Yun-jae stared at Jeong Woo-jin’s hands on the steering wheel. His knuckles were drained of blood, white as bone. The air inside the car, hurtling at 60 kilometers per hour, felt suffocatingly thin.
"Woo-jin, stop! You can’t make the sharp turn ahead at this speed!" Yun-jae shouted, struggling to maintain his composure. But Woo-jin seemed possessed, his foot pressing the accelerator even deeper.
On the dashboard, a smartphone screen glowed. It showed a live stream of Sua—Woo-jin's daughter—running down a sunlit kindergarten hallway. The organization hadn't used a physical bomb; they had used the most cruel hostage of all: the innocence of a child’s daily life.
"They said the moment I stop or get out, this screen goes black," Woo-jin’s voice was a cracked, hollow shell. "They said Sua’s laughter would turn into a scream..."
Suddenly, Yun-jae’s pocket vibrated. A message from B-07:
[Attempting forced power cut in Zone B1. Lighting goes dark in 10 seconds. Emergency drainage ramp secured at 2 o’clock position.]
"Woo-jin, listen to me carefully!" Yun-jae gripped Woo-jin’s shoulder with bruising force. "They won’t keep their promise. If we die here, there is no one left to protect Sua. The only way to save her is to survive and rip the leash out of their hands!"
The memory of five years ago—of failing to protect this man despite promising him safety—flashed through Yun-jae’s mind. He would not allow that cowardice to repeat.
00:05. 00:04.
After a heartbeat of silence, every light in the tunnel died. Absolute darkness. The searchlights of the pursuing vehicles behind them whipped through the void, panicked.
"Now! Turn right!"
Yun-jae slammed his hand over Woo-jin’s, forcing the wheel to the side. The SUV skidded into a narrow emergency ramp with the shriek of tortured rubber. It was a maintenance passage for the pumping station—too narrow for the organization’s larger vehicles to follow.
As they reached a dead end at the top of the ramp, Woo-jin suddenly hit the central lock release.
"Please... take care of Sua. I know I can trust you, Prosecutor."
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Woo-jin violently shoved Yun-jae and Seo-yeon out of the car. He slammed the door before they could react. Yun-jae reached out, his hand scraping the cold metal, but Woo-jin had already cut the lights and driven back into the darkness. He was choosing to be the decoy, drawing the hounds toward himself to buy their survival.
A moment later— K-BOOM—!
A dull, heavy explosion shook the very foundation of the building. It was impossible to tell if the fuel tank had ignited or if it was a remote detonation. But one thing was certain: Jeong Woo-jin’s phone signal vanished from the map.
"...Are you with me?"
How much time had passed? Through the darkness, B-07 approached, the faint scent of cigarettes preceding him. Yun-jae and Seo-yeon leaned against a cold metal pump in the corner of the mechanical room, staring blankly toward the scorched tunnel.
"What happened... to Woo-jin?" Seo-yeon’s voice was a mere whisper.
Instead of answering, B-07 held up his tablet. The CCTV feed showed a mangled, flame-wreathed SUV, unrecognizable. The organization’s hounds were already surrounding the wreckage.
"When the car’s electronic control unit was crushed, every synchronized device was reset," B-07 said, looking at Yun-jae. "The remote kill-switch they planted... it worked. Your phones, the data on the USB... everything is gone."
Yun-jae pulled his scorched phone from his pocket. The screen flickered to life, but the list of 3,870 names, the ghost accounts—every single line of evidence was gone. Only a blank, factory-reset white screen stared back at him, mocking him.
"The evidence... it’s all gone," Seo-yeon muttered in despair.
Then, her hand went to the camera around her neck. The lens was shattered, but the body, protected by its waterproof case, was intact. "Wait... my camera!"
She pulled out the SD card. The tiny chip caught the dim light in the room. B-07 slotted it into his tablet, and files began to load one by one.
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[PaperMill_Internal_001.jpg]
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[GhostAccount_List_Scan.pdf]
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[GhostWriter_Directory_Partial.xlsx]
"It’s not everything," Seo-yeon’s voice trembled with a flicker of hope, "but the core evidence survived!"
B-07 let out a breath of relief. Yun-jae, clutching his dead phone, unfolded a small scrap of paper that Woo-jin had pressed into his palm at the final second. It wasn't a photo. It was the name of the kindergarten Sua attended and an admin code to bypass the organization’s server.
"They made one mistake," Yun-jae said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous tone. "They can’t factory-reset my memory. And by making them believe we’re dead, we’ve gained the one thing we needed: the time of ghosts."
He checked the time on B-07’s tablet. [D-98 / 18:42:17]
Six hours had passed since the explosion. A whole day was gone.
"And one more thing," Yun-jae looked at B-07. "You remember the time bomb I planted in the 17th-floor server?"
"I heard they found one," B-07 replied.
"Exactly. They found one." A chilling light flared in Yun-jae’s eyes. "But I planted twelve. They’ll be complacent now, thinking they caught the threat. The activation codes for the remaining eleven..."
Yun-jae tapped his temple. "They’re all in here. I’ll trigger them one by one. We’ll watch them scramble while we find the cracks."
B-07 grinned. "Spoken like a true Prosecutor."
Yun-jae stared into the dark tunnel. Somewhere out there, Sua was waiting. And so was the truth behind the 3,870.
The 98-day war. It had only just begun.
"Let’s go."
Logic Bomb was particularly fun. In software architecture, a logic bomb is a piece of code intentionally inserted into a software system that will set off a malicious function when specified conditions are met.
Question for the readers: Now that the digital evidence is mostly wiped, how do you think Yun-jae will use the 'Logic Bombs' to dismantle the organization without exposing his location?
If you're ready for the counter-attack, don't forget to Rate, Follow, and Comment! Your support is the fuel for Yun-jae’s revenge.