The air in Sub-level 4 was several degrees colder than the rest of the building—a climate specifically maintained for long-term data storage, the Cold Vault. The journey down felt like entering a tomb.
Jeong Jungkook was not wearing his thousand-dollar suit. He was in dark, tactical clothing, blending seamlessly with Kim Tae-Hyun and the two specialized security operatives who formed their retrieval team. Minji, dressed in a borrowed black hoodie and utility pants, felt acutely aware of her civilian status next to these trained professionals.
"The mole, Lee Sang-Ho, has been isolated digitally, CEO," Tae-Hyun whispered into his comms unit. "His keycard access is revoked, but the system logs show he performed a large, unscheduled maintenance update on the Archive Access Network forty-eight hours ago."
Jungkook looked at Minji. "This is where the plot diverges. He knew the maintenance logs were his best defense."
"He wouldn't have guessed we were coming for that obsolete hardware, but he would have protected his backdoor," Minji murmured. "In the novel, Lee Sang-Ho was paranoid about anyone touching his old Archon files. He likely installed a silent trigger."
The Zero-Hour Trap
They reached the Cold Vault door, a massive circular safe door requiring a complex multi-factor authentication. After five minutes, Tae-Hyun's team managed to bypass the digital lock. The vault hissed open, revealing aisles of metal shelving, packed with boxes, tapes, and forgotten electronic waste.
Minji found the correct section—archived Archon physical assets—and quickly located the box labeled: "ARCHON – OBSOLETE ENCRYPTION HARDWARE UNIT 7."
Tae-Hyun's lead operative reached for the box.
"Wait!" Minji shouted, her voice echoing in the cavernous space. "Don't touch it yet!"
She pointed to a barely visible, thin fiber-optic cable running from the shelf rack beneath the box to a small, nearly invisible sensor tucked into the metallic shelf lining.
"That sensor is not standard inventory for cold storage," Minji explained, her heart pounding. "It's a passive infrared sensor. It's too low-tech for this facility, which means it was planted. Lee Sang-Ho wouldn't rely on a simple alert. He would want to destroy the evidence immediately."
Jungkook crouched down, examining the sensor. "If it's passive, it waits for a trigger. If we move the box, what happens?"
Minji shook her head desperately. "No. Lee Sang-Ho is sophisticated. This isn't a bomb. It's a Zero-Hour Digital Lock."
The Digital Detainment
Minji explained, piecing together scattered technical mentions from the novel's background lore: "If that sensor detects a disturbance, it will activate a sleeper program within the main Sub-level 4 Server Stack. That program will do two things: First, it will instantly wipe all existing system logs for the last seventy-two hours, including Tae-Hyun's efforts to isolate Lee Sang-Ho. Second, and worse, it will initiate a silent Physical Lockout Protocol on this entire sub-level."
"A physical lockout?" Jungkook questioned, his face grim.
"It won't sound an alarm," Minji confirmed. "It will quietly lock all five external emergency doors and all ventilation shafts, setting the security override to manual executive release only—which requires your personal biometric scan at the surface level. We would be trapped here, without comms, until morning. And Lee Sang-Ho would have hours to realize the log wipe was successful and complete his digital counter-attack."
They were effectively ambushed in a deep basement, surrounded by tons of inert metal. The trap wasn't violent; it was suffocating.
Tae-Hyun moved instantly, pulling his operatives back. "CEO, she's right. That sensor is linked to the independent Archive Management Unit nearby. We need to disable the trigger without moving the box."
The Analog Solution
Jungkook looked at Minji, his eyes burning with intense calculation. "Minji, if you know the author's methods, what is the flaw? Every trap has a fail-safe."
Minji closed her eyes, trying to recall the technical jargon the author had used. "The flaw… the original Archon hardware was sensitive to electromagnetic pulse. When they decommissioned it, they installed a cheap, magnetic shielding box around the server stack, not the hardware itself. The sensor is too close to the obsolete hardware, and that old unit runs on an archaic, sensitive power source."
"An EMP," Jungkook murmured. "Too loud. We don't have one."
Minji snapped her fingers. "But we have a powerful, modern, corporate asset right here! The Holographic Display Unit from your office—the one you used to check the manifest! It emits a high-frequency, localized magnetic field to stabilize the image. If we use its power source near that sensor…"
Tae-Hyun's lead operative, a specialist named Ji-Hoon, immediately understood. "We can use the battery pack of the CEO's portable display to emit a focused, low-level magnetic field. It might disrupt the signal from the sensor to the server, neutralizing the trigger before the physical disturbance."
The plan was risky, relying on a Hail Mary pass using office equipment.
"We don't have time," Jungkook stated. "Tae-Hyun, you and the team prepare a manual shield to isolate the sensor. Minji, you know the flaw best. You guide Ji-Hoon's hands on the sensor. If you are wrong, we are locked in. If you are right, we get the hardware and destroy Kai's future."
Minji swallowed hard, pulling the borrowed hood tighter over her head. She was no longer just the reader; she was now a direct participant in the dismantling of the plot.
"I'm ready, CEO," she said. "Let's retrieve the Origin Point."
Minji is about to face her first critical moment as an Executive Research Consultant.