him he was still a man of the gutter, and not just a ghost in Miran's machine.