The moment the judges filed out of the hearing room, the corridor became a cauldron. Journalists mobbed Min-jun, shouting questions over each other. Cameras flashed. The bailiffs struggled to maintain order. Min-jun pushed through the crush with Nabi and Hana at his sides, ignoring the shouted queries, his mind still ringing with the Chief Justice's final words before the recess: "This Court will deliberate and return a ruling as expeditiously as possible."
Expeditious could mean hours or days. And every hour that passed was an hour that Director Eun could use to regroup, to counterattack, to find some new way to destroy what they had built.
They retreated to a small conference room that Mi-ja had somehow persuaded a sympathetic court clerk to unlock. The room was cramped and windowless, its walls lined with outdated legal reference books, but it was private. Seo-yeon set up her laptop on the scarred wooden table. Doctor Ji-hun slumped into a chair, his face gray with exhaustion. Min-seo and Eun-ha stood guard at the door. Director Go hovered near the corner, uncertain whether he belonged.
"We need to be ready for anything," Min-jun said, lowering himself into a chair. His shoulder was a dull, constant ache now, the painkillers Soo-bin had given him wearing thin. "Whatever the Court decides, Director Eun will have a response. He's not going to accept a ruling that destroys his empire."
"The evidence is overwhelming," Seo-yeon said. "The testimony was devastating. The judges would have to be blind to rule against us."
"The judges are human. They're subject to pressure, to ideology, to fear. Three of them are conservatives with ties to the political establishment that benefited from the Doll voting system. They may not want to open that door, regardless of the evidence."
Nabi, who had been silent since they left the hearing room, spoke up. "There is something I need to tell you. Something I noticed during the testimony."
Everyone turned to look at her.
"When Hana was testifying about the handler network, she mentioned that the handlers communicated through encrypted channels. Channels that were managed by Aeterna's central server on the forty-seventh floor. We destroyed the control node for Chromosome 47, but we didn't destroy the main server itself. It's still operational."
"What are you saying?" Min-jun asked.
"I'm saying that Director Eun may still have access to the handler network. He may still be able to send commands to the handlers who haven't defected. And he may have contingencies we don't know about."
Hana's expression tightened. "She's right. The handler network is separate from the kill switch network. The control node we destroyed only managed Chromosome 47. The main server handles communications, deployment schedules, surveillance data. If Director Eun still controls that server, he can still communicate with his loyal handlers."
"How many loyal handlers are there?" Min-jun asked.
"Unknown. Most of the handlers in Haesong defected after the square filled with Dolls. But there are facilities in other cities, other islands. Aeterna's operations extend across the entire archipelago. If Director Eun has a backup plan, he could activate it from anywhere."
Doctor Ji-hun looked up from his laptop. "I've been running searches on the Aeterna internal network—what's left of it. Most of their systems are locked down, but I found something. A file buried in a backup server. It's called 'Protocol Harvest.'"
"Harvest?" Min-jun felt a chill run down his spine. "What kind of harvest?"
"I don't know. The file is encrypted, and I don't have the key. But the metadata shows it was created twenty years ago, right after the Geomundo fire. And it's been updated regularly ever since. The last update was this morning."
"This morning. After the hearing began."
"Yes."
Min-jun turned to Director Go. "You were Director Eun's confidant for ten years. Did he ever mention a protocol called Harvest?"
Director Go's face went pale. "No. But... there were things he never told me. Projects that were compartmentalized. I knew about the kill switch and the Clean Slate because they were part of my portfolio. But there were other things. Things he said were 'insurance.' Things he said he hoped he'd never have to use."
"Insurance against what?"
"Against exactly this situation. Against exposure. Against the Dolls waking up. Against the truth coming out."
The door burst open, and everyone tensed. But it was only Mi-ja, her twisted hands clutching a persimmon-orange ribbon, her sharp eyes wide with urgency.
"Min-jun, you need to come outside. Something is happening in the plaza."
They followed her through the courthouse corridors and out onto the steps. The plaza was still filled with Dolls, nearly a hundred thousand of them, their amber eyes glowing in the gray afternoon light. But the singing had stopped. The crowd was stirring, rippling with some disturbance that Min-jun couldn't identify.
And then he saw them.
At the edges of the plaza, moving through the crowd with the slow, inexorable precision of predators, were figures in yellow coats. Handlers. Dozens of them. Hundreds. They were converging on the Dolls from every direction, their faces blank and calm, their movements synchronized.
"What are they doing?" Seo-yeon asked.
"I don't know," Hana said, her voice tight. "But those aren't defectors. Those are loyalists. Handlers who never questioned, who never hesitated. If Director Eun has activated them..."
A scream rose from the crowd. Then another. The Dolls were collapsing. Not all of them—only some, one here and one there, their bodies crumpling to the cobblestones like puppets with cut strings.
"It's the Clean Slate," Doctor Ji-hun said, his voice cracking. "We neutralized it in the ventilation system, but if the handlers are deploying it directly—carrying portable dispensers—they could target individual Dolls."
"We have to stop them," Min-jun said, starting forward.
Nabi grabbed his arm. "You can't go down there. You're injured. And there are too many of them. We need to find the source. We need to stop the signal that's controlling them."
"She's right," Hana said. "The handlers are being controlled. Look at their faces—they're not doing this willingly. They're under the influence of a command signal. If we can find the source and disable it, we can free them."
"Where would the source be?"
Hana's eyes met his. "Aeterna Tower. The main server on the forty-seventh floor. We destroyed the kill switch node, but the server itself is still operational. Director Eun must be using it to broadcast a handler override signal."
"Then we go back. Min-seo, Eun-ha—can you get us in again?"
