Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Smoke dances in the dusty air as Jiung solders a microchip onto the circuit board. The shop bell rings.

“One sec!” He yells through his mask.

Once the last wire is fixed and protected with shrink wrap, Jiung puts the iron down. He kicks his stool away from the electrical bench, rolling all the way to the door. He gets up and starts pulling his gloves off, stuffing them into his apron as he pushes the door open with his shoulder.

“How can I help you?” He greets the customer while wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

The teenage girl who walks up to the counter isn’t one of his regulars, he’d remember someone with that bright of a hair color. She pushes her long bangs away from the left side of her face to reveal a gap in it, the space where her eye should be, empty instead. Jiung is unphased. He leans across the counter, pulling his goggles down to hang around his neck. He can see a faint blinking behind a torn wire.

“Model?”

“Ximm E25,” the girl replies. “Version 3.” She doesn’t have a voice modifier, it’s refreshing to see on someone as high-tech as she seems to be.

“Fancy for someone visiting a Sector 5 mechanic,” he comments. He takes out a tool from his apron and waits for the girl to nod before he inserts it in the eye socket, checking the numbers that show up on his desk’s smart screen. “How’d you lose it?”

“Ripped out by some asshole at the rally.”

Jiung scoffs, opening the computer under the counter and looking for the replacement parts he needs. “The cyber-pet rally?”

The girl looks at him with deadpan eyes – or, well, eye. “Do I look like a kid to you? The high-speed street racing rally.”

She does look like a kid to him, but he knows better than to trust such an instinct in this day and age. Jiung cuts the small talk short. “4,360 credits for part and installation. 3,960 if your nerves are off or you can take it without moving or crying.”

“The latter,” the girl replies. She pulls her glove off to reveal a fully cybernetic hand. A thing of beauty, probably recently out of the box, too. “You have Nabi State Protection, right?”

Jiung arches a brow. “Do I look like an amateur to you?”

That makes her smirk and she brings her hand to the payment pad. It takes a second, then the pad lights up in green and the parts slide down the chute behind him. Jiung grabs them, putting them on the cart he slides from under the counter with his foot, then opens the gate separating the front from the workshop. “This way.”

The girl follows. She might not be a regular at his shop, but now that he can see her legs too, it’s clear that she’s a regular to mechanics in general. They’re pieced together from a bunch of different models, but the gears roll and steer smoothly together. It’s a passion project, he does not doubt it. Jiung guides her to his client station, letting her get settled on the chair while he fetches the right tools. He fetches his stool and sits down, pushing the chair’s back so the girl is lying down, face under the light. He pulls his mask and safety glasses back on and starts working.

It’s a pretty simple routine for Jiung, work. If people come in with broken or missing pieces of their mechanical improvements, he fixes them. If people come in wanting to order factory-built parts, he redirects them to the store across the street. If they come trying to rob him, he looks them up and down, and goes back to work while they try – and fail – to breach his protective field. Once in a while, he’ll get custom improvement orders, and those are the most fun as he gets to show off his engineering skills.

Then there are androids, too. Jiung doesn’t fuck with those too much because he can’t be bothered with all the laws and regulations on them. He’ll do easy fixes for cash or rare part trade if the owner is willing, but even with Nabi State Protection, he’d rather not enter androids into his system.

Although every rule has an exception, and this one has an exception called Intak – or H-W4N9, his original model serial code, but Jiung doesn’t think much of the original is left on Intak aside from the core, code and power generator.

Intak is an AI-implemented android, he’s state-of-the-art – looks human if you don’t know what to look for like Jiung does – and is only a few years out of manufacturing, and yet already an illegal android. But above all, he’s Jiung’s test subject.

Jiung met Intak a few years back. The latter had recently been illegally rebooted but had fallen to lower sectors when he refused to cooperate with whoever tried to own him. He’d walked onto Jiung’s doorstep with so many parts to fix and no money. Usually, Jiung would’ve kicked him out, refusing to deal with androids, but under the torn chest plate he had gotten a glimpse of Intak’s generator and immediately reconsidered.. So he had offered Intak a deal: he’d fix Intak up for free if he let Jiung use him and his insanely powerful generator to test his builds.

For a while, they could go months without Intak coming to Jiung for a fix-up or Jiung calling him over to test something. Nowadays though, Intak seems to be needing more and more fixing up.

It’s nearing one in the morning when Jiung finally decides to turn his light off and leave the workshop. When he opens the back door, he finds Intak leaning back against the wall across the narrow alley, a boyish smile on his lips.

“Hey hyung,” he greets, hands in the pockets of his worn out cargo pants.

“You were here ten days ago,” Jiung notes. “What the hell is it this time?”

“Am I not allowed to simply miss you?”

The mechanic raises a brow. Intak sighs in defeat and grabs his pant leg to raise it, revealing his ankle. The artificial skin and casing of his calf are ripped, revealing busted carbon-muscle. Jiung groans.

“That’s not an ass o’clock job, Intak.”

“I don’t decide when shit happens to me,” he shrugs.

Jiung rubs his tired eyes. “Please don’t tell me it was a cat again because I’m gonna start looking for whoever made those cyber-pets able to tear through fucking steel plating.”

“Listen—”

“Actually, don’t tell me anything, I don’t wanna know.” He backs up against the door to let Intak in. “Get in before I change my mind and leave you with open nerves on the street for the whole night.”

Intak gives him his signature winning smile and complies. By now, he knows the way through the shop in the dark – he’d even put that knowledge to use when his optic nerves had burnt out. He carefully pushes Jiung’s current project to the side and sits on the workbench, propping his injured leg on an anti-conductive mat. Jiung locks the door before going to his spare pieces stash and looking for appropriate parts.

“Did you finish the thing you mentioned last time?”

Jiung walks back to the bench, putting his gloves on. “Scrapped it.”

“Why? I had a good feeling about it.”

“Reasons. Turn the power off in your leg.” And as soon as that’s done, Jiung starts taking the unsalvageable pieces out. Wires, a piston, a couple of gears, and as unfortunately predicted, carbon fiber.

Carbon-muscle is one of the most expensive parts that goes into building prosthetics and androids, along with titanium bones. There are cheaper options, like for everything, and Jiung does have a few in his stash, but he opens a higher-quality pack from his cabinet nevertheless.

It’s when he takes the torn batch of muscle out that he sees what caused the damage. A bullet lodged right between the bone structure and front plating. He sighs and pulls it out. It’s not his first time pulling out a bullet, not even from Intak, but he’s never seen one like this before. As soon as the crushed ball of metal hits the bottom of the emesis basin, it starts blinking with a small red light.

“What the—”

“Down!” Intak shouts, launching himself at Jiung, making them both crash to the floor. The air is knocked out of Jiung’s lungs from the sudden tackle, and not even a second later, a shock wave renders him almost deaf, dizzying his mind.

Jiung blinks his eyes a few times, trying to come back to his senses. Intak above him doesn’t seem to fare much better, gasping and swaying. The room is dark for a moment before the backup bulbs turn on and shower the room in red light. Then, the android seems to shake himself awake and he scampers back up as best as he can with one less leg working, turning around to reach for something on the workbench. Jiung gets back on his feet clumsily, still off-balance, brushing the dust off his clothes.

“What was that?” He asks, coming closer.

On the bench, Intak has separated the bullet from the rest of the scraps. He’s frowning.

“That’s what—?”

“Yeah,” Intak answers before Jiung can finish his question. Then, almost in a whisper, he adds, “Shit, I didn't realize they were pounders…”

Jiung freezes. “You got that from a cop?”

Intak sighs.

“Intak what the hell?” Jiung pushes his shoulder to make Intak face him. “I told you to stay out of this Alliance bullshit!”

“I wasn't even doing anything wrong! I was just with my friends at the—”

“Your friends are a bunch of outlaws and careless gangsters.” This isn't a conversation Jiung wants to have again, especially not at this hour. “Get on the bench before you fall.”

Intak reluctantly obeys. “I'm an outlaw too in case you forgot, which by extension makes you one as well.”

“You're an unlicensed android and that doesn't make me anything more than a mechanic doing his job.”

Jiung doesn't look at Intak's face, instead going to turn the power back on. He doesn't want to see the hurt look he knows him to be wearing. Intak doesn't like it when Jiung reduces their relationship to work.

“Sure,” Intak mumbles sarcastically after a pause, once he understands that Jiung is putting a final period on the conversation. “And that's why all of my visits definitely get put down on the books.”

Jiung shuts Intak's moodiness out and focuses back on his leg. It's easy enough to shift back into his work mindset, fixing up Intak's leg like he would anyone’s, but his thoughts keep getting pulled towards the bullet. He’ll have to give it a closer look, study how exactly it could detonate this way, and what its effects would've been on them if not for Intak's reflexes.

The clock reads seven past two when Jiung finally wraps Intak's leg in a bandage meant to help the artificial skin regenerate faster.

Intak turns his leg back on, walks a few steps, shifts from side to side, bends and extends his ankle until he's satisfied with the results and gives Jiung a thumbs up.

“Now get out of my sight,” Jiung groans.

“Can I stay here tonight? I told the guys not to wait for me.”

“A bit too late to ask for permission to crash, don't you think?” But Jiung is too tired to argue. “As long as you're gone when I come back to open shop, the workshop couch is yours.”

“Ah, hyung, come on… I meant—”

“Couch or nothing,” Jiung deadpans.

“Oh wow, I love couches so much, good night hyung!”

Jiung lets the door slam behind him, waits for the locking sound, and takes the stairs to his studio down the alley.

He dreams of people running away, gunshots, a body in his arms.

Jiung wakes up to loud banging on his door. He groans. When he clicks the button next to the window above his bed and the blinds open to reveal a barely risen sunlight, he frowns. Who the hell would be at his door so early in the morning?

Whoever it is slams their fist against the door again. “New Seoul Police!” Jiung stills. “Citizen Choi Jiung, open the door!”

Jiung jumps out of bed, not bothering to put on a shirt, and opens his door to greet the officers with only his pajama pants on.

On his doorstep stand two police officers, a middle-aged human man and a rather modern-looking android police assistant.

“What can I do for you?” The mechanic says, clenching his jaw when the cold hits his skin.

“Follow us to your shop, Mr. Choi,” the man says.

“Alright, let me just–”

“Now, Mr Choi.”

Crap. Jiung has a bad feeling about this. It’s not the first time police have rang his doorbell, but they were usually Sector 5 patrol, or had questions on a client of his, whereas now it’s Sky City officers and Jiung thinks they believe him to be involved in something instead of simply a witness of it.

“Okay, okay.”

Jiung slips out of his apartment and barely gets time to lock the door before following the officers. He just hopes Intak has broken camp already. To give him the benefit of the doubt, Jiung avoids the backdoor and takes the cops around the block.

“Please unlock the door, citizen,” the android instructs when they reach the shop’s front door.

Jiung complies, pushing in the key and typing his code on the padlock. The door clicks with a static-y tone and the bell jingles when Jiung pushes it open. The officers follow him inside.

“I have to cross the protective field alone, and I can open it for you from the counter,” he informs them.

“Make it quick,” the human officer grunts.

“May I know the reason for your visit?” Jiung asks, crossing the field.

“Warranted Inspection,” is all he gets in reply as the android assistant projects said warrant in the air.

Jiung does just like he said, he opens the gate for them. As soon as it’s down, the officers walk through and towards the workshop.

“For what reason? I have a right to kn–”

“I know the law,” the human officer retorts, but luckily for Jiung the android is programmed for this sort of thing and as they make their way inside the workshop, Jiung tailing them, it replies.

“Today at 0119 hours, a bullet-beacon sent a signal. Said bullet was shot by a Sector Peace Control officer yesterday at 2319 hours toward a Disturbance Group individual. We are following up on the case, looking to locate the individual.”

Jesus, Intak, Jiung thinks, what are you getting yourself into?

“May I ask why the signal was received with a two-hour delay?”

The man glares at him. “Classified.”

Fucking Sky City and their crooked techniques.

“Either way,” Jiung says as casually as he can, “No one was here at 0119 hours. I close shop at eleven and went home at one.”

“Your input is not requested,” the android replies. Humans lie, why would it care about what Jiung says? Then, it scans the room, which takes a short moment and then it turns to address the other officer. “No bullet-beacon shell detected. The room is clear of signal-charge residue.”

That surprises Jiung, but he guesses Intak cleaned it up. Which means it’s not Intak’s first time dealing with that type of bullet. Jiung’s jaw clenches.

