Chapter 307

Baekgyeong, who had been studying the blueprint, traced a fingertip along the stretch between the upper storm-drain passage and the auxiliary tunnel—the section they assumed had been sealed with concrete—and spoke.

"What about entering through here? Then it seems like we wouldn’t run into them."

"But it could be the area that was sealed with concrete. If it’s blocked, how are we supposed to break in?"

To Anna’s question, Baekgyeong answered.

"Blow it open."

"Well... I’m against it. There’s a forecast for torrential rain at dawn on the 20th. You’d get swept away and everything would be wiped clean."

Baekgyeong was truly sick to death of rain and water. Teeth clenched, he checked the wall clock. The date had already slipped past midnight on the 17th and was rolling over into the 18th. Even if they blasted open the storm drain and forced a route, if they couldn’t rescue Yoon Siron by the 20th, what came after would be a development bordering on disaster.

Realizing that the plan to blow open the storm drain and break in was recklessly foolhardy, Baekgyeong shifted his gaze to Isaac Bazelli, hoping there was another option. Isaac was staring at Anna with a strange expression that gave nothing away, as if her story had left a deep impression on him.

From the way Isaac’s eyes looked Anna over as if dissecting her, Baekgyeong felt a chill he couldn’t put into words. Testing the unreadable Isaac, he asked,

"You got nothing?"

Isaac spoke in a mood sunk somewhere cold.

"A suspicious blueprint."

"Suspicious how?"

"It describes the tunnel’s major facilities in suspiciously meticulous detail. The report on the CellGuard research laboratory is the same."

"Right. That’s what seemed the most suspicious to me, too."

Agreeing with Isaac, Anna continued.

"What if someone inside Hybris—someone who knows the inner workings—was preparing a whistleblow through a covert channel?"

"Even if that’s true, there’s no way to find the whistleblower now. We can think about the rest later. Finding Yoon Siron comes first."

Cutting off Anna’s interest before it could branch into other possibilities, Baekgyeong turned to Isaac as if asking for agreement.

"Now tell us the plan. You’ve thought of something."

At Baekgyeong’s urging, Isaac readily pointed at the first basement level of the auxiliary tunnel on the blueprint. A lightning-bolt symbol and the abbreviation "E/R" were marked there.

"There’s an electrical room at the far right of the first level. Normally you wouldn’t install it inside a tunnel where water passes through because of corrosion risk, but this place doesn’t look like it can flood, so they must have put the electrical equipment in."

Isaac continued.

"First, we enter through the fifth access route, the one closest to the electrical room, and cut the power at the electrical room."

Baekgyeong was speechless for a moment. He turned fully toward Isaac and asked,

"Cut the power underground? Then you won’t be able to see anything. No—before that, isn’t cutting the power blindly dangerous? You have no idea what’ll happen down there."

"If we’re not planning to get into a firefight, that’s a risk we have no choice but to take."

Isaac, Baekgyeong, and Anna. With just the three of them, their strength was nowhere near enough to hold out against Alphas inside the tunnel. With no better idea coming to him, Baekgyeong had no choice but to accept it.

"Then how do we secure visibility in the dark? Do night-vision goggles even help in a place like that?"

In a hardened voice, Anna said,

"In a place with not a speck of light, night vision is useless."

"Instead, there’s thermal imaging."

Isaac explained to the two of them as they listened intently.

"Not just people—walls and the ground can be identified, even if only faintly, with a thermal camera depending on ambient temperature. For a while, we’ll have the advantage over them when they’re thrown into confusion by a sudden blackout."

When Baekgyeong and Anna showed signs of agreement, Isaac drew a quick conclusion.

"Considering mobility, a thermal imaging monocular would be best. I’ll go get one."

As Baekgyeong started to rise with him, Isaac shook his head.

"In the meantime, look into missing biotech researchers from the last two years. We need a more concrete idea of what kind of experiments they’re running on Siron."

"You want me to sit here and dig through the internet?"

When Baekgyeong bristled, Isaac spoke coldly.

"At your level, what else can you do?"

Pocketing his car keys, Isaac checked the wall clock and said,

"I’ll be back by eight. By then, both of you get ready to move out."

"Haah, it hurts... Take me to a hospital... to a hospital. Ngh, huff—haah—take me to the hospital right now!"

A scream soaked in pain reverberated through the cramped cell, barely 6.6 square meters. Wrapped in fear, Siron looked down at the black silhouette °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° writhing on the floor. Wherever the man’s body touched, blood stains darker than the room’s darkness spread and smeared.

