“Oh, I am never going back to Korea again.”

Lay glanced over at his partner as he stretched out under the Mediterranean sun like a cat.  Beneath the shade of the enormous umbrella, Lay smiled contentedly and clicked another row off the game he was playing on his tablet.

“You think they’ll complain if I take my shorts off?”

Lay choked.  “It’s a public beach, Luhan.”

“Yeah, but I’m going to have tan lines,” Luhan said mournfully, picking at the waistband of his trunks.  Lay set the tablet aside and rolled over to face Luhan fully.  He didn’t know what expression was on his face, but he recognised the heat in Luhan’s eyes.

“I like tan lines,” he said.  Luhan reached for him, and the tablet pinged an alert.

“Oh hell,” Luhan sighed.  “Why’d you have to bring that thing out here anyway?”

Lay echoed the noise and picked up his tablet, pulling up the email app. A moment later, he sat up straight, barely able to comprehend what his eyes were telling him.  Luhan came alert too, scooting closer to see.

“What?  What is it?”

“It’s from Sehun.  They found the New Number One.  It’s Baekhyun.  He’s in China.”

*

Three Weeks Earlier…

“Wakey-wakey sleepyhead!  The sun is shining, the birds are singing…”

Yongguk pulled the pillow over his head and groaned.  He’d been thrilled when the Agency accepted his application.  The training had been tough, but worth it.

“You’ll have a computer contact at all times.  They’ve been installed with an advanced artificial intelligence program that simulates real personality types.”

The kid didn’t look old enough to be out of school, despite his height, and Yongguk wondered If they were violating some kind of child-labour laws.  He was, however, the best computer technician Yongguk had ever seen, and he’d been told the kid had designed and built most of the systems in use at the Agency himself.  Some of those systems had even filtered out to the public government as well.

“Sounds good,” he’d said.  “Does this AI have a name?”

“You can call him Zelo.”

Three and a half interminable years later, and Yongguk still wasn’t accustomed to that y voice emanating from the walls.  Especially not at seven in the morning.  Every morning.

“I know you’re awake, I can read the heart monitor.”

A deep, beautiful voice.  Couldn’t be computer generated.  Had to have been recorded somehow.  He was determined to one day uncover the mystery of his AI contact’s specs, and maybe track down the face that voice belonged to. 

“It also looks like you’re low on milk.  Should I put in an order for some?”

Whoever decided that “smart houses” and artificially intelligent computers were the future needed to be shot and then hanged.

“Yongguk-hyung,” the computer whined at him.  Whined.  Computers shouldn’t whine, he decided, and then surrendered to the inevitable.

“Fine, fine, I’m up,” he admitted.  “What’s so important?”

“Only our first real mission as active agent and contact,” Zelo burst out excitedly.  “Why aren’t you out of bed yet?”

Yongguk threw back the covers and sat straight up.  “We’re on duty?”

“Officially, as of six this morning.”  There was a barely-contained tremor to the voice that gave credence to how momentous this news was.  Yongguk added it to the growing mental list of things he’d investigate about the computer when he got a chance.  Computers, after all, didn’t get excited.  The mystery tugged at him, pushing and prodding until he couldn’t sleep at night. 

Sehun had explained that before he came on as an agent, the other agents’ identities were kept hidden from one another – after all, the less each individual knew, the less they could tell under duress.  It was a sound philosophy, and one they’d apparently abandoned after a fiasco in which Kris’s men had actually invaded the Agency itself, aided by a man they’d had on the inside so long that no one even suspected him until he unexpectedly switched sides.  That was how he knew the currently active agents Lay, Minhyun and Baro were in the same building as him.  He also knew Luhan, Lay’s partner, resided in the Agency itself, and wondered what other people they might have tucked away.  He’d only ever seen the first and fifth floors of the six-story building that served as Agency headquarters.  Who needed a building that large for a handful of people?

Come to think of it, Yongguk said to himself, pulling open the fridge.  Zelo, of course, was right; there was less than a fingers-breadth of milk left in the carton, which ruled out cereal for breakfast.  He didn’t feel like cooking, and leaned against the counter while he considered.  Come to think of it, why does Lay get a partner in the field and no one else does?  He’s got two contacts, too.  He said – what were their names? Myungsoo and Sandeul.  One for each of them.  But why do they get to be partners?

It was another mystery laid at his feet, and Yongguk hated nothing so much as an unsolved mystery.  Fortunately for his own peace of mind, there was no such thing as an unsolveable mystery.  It was merely a matter of collecting enough facts and then putting a theory together that fit those facts. 

“Zelo, why does Agent Lay get a partner?” he asked suddenly.

“Uh, I don’t know.  Why?”

“You’re a computer,” Yongguk countered.  “You know everything.  What happened three years ago?”  

There was a suspiciously long pause from his contact.  “Luhan worked in the agency as a tech, same as Sehun,” he said finally.  “Inside.  Then he decided to switch to being an active agent.”

Yongguk tapped his forehead.   “Yeah, but why be paired with Lay?  It’s not like Lay was in need of supervision.”

One of the speakers used to broadcast Zelo’s voice crackled briefly.  “He was, actually.  He has a history of throwing himself into dangerous situations.” There was a strange tone to the voice, almost as if Zelo was smiling.  Except that computers didn’t smile.