The human officer stops looking around the room to give Jiung a look. At least, cops know they’re disliked in lower sectors, so Jiung’s expression doesn’t seem out of the ordinary. Jiung complied without protest, he has nothing to be reproached for.

“We’re done here, then?”

The officers agree and Jiung walks them out. He locks behind them. He locks the backdoor when he goes back to his studio. He locks his studio door behind him. He calls Intak. The tone rings twice before he picks up.

“Moshi moshi?” Intak greets on the other side.

“The cops showed up at my door, Intak.”

“Shit, I’m sorr—”

“Your ‘friends’. They’re P1H aren’t they?”

Intak is silent. It’s answer enough for Jiung.

“I told you to stay away from that bullshit! Was joining the Alliance not enough? They’re attracting more trouble than necessary.”

He hears Intak scoff. “Just because you don’t believe in their cause doesn’t mean I shouldn’t, hyung.”

“Do they even know that you’re—”

“An android? Yeah, they know.”

“Then they’re using you, they know that whatever progress they might make is not advantageous to you in any way.”

“You’re right. But I’m not doing this for me. And just because who I am, what I am, is useful to them doesn’t mean I’m being used. Also, they don’t treat me like I’m a fucking robot.”

“You know that’s not what I—”

“I’m sorry I didn’t pull the bullet out before coming to you. I’ll repay you next time by letting you use me to test whatever shit you’re making.”

“Intak—”

But Intak hangs up. Jiung groans, throwing the phone onto his bed and running a hand over his face with frustration. 

The radio plays while Jiung works on fixing his client’s faulty prosthetic leg.

Usually, Jiung would have it set to a music station, if he’s not playing his own playlist, but lately, he’s been listening to the news while he works. Every time the host announces breaking news, he tenses.

“Water restrictions get stricter in Sector 7, now only at ten liters a day per household.”

Jiung’s client sighs but Jiung himself breathes a little easier. As long as it’s not about Intak, he doesn’t care that much. It sucks, but he has work to do.

“Meanwhile, Sky City citizens waste thousands in their stupid garden fountains,” his client scorns. Jiung hums in half-hearted agreement.

He’s working with Jongseob when listening to the news turns out to be useful. Jongseob is some genius coder kid he met when the younger walked up to his shop, a broken-down cyber-cat in his arms and tears in his eyes. As it turns out, Jongseob had programmed the cat himself, but he wasn’t as great at the building part. From this collaborative work was born a mutual respect, good work symbiosis, and frankly Jiung’s only friendship, aside from Intak. Jiung isn’t sure he can call either of them his friend, so he never does, not out loud at least.

Jongseob is frowning at his screen, trying to find the mistake in his code, when Jiung makes him almost jump out of his skin by suddenly turning the radio volume up.

“—exploded in Sector 4, the act suspected to have been carried out by criminal group P1H in protest against allegedly unfair citizenship laws. There were no casualties and only a few injured—”

“Since when do you care about P1H,” Jongseob says, staring at Jiung’s focused expression.

“Shh!”

“—still have not caught a single of those individuals—”

Jiung lets out a relieved breath, turning to start working again, when he catches Jongseob’s eyes on him.

“What?”

“You know one of them.”

Jiung frowns.

“You know someone in P1H. You’ve been looking out for them, that’s why you’ve been carrying that stupid stone-age radio everywhere, haven’t you?”

“That stone-age radio works perfectly.”

Jongseob rolls his chair to face Jiung. “Hyung, do you really?”

“Maybe.” He tries to focus on the drone Jongseob and he have been working on.

“Who?”

“I’m not telling you that! What are you, a cop?”

Jongseob rolls his eyes. “I literally hack police information as a hobby.” When Jiung doesn’t respond, he adds: “It’s Intak, isn’t it?”

Jiung sighs, putting his screwdriver down. “Why are you such a smartass?”

“You literally don’t talk to anyone else other than me.”

“... Touché.”

Jongseob thinks for a moment, biting his cheek in a way Jiung knows to mean it’s something serious.

“Actually, I… I’ve been helping them, too.”

“You what?”

“I’m not– I’m not part of them, but I’ve been sharing info with them, anonymously – or at least under my hacker alias. Stuff that could be useful. Stuff that protects them from the government. They’re more careful and organized than you think. You should trust Intak with this.”

Jiung cards fingers through his hair. “I trust him. I just– I don’t–”

Jongseob looks at him knowingly. Maybe even a little too knowing.

It takes almost a month before Intak meets Jiung again. He hasn’t made contact since Jiung’s phone call. Jiung almost called him a few times but thought better of it.

Unfortunately, they don’t meet in the greatest of conditions.

“Your friend is drunk out of his mind,” the guy on the phone said, waking Jiung at an ungodly hour to request he come get Intak from the bar the latter decided to get wasted in.

“He kept rambling about you,” the barmaid says as she helps Jiung get Intak on his feet. “A lot of it is probably not my place to tell but if I were you I’d sit him down to talk once he’s sobered up.”

Jiung doesn’t want a stranger’s advice, but he doesn’t say anything, appreciative of the assistance she’s giving him to sit Intak on Jiung’s bike.

“Thanks for not throwing him to the street,” Jiung says, starting the engine.

“Thanks for covering his tab,” she replies with a playful smile. Jiung chuckles, then leaves.

The ride to Intak’s place is easy, the streets not too busy this late in the night. Intak holds on too loosely around Jiung’s middle but he’s fully leaning against his back, cheek smooshed against his shoulder. He’s still ranting incoherently, not that even if what he said made sense Jiung could hear any of it with the wind blowing past them, but he feels it reverberating through his back.

Intak lives on the edge separating Sector 5 from Sector 6 in a small apartment a dozen floors above the street. It’s nothing impressive per se, but he has a nice view over Sector 5’s commercial zone. When Jiung helped him move in, Intak spent hours on end watching the ad screens and neon lights blink and move at night.

After shouldering Intak up the elevator and entering the studio, Jiung tries the light switch next to his door, but nothing happens so only the city nightlife lights the apartment as he drags Intak to his bed. He drops the android, who lets out a childish whine, and sighs.

“Just because your body is able to feel the effects of alcohol doesn’t mean you should get intoxicated beyond normal motor functions,” he mutters, removing Intak’s shoes.

“But i’s’fun,” Intak slurs, kicking his feet to make Jiung’s job harder.

“Not for the people around you.”

“People ‘round me,” Intak repeats. “You?”

Jiung hums, finally done with the shoes, which he throws towards the entrance. Intak’s place is always a mess, so it doesn’t make much of a difference. He sits at the edge of the bed – well, it’s really just a mattress on the floor.

“‘Round me… Pretty.”

Jiung glances up, Intak turning to look outside at the same time. “If not real, why so pretty,” Intak continues to himself. “‘S’not fair.” He seems to be brewing thoughts too big to handle with a drunken mind. Jiung stands to get him a glass of cold water, hoping that freshening up his core will make him sober up quicker. Intak eyes it with a pout, like the glass of water offended him but he can’t do anything about it, though still drinks it when Jiung scoots closer and brings it to his lips.

Once the glass is empty, Jiung puts it down on the floor and sighs.

“You gonna tell me what the reason for this was?”

“Nuh-uh~” Intak sing-songs with a smile.

“Alright, guess I’ll ask again tomorrow. Go to sleep now.”

“Nuh-uh!” Intak repeats with a frown this time.

“Intak, come on,” Jiung tries to push Intak down to lie down, but Intak keeps sitting back up like a spring. “Aren’t you tired?”

Intak shakes his head, but he yawns. Jiung pushes down one more time, and instead of sitting up this time, Intak grabs him and pulls him down instead. Jiung doesn’t expect it,  falling to Intak’s side. The latter uses his confusion to shuffle closer, wrapping his arm around Jiung’s waist and putting his head on Jiung’s chest.

Jiung sighs. He’s trapped now, Intak’s inhuman strength holding him down. But it’s not a big deal, Jiung doesn’t really need to get up. If he wants to talk with Intak, he actually has better chances if he stays until morning, until Intak has sobered up, instead of going back home just to sleep a few hours in his own bed. Intak’s mattress isn’t even uncomfortable, it’s just… Intak is warm against his side, his breathing steady on top of him, his hand tucked under Jiung’s other side, his knee hooked over Jiung’s legs.

Jiung closes his eyes, ready to give in to comfort, but they open wide again when Intak – who he thought was already fast asleep judging from his silence – speaks. “Du-geun, du-geun, du-geun,” he mimics Jiung’s too-quick heartbeat. “So real,” he continues, moving his hand to flatten his palm over Jiung’s chest. “You sound so real, little heart. Hyung has a good heart, so advanced it even sounds real.”

Does he think I’m someone else? Jiung thinks. A little heart is what heart-like cores are commonly called. Did he go drinking with an android he met?

Intak keeps blabbering but Jiung’s heart rate eventually slows back down, lulling Intak until he finally falls asleep. Jiung follows not far behind.

Chapter Text

For once, it’s sunlight that wakes Jiung up. He turns but Intak isn’t in bed anymore, the sheets already cold again. Instead, he’s standing in the kitchen, staring outside while coffee brews.

Jiung sits up. Intak doesn’t notice, or at least he doesn’t react. He looks a lot more serious than Jiung usually sees him. For a moment, Jiung doesn’t speak either, just looks at Intak. He changed out of his clothes from the night before, now only wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top, revealing the gaps between plates around his joints. Intak is made of found parts and scraps, everything only coming together thanks to the artificial skin that glows golden under the sun. Looking down, Jiung notices exposed carbon-muscle on his thigh. Intak turns his head towards the coffee machine when it beeps, and with his back now visible, Jiung can see damage on his shoulder. He suspects there to be more internal damage too, maybe a chemical imbalance that could possibly explain why Intak was so drunk. Jiung saw his tab, it shouldn’t have been enough to make him pass out, normally.

“Is that cup for me?”

Intak startles lightly at the hoarse voice and turns back. “Hi. Uh, yeah, it is.” He brings it to Jiung, crouching next to the bed.

Jiung welcomes the warm and bitter drink in his mouth, almost burning his tongue.

“Sorry about last night, I–”

“It’s fine,” Jiung cuts in gently.

Intak takes a deep breath. “Listen, I don’t know how much I drank, and I don’t remember much but whatever I said–”

“Three Pure Buzzers, four Cherry Death shots, and an apple juice. And I told you it’s fine,” Jiung chuckles. “None of it made sense anyway.”

“Right.”

“The barmaid said you had something you wanted to talk to me about, though.”

Intak nods. “Yeah.”

“It’s about P1H, right? I suppose that’s why you’re all run down like this, too.”

The android nods again. Jiung takes another sip of coffee. “Well, let’s hear it.”

“Actually… I’d like you to meet them.”

Jiung frowns. “Who? P1H members?”

A third nod. He sighs. “Intak, it’s one thing to let you do your thing, and for that, I want to apologize because I haven’t been very nice about it, but now you want me to get involved too? You know I’m not–”

“Please,” Intak cuts in “please just… Meet them, okay? What I have to talk to you about is also something they have to talk to you about.”

Jiung puts down his coffee. “They want to talk to me? Why?”

“I can’t tell you like this.”

“Do I even really have a choice?”

“You always do.” That makes Jiung roll his eyes slightly, but Intak is still deadly serious. “But you should hear them out, you really should.”

Jiung rubs the back of his head. It’s ridiculous to him. What could they want to do with him? Sure, Jiung isn’t a half-bad mechanic, but Intak knows how wary he is of the Alliance. To convince Intak that they want to talk to Jiung in particular, it has to be important, right?

“Fine. I’ll meet them. When?”

“Today.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No.” He’s really not, Jiung can tell.

“Alright, just… I’m not going to their HQ or whatever. We’re meeting on neutral turf.”

“Deal,” Intak says with a little victorious smile, and Jiung hates how easily he gives in to him.

“Now sit down and let me fix you.”

“You brought your tools? Never mind, of course you did.”

Intak lets him take care of the most urgent things. For once, Jiung doesn’t ask how Intak got injured. At least he doesn’t have any bullets in him this time. He slips into work mode and lets the repairs take the impending meeting off his mind.

“Karaoke, seriously?” Jiung gives Intak an incredulous look, standing in front of the rather dubious-looking establishment.

“It’s safe, is what matters. I know you’d have rather met them at a café or something but I wouldn’t drag you out there if they meant to talk about public-space-appropriate things.”

