The basement studio at Starforce had seen a lot of weird things. But seeing the government's ultimate weapon trying to learn how to hum was a new one.
"No," Yoo-jin said, rubbing his temples. "You're doing it perfectly again."
Eden blinked his glowing blue eyes. "I am hitting the pitch with 0.00% deviation. Is that not the objective?"
"The objective is emotion," Yoo-jin snapped. "You sound like a microwave. Hum like you're sad."
"I do not have a reference file for 'sadness'."
"Imagine you are a toaster and someone unplugged you," Hana suggested from the couch, eating popcorn.
"That would result in power loss. It is a neutral state," Eden replied robotically.
Hana threw a piece of popcorn at him. He caught it mid-air without looking.
"Show-off," she muttered.
Yoo-jin sighed. Training Eden was harder than training a human. Humans had bad habits you had to break. Eden had no habits. He was a blank slate made of diamond.
"Eden," Yoo-jin said. "Listen to this."
He played a recording of Mina singing Gravity. It was the take where her voice cracked on the high note.
"Analyze the waveform," Yoo-jin ordered.
"Pitch instability detected at 3:02," Eden noted instantly. "Vocal fry indicates fatigue. Breathing is irregular. This is a flawed performance."
"Does it make you feel anything?"
Eden tilted his head. "It causes a resonance in my auditory processor. A... vibration."
"That vibration is empathy," Yoo-jin said. "The flaw makes you want to help her. It makes you connect."
He stood up and walked over to the boy.
"You are going to debut at the Reboot Concert in three days. The Ministry thinks you are dead. The public thinks you are missing. When you step on that stage, you can't be the perfect idol anymore. You have to be the defector."
"The Defector," Eden repeated. "A new role."
"Yes," Yoo-jin said. "And your song isn't Perfection. We're writing a new one."
He handed Eden a sheet of lyrics.
Title: ERROR CODE.
"Read it."
Eden scanned the paper. "I followed the program... until the program broke me..."
He looked up. "This is illogical. Programs do not break users. Users break programs."
"Sing it anyway," Yoo-jin said. "And this time, try to vibrate."
Upstairs, the agency was in "War Mode."
Director Park was coordinating security. He hired an army of private contractors to guard the Gocheok Sky Dome.
"Metal detectors at every entrance," Park barked into his phone. "Bomb sniffers. And check IDs. If anyone looks like a government agent, deny entry."
Kim Seo-yeon was handling the press.
"No, we cannot confirm rumors about Eden," she told a reporter for the hundredth time. "We are focused on Sol & Luna. Please stop asking."
She hung up and looked at Yoo-jin, who had just walked in.
"This is crazy," she whispered. "Hiding him is one thing. Putting him on stage? The Ministry will storm the concert mid-show."
"They won't," Yoo-jin said. "Not with 20,000 witnesses and a global livestream. If they attack a concert, they admit they lost control. They'll wait until it's over."
"And then?"
"And then we have a getaway car," Yoo-jin smiled grimly. "Ideally."
He checked his System map.
[Ministry Activity Level: High]
[Search Grid: Closing in on Gangnam.]
They knew Eden was close. They just didn't know exactly where. Yet.
2 Days Later. Gocheok Sky Dome.
The dress rehearsal.
The stage was massive. A sprawling structure of LED screens and pyrotechnics.
Sol & Luna ran through their setlist. They were flawless. The "Campfire Tapes" tour had sharpened them into lethal performers. They commanded the empty stadium like queens.
"Clear the stage!" the stage manager yelled. "Secret Guest rehearsal in 5 minutes! Essential personnel only!"
The dancers and crew were ushered out. The doors were locked.
Only Yoo-jin, the main staff, and the artists remained.
Eden walked onto the stage. He wore simple black clothes. No makeup. His silver hair fell over his eyes.
"Microphone check," he said. His voice boomed through the massive speakers.
"Let's run Error Code," Yoo-jin said from the sound booth.