“You’re trying to tell me that they assigned Luhan to be Lay’s watchdog?” Yongguk pushed off the counter and took the milk out of the fridge, drinking it straight from the carton before pitching the empty container in the garbage.  “And yet, a brand new agent like myself just gets an AI contact as my partner.”

“Should I order more milk then?”

“An evasion.” 

“You’re not in court, Yongguk.”

“Overruled,” Yongguk quipped, and took some bread out of the cabinet, settling on toast.  Zelo sighed.  “Okay, okay.  I’ll be serious.  When did Myungsoo and Sandeul become Lay’s contacts, and why?” He filed away the sigh to consider after he’d solved his current puzzle.  It was an odd noise for a computer to generate – even one installed with an advanced AI technology.

Yongguk’s senses came alert as he depressed the button on the toaster.  A technology that was several decades away.  They were still building a functional robot, how could the Agency – even with Sehun’s help – have designed and created AIs that were this lifelike?  It would have been all over the news.  In papers and journals.  The toast popped up and he took it, eating it dry.  “What’s your last name, Zelo?”

“Choi.  Why?  Can we talk about our case now, please?”

 Yongguk dropped his toast.  “No,” he said.  “What else have you been lying to me about?”

“What?”

If Zelo hadn’t noticed his slip, Yongguk wasn’t going to pursue it.  But he suddenly realised something about the Agency; namely, that they’d been steadily lying to him for years.  All of the little tics Zelo had that set him off suddenly made sense.  He needed to talk to Minhyun.  Or Lay – no Lay was with Luhan, in Greece.  He swore silently, and then took a deep breath.

“Okay, tell me about the case.”

“First tell me what you’re talking about!”

“Nope.  Just an idle thought.  What’s our case?”  Now it was a test to see which one of them could outlast the other.  Zelo folded first, as he usually did.

“We’ve been receiving unconfirmed reports coming out of Shanghai about Kris, and his drug cartel.”

“This isn’t news, Zelo,” Yongguk said, bending to pick up his toast.  “Where’s our case?”

“You’re going to China to check it out.” 

The toast fell back to the floor, leaving more crumbs.  “I beg your pardon?”

“Well, technically we’re going, since you’ll have your combutton and I’ll be with you like that,” Zelo amended.

“You want me to go to China?  For a dead man’s drug cartel?”

“The Agency wants you to go to China, because the man may be dead but the cartel’s not.  Xiumin and Suho are in jail.  Chen converted to our side after Luhan got him out of jail a couple years ago, and Kai disappeared after the raid on the Agency.  Want to tell me who else disappeared after everything went down?”

Yongguk slammed one fist into the palm of his other hand.  “Baekhyun,” he said.  “Kris’s right-hand man, also-known-as the infamous Number One.”

“Makes sense,” Zelo added.  “Kris was his world, until we killed him.  Wouldn’t he want to return to something he was familiar with?  It might make him feel closer to Kris to keep his work going.  He might have tracked Kai down, too, and joined forces with him.  Extra security was added to the prisons where Xiumin and Suho are incarcerated, as well, just in case they try to bust them out.”

Yongguk nodded in spite of himself.   “So what else do we know?”

“It’s an encrypted forum.  You can only get to it from a very specific web address, and it changes from day to day – sometimes from hour to hour.  They’ve got some hacker on their team or something, because as soon as we get close, they disappear.  I’ve managed to get into some of their systems, but the weirdest thing is, the IP address keeps bouncing around.”

Yongguk paused.  “That shouldn’t be possible,” he said, and sat down at his computer.  The little black rabbit shimeji Zelo used to interact with his screen appeared and pulled up an old version of what appeared to be a cheaply made website. 

“We managed to get this out of the internet files,” Zelo said.  “It’s not active anymore, but it’s all we have.”

“The new Number One,” Yongguk read.  “Phoenix rises from the Ashes.”

“The forum moderator goes by the handle ‘Phoenix,’” Zelo said, unnecessarily.  “The rest of the site locked down and vanished before we got a handle on it, so all we’ve been able to tell is it’s coming out of China.  Since the first one showed up in Shanghai, that’s where we’re looking first.”

“How am I supposed to do this?  Just knock on doors, asking people if they’re Phoenix and trying to resurrect Kris’s cartel?”

“We have the coordinates from the first IP log,” Zelo said.  “Just go and find out what they left behind.”

“Great.”

“You wanted to be an agent.  Make a difference and all that.” It was oddly sarcastic for Zelo.  “This is your chance.”

“To go wander around China.  You do realise I don’t speak Chinese?”

“I’ll translate for you,” Zelo said.  “Anyway, what was that business earlier?”

Yongguk covered his sly smile with his hand.  If Zelo didn’t realise he’d given himself away, he wasn’t going to enlighten him. 

*

“China,” Yongguk said.  “Somehow I thought it’d be dirtier.  More crowded.”

“I can barely hear you,” Zelo said. 

Feeling foolish, Yongguk lifted his jacket and spoke directly into the microphone concealed in the combutton.  “I wasn’t expecting it to be this pretty,” he said clearly.  He wished he wasn’t here on a fool’s errand, though. It would probably make a nice vacation spot, and he resolved to come back when he wasn’t working.  For now, he was in Shanghai, near the docks where the original website had first been made public.  Or at least, semi-public, he corrected himself.  He had nearly-exact coordinates for the location of