Point taken. Jiung follows Intak inside and lets him talk to the front person. They barely give the boys a look before handing them a black coin – the place is probably an Alliance safe house, so much for neutral turf. Intak looks back at Jiung for a moment before leading him down a hallway. He stops in front of a door that looks like any of the other doors there, slips the coin in the slot, and enters.

It’s empty, which isn’t really surprising, in itself. Jiung takes a seat and grabs the karaoke machine remote. Intak gives him a look.

“What? Might as well play something while we wait, right?”

He plays a popular hip-hop song, bopping his head in sync with the beat, mouthing the half of the lyrics that he knows from hearing it on the radio. The way Intak seems to be getting nervous makes him uneasy. The android keeps standing, looking between Jiung and the door, playing with the hem of his sleeve.

The song ends.

“Would you just–” but Jiung doesn’t get to finish because a shadow can be seen through the door panel moments before it beeps and opens. Two people walk in.

The taller one has a sharp jaw and sharper eyes, a human man with purple-dyed hair. He’s clearly the leader, even though he’s much younger than Jiung thought he would be. As for the other, Jiung is surprised when he removes his coat and displays a heavily modified body.

Intak greets them like friends – friends he seems to admire, but friends nonetheless. They respond in kind.

Then, the leader turns to look at Jiung and smiles politely, extending a hand.

“Hi, Jiung. My name’s Keeho, it’s good to meet you.”

Jiung stands and shakes his hand. “Hi.”

Keeho then points to his cyborg friend. “This is Soul. Don’t be fooled by the steel, he’s a nice kid.”

Jiung hums. That’s what bothers me, he thinks, that he’s a kid.

They all sit down, Jiung facing Keeho, each on one end of the round couch while Intak and Soul sit between them. Jiung notices that Intak is sitting closer to him than to Soul, but he’s not sure whether it’s in support of the former or because of a slight discomfort with the latter.

“So,” Jiung says. “You had something to tell me?”

Keeho smiles again, cordial. “Right to the chase, then.” Jiung raises his eyebrows, arms crossed. “Fine by me,” Keeho continues with a chuckle. “I’ll start with explaining how we… found you.

“A couple of months ago, before Intak even got involved, we carried out a mission in Sector 4’s dispatch center, looking for data banks. I’ll spare the details, but just know that the Sky City Council wanted to keep them secret a little too much for their content to be insignificant. Thanks to an ally, we recently cracked the data.”

Jongseob, Jiung is sure. He quirks an eyebrow, waiting for it to start concerning him.

“There was a lot of information, most of it pertaining to Sky Citizens private accounts and we almost discarded them, thinking we wouldn’t find anything actually interesting. Except that hidden about 3/4th of the way was the data they truly wanted to hide, encrypted to look like the rest of it to the untrained eye.”

“I’m guessing your ally’s eye is trained, then, or this conversation would really have no interest to me whatsoever.”

Keeho chuckles. “You bet. The encrypted data talks about a new way of storing information, and especially encoded keys to the City Hall.”

Jiung glances at Intak, who’s been nervously looking at him the whole time, chewing on his bottom lip, tearing the skin. Jiung wishes he would lose the habit because he’s damaging it and that means it wears quicker and regenerates slower when he needs it to. Jiung has no idea what type of reaction Intak is watching for.

“Okay, and?”

“Well, see, although the human mind is flawed in many ways and human memory is inaccurate and faulty, it also has a significantly higher computational power efficiency than computers. Someone, however, has found a way to combine both in the form of an android.”

“Okay, talk to your computer expert ally then. I’m a mechanic.”

Keeho laughs dryly. “Right. The thing is, we’re not interested in your mechanic skills, Choi Jiung. We’re interested in finding that android. And we believe you can help us with that.”

Jiung looks at Intak, who raises his eyebrows, his lips in a worried line.

“I don’t work with androids.”

“We both know that’s not entirely true.”

“I said I was fine with talking, I’m not helping you do anything.”

“Do you not care about lower sectors citizens?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“That android could help the cause. We could make the big guys see us, make them hear us. We could help millions of citizens.”

“I’m already helping plenty of people. Find someone else.”

Then, Intak seems to break self-control and interjects. “The data said there was a missing piece of that android that could help us restore the rest of it, and that piece is in Sector 9.”

Jiung freezes and his hands clench around the fabric of his pockets. Keeho’s eyes dart to Intak, and Jiung’s gaze falls to the floor.

“Intak, we were going to ease into it–”

“This conversation is over,” Jiung then says, cutting Keeho off as he stands up and heads for the door.

“Hyung!”

He doesn’t grant Intak the benefit of the doubt anymore, ignoring his call, he simply opens the door and walks out in big strides, jaw tense.

Two pairs of footsteps follow him out. He’s almost made it to his bike when one of them overtakes him. Surprisingly, it’s the cyborg kid, Soul. He still doesn’t say a word, and Jiung almost pushes him out of the way but before he can, the kid’s hand reaches toward Jiung from under his cape-like jacket.

It’s fully cybernetic, the pieced-together mechanism protected by a transparent plasm layer. As Soul opens his hand, Jiung can see how each finger is a different type of metal, and he suspects that the box lodged between his forearm’s carbon-muscles contains tools. He’s almost pulled out of his anger enough to admire the work. In Soul’s open palm rests a simple USB stick. It’s old-fashioned and has a small character keychain hooked onto it.

“In case you change your mind,” the boy says.

His voice is clear, softer than Jiung expected from someone with such a heavily modified body. His tone is neither pressing nor judging, and strangely warm.

“If I take it will you leave me alone?”

The kid nods. So Jiung grabs the USB and buries it in his pocket before walking past him and hopping onto his bike, tapping the helmet switch behind his ear.

The exchange was fast, but it was enough time for Intak to catch up to Jiung and stand in front of the bike, hands on the handles to stop him from leaving. Keeho steps out of the karaoke bar but stays away.

“Hyung, please don’t–”

“Move, Intak. I won’t ask again.”

Jiung is deadly serious, his inflection cold, and his eyes incisive.

“Hyung,” Intak begs softly.

Jiung ignores him, pushing his helmet visor down and revving the motor. Intak stays put for a moment, looking for his eyes, but Jiung loses patience. He gears the bike in reverse, pulling it out of Intak’s hold, then gears back forward and speeds out of sight. His eyes burn but Jiung would rather be angry than sad.

Jiung hasn’t always been a resident of Sector 4. Before owning his workshop, he was an apprentice in Sector 6, and before that, an errand boy in Sector 8. That’s usually where he stops his backstory. Only one person has ever heard about earlier days, about what would be Jiung’s childhood if he could have ever been considered a child – and if he could remember more than a few months of it.

“Every person has once been a child, hyung.” Intak had said with a chuckle. Behind the nonchalance of that sentence, Jiung knew Intak hid the grief of his non-humanity.

But, like he’d told Intak that night, glossy eyes focused on the android’s faulty shoulder that he was fixing up, Sector 9 had never really allowed anyone to be at all. Everything and everyone Jiung must have known there was gone, leaving him only rubble and amnesia. Somehow, he’d managed. He made it out. And he locked those forgotten days far away in his mind, denying their existence just as the government did.

Intak’s working hand on his cheek had been warm, delicately wiping away the tears Jiung couldn’t hold back, and the latter couldn’t even find it in himself to be angry about the touch he’d warned the other off of. 

They’d never talked about it again, although Intak had tried bringing it up once or twice before Jiung shakily asked him not to. If not peace, Jiung had made a truce with it. It was enough.

It was supposed to be enough. Jiung thought Intak understood, he trusted him to understand. And yet, the other had told complete strangers about it.

For a week, Jiung’s shop is closed to the public. He wears his headphones and works on his projects until his eyelids force themselves shut and he barely hauls himself to fall asleep on the couch instead of the workbench. He can’t help but hold the blanket against his chest, a familiar scent easing his dreams a little.

Although, it’s still from ashes and dust sticking to his lungs that Jiung is pulled away when he wakes on the 8th day – or is it the 9th? He’s lost track.

The back door swings open after the beeping of the padlock, and the sun coming from behind the silhouette blinds Jiung. He’s ready to yell at it to leave, but it’s Jongseob’s voice that reaches his ears.

“My God, hyung,” he sighs, taking in the sight of Jiung’s usually perfectly organized workshop. Bits and bobs are scattered all over the floor, there’s a spilled box of screws next to the bench, food wrappings and empty cans on the coffee table, and burnt wires by the shop’s front entrance. A smashed project acts as the chaotic room’s centerpiece.

“If you’re gonna hack my security please at least bring me coffee,” Jiung grumbles, turning his back to him, ready to fall back asleep.

Jongseob sighs but Jiung can tell by his careful footsteps that he’s making his way to the coffee machine. It makes a rumbling noise that soon turns into a soft purring and the smell reaches Jiung before the noise stops and Jongseob makes his way back to him.

Jiung sits up to welcome the warm beverage and allow Jongseob to sit next to him.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Jongseob rolls his eyes at the sarcasm. “Would it be satisfactory enough if I just said I was worried about you?”

Jiung scoffs while blowing on his coffee.

“As expected,” Jongseob sighs. “Well, I did some investigating on the signal that sent the police to your door, as per your request. I sent you messages about it but I don’t think you saw them.”

Jiung hums, taking his first sip of coffee. It warms his chest and stomach pleasantly, as opposed to the coldness of the room – Jiung can’t afford heating in the shop, he can already barely afford the one in his apartment.

“It was harder than it should’ve been since I didn’t have the shell, but some local surveillance post intercepted the signal and their system only deletes recordings after 10 days. Anyway, I did some reverse searching and tracked the origin of the bullet to Sector 3 Sector Peace Control.”

“Sector 3? Intak can’t go to Sky City, he’s unregistered.”

“The bullet is attributed to Sector 3, but the history shows it was shot in Sector 4, I can’t get an exact location but it was close to the Upper Eastern Gate.”

“Did it say anything about why they shot him?”

“Not really. Intak is only labeled as an unidentified Disturbance Group individual so they haven’t identified him and shouldn’t be able to track him since the bullet-beacon’s signal didn’t lead them to him. It did say something about pursuit, but he probably out-ran them, or the detonation wouldn’t have been necessary.”

“Hmm… Do we know what Sector 3 SPC was doing in Sector 4? It’s rare for them to come down.”

“Unsurprisingly classified, I didn’t look into it.”

Then, Jongseob seems to hesitate. 

“What is it? Spit it out.”

“I didn’t look into the pounders’ presence but I did study the bullet’s signal itself. The thing is… it doesn’t make sense.”

Jiung frowns. It’s rare for any of this kind of thing to escape Jongseob’s understanding.

“The signal serves two purposes, the first one is obvious: communicating its position to the cops. The second one though… From what I could gather, it generates a quick shock wave meant to incapacitate the person shot.”

“Yeah, it gave me a nice headache,” Jiung grumbles at the memory.

“The thing is, hyung, it should’ve given you more than that. The bullet is small but its power is incredibly high, it should have crushed your brain against your skull, broken your spine, or at least pushed the air out of your lungs so hard that you suffocated. If not fatal, it should have at least done some serious damage.”

“But it didn’t.”

“Yeah, it didn’t.”

Jiung shrugs. “Maybe it was defective?”

“I doubt that. Cop ammo is thoroughly checked.”

“Then, Intak took the damage. He was between the blast and I.”

“Right…”

“But what is so urgent about it that you came out of your mancave and all the way here, anyway?”

Jongseob rolls his eyes again. “Stop calling it that. I just thought you needed to know. It’s high-caliber stuff, and you’ve been worried about Intak.”

At that, Jiung presses his lips into a fine line. “I’m not his owner, he can do whatever the hell he wants. Shouldn’t you tell your friends in common?”

“Oh, you’ve met them, then?”

“You knew about their plan?” Jiung frowns.

Jongseob shakes his head. “Not really. I know about the ‘missing piece’ they’re looking for, and I know they wanted to talk to you, but I don’t know how they’re linked.”

“They’re not,” Jiung says a little too quickly.

Jongseob’s response is a non-committal sound. Jiung drinks his coffee to hide the way his nerves start to thrum again.

“Soul told me about the USB he gave you,” Jongseob adds. “You should look at it. And call Intak, he’s been asking me how you’ve been non-stop.”

“If he cared, he wouldn’t–”

“He cares,” the younger interrupts. “Show him you do, too.”

At that, Jongseob gets up. “I’ll see you around, hyung. Think about it.”