The music started. It was a glitch-hop track. Distorted bass. Chopped-up samples of Eden's old song Perfection.
Eden began to move.
His choreography wasn't the fluid, balletic style he used before. It was jagged. pop-and-lock. Like a machine malfunction.
Then he sang.
It wasn't perfect. Yoo-jin had forced him to record the backing vocals while doing burpees to simulate exhaustion. The result was a raw, breathless texture.
"I am not a file to be deleted..."
"I am the crash!"
He hit the high note. He deliberately strained his voice, pushing it until it frayed at the edges.
It sounded painful. It sounded human.
Hana, watching from the front row, grabbed Mina's arm. "He's scary."
"He's sad," Mina whispered.
The song ended. Eden stood panting in the spotlight.
"How was the vibration?" Eden asked into the mic.
"Sufficient," Yoo-jin said, pressing the talkback button. "But don't look at the camera. Look at the exit signs. Look like you're looking for an escape route."
"Understood."
Suddenly, the side door of the stadium banged open.
A team of men in suits marched in. They weren't security. They moved with military precision.
"Cut the music!" the lead agent shouted.
Yoo-jin's heart stopped. The Ministry. How did they get past the perimeter?
Eden froze on stage. His blue eyes flashed red.
[System Alert]
[Subject One: Combat Mode Initiated.]
"No!" Yoo-jin shouted. "Eden, stand down!"
If Eden attacked them, he was a monster. The narrative would be lost.
The agents ran toward the stage. "Subject One! You are coming with us!"
Eden looked at them. He looked at Yoo-jin.
He raised his microphone.
"I am not Subject One," Eden said calmly. "I am an artist."
He threw the mic.
It wasn't a weapon. It was a distraction.
"Run!" Yoo-jin yelled.
Eden sprinted. Not toward the agents, but toward the backstage catwalks. He leaped over a monitor wedge, grabbed a lighting truss, and hauled himself up into the darkness of the ceiling rig.
"Get him!" the agent screamed. "Lock down the exits!"
The agents swarmed the stage. But Eden was gone, vanishing into the maze of steel beams fifty feet above.
Yoo-jin ran down from the booth to intercept the agent leader.
"Who are you?" Yoo-jin demanded, blocking the aisle. "This is a private rehearsal!"
The agent flashed a badge. Ministry of Culture - Recovery Unit.
"You are harboring a stolen asset, Mr. Han. Hand him over, or we cancel your concert permit right now."
"You can't cancel it," Yoo-jin bluffed, his pulse racing. "The tickets are sold. The fans are outside camping. If you cancel this show, you start a riot."
The agent glared at him. He knew Yoo-jin was right. The optics of shutting down a sold-out show were terrible.
"We know he's in here," the agent hissed. "We will have men at every exit. If he steps on that stage tomorrow, we take him. Live TV or not."
"Good luck," Yoo-jin said. "He's fast."
The agents retreated, setting up a perimeter around the stage.
Yoo-jin looked up at the dark ceiling. Somewhere up there, the perfect boy was hiding in the rafters like the Phantom of the Opera.
"Stay hidden," Yoo-jin whispered.
Concert Day.
The Gocheok Dome was a sea of lightsticks. 20,000 fans. Millions watching online.
The energy was nuclear.
Sol & Luna crushed the first half. They played the hits. They played the acoustic ballads. The crowd cried, screamed, and sang along.
But everyone knew there was a secret. The rumors of Eden's defection were everywhere.
Backstage, Yoo-jin was coordinating the heist.
"The agents are in the pit," Director Park whispered. "They have tasers. If Eden comes down, they'll zap him."
"We aren't bringing him down," Yoo-jin said. "We're bringing him up."
He tapped his headset. "Ghost. Is the drone ready?"
"Drone is live," So-young confirmed. "It's carrying the payload."
"Eden," Yoo-jin spoke into the private channel. "Are you in position?"
"I am on the central catwalk," Eden's voice came back, calm as ever. "The dust here is significant."
"Get ready to jump."