He was the man who had tried to pounce on Siron a moment ago. Someone had dragged him, after he was shot in the corridor, all the way into the cell where Siron was hiding. And standing in front of Siron was the unfamiliar man who had hauled him in here.

A thin sliver of light seeped in through the steel door’s small peephole, but it was only enough to barely borrow the corridor’s washed-out illumination. It was far too weak to fill the room. In the dim light, only the man’s outline surfaced in vague relief. Everything else was swallowed by darkness, making his very presence feel like a hazy fog. Even so, Siron could tell the man was watching him intently, as if taking him apart piece by piece.

The Designer.

Siron’s instinct told him this man was the one behind Hybris. If he was the Designer, then he was not only the one who had abducted, murdered, and exploited people, but also the one who killed Baekgyeong’s mother and kidnapped Siron, imprisoning him in the underground tunnel. A cold 압—an icy pressure—unlike anything he had felt from Jackson Cliff made the back of his neck prickle.

"Are you the Designer?"

At Siron’s question, the man let out a low laugh and slowly nodded.

"So you already know the relationship between Hybris and the Designer. Good. I’m glad I don’t have to add a tedious explanation."

Brightening, the man drifted closer to Siron with unhurried ease.

"Nice to meet you. Rowan Kim."

He offered the greeting with refined courtesy. Rowan Kim. Even as Siron thought the man had mistaken him for someone else, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu. He understood why at once. Rowan Kim—was the fake name he had written on the paperwork when he infiltrated Baggers City’s homeless support center disguised as a homeless man.

He didn’t seem to know Siron’s real name. For a moment Siron wondered if that was for the best.

But the Designer’s next words shattered that hope.

"Of course, your real name is Yoon Siron."

The Designer bent at the waist and brought his face so close it was nearly nose-to-nose, as if inviting Siron to look his fill. Under bright light, Siron might have been able to examine his features in detail, but with the man standing with the dim light behind him, he was nothing but a black silhouette. Even so, when the man’s breath touched him, every hair on Siron’s body stood on end and gooseflesh broke out.

From a distance no more than a handspan, the man inhaled deeply.

"So it’s true that an Omega reacts to an Alpha’s Pheromones. I can smell Pheromones on you."

Unfortunately, the room was awash in an Alpha’s Pheromones. The man who’d been shot couldn’t endure the pain—he thrashed and wailed, spilling terror-saturated Pheromones. Siron tried to keep himself calm, but his troublesome body was showing more and more signs of arousal.

"I see you have a history of falling from a successful actor into the gutter over a sex scandal. Sex must have been an obstacle in your life every time."

"...I can’t exactly deny it."

Struggling against the dense Pheromones packed into the tiny room, Siron took another step back from the Designer. Glancing toward the direction where a tortured groan spilled out—ngh, a strangled sound—Siron said,

"That man looks like he’s going to die. Shouldn’t you take him to a hospital?"

"Regrettably, death doesn’t take root easily in our bodies."

"Are you confident you’ll make it past thirty-five?"

The Designer gave a low chuckle.

"Imprints aren’t my field of interest. What interests me is the evolution of humanity."

The evolution of humanity. The Designer believed, with firm conviction, that an Alpha—an imperfect lump of defects overflowing with libido—was a more evolved form of humanity. In the darkness, Siron felt the Designer’s quiet, restrained gaze fixed on him. It felt like the look of a breeder measuring the breeding value of a rare animal, raising numbers by pairing and producing.

The Designer said,

"Someday, I hope you’ll read On Traits and Thought. Alpha and Omega—an enlightenment text that will become the ideological foundation of evolved humanity. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I offered up my twenties to writing that book."

"...On Traits and Thought?"

"Yes. As Alpha’s twinlike counterpart, as an Omega, I’d very much like you to read it."

Damn it—wetness slicked and spread between Siron’s legs. Panting, he answered with difficulty.

"I-I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"Of course you don’t know anything yet."

Siron felt the texture of plastic hidden in his palm. Inside was the Heat-cycle Suppressant Jackson Cliff had handed him. Siron sensed that now was the moment he had to swallow it—before he showed something even uglier, before his Pheromones poured out like a collapsed dam, before he tangled with the Designer after losing all reason.

"Listen to me. When I met an Omega, there was something I wanted to ask more than anything."

With an attitude of practiced courtesy, as if asking for a dance, the Designer asked,

"When you smell an Alpha’s Pheromones, does your asshole twitch?"