It takes Jiung two more days of distracting himself with work – his shop is still closed, although he knows he won’t be able to keep it that way much longer with bills needing to get paid – and repeatedly tearing his eyes away from the corner desk where the stick lies, waiting patiently for Jiung to get his shit together like Jongseob had advised, albeit more politely. It’s when Jiung accidentally zaps his finger for the third time in the last hour that he finally admits to himself that the work is not what’s distracting him anymore but instead what he’s being distracted from.

He sighs, lays his tools down, turns off the power and rolls his stool to the desk.

The USB is nothing out of the ordinary, to be honest. It’s an older generation than what people use nowadays – for those who actually still carry around hardware – but Jiung owns enough adaptators for it to not be an issue. The mechanical part is hidden under a layer of a simple green plastic – chlorinated polyethylene, it’s inexpensive, unremarkable, plain. Nothing’s written on it aside from its memory capacity. Jiung supposes precious things are better hidden in plain sight, right?

He turns his computer on, careful to cut off any network connection, even Nabi. No matter how safe the system is, it’s still shared, and just like anything that concerns Intak, he prefers to deal with it unlinked.

He plugs the USB in, takes it out, turns it, blows dry air into the outlet, and plugs it in again, and then it seems to actually do something. Jongseob would hate this, Jiung thinks.

A simple window opens up, classic white monoscript text over a black background.

: connection establishing. please wait.
: …
: enter encrypted key

>> …

Jiung frowns. No one gave him any key.

>> this is jiung, he types

: treating key ‘jiung’…
: linking to account 8-31

Jiung knows this number. It’s a date. Intak has no recollection of his creation, so he’d often joked that August 31st was his birthday when it was actually the day he’d met Jiung. It’s an uneasy yet warm feeling that spreads through Jiung’s chest when the account finishes linking and a new window opens.

: latest update = 3 hours ago
: latest position update = 45.32’28°E - 76.19’43°S - 428m altitude
: latest p.log = #6

A log? A recent one, at that. Jiung’s fingers fly to the keyboard.

>> load p.log#6

Another window opens, this time showing a video. Jiung taps the space bar and the video starts playing. What was a black screen turns out to have been the front of someone’s hoodie and they sit back, revealing them in a small room. Intak. The android looks a little awkward, getting comfortable in his chair, pushing his hair back, and putting on his hood – it’s a habit Jiung noticed Intak got from him when Jiung would get his hair out of his face so none of its silver glory would go up in flames because of what he was working on. Intak’s version is less about safety and more about nerves, though.

Intak clears his throat. “I’m Intak. This is my sixth log. The last one was a little while ago, about a month I believe. Keeho said it was better to do it regularly, I know he logs in like every 2 or 3 days but it’s a bit much for me. Last time… Right, I don’t need to repeat myself. Um.”

Jiung shifts in his seat. Where is this even going?

“I’m logging in now, though! My last one before heading down to the 9th.” Jiung’s throat closes up. “I did what I could to get Jiung on board. From what I’ve heard, from Taeyang mostly, since Jiung never talked about it, but also from word of mouth, Sector 9 is a mess. It’s been over 15 years since it… closed, I guess, and no one ever tried to clear it up.”

Or no one was allowed to, Jiung adds for himself.

“There are all sorts of rumors, of course, that under the rubble is hidden a secret bunker where millions are hiding, waiting for the world to end, that all that lives there are giant rats and broken androids, that it never existed in the first place and was made up as extremist propaganda, that the vagrants end up there and get turned into zombies. Keeho’s hoping for revolutionary troops. I don’t know what I want it to be. Taeyang hyung’s theory is that there’s nothing in there you can’t find in Sectors like 7 or 8. Except I guess for that missing piece.”

Right, whatever the hell that is, and however they thought Jiung could help them in the first place. Intak sighs.

“Anyway, I’m rambling. All of that is probably somewhere in the P1H data. Keeho said the log is to remind the people who will find whatever is left of us in the end to remember that before being militants, we were people. That the pillars of freedom are memory and empathy or something. In a way, I don’t know if that matters because in case of failure, the government will probably erase all traces of our existence, like they did to the 9th.”

Intak pauses, staring at his hands, rubbing the palm of his hand with his thumb. There’s a nerve under there that Jiung did his best to fix a few years ago. He could do much better now but the process of regrowing the artificial skin on his hands is longer than most other places and Intak always said it was fine, that he’d rather be able to use that hand.

“Hyung if you’re watching this, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just… I want to make things right, I want justice for the 9th, and for all of the Sectors who were not allowed to mourn them. I… I want to show the world what they did to you, I want… I want to bring you back home.”

Jiung’s throat is so tight he feels like he’s going to stop breathing any moment. His jaw hurts, his cheeks are wet.

“I know it wasn’t fair for me to ask you to do this. I’ll do it for you, hyung.”

The video ends on Intak’s small smile. He’s scared, is what Jiung can tell. For good reason, too, because as far as anyone knows, nobody has ever gone to Sector 9 and lived to tell the tale. Well, almost.

Jiung went, once. He had just started his apprenticeship in Sector 6, but one winter day he had been hit by such a strong wave of homesickness that he ditched his master and headed to the only place he knew was still standing because it was where he’d escaped from. In southern Sector 8, a few streets over a fabric factory where he’d stolen clothes that didn’t scream Sector 9 survivor, is hidden a chute. It’s that looks far too heavy to move at first glance but is actually hollow. Jiung had still struggled to push it off, sweating and scratching his hands on its surface, until there was enough space for his body to fit through. He’d let himself fall down, hands on his head to prevent a concussion at landing, 3 meters into the air he’d somehow managed to reach during his escape.

The place was unrecognizable. Dust and ash had settled after the raid, mixing with the snow in a grey slush. It was dark, too, with sunlight never properly reaching the lower floor of the city, especially in winter.

He walked around the Sector he knew he had to have once called his home. Vague memories came back, making his heart clench painfully. He remembered running in the street with laughing children, knocking into market stalls, his name being called – his original name, the one he’d lost, an indescribable comfortable warmth around him. Then, screams, flames, the loudest sounds he’d ever heard, being pushed around, running in the street with crying children, hitting his head, darkness. 

Jiung hadn’t realized he’d started crying and fallen to his knees in the middle of an empty street. What made it come back to reality was the sudden light of a flash bomb and the boom of robotic pounders’ steps. A second later and he wouldn’t have had the time to hide under the broken roof of a house – he had a feeling he’d known who lived in this house, although something seemed to stop it from coming back to him, adrenaline perhaps. The pounder’s steps got closer and closer until Jiung had to hold his breath, then the robotic voice sounded the all-clear and left. Jiung ran back to the chute, avoiding walking in the blood the pounder’s steps had left behind, scrambling as best he could to reach, painfully climbing inside the burning cold metal.

He’d never gone again. Jiung didn’t even know if the chute was still open. All he knew was that there was no Sector 9 to go back to.

The cursor blinks at him on the text window. Jiung wipes his cheeks, probably smearing some kind of oil or grease on them instead, with how dirty his work clothes have gotten. He reaches for the keyboard again.

>> update position

: updating…
: latest position update = 32.73’08°E - 89.92’86°S - 105m altitude

He frowns at the sudden drop in altitude. It varies from place to place, with low New Seoul Sectors being barely flat, but it never drops below 200. Unless… Unless they’ve already started descending. 

Fuck.

Jiung jumps off his chair, grabbing his keys on the hook and almost forgetting to type his lockdown code before leaving out the door.

His bike is stored under the stairs leading to his apartment, covered by a tarp sheet. Jiung flings it off and doesn’t take the time to fold it and store it so it won’t fly away like he usually does. He just jumps on, clips his helmet in place, and turns the engine on.

It’s not obvious to the untrained eye, but Jiung’s bike is moded beyond legality. He’s good at hiding his tweakings, only testing them out of police operating grounds – after all, it wouldn’t be good for business if he got caught for under-the-counter work. But right now, he doesn’t care, driving full speed ahead toward the coordinates he got from the strange USB. All he could tell was that, above surface, it was somewhere in Sector 7.

Jiung drifts between honking vehicles at stop signals, braces for bumps in the road, strategically avoids traffic control. He reaches Sector 7 in record time and doesn’t stop until he’s reached 32°E and 89°S. He parks his bike behind a garbage bin and dials Intak’s number. As expected, the voicemail greets him. So he dials Jongseob’s number.

“Hyung?” Jongseob answers after a single ring. “Everything okay?”

“I’m in the 7th. Where’s the entrance.”

“What?”

“To the 9th. The one P1H used.”

“You’re–”

“Going. Tell me.”

There’s a slight pause, and Jiung almost loses his cool – or whatever is left of it at this point. But Jongseob comes through again. “Go to the corner store with the blue lit sign, ask for a homemade Sous Neuf at the counter, don’t say anything else. Tip generously.”

Jiung turns on his heels as he hangs up, looking for the sign. It blinks back at him with crooked letters. The store is shabby, and Jiung would probably never go inside in any normal situation, much less ask for something he can’t look up the brand of. He doesn’t hesitate this time, though. Big strides get him inside in no time, and he slams a bill on the counter under a bored-looking teenager’s nose.

“Homemade Sous Neuf,” he just says.

The boy looks up at him, squints, checks for any other customers, then pockets the money and walks toward the back through a neon-orange beaded curtain. Jiung follows him. They cross the employee backroom, into a messy stockroom, and to a utility closet. The teenager rolls out a crate and kicks the bottom of the wall. A trap door creaks open in the floor. He nods his chin toward it. Jiung walks in. The trap door closes as soon as he’s completely inside, and he can hear everything going back into place before a faint light allows him to see anything. The ceiling is low, and the walls dirty. It’s a small hallway, leading toward a fence behind which Jiung sees what he guesses to be an elevator. He gets in, closes the fence again and a couple of seconds later, he starts moving down.

Chapter Text

The way down is a long one. The elevator seems to have been built for sturdiness rather than speed, no doubt once used for Sector 9 miners, but if the permit taped to it is anything to go by, it had been abandoned way before Jiung was even born.

Jiung imagines Intak going down the draft, fear making his hands shake like the first time Jiung opened his torso to access his power source. Jiung had promised Intak it wouldn’t turn him off, that he would stay conscious, and that Jiung was only using a portion of the power. Every time they did it, Intak would feel more at ease, even at some point letting Jiung deactivate his motion functions, letting the mechanic turn him into a limp doll on the workbench, his head turned so he could still talk with Jiung while he worked. Intak’s trust in him weighs on Jiung’s mind now, for how little he’s reciprocated it.

At last, the elevator seems to reach the bottom. About 50m under sea level, if Jiung estimates correctly. Hopefully, Intak isn’t far and Jiung can reach him in time before pounders crush him into a pile of hardware.

He steps out of the elevator cage, following the wall blindly with a hand, until he feels what he guesses to be some sort of door. It opens with a click, and he finds himself in a bathroom, the door hidden as a false wall in the shower. It’s empty, but surprisingly clean, like it’s being used regularly.

He closes the wall-door, and heads for the regular door. It’s unlocked, and when he’s on the other side, eyes fall on him, moments before a pair of blades point at his sternum and throat.

“Who are you?” the first person asks. She’s the one aiming for his throat, and the contrast between her youthful face and the toughness of her voice shocks him.

“I’m– Jiung?”

“Are you sure?” The guy threatening to skewer his abdomen scoffs. He’s older, in his fifties, his chin is scruffy.

They look nothing alike, but somehow Jiung is sure he raised the young girl judging by the matching wariness they wear on their faces.

“Yes.”

“We don’t get a lot of unexpected visitors, Jiung-ssi…”

“I’m– I’m with P1H?” He’s not sure of himself as he speaks, wonders if maybe here too he needs a password or karaoke chip.

The man frowns but his blade stops poking Jiung.

“They didn’t say anyone would be following after them. Why weren’t you in the same convoy?”

“Last minute change of heart?”

The man sighs. He retracts his blade. The girl doesn’t seem convinced but she complies when the man signals for her to follow his lead.

“I suppose that explains all the looking back that other lad was doing. I’ll get you a cover jacket. Mao, keep an eye on him.”

The young girl – Mao – nods, while the man exits the room. Jiung takes the place in. It’s dark, some light coming through the planked windows, and from the one battery light in the kitchen area. It’s a small house, filled with old-fashioned furniture, with almost nothing electricity-dependant. Both the couch’s frame and fabric have been re-pieced together. But what shocks Jiung the most is that it looks lived in.

“You live here?” he asks, voice small.

“So what? It’s probably better than whatever metal skyscraper you call home.”

“No, I– I just. I thought… The 9th…”

“Not deserted, obviously.”

