Location: Outskirts of Seoul, 5:42 AM
The wheels touched down with a soft, ghostlike hiss.
Mist rolled across the tarmac—thin veils of condensation gathering in strips along the edge of the hidden runway, just outside the waking city. The sky was a bruised grey, and the lights of Seoul shimmered dimly in the near distance, not quite alive yet, but stirring. A city on the edge of its breath.
The plane—an old Division Zero ghostcraft, scrubbed of identifiers and flown by a man with more scars than words—slid to a halt beneath the overhang of a long-abandoned freight shelter. No tower. No control lines. No questions. The pilot gave a curt nod as the cabin door hissed open and a rush of cold air swept in.
"We're on the ground," he rasped. "You've got about an hour. Maybe less."
Ryoji was the first down the ramp, coat drawn tight and eyes scanning the skyline like he expected it to move. It didn't. But something about the silence made it worse than gunfire.
Miura followed, rifle case slung casually on her back, expression unreadable behind her fractured lenses. She hadn't spoken much since Theta-6. None of them had.
Aiko stepped out last.
Her Seal shimmered faintly through her jacket, like a low heartbeat pulsing in her back. She paused just a moment on the ramp, gaze drawn toward the glow of the city—its endless maze of glass and steel and surveillance.
"I remember this place," she said quietly.
"You've been to Seoul?" Miura asked.
Aiko shook her head. "No. But the Seal has."
Ryoji looked at her sideways, not asking. He just nodded once and started toward the waiting car parked beneath the shadows of the shelter—a plain black vehicle already idling, its driver unseen.
They loaded in without speaking.
Because even here—especially here—every word could be traced.
And they were being watched.
**
6:14 AM – Inside the City
The car wound its way through the lower boroughs—districts that hadn't yet woken, where neon signs flickered on automatic timers and delivery drones skimmed across silent lanes.
Seoul was beautiful in the way a steel trap might be beautiful. Sleek. Sharp. Designed for a purpose you'd never quite see until it was already closing.
Aiko pressed her palm against the window, her breath fogging the glass. She could feel the data layers thrumming beneath the skin of the city—hundreds of micro-signals brushing against her Seal like static fingers. Recognition systems. Legacy sensors. Echo nodes.
Division Zero had built parts of this place.
And some of it was still listening.
"We need to move carefully," Miura muttered, reading a scrambled tablet fed from their private uplink. "Keisuke's network presence is... quiet. No direct signature. Just anomalies. Spoofed signals in ten districts, but they all lead back to the same name."
Ryoji raised an eyebrow. "What name?"
Miura smirked faintly. "He calls himself 'Ghost Laundry.'"
There was a pause.
Ryoji blinked. "He what?"
"He's using a laundromat in Seocho as a dummy address," she said. "But it's not real. At least, not all the time."
Aiko didn't laugh, but the corner of her mouth twitched. "That sounds like him."
"You haven't met him," Ryoji said.
"No," she said. "But I think I'm about to."
**
6:43 AM – Market District Shadowpoint
They exited on foot.
The car turned away at the last stoplight, vanishing into morning haze. The team moved through a narrowing web of alleys and underpasses—past early workers and blinking kiosks, past noodle vendors prepping for lunch traffic. Aiko kept her hood drawn tight.
People barely looked at them.
But the cameras did.
Hundreds of eyes mounted across walls and signage and utility poles. Facial recognition grids that blinked and reset. Motion filters that paused just a fraction too long when she passed.
It was subtle.
But it was there.
"Is he watching us yet?" Ryoji asked.
Miura didn't look up. "If he's smart, he's been watching since the moment we touched the tarmac."
A shadow moved in the crowd.
Then vanished.
Aiko's spine tensed, the Seal twitching faintly.
Ryoji caught it too. His hand drifted closer to the grip of his sidearm—but he didn't draw.
"You saw that?" he murmured.
Aiko nodded once. "He's here."
"Keisuke?"
"I think so. Or at least one of his—"
She paused.
Something pinged inside her Seal.
A message.
No text. Just a waveform.
It resolved into sound.
Laughter.
Keisuke's voice, distorted through a filter of static and synth:
"Took you long enough. You're lucky I like dramatic entrances."
And then—
Nothing.
Except a new signal beacon, pulsing faintly in a derelict stairwell two blocks ahead.
Miura raised an eyebrow. "Guess we're being invited."
Ryoji cracked his neck.
"Let's not be rude."
And they moved—deeper into the maze of a city that didn't want them.
Toward a man who knew more than anyone alive.
And who might finally tell them the truth about Division Zero.
TO BE CONTINUED in Chapter 72...