Dr. Seo didn't contact him for two days.
Not through the hospital line.
Not through the number she had given him.
The quiet made him uneasy.
He kept to his shift, moving through the lower levels of Helix Crown with the same invisibility he had practiced since the beginning. But his attention kept drifting upward—to the executive floors, to the sealed elevators, to the place where Yoon Jae-Sung now spent most of his time.
On the third night, his phone vibrated while he was rinsing equipment in Section C.
A single message.
Come to the lab. Lock the door.
He didn't finish the task.
He left the cart where it was and moved through the corridors without hurrying, keeping his head down, his steps unremarkable.
The old neurology room felt different when he entered.
The lights were lower.
The air still.
Dr. Seo stood at the desk, hair pulled back, sleeves rolled to her elbows. The screen in front of her glowed with layered charts and lines of figures.
"You were right," she said the moment he closed the door.
He crossed the room. "About?"
"There's a structure beneath Helix Crown that doesn't appear on any official financial statements."
She turned the screen toward him.
A web of transactions filled the display. Old accounts. Dormant shell companies. Transfers routed through research foundations and defunct medical boards.
"I started with the early medical division," she continued. "Then I followed the money back instead of forward. The first independent funding source appears six years ago. It's quiet. It doesn't touch Helix's public channels."
She highlighted a line.
"Every major underground expansion traces back to this entity."
He leaned closer.
The name was meaningless.
A private biomedical trust registered overseas, layered beneath two parent organizations and a charity front.
But the controlling signature…
His chest tightened.
YOON JAE-SUNG.
"It's not part of the board structure," she said. "It never was. This project didn't belong to Helix. Helix belongs to it."
He straightened slowly.
"How insulated is it?" he asked.
"Completely," she replied. "The funds cycle through research grants, medical donations, black procurement channels. No paper trail that leads directly back to him unless you already know where to look."
He absorbed the information in silence.
"And the facilities?" he asked.
She hesitated.
"There are more."
His gaze sharpened.
"Not just B9?"
"No," she said. "B9 is a hub. Not an origin."
She pulled up a map.
Small points glowed across it.
Industrial districts. Port zones. Private research parks.
Some offshore.
Some buried.
Some labeled as rehabilitation centers.
"There are at least five active sites I can partially confirm," she said. "Possibly more."
He studied the screen.
Each point felt like a nerve.
Each one leading back to the same central body.
"This isn't a project," he said quietly.
"It's an infrastructure."
"Yes."
She glanced at him. "And it predates your role as CEO."
He met her eyes.
"Then my position was never about leadership," he said. "It was about proximity."
She didn't contradict him.
"They didn't just want your biology," she said. "They wanted your mind. Your access. Your ability to expand quietly."
He thought of the acquisitions he had been encouraged to make.
The medical firms that had seemed redundant.
The research arms he had folded into Helix without resistance.
"How many of those facilities did I help build?" he asked.
She lowered her gaze. "I don't know."
But they both suspected the answer.
He stepped back from the desk.
The room felt smaller again.
"This gives us a direction," he said. "Not confrontation. Not exposure. Penetration."
She nodded. "If we touch one of these structures, we learn how the rest are connected."
"Not openly," he added. "From inside."
She looked at him. "You're thinking about access."
"I already have it," he replied. "At the lowest level."
"That won't get you into offshore trusts."
"No," he said. "But it will get me noticed. Eventually."
She studied him carefully.
"You're planning to let them see you."
"I'm planning to give them a problem they think they can control."
Silence settled.
She closed the file windows one by one.
"What are you looking for first?" she asked.
"A supply line," he replied. "Something essential. Equipment. Biomaterials. Trial candidates. Anything that connects B9 to one of these sites."
She nodded slowly.
"I'll filter procurement and logistics," she said. "Focus on recurring transfers that don't align with Helix's declared research."
"And I'll listen," he said. "Down there. People talk when they think no one matters."
She hesitated, then reached out and lightly touched his arm.
"Be careful," she said. "This isn't corporate politics. This is ownership."
He looked down at her hand.
Then back at her face.
"I know."
She withdrew her hand.
Outside, a trolley passed, its wheels echoing faintly.
Inside the small lab, the first real thread had been found.
And threads, once pulled, never unraveled cleanly.