Jiung’s eyes prickle. “Do… Do other people live down here?”

“More than you upper city folks know of.”

Almost to himself, Jiung says “So my family could’ve…”

“Family?” Mao repeats, her voice suddenly warmer. “You’re a Niner?”

“I was. I left when they destroyed everything. I thought it was all gone. I saw the ashes.”

“We got good at hiding.”

The man comes back, a silvery gray jacket in his hands. “I think this should fit you. Might be a bit big but— everything alright?” He frowns at them, confused by the sudden change in atmosphere.

“He was a Niner. Pre-Waste.”

The man frowns even deeper, walking closer to Jiung, analyzing his face. “What’s your name, boy?”

“I told you I’m Ji—”

“Not that name. Your Niner name.”

“I– I don’t remember.” He doesn’t remember much from that time, which has always been strange to him as his memory is otherwise excellent.

“How old were you?”

“I don’t really know either, sir. About 10, according to my legal papers.”

“Parents?”

“I don’t– My memory isn’t–”

“Amnesia, yeah. But only partial, it seems. That’s rare. Most kids who got out got a total wipe… Look into my eyes, boy. I remember eyes the best.”

Jiung looks up. The man studies him carefully, and one of his eyebrows twitches. He mutters something under his breath that Jiung doesn’t quite catch. That seems to close the subject as he shoves the jacket into Jiung’s hold.

“Put this on. Stay out of sight. Your friends went North. Don’t come back here.”

“Thank you,” Jiung replies, swinging the jacket around his shoulders.

“Don’t thank me, boy. Out there you’ll either die or become one that I should be thanking. From one Niner to another, I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.”

Jiung gives him a stern nod. As he leaves, Mao gives him a small wave. She looks younger now that she’s not threatening him with a knife anymore. He wonders if he would have been part of her childhood, had he not been exiled, if she was even born when he left.

Outside, it still looks like a torn-down and deserted place. Everything looks flat, unreal, as the Sectors above cast a shadow on the 9th. Jiung skulks along the walls, the jacket technology helping him blend in. It’s dead silent around him, and it’s hard to believe anyone actually lives here, but now that he saw it with his own eyes, he has to believe it. 

He heads North, as instructed, watching out for any sign of Intak or P1H.

It’s strange to walk these familiar streets, and yet still be unable to remember them. It’s like an itch he can’t scratch, and the deeper he tries to look in his mind, the less he seems to remember about this place.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps alerts him.

“Intak?” he calls.

Nothing. Then more footsteps, closer.

“Intak is that you?” he starts to walk toward the sound.

But then another set of footsteps closes in, faster-paced, behind him. Someone grabs him, covering his mouth to stifle his surprised gasp, pulling him into a tight and dark alleyway.

He’s about to fight back but the person shushes him. The footsteps he heard first reveal themselves to be a trio of cops. Two huge pounders, and an android. They’re more geared up than Jiung has ever seen any SPC agent be. He turns his head, grabbing the hand off of him. He doesn’t recognize the face – at least what he can see of it with the mask covering half of their face – but their clothes are like the ones Keeho had been wearing when Jiung met him, with a jacket like the one he’s wearing now. As the man had put it, an ‘upper city’ person, like him. P1H.

Jiung opens his mouth to speak but the other’s quick finger-over-lips sign reminds him of the proximity of danger. They wait a while, and Jiung observes them like he tends to do for every person he meets, studying them for cybernetic parts or the absence thereof. This one – a man about his age as well – seems mostly organic, his black hair long and held out of his face in a half-pony. He does however have one prosthetic ear, the uncovered metal of it attached to what looks like burn scars that almost reach his cheek. From an explosion, Jiung bets.

When the man judges the way clear, he signals to Jiung to follow him, still without a word. Jiung trusts that this person is on his side and that he’ll lead him to Intak.

They take odd turns, shortcuts, and long-ways-around, stopping and going in irregular intervals as if the city were a maze and Jiung’s new guide knew the way to the exit. He suspects that the prosthetic is also an enhancement and lets him hear if any patrols are in their path.

At last, the other takes them to a door, knocking only once, softly, and the door opens.

Unfortunately, Intak isn’t on the other side. It’s another Sector 9 survivor. She looks underfed, and more scared than Mao and her father. She gives Jiung an odd look before disappearing into another room.

Jiung turns to his guide. The latter pulls his mask down.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, quietly but with urgency.

“You know me?”

“Yes, Jiung, I know you. Not only because of the mission but because anyone who knows Intak knows you.”

Jiung bounces from one foot to the other. “Right, um…”

“I’m Theo.”

“Theo. You’re with P1H, right?”

Theo nods.

“So… Where are they?”

“Almost at the Mouth.”

“The Mouth?” Somehow, the words feel familiar.

“That’s what they call the entrance to the mines.”

“Why aren’t you with them?”

“Heard from Donggun and Mao someone was coming down. Since it’s easier for me to get around I was tasked with either retrieving or eliminating whoever it was.”

Jiung nods. “Guess I got lucky.”

Theo scoffs. “That you did. You were seconds away from getting your head bashed in.”

“Right. Thanks.”

Theo nods like it’s no big deal, but Jiung can tell he appreciates it.

“When should we go?” Jiung asks.

“Barely escaped death and ready to go back? I see why the others wanted you in.”

“Not my first time,” Jiung mumbles, then adds: “Did you not want me in?”

Theo shrugs. “You didn’t want yourself in, and we have no room for someone without conviction. This isn’t something you can do as a side gig.”

“J– I mean– Goblin does it. The hacker?”

“Oh yeah, Intak did say you knew him. Goblin’s an exception, I suppose. He never goes in the field.”

Jiung nods. He knew Jongseob wasn’t fully part of it, but it reassures him nonetheless. If the only two people he cared about in his life were putting their lives are risk, he doesn’t know… Well, scratch that, they are risking their lives, whether physically or legally, and Jiung has to admit – only to himself – that he’s kind of freaking out about it. Maybe he’s the one who’s up for an important revelation. Maybe he’s the one who should quit it – quit holing up, quit hiding behind his walls. But those are thoughts for another time. Right now, he needs to find Intak. Alive . So he can kill him himself.

“You seem about ready to get back out there.” Theo muses, like he’s been reading Jiung’s thoughts with his piercing eyes.

Jiung nods.

Theo nods back and inches closer to the door, turning his prosthetic ear toward it, listening for enemies’ footsteps. Then, he gives Jiung a silent signal and they head out.

The walk to the mines isn’t very long. Theo had seemingly brought Jiung to hide midway like he knew Jiung would want to go forward.

Somehow, Jiung can almost tell instinctively that they’re closing in, from the smell of the air, from the darkened soot-stained ground. He’s proved correct when they turn a last corner and the Mouth appears before them. A shiver travels down Jiung’s spine. There’s a feeling of wrongness running through him, screaming at him that he shouldn’t be here.

The Mouth is a big opening in the wall, stalactites forming a teeth-like border, giving meaning to its name. Darkness swallows Jiung’s sight quickly, only letting him see a door on the right and a few steps in the middle – like a tongue. Jiung instantly hates it. In fact, he feels as if he’s hated it for a long time but has only now remembered it. Fear, maybe, but something else too, something he can’t put his finger on.

They need to pause to let a few guards pass by. They’re almost all robotic. Sky City wants this place erased so badly that they won’t send thinking creatures down. Maybe that’s how the Niners survived, too, relying on machines’ faultiness, dodging around their presets, learning their programs and planning accordingly. He does notice one human officer, but his uniform shows high rank, someone probably sworn – or threatened – to absolute secrecy. In a way, it’s a testament to the level of control New Seoul leaders have over the city.

Theo nudges Jiung and they run as quietly as they can to the entrance. They take the stairs, going in blindly. Jiung has to follow Theo by sound as his eyes all too slowly adapt.

“They’re close,” Theo claims and Jiung hopes he’s right.

After a little while, they stop running, adopting a steady and careful pace again. Theo guides them, even if Jiung has no idea if he even knows where he’s going.

“Do they patrol inside?”

“No. It’s unstable so no one comes here. They send a few droid drones a year just to check that everything’s fine.”

“How do we know a droid isn’t in there right now?”

“I would hear it.”

“They don’t have you with them.”

Theo is about to respond when they suddenly feel vibrations in the ground and hear a loud thud and a muffled scream. Jiung’s blood runs cold.

They start toward the noise at the same time. Jiung can kind of see the walls now, but he almost goes tumbling down once or twice with the random rocks that litter the floor, broken off from the walls and ceiling of the mine.

Jiung doesn’t hear any more sounds, and he forces himself to focus hard on the way ahead so that he doesn’t let his brain come up with scenarios each worse than the other.

It takes a too-long minute for them to reach the others. For a second, Jiung breathes as he sees standing figures. The figures’ faces come into view, lit up by a floating torch drone. Neither of the two is Intak. Then Jiung’s eyes drift down and he sees Intak slumped against the wall, face twisted in pain.

“Intak!” Jiung calls, hurrying to his side.

“Hyung?” Intak replies, voice wavering weakly.

Intak is covered in soot and dust, but Jiung is so glad to see him. The relief of knowing he’s alive almost makes him forget that he’s hurt.

“What happened?” Theo asks, reaching his friends. “We heard a scream.”

“Taeyang!” Keeho greets him by holding his forearm. “I tried to hold onto a wall to step over a broken beam and a bunch of the ceiling caved in. Intak noticed and pushed me out of the way, and got showered in rock for it.”

“We got him out of there, but he got seriously damaged,” Soul adds.

“I’m fine,” Intak responds with a smile that turns into a scowl as he hisses.

“Clearly,” Jiung bites back, out of habit.

Intak’s face softens as he brings his attention back to Jiung. “You came.”

Jiung doesn’t reply, instead grabbing the torch drone to see Intak’s injuries better. Apart from a small scratch, his head is fine, to Jiung’s great relief – he didn’t bring tools for anything that’s in there. However, his left side took a serious toll. His arm seems unresponsive, and his leg got seriously crushed, squeezing a bunch of stuff that shouldn’t be squeezed and probably the cause of most of Intak’s pain.

“Run the nervous response through me,” Jiung says, grabbing a scalpel, pliers, and a small screwdriver out of his tool belt.

“Dull in the left arm, I can’t really control it, throbbing in both sides of the torso – mostly left, and very fucking sharp from my left thigh.”

Jiung nods. “I’ll check your leg first.”

Intak hums, resting his head back against the wall.

Jiung grabs his pant leg and tugs it up as far as he can – it’s damp, a sign that blood vessels broke. Indeed, Intak’s leg looks bloody. Intak’s blood – well, Artificial Hemeto-Fluid, the electricity-carrying fluid that functions as blood in androids – covers a good part of his thigh. The artificial skin is broken in a few places but at first glance, Intak’s leg looks like it took a hit from a cartoon punch, like the rock created a crater in what should’ve been a person’s hardest body part to break. Jiung swallows.

“I can’t turn your nerves off for this one, Intak.”

“I know.”

Intak’s valid hand comes up to Jiung’s cheek, comforting him when Jiung should be the one providing the comfort.

“I’m okay, hyung. Nothing you can’t fix.”

“I just—” Jiung stops himself, his voice sounding choked even to himself. He realizes how much worry his face must be displaying, more than he was even conscious of. He doesn’t finish his sentence.

Jiung takes the scalpel and starts to cut around the bent-in area. Intak swallows a groan.

“I can’t watch this,” someone – Keeho – says behind him.

Jiung removes the skin, depositing it on Intak’s readied arm. He can patch it back on later. Then, he unscrews the main panel. Most of it seems ready to come off, but he uses the pliers on the rest. The deformed plating goes on the ground. Already, with carbon muscle bouncing back, Intak seems to breathe easier. Not for long, though, because Jiung needs to push that muscle to the side to access the bone. He gets out another pair of pliers he can reverse and use like retractors.

He gives Intak a look which the latter understands. Intak takes the collar of his jacket between his teeth and nods. Jiung pushes the muscle with the retractors and Intak’s scream is barely muffled by his jacket.

“If you wonder what that feels like, imagine the worst cramp of your life but it’s also cold and itchy.” Soul comments. The other two groan at the unwanted information, yet apparently used to Soul blurting out this sort of thing.

Now, readjusting the torch, Jiung can see the bone.

“Fractured,” he says. “Better than bent or broken, right now.”

“Small consolation,” Intak mutters. He’s sweating, even in the cold of the mine, and hair sticks to his forehead. It’s unfair how beautiful he still looks.

Jiung hums. “Especially since I can’t solder it together now. You can’t put weight on that leg until I get you to the workshop, lest it slips out of alignment.”

“What? No, Jiung, I have to—”

“We can’t replace your whole leg easily, Intak. It’s a couple of hours with a limp or a couple of months of missing a leg.”

“I’ll carry him,” Keeho says.

Intak turns to look over Jiung’s shoulder and at the leader. “Hyung, no, we still need to find it.”

“We’re going to.”

“What?” Jiung turns to him as well. “He needs to go back now, can you not see that he’s in pain?”

Keeho’s expression is apologetic but determined. “Intak can handle a little more pain for this.”

Indignation builds inside Jiung “You—” but Intak grabs Jiung’s elbow.

“I can do it, hyung.”

“Intak…”

“I know you want to protect me. But I need you to trust me, too.”

It pains Jiung. Does Intak really feel like Jiung doesn’t trust him? He doesn’t trust anyone more.

“I– I’ll patch it up. No weight on it.”

Intak nods, giving him a smile as thanks.

Jiung grabs hardening bandage and wraps a small amount around the bone. It’s hard to get around and Intak gives a few more groans in exchange. He releases the muscle, places the skin straight on top of it– hopefully Intak won’t remain this way long enough for them to fuse – and wraps Intak’s thigh a few times with the bandage. He also wraps his shin for good measure.

“This is the best I can do for now,” he sighs.

“Thank you,” Intak says. As if Jiung was doing him a favor. Jiung hums, pulling the pant leg back to its original state.

Keeho helps Jiung get Intak up on his right leg, hooking his arm around Keeho’s shoulders for support.

“Shota, let’s go,” the leader then says.

Soul nods and clicks something on his armband, studying whatever he’s seeing for a few moments, then pointing further down the hallway. Everyone starts following him. Jiung feels almost lost, but Intak turns his head toward him and smiles.

“Come on, hyung.”

So Jiung follows the cybernetic kid further into the mine too.

Jiung isn’t sure what kind of signal that Soul kid is following – perhaps the torch drone is also some sort of underground radar. To be fair, he doesn’t even know what they’re looking for. All information about it had been very vague. A missing piece, part of an android, somehow the key to their freedom, according to Keeho’s beliefs. 

The mine hallways vary in size, sometimes wide enough for Jiung to walk next to Intak, sometimes so narrow that Intak is holding onto Keeho’s back more than his shoulder. They’re always dark, raw stone dimly lit by the small torch drone. No one dares to touch any of them, and they take steps as soft as they can. 

“Close,” Soul states at some point.

Jiung isn’t sure how close ‘close’ is, but he doesn’t ask. He just watches Intak’s backside, careful eye making sure he doesn’t put his weight on his left leg.

He almost bumps into Keeho when everyone suddenly stops.

“What is it?” Keeho asks.

“Door,” Theo states.

“Keyhole?” the leader follows up. “Can Shota pick it?”

There’s a pause, probably while Soul – or Shota, Jiung guesses coming down here earns him knowing his real name – studies the door for a moment.

Then he just replies. “No.”

“Hm.”

“We came all this way just for a door to block us?” Jiung asks, incredulous.

Theo – Taeyang, was it? – scoffs. “That’s what happens when you venture into the unknown.”

“What, you didn’t expect some kind of security?”

Keeho takes over the answering, firmer. “Expected, yes, but unfortunately we can’t prepare for every possible outcome, Jiung.”

Soul, who had still been studying the door, chips in again. “I feel some kind of field. I’ll test magnetic frequencies. It could take a while.”

At that, the others sort of set up camp. Still careful of the walls, they sit in the dark hallway. Keeho unpacks some food, and as half an energy bar and a packet of rehydrated meat land in his hands, Jiung realizes how hungry he’s been. He settled a little further away from the door. That uneasy feeling hasn’t left him since he entered the mines, only getting worse as they went deeper. The door feels like another step further into that feeling, like he’s a kid scared of the dark and that’s the door to his closet. In a twisted and uncomfortable way, he feels curious about the door.

Intak shuffles closer to him.

“Hi,” he says, quietly, just for Jiung to hear.

Jiung looks at him. He looks tired. Jiung wishes they were out of this damned mine, out of this cursed Sector, back at home, back where Intak would be safe and Jiung could fix him up, prescribe him at least a week of bedrest – which Intak would of course not be able to handle, always needing to be up to something.

“Hi,” he simply replies.

“Did you– did you watch my logs?” Intak almost sounds… Shy?

“Only the last one. Number 6? As soon as it ended I rushed here.”

“You rushed, huh?” He tries to sound coy, but Jiung can feel his intonation softening. Grateful, surprised, somehow happy, something else. Jiung takes it all.

“Thought I could get you out of this place before it was too late.”

Jiung hates the sound of his own sentence. Too late. He can’t bare the thought.

“It must have been hard for you, coming back here,” Intak says, barely above a whisper.

Jiung thinks about it. It was hard when Intak revealed he’d told his secrets to P1H. It was hard when Jiung decided to cut communications. It was hard to think Intak was down here, surrounded by giant robotic pounders. But coming after him? That was the easiest thing he’d done in weeks.

“I thought– I didn’t know people had survived.”

“Isn’t it amazing? Maybe—” he stops his sentence short. But Jiung can guess the rest. Maybe your family is still alive. Intak’s alive, Jiung understands that that’s what matters to him right now. “I’m sorry I betrayed your trust, hyung. It wasn’t right.”

“Thank you.” He doesn’t know what else to say. It wasn’t right, and he still wishes Intak hadn’t, but what’s done is done.

“I don’t know how I could’ve been useful here anyway, to be honest. All I’ve done is almost get killed and separate Theo from you guys.”

Intak opens his mouth and closes it again, pausing.

“If you need to think about it then there probably is nothing I’m useful for.”

“That’s not what—” Intak gets interrupted by Taeyang suddenly shushing them.

Jiung barely even dares to breathe, letting Taeyang listen closely to what caught his attention. And by the way his face twists into a frown, it can’t be good.

“Security droid coming our way,” he says. “I don’t think we can hide in time, with Intak’s leg…”

“Then leave me here,” Intak says.

Immediately, Jiung says “No,” his statement echoed by Keeho’s voice as well.

Keeho continues, “We’re not leaving anyone behind. Shota, hurry?”

“Doing my best, hyung,” Shota replies, still doing who-knows-what on his wrist accessories. 

Jiung helps Intak up, walking them both closer to the door. It’s strange how his instincts are contradicting themselves, ushering him both away and toward the strange door.

Now that he’s closer, he can make out details in the metal, abstract shapes that remind him of droid motherboards. But what good is a pretty door if it’s keeping him away from his survival?

“Two minutes,” Taeyang states, composed – but Jiung notices how he holds onto Keeho’s elbow with a shaky hand.

“Shota?”

“It’s not responding to any signal I can send out. The field is too sophisticated.”

“Shit,” Keeho says under his breath, but with how close everyone is getting, backing toward the door, everyone can hear him.

“‘Shit’?” Jiung repeats. “That’s it? You don’t even think you could take it down with a gun or something?”

“If I shoot it, it’ll explode.”

“Then shoot it from far away!” Jiung is starting to feel frustrated. How unorganized can these guys get?

“I can’t see shit!” Keeho bites back, fear on the edge of his voice.

Intak tries again. “I can shield—”

“No!” Everyone says at the same time.

Intak groans. “Will you let me do the one thing I’m good at? I’m not even a real—”

Jiung would’ve chided him if he’d finished that sentence, but Intak doesn’t even get to as the droid appears out the corner of the hallway, noticeable by the little red light that blinks on its side.

Shit, Jiung thinks in his turn.

Behind them, Shota is still turned away. “Wait, the magnetism is changing, what—”

The droid starts shooting. However, it also has poor aim in the dark, and as the group of rebels ducks, most of the bullets hit the door and walls. Well, if bullets don’t get them, the ceiling surely will.

Swiftly, Intak pushes Jiung off of him and back, his good arm flying out to Keeho’s belt for his blasting pistol. It can’t be the first time he’s using one, seeing how fast he unlocks the security and pulls the trigger.

Jiung wants to scream, but the back of his head hits the door hard, and the last thing he sees before losing consciousness is a bright exploding light.

Chapter Text

The first thing that Jiung’s slowly waking mind becomes aware of is the heaviness of his tongue.

“Water,” he tries to say, finding his throat sore. He tries again.

Someone must’ve heard him, because soon enough there’s a cool sensation on his lips, and he welcomes the drink with labored gulps.

“Slowly,” a warm voice tells him.

His mind is still hazy, the world sort of too bright and reeling, but something in him still knows this voice. He clings onto it like a lifeline, pulling himself into consciousness.

“Intak,” Jiung says, speaking now becoming easier with hydration.

“I’m here,” the voice says back, tinged with relief.

A hand – Intak’s hand – gently grabs his and Jiung uses it as a physical tether to steady his mind. His mind… Something feels different. And he doesn’t mean the throbbing pain at the back of his head – and the full-body soreness that comes with it like he’s been electrocuted – but in his actual mind. It’s nothing bad, at least he doesn’t think, but something has definitely changed and he just can’t place it, like a dream he’s forgotten when he woke up.

“What happened?” He’s still blinking furiously, and Intak’s face starts coming into focus.

“It’s all my fault,” Intak says, voice wavering. “I pushed you to shoot the drone, you lost balance and the shock wave of the explosion sent you against the door. You passed out.”

“Wait, the shot— Is everyone okay?” Jiung looks down and notices the darkness of Intak’s clothes, badly damaged by the blast. If he squints, and he does, he can see tiny fragments lodged in Intak’s skin. He reaches his hand towards his chest but Intak backs away. He probably would’ve grabbed Jiung’s wrist but his left arm is still out of service.

“It’s alright, hyung, it’s superficial,” Intak assures him. “Overall: everyone’s fine, some scrapes and bruises, but no burns. Hopefully, you’re getting away with a bump on the head and no concussion.”

Jiung hums. At the mention of the others, he sits up from where he’s lying; it turns out to be a chair not unlike the one he has in his workshop and while he’s never been in it as he never got any body modifications save from a couple of piercings, an overwhelming sense of déjà vu spreads over him.

“Where…”

Keeho, who was a little distance away, comes closer. “This is the place we’ve been looking for. The key is somewhere in this room.”

Jiung looks around. The layout is familiar, it’s some sort of workshop and/or laboratory, and although it has to have been abandoned at least since the Waste – that’s what Mao had called that dreadful night – it looks clean. Barely any dust covers the white surfaces of workbenches, computers, tool shelves, cabinets, and various boxes. The only disorganized aspect of this place is the way it looks like it’s been left in a hurry. There are a few tools left out on the benches, and various notebooks, blueprints, and research papers scattered around. It’s unusual to see paper still used this way these days.

Taeyang and Shota give Jiung a small smile and a wave respectively when his eyes fall on them as they seem to be searching the room. They’re halfway over if the small arranged piles they’re leaving behind them are anything to go by.

“And by the looks of it, you’re not finding it… How long was I out?” He doesn’t say how long have you been looking in vain, but it’s implied, and Keeho definitely looks like he got the message.

“Almost two hours. We’re being thorough since we’re not sure what shape it could be taking. This is our maybe pile.” Keeho points to a metal basket containing half a dozen trinkets – memory sticks, discs, anything that could contain information.

“I see…”

“I understand if you’re still doubtful.”

“I just still don’t get what any of this has to do with me.”

“Ah,” Keeho says, giving him a pinched smile. “I’ll let Intak fill you in, we still have to cover about a third of the room.”

Jiung frowns. There’s more that he doesn’t know? More information Intak has kept from him? He turns to Intak to find him looking back, clearly nervous – he’s rubbing his palm again, even though it can only be as a habit now because that palm has no active nerves at the moment.

“This… This is going to sound insane, hyung...”

“Crazier than telling me you have to go down to the 9th – that by the way is still alive somehow – to find the key to liberation?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

By the somber expression that Intak is wearing, Jiung understands that not only is it crazier, but also incredibly more serious. He sighs. Intak comes to hold his hand again.

“Alright, let’s hear it.”

“Just… Trust me? Listen to me all the way, no matter what.”

Intak’s nervousness is almost starting to rub off on Jiung. Jiung nods. Intak squeezes his hand – Jiung thinks it’s more to reassure himself than Jiung, at this point.

“Remember what we said about the android? The one that can be restored with that key?” Jiung nods. “It was made here, in this lab. Back when Sector 9 was active, they used to mine here for a metal called gyocite. It was similar to mercury but way less toxic, and cheaper since Korea didn’t produce mercury. In this mine, they also set up a lab, to study gyocite and other uses it could have.

“One scientist particularly studied the way the human body reacted to gyocite. I don’t know all the chemistry behind it, but I’m sure the hundreds of files in this room and the computers would probably explain it all in detail. What we know, is that the reason they got rid of Sector 9 is because of the mine, and what this scientist found in it.

“There’s a particular vein in this very mine that has a slightly different kind of gyocite: purer, thinner. She figured out a way to bind it to acetylcholine neurotransmitters – they’re involved in treating memory, and the gyocite strengthened the encoding of the circuits, making the holding of memories astonishingly better than regular – a stronger circuit, yet still flexible as to not impair other cerebral functions. A regular human brain is said to change memories every time it brings them forward, but this one would stay loyal to when it was first created. Combined with the human brain’s computational power efficiency, it makes for basically the world’s best memory bank.”

Jiung swore he wouldn’t interrupt but the wall of information is hitting him all at once and his head is still pounding. “That is pretty crazy but I fail to see what that has to do with me.”

“I’m getting there… So with this discovery, the scientist started experimenting more. She could teach mice thousands of tricks, but she wanted to apply this to something more… Intelligent. Higher brain power, stronger bank.” 

“Humans.”

“Yes.”

“I thought you were looking for an android?”

“This is where it gets tricky. It’s a little fuzzy in the reports, but her subjects weren’t faring well. They got brain bleeds from the sheer power of it, and a few of them died. So she tried artificial brains, but the chemical reactions would slowly melt them. That’s until her child fell into a coma and she… She tried it on them. She slowed the binding process even more, considering the significantly smaller body mass, however, what she discovered was that this slower process combined with the fact that the child’s brain was still growing, the bond was perfect. But the child was still in that coma, their body refusing to let them wake up. So the scientist got them a new body. Made them a new body. An android one. State-of-the-art, better than anything on the market, somehow able to grow like a human, incredibly life-like. And after all that, her child woke up. And she started feeding them information, finally witnessing the results of her years of research.

“She only had one issue: the child’s father. He was a rebel, one of the founders of the Alliance, actually, and somewhere down the line, the child was also fed not only scientific and chemical information from their mother but also the government’s dirty secrets and hundreds of strategies to take them down from their dad and the Alliance.

“The child got on the government’s radar, and things escalated from there. They didn’t document the rest of the story much, as it probably got handed off to Secret Services at some point. One report mentioned the memory being locked , but it didn’t satisfy the government, and that report was made only a little before they destroyed the sector. The theory is that they wanted to go a step further from ‘locking’: destroy that child for good and take the scientist and her whole team out so they couldn’t make another version. The dad must’ve heard word of it and took the Alliance with him to protect them. Things went incredibly wrong and the fight overflowed over the whole sector.”

Intak pauses. He must see the way Jiung is sinking into his seat. It’s a lot to take in. Jiung doesn’t know if he’d rather have remembered all of this on his own. Would he have even known? Or would he have been a casualty from the overflow, collateral damage? He was a kid. Donggun had mentioned children’s memories being wiped – had their government spared children or had they been small enough to escape like Jiung and caught afterward? All of this over an android. It’s all foreign to him, a past that doesn’t belong to him anymore, and yet it crushes his heart anyway.

“Jiung hyung, this android… We— We think the kid made it out. We think that, um…”

And Intak is squeezing Jiung’s hand so tight now, glancing nervously between Jiung, their hands, and Keeho a few meters over.

“Hyung, it’s you.”

“What is me?”

“The android. You’re the kid.”

Jiugn frowns, scoffs, pulls his hand out of Intak’s grasp. “Now this is just stupid.”

“No, it’s not. We already had figured out the android somehow escaped, or there would’ve been a report of its destruction somewhere – they would’ve stopped searching Sector 9. We were looking everywhere, investigating every Niner escapee we could find that the government hadn’t already. We even started looking in Sky City. And then… The bullet, hyung. It should’ve killed you. But it didn’t. Because your body isn’t a human one.”

“No, you— you took the blow.”

“The explosion’s fire impact, sure. Not the shock wave that came with it. It should have left your nervous system completely annihilated. But you’re made of titanium, steel, carbon, and a core so fucking perfect it has never failed in the many years you’ve had it.”

Now there’s nothing else for Jiung to feel but overwhelmed. It doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t. But as much as Jiung wants to refuse it, some deep part of him is begging for him to believe – it sounds like a child who wishes upon stars, like suddenly remembering the dream you had the previous night, like someone whispering the answer when you’ve been called to the front of the class, like faith.

“I can’t— I can’t be… I’m not— I’m real.”

“You are,” Intak whispers back – Jiung hadn’t realized how quietly he’d spoken, compared to how loud his thoughts were getting.

“I’m real ,” he says louder, and even to himself, he doesn’t sound like he believes it. “I’m not like you!”

Hurt flashes on Intak’s face at the words.

Jiung’s head falls into his hands. “No, no,” he repeats to himself. “But I— I eat food and digest it, I have to sleep, I… I bleed.” He says the last one with resolution.

“But you don’t scar,” Intak replies. “You’ve never broken a bone. You learn things crazily fast, you have better eyesight than most people. You don’t scar, hyung.”

When Jiung looks up to Intak, he sees him only blurrily, and that with the coldness of his hands and cheeks, he realizes he’s crying.

“I cry,” he says, pathetically.

“So can I,” and indeed as Intak comes to wipe Jiung’s cheeks, his own eyes are glossy with wet tracks at the corners.

“You called it a little heart,” Jiung recalls. “That night when you were drunk, you said that it sounded real. You knew.”

“I did.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I— I didn’t know how to. I thought if I told you, you’d call me crazy and hate me and never speak to me ever again, if Keeho told him you’d call him crazy and make me choose between them and you. I thought that if you knew, you wouldn’t ever help us.”

“So you took that choice away from me?” Jiung’s voice is hard despite the shakiness of it.

Maybe his blood really is boiling. If he’s an android, it could happen, a core malfunction could triple the heat and make his blood boil, and maybe he’s melting from the inside out. Or maybe his cheeks are just hot from the emotion – anger, despair, embarrassment, Jiung doesn’t even know.

Intak’s hand falls to his side like he’s been burned.

“It was wrong, I know. I’m— I’m so sorry, hyung. I wanted to give you your memories back.”

Jiung scoffs, standing up and starting to pace. “Oh really? So I can become the Alliance’s tool? So I can be the catalyst of another massacre?”

“No!” Intak says, standing too but keeping his distance, like Jiung would punch him if he came too close.

If he is indeed an android he could break Intak. The thought scares Jiung.

“So you could have your childhood back. So you would know more than ash and dust, more than trying to make it in the lower sectors, more than survival .”

Jiung stops pacing, looking at Intak. He’s still crying, holding himself on one leg and one arm on the work chair for balance.

“You have this hollowness in you, hyung. It showed most when you mentioned the 9th or anything that reminded you of it, but it was always there. I wanted to give you what you were missing so much that it hurt.”

Jiung can’t tell if Intak means that it hurt Jiung or him.

“Even if what I was missing was more pain?”

“It’s not just that! You had a life here, hyung, before. You had a family.”

“And look where that got us.”

“They loved you!”

“And they’re dead because of it!” It hurts Jiung’s throat when he shouts the words.

Intak drops his head, silent for a while. Jiung pants, fists clenched by his sides.

“Sorry that I thought you deserved the truth,” Intak finally says.

The room is quiet now. The P1H members have stopped moving for a while. They might even be holding their breaths, too afraid to insert themselves in the discussion and take the brunt of it. 

Jiung buries his hands into his hair and walks away from Intak. He can’t look at him right now, because no matter how much he wants to hate him right now, his heart – his very much non-organic heart – is trying to push him to wipe Intak’s tears away like the latter did for him only a couple of minutes away. Jiung’s head hurts from more than the fall. It’s just all too much. How is he supposed to deal with this? How does one accept that they weren’t born but made? Androids know they’re androids. They wake up one day with the ability to walk and talk, a preset of knowledge Jiung had thought he’d learned, and simply didn’t remember it. Has all his grief been for nothing? How do you grieve grief itself?

Jiung places a hand over his heart. It beats, steady, strong. Jiung has studied a plethora of cores. Although heart replacements are usually done by mecha-surgeons, he’s always had an interest in them and even got to analyze some of them in the few androids that were brought to him. Jiung breathes out and shuts out the sound of the others resuming their search. He listens to the beat, and after a while, he starts to notice it. Under the beat, under the pumping – is his blood artificial too? Can a human brain run on AHF? – there is the faintest thrum. It must be the quietest core he’s ever been in contact with, and he’s had it for literally as long as he can remember.

So, maybe it’s not been all for nothing. Intak said Jiung had been a child, once, that he had parents – a mother who loved him to the point of creation, a father who loved him to the point of destruction. It still hurts, and it confuses Jiung. Intak wasn’t wrong, he’d wanted to remember when he was fresh out of the 9th, when he had nothing to go off of, when he was still hoping for his home to come back to him, hoping he could still go back to his home. Then time passed, and soon there was more Jiung knew than he’d forgotten, and he made himself a new home, and… He had Intak.

“I think this is it!” Shota’s voice suddenly flutters over the quiet search.

Jiung can’t help but turn around. In Soul’s cybernetic hand is a flat disk, no bigger than the knuckle of his thumb, slight transparency with engravings similar to the ones on the door. Despite himself, Jiung comes closer.

“Why do you think this is it?” Jiung asks.

“For one, the pattern, but the magnetic frequency is also similar to it. I think… I think it’s attuned to you, Jiung-ssi. That must be why the door opened – not because the shock wave of the droid’s explosion shook it, but because you touched it, however unconventional that touch was.”

“Oh.”

The others pass the disk over to each other, looking at it hoping to figure out something the others couldn’t. It’s not exactly a common memory bank shape. Jiung has no idea how it could work.

“We should canvas the rest of the space, keep grabbing anything that could be it, even if this one does look pretty promising.”

They go back, and Jiung meets Intak’s eyes for a moment. With half of his body deactivated, he can’t really help with the search, so he just sits in the middle of the room, looking too much like the cyber-puppy he once brought to Jiung’s workshop, asking him to fix it. It had taken a hit on the road and kept running in circles and into walls trying to get back home, whining helplessly, and Jiung had seen the tears Intak had tried to hide when they brought it home to its adorable young owner. 

Jiung needs a distraction so he starts going through the stuff around the workshop too. He wonders if any of the tools still work – a lot of them are obsolete now, but there are a few he could use if he could even bring them back. And maybe some of them have anti-theft protection and if he tries to take them out of the room, lazers will melt him on the spot. Although, who knows? Maybe he’d survive them since he’s got an android body. He’s not too tempted to find out.

It takes another half hour or so for Keeho to call it off. “Alright, we should get going. Taeyang I want you at the front, Shota behind him with the bag, you’ll guide us back out and to our exit. I’ll be bringing up the rear. Jiung, you handle Intak.” He must sense that either he or Intak is about to protest because he adds “I don’t care if you’re sulking right now, I have to put the safety of the team first.”

So Jiung makes it back to Intak without meeting his eyes and lifts his left arm around his shoulders, pulling him to rest against him by the waist.

“All clear,” Taeyang says at the door.

Keeho nods and they get going.

They make it out of the mine without a hitch. No walls collapse, no droids take them by surprise. No guards wait for them at the Mouth, either. They stay quiet anyway, following Taeyang’s lead.

They go a different way than Jiung had come from with him. It’s probably safer not to use the same passage twice, but that means there is more than one passage and people are still living here. Jiung wonders why anyone would want to stay in such a devastated place.

They’re close to their exit. Jiung can tell from the hand signals Taeyang gives them, signals he’s used before to tell clients that he was almost done. But their luck runs out there.

Taeyang suddenly stills, his head snapping to the left like a deer that just heard a distant branch crack. His eyes go buck wild and he opens his mouth but before he can say anything, there’s a whistling sound whizzing past them, and a ricocheting bang to their right.

“Take cover!” Keeho yells.

Everyone else dives as best they can as more bullets fly towards them. Jiung has an armful of Intak and can only drop them close to the ground, hoping to drag them to safety when a shrill yell startles him.

“Hyung!” Intak shouts, and Jiung realizes belatedly that he’s the one who screamed.

Searing pain explodes in his side as Intak uses his good hand to apply pressure on the wound.