Min-seo shook her head. "My credentials have been fully purged by now. And after last time, they'll have tripled the security. We'd never make it past the lobby."
"There might be another way," Director Go said quietly. Everyone turned to look at him. "The server has a remote access point. An emergency backdoor that Director Eun built in case the tower was ever compromised. I know where it is. I helped design it."
"Where?"
"There's a relay station on the roof of the old textile mill in the garment district. The same mill where the fire happened—or rather, a different mill, the one on the mainland. It was converted into a telecommunications hub after the industry collapsed. The backdoor access point is there. If we can reach it, we can shut down the server remotely."
Min-jun looked at him. "Why didn't you tell us this before?"
"Because I was ashamed. Because I helped build the system that's killing those Dolls right now. Because I was afraid. But I'm done being afraid."
The screams from the plaza were growing louder. More Dolls were falling. The handlers were moving faster now, their yellow coats swarming through the crowd.
"How long to reach the mill?" Min-jun asked.
"Fifteen minutes, if we run."
"Then we run." He turned to Seo-yeon. "Stay here. Document everything. Make sure the world sees what Director Eun is doing."
Seo-yeon nodded, her camera already raised.
They ran through the streets of Haesong, Min-jun clutching his injured shoulder, Nabi and Hana flanking him, Director Go leading the way. Behind them, the plaza was descending into chaos, the screams of the fallen Dolls mixing with the shouts of those who were trying to help them.
The old textile mill rose from the garment district like a monument to everything that had been lost. Its smokestacks were dark, its windows shattered, its walls covered in decades of grime and graffiti. But on its roof, invisible from the street, a cluster of satellite dishes and antennae hummed with the quiet energy of a system that had never been fully decommissioned.
"There," Director Go said, pointing. "The access panel is on the south side of the roof. There's a maintenance ladder around the back."
They climbed. Min-jun's shoulder screamed with every rung, but he forced himself upward, one hand after another, until he reached the roof. The relay station was a small concrete bunker, its door secured with an electronic lock.
Director Go punched in a code, his fingers trembling. The door swung open, revealing a room filled with servers and monitors, their lights blinking in the darkness.
"This is it," he said. "The backdoor access point. Give me five minutes and I can shut down the entire handler network."
"Make it three," Min-jun said.
Director Go sat down at the console and began to type. Lines of code scrolled across the screen. Min-jun stood behind him, watching, his heart pounding. Nabi and Hana stood at the door, keeping watch.
And then, from somewhere below, a sound. Footsteps. Heavy boots on metal rungs. Someone was climbing the ladder.
"They followed us," Hana said. "The handlers. They must have tracked Director Go's access attempt."
"How many?" Min-jun asked.
"Hard to tell. At least four. Maybe more."
Min-jun turned to Director Go. "How much longer?"
"Two minutes. I need two minutes."
"You have them." Min-jun grabbed a length of pipe from the corner of the bunker and positioned himself at the door. His shoulder screamed, but his hands were steady. "We'll hold them off."
The first handler appeared at the top of the ladder, a woman in a yellow coat, her face blank and expressionless. Min-jun swung the pipe, catching her across the shoulders. She stumbled backward, crashing into the handler behind her. More were coming, swarming up the ladder like insects.
Nabi and Hana joined him at the door, their bodies blocking the entrance. They had no weapons, no training, nothing but their determination and their refusal to be erased.
"We're with you," Nabi said, her voice steady.
The handlers surged forward. Min-jun swung the pipe. Hana grabbed a handler's arm and twisted it. Nabi pushed another backward, her movements awkward but fierce. The fight was chaotic, desperate, the kind of fight that people wage when they have nothing left to lose.
And then, from behind them, Director Go shouted: "It's done! The server is offline! The handler network is shut down!"
The handlers froze. Their blank expressions flickered, then dissolved into confusion, then fear. They looked around as though waking from a dream, their yellow coats suddenly too bright, too heavy, too damning.
"What—what happened?" one of them stammered. "Where am I?"
"You're on the roof of a textile mill," Min-jun said, lowering the pipe. "And you're free. Whatever Director Eun was using to control you—it's gone. You can choose now. You can walk away."
The handlers stared at him, then at each other. Slowly, one by one, they began to descend the ladder, their movements unsteady, their expressions lost.
Min-jun turned to look at the city below. The plaza was visible in the distance, the crowd still churning, but the yellow-coated figures had stopped moving. The handlers had frozen in place, their command signal cut off. And the Dolls who had fallen—Min-jun couldn't see from here whether they were dead or merely unconscious. He prayed it was the latter.
"It's over," Nabi said, her voice quiet.
"It's not over. Director Eun is still out there. The Court hasn't ruled yet. And we still don't know what Protocol Harvest is."
As if in answer, Min-jun's phone buzzed. He pulled it out. A message from Seo-yeon:
"Emergency. Director Eun just issued a live broadcast. He's activated something called the Last Harvest. He says it's the final insurance. He says the original donors—the women of the Persimmon Circle—have been marked. He says he'll activate it unless the Court dismisses the case within the hour."
Min-jun stared at the message, his blood turning to ice. The Last Harvest. The final insurance. He understood now what the encrypted file had been. Not a weapon against the Dolls. A weapon against the women whose cells had been stolen. The women who had been waiting twenty years for justice.
"He's going to kill them," he said. "Mi-ja. Sook-ja's sister. All of them. Unless we stop him."
Nabi took his hand. "Then we stop him."
But as they climbed down from the roof and ran toward the Persimmon House, Min-jun knew that the next hour would be the longest of his life. And he did not know if they would arrive in time.
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