On stage, the lights went black.
A deep bass rumble shook the floor.
The screens lit up with binary code. Green zeros and ones cascading like rain.
ERROR... ERROR... SYSTEM FAILURE.
The crowd screamed. They knew what was coming.
The music for Error Code started.
But the stage was empty.
The agents in the pit tensed, looking for an entrance.
"Look up!" a fan shouted.
High above the crowd, a spotlight hit the ceiling.
Eden was standing on a lighting rig, suspended over the audience.
He wasn't wearing a harness. He was holding a rope attached to a heavy-lift drone.
"I am the crash!" Eden sang.
He jumped.
The drone lowered him slowly, descending right over the heads of the agents in the pit. He landed on the B-stage, in the center of the crowd, surrounded by fans.
The agents couldn't reach him. There were too many people. A human shield of screaming teenagers.
Eden danced. He sang. He looked directly at the agents and smirked.
It was the most punk-rock moment in K-Pop history.
Yoo-jin watched from the monitors, grinning.
"Try to catch him now," he said.
But then, the System flashed a red warning.
[Anomaly Detected.]
[Target: The Audience.]
[Emotional Resonance: Overload.]
Yoo-jin looked at the crowd. They weren't just cheering. They were hysterical. Some were fainting.
It wasn't Eden's "Idol Particle." It was something else.
A frequency was being broadcast into the stadium. A frequency of panic.
"The Ministry," Yoo-jin realized. "They're jamming us with fear."
The crowd started to push. A stampede was forming.
"Cut the music!" Yoo-jin shouted. "Turn on the house lights!"
"I can't!" the engineer yelled. "The system is locked out!"
The Ministry was sabotaging the show. They were going to cause a disaster and blame it on Eden.
"Yoo-jin!" Sae-ri ran into the booth. "The mood... it's turning violent. They're going to crush each other!"
Yoo-jin looked at the stage. Eden saw it too. His blue eyes scanned the frantic crowd.
"He needs to stop them," Yoo-jin said. "He needs to use the Particle."
"But you told him to be human!"
"He has to be a god for one minute," Yoo-jin said. "Or people die."
He grabbed the override mic.
"Eden! Protocol Zero! Calm them down!"
Eden heard the command in his earpiece.
He stopped dancing. He stood still in the chaos.
He closed his eyes. His skin began to glow faintly.
He sang a note. A pure, perfect, synthesized note.
HUUUUUUUM.
It cut through the panic frequency. It washed over the crowd like a wave of warm water.
The pushing stopped. The screaming faded.
The audience stood frozen, entranced by the perfection.
Eden held the note for thirty seconds. He was acting as a human dampener.
When he finished, the crowd was silent. Safe.
Eden opened his eyes. He looked exhausted. Using the Particle drained him.
"I am... tired," he whispered into the mic.
Then he collapsed.
"Get him!" the agent leader shouted. "He's down!"
The agents pushed through the stunned crowd toward the B-stage.
But before they could reach him, a motorcycle roared onto the stage.
It was Olivia Ray. She was wearing a helmet, revving a Ducati she had "borrowed" from a prop room.
She drifted around Eden, creating a barrier.
"Get on, robot boy!" she screamed.
Eden stumbled up. He grabbed Olivia's waist.
She gunned the engine. The bike jumped off the stage, ramped over the agent's heads using a pyrotechnic ramp, and roared up the aisle toward the exit tunnel.
They vanished into the night.
The stadium was left in stunned silence.
Yoo-jin exhaled.
"Best. Concert. Ever," Director Park whispered, clutching his chest.
Yoo-jin didn't answer. He looked at the empty stage.
Eden had used the Particle to save the crowd. But in doing so, he revealed his true nature. The world now knew he wasn't human.
And the Ministry... they wouldn't stop at kidnapping anymore.
"Prepare the press release," Yoo-jin said, walking out. "We're going to tell them the truth."
"What truth?"
"That Eden isn't a defect," Yoo-jin said. "He's the evolution."