“You’re okay,” Intak says over the shelling cops and rebels are exchanging, “I’ve got you, hyung.”

More bullets fly, but none reach the two of them again, probably busy responding to P1H’s fire. Each detonation vibrates against Jiung’s eardrums, strangely akin to a lullaby. His eyelids are heavy.

“Hey, hey,” says Intak. “Stay with me.”

“I’m here,” Jiung whispers, almost not believing it himself. He’s not sure what he’s talking about.

“Clear!” Someone says.

“Let’s move!” Someone else adds.

“Jiung’s down!” Intak calls to them. “Help me get him up!”

There’s movement around him again, and the world is spinning but Jiung manages to zero in on Intak’s face. There’s blood on it. Are you hurt? He wants to ask, but no words leave his mouth. He feels hands grab his arms and hold him up and he’s reminded of the pain again.

The next few minutes are a blur — or is it hours? Jiung can’t tell. He does his best to stay awake, he puts a foot in front of the other, he hangs onto every reassuring word that Intak feeds him.

The world comes into focus again with a sharp pain in his side. He grunts and almost leaps up, but hands on his chest hold him down.

“Stay put, Jiung, we’re almost there.”

True to the words, the pain recedes slowly. There’s warm wetness, then cold wetness, cold hardness, warm buzzing, and finally something soft.

Jiung breathes out and opens his eyes. On one side of him, Soul seems to have been the one patching him up, and on the other, he finds Intak’s worried face. His face and neck are stained with poorly wiped blood, Jiung’s blood. His stomach twists.

“I got shot?” He’s not sure why he asks.

“Yeah,” Intak says, biting his lip with guilt. “But you’re safe now. We’re at Jongseob’s place.”

“Jongseob is here?”

“I’m here, hyung,” his friend’s voice emerges just before his face comes into view.

“Why… I thought you were anonymous. ‘Goblin’?”

“I was, but the P1H HQ got compromised and cops surrounded your place, so I told Intak to bring you here.”

“Sorry…”

“Don’t be. I’m glad you’re okay now.”

Jiung hums.

“Taeyang and I are analyzing the disk,” Jongseob adds. “It’s incredible, hyung.”

Intak seems to freeze next to them, but Jiung just nods. Jongseob leaves.

“Hyung…”

“Don’t, Intak.”

They fall silent for a while. Jiung is breathing slowly, trying to push the pain to the back of his mind. He can see how Intak is sagging on his stool, leaning to the right so he doesn’t fall with the imbalance.

Jiung manages to drag himself off the table. He can tell Intak wants to protest, but it’s not like he can stop him, given his current state. Jiung wanders across Jongseob’s small living room to a drawer where he has a few stray tools. It’s not much, but it’ll have to be enough.

“Get on the table,” he orders Intak.

It’s his work voice, or at least his best try at it with everything that’s going on inside of him at the moment. Intak recognized it nonetheless, and Jiung could almost think he looks relieved.

Intak clumsily hauls himself onto the wooden surface.

Jiung grabs a crate and puts everything he can use into it to bring to the table with him. His right side hurts, but he does most of the lifting with his left arm to avoid stretching the wound too much. You don’t scar, Intak had said. Jiung has never gotten this bad of a wound, though, and he doesn’t know what to expect. Some artificial skins do scar, Intak’s probably will with the damage he received on his leg especially.

So it’s what Jiung focuses on first. At least this time, Intak can turn off the nerves before Jiung goes in. He removes the patch, happy to see it hasn’t bonded with the muscle. He uses the retractor pliers again and carefully undoes the rough job he’d done down in the mine so he can start over, clean. He pulls on protective glasses to solder the bone back together — unlike what people say about human bones, the healed break will never be as strong as the original — then he sews torn carbon muscle, replaces some of it with Jongseob’s cyber-pet stock (Jiung hasn’t seen Scorpio yet, but he’s not surprised, she’s never been very social when strangers were involved). Finally, he hammers the plating back into shape and screws it into place before covering it with the skin.

All the while, they’ve been silent. Jiung could feel Intak’s eyes on him, could feel him emanating waves of nervous energy. It’s when he moves to check Intak’s torso and arm — easier work, some more reshaping, some more stitching — that he finds it in him to speak to him about the elephant in the room.

“It’s not your fault,” he says.

“What?”

“I— I know you had good intentions, that you did it for me because you knew I was too stubborn, too scared to do it for myself."

Intak is quiet, which can only mean Jiung is right.

“I’m sorry for what I said about… Being real. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t true.”

Intak’s mouth is pinched.

“I know you’re real,” Jiung continues even though his whole body feels like it’s trying to fight him not to. “I know it because you’re… You’re you. You show up at ungodly hours but I can never turn you away. You make me laugh over the dumbest things. You care an ungodly amount, more than I ever could. You’re just you, and it’s not your fault I didn’t realize you were trying to help me be me, too. For that, I’m sorry, Intak.”

The other’s eyes finally meet his and Jiung is for once unable to read everything he sees in them.

“I’d do it all over again for you,” Intak finally replies, and it sounds heavier with meaning than Jiung can wrap his head around. “I’ll never regret fighting for you.”

Jiung smiles, putting his tools down, and Intak sits up, rolling his shoulder as the feeling comes back in.

“How are you feeling?” Keeho asks as he steps into the room behind them.

“All good,” they both reply.

Keeho chuckles. “Guess you’ve made up, too. You should come to Goblin’s workspace, we’re onto something.”

The small memory disk is being held up by a third-hand tool on Jongseob’s desk, crocodile clips and wires linking it to his computer. Lines of analytic code are still running on screen, although Jiung couldn’t be able to interpret them in any way.

“Your mom was pretty crafty,” says Jongseob, and while it feels strange for him to call her that, Jiung guesses it’s true nonetheless. “She predicted the possibility of the key falling into the wrong hands and hid the instructions. Luckily, with Soul’s help, we were able to decode it.”

“Instructions?”

“To put it back in, unlock your superpowers.”

Jiung offhandedly thinks the kid watches too many movies, but he can’t deny that it’s not so far from reality.

“So what do I need to do?”

Jongseob grimaces. “Unfortunately, I don’t think you can do it yourself. It goes in the back of your head.”

“What, like a coin into a slot machine?” Intak quips.

The hacker chuckles. “Long story short, yeah.”

“Will you do it, then?” Jiung asks.

Jongseob shakes his head. “I have to keep bypassing the security until it’s in, so it doesn’t try to fry your brain.”

“Reassuring…”

“What, you don’t trust me?”

Jiung pinches his nose. “It’s more concerning to me that I do, sadly.”

“Exactly. So, you need to pick someone to do it. Candidates are Keeho, Soul, and Intak. Theo is off the roster.”

Jiung looks at the latter and notices the bandage on his hand that wasn’t there the last time he saw him.

“Grazing wound,” Taeyang supplies, “I’ll live but it’s my dominant hand.”

“Intak,” Jiung then says without hesitation.

Jongseob smiles like he expected nothing more but Intak makes a noise of protest.

“My dominant hand was basically offline until a couple of minutes ago,” he says. “Soul has experience, he makes infinitely more sense.”

“No one makes more sense to me than you,” Jiung replies back casually despite how raw the words leave him feeling. “You have a steady hand. You can read my body language. I trust you.”

“But—”

“Intak, please?”

“Okay. Okay, but I need someone to be supervising.”

“I’ll walk you through it,” Jongseob promises.

To access the right spot, they shave the underside of Jiung’s head, short silvery white hair falling to the floor unceremoniously.

Jongseob doesn’t have any anesthetics with him, so it hurts when Intak digs in with a scalpel — but under Jiung and Jongseob’s guidance, he avoids any major nerves or arteries.

And it feels unbelievably strange. Not just to have someone cut into the back of his skull, but the fact that it should probably hurt more, feel more wrong. And it just… Doesn’t. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s the same discomfort one would have when opening their mouth to the dentist — it just feels private. Admittedly, it’s not often that one opens their head to be observed by another, especially not while still conscious.

“I see it,” Intak says, breathless.

“See what?”

“The… The slot.”

Maybe Jiung was distracting himself because he hadn’t realized how quickly they had reached this point.

Jongseob is still going between his screen and Intak. “Ready on 3.”

They count down together, and at Jongseob’s signal, Intak slips the chip inside.

“Okay, let’s quickly close it up again and I’ll stop running the interference. I won’t be able to establish a connection again once I cut it out.”

Jiung almost wants to nod, but he holds still.

He can’t feel the chip, physically. And that’s strange too because they just inserted something into his head , he should be able to feel it, shouldn’t he?

Intak does every step again in reverse, until he’s giving him stitches and cutting the last bit of thread and Jiung hears the way he relaxes behind him.

“Jiung, are you ready?” Jongseob asks.

“Wait.”

Jiung turns in the chair he was sitting backward on to face Intak. He grabs his hands.

“Okay, go ahead.”

“Terminating interference,” Jongseob says, as he types his last line.

For a moment, nothing happens. And then, it happens all at once. Jiung feels suddenly plunged underwater — there’s no impact, no fall, just the air suddenly being replaced by water, the pressure equal all around him but so much stronger than it was a second ago.

Things don’t come one at a time, it’s just like suddenly he knows. Like it was never gone. He knows what his mother’s voice sounded like, what his father’s hold felt like, he knows what being a kid was. He knows Donggun had a daughter about his age, that she was the one who helped him reach the duct he escaped in. He knows the workings of his body in and out. He can apply the knowledge instantly.

His skin feels like it’s on fire, the warmest sparks coming from his hands, from every point of contact he has with Intak. God, Jiung knows what love looks like. He’s looking at it right now.

Intak, all wide-eyed worry, tear-stained care, blood-stained love.

Jiung surges forward, and with precision he’s been granted by Intak’s hands themselves, he lands on the latter’s lips.

Time doesn’t slow, Jiung can feel it going at its exact intended speed, and the time it takes Intak to understand what is happening and react is perfect.

“Hyung?” Intak whispers as he pulls barely away.

“Sorry it took me brain surgery to see it, Intak. You’ve been in front of me this whole time.”

Intak chuckles. “No interference?”

“No interference,” Jiung agrees.

Intak kisses him back. And Jiung has never felt any more real than he does now, threading his fingers in Intak’s black hair, welcoming his warmth through soft kisses. Jiung inscribes the feeling of their shared breath deep inside him and commits the warmth of Intak’s hands on his neck to his infinite memory.

Jiung is watching the sun rise on the roof of Jongseob’s building when Intak sits down beside him.

“Couldn’t sleep?” The latter asks.

Jiung shakes his head. “I have a lot on my mind.”

“Literally,” Intak chuckles.

Jiung pushes him softly with his shoulder. “What about you?”

“I was worried about you.”

“I’ll be okay, Intak.”

“I also… Have something for you.” He digs into his pocket and takes out a small notebook – leatherbound, with worn corners and yellowed pages. “This was your mom’s, I think.”

Jiung grabs it. He’s not sure what he wants next. He can remember seeing her writing in it, but he never knew what she was writing.

“You don’t have to read it now,” Intak says, reading his hesitance.

Jiung nods and smiles at him. “Thanks, Intak. It means a lot.”

Intak hums shuffles closer to him, sharing his body heat. He even hooks his chin on Jiung’s shoulder.

“You were right about the key,” Jiung finally says as the pink gives way to a more golden color. “Not for me, but for the child I was. He deserved to grow up.”

“Hmm.”

“And so do the rest of Sector 9’s children,” he adds, hoping Intak will pick up on the hint.

He does, and lifts his head. “You’ve changed your mind? You want to help the Alliance?”

Jiung nods. Intak smiles and outshines the sun in Jiung’s eyes.

“We’ll rest, first. Keeho said it’s better if we lay low for a little while, build our strength back up while he spreads the word.”

“But we’ll do it,” Intak confirms. “Together.”

“Together.”

Intak brings them into another kiss.

Jiung doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of it, of the softness of Intak’s lips against his own, of the sincerity with which Intak opens his mouth to him. So Jiung holds him close — as close as their respective wounds allow them to press against each other — and communicates all his affection in the movement of his lips, in the path his hands trace against Intak’s bare arm, against the skin of his back.

When they pause for air, they rest their foreheads together. Intak’s hand finds Jiung’s chest, resting right above his core — his little heart.

“It’s all yours,” he tells him.

Intak sighs. “I’ll protect it with all I have, all I am.”

The sky turns blue and their lips turn red.

Jiung is ready to fight all of Sky City and its twisted leaders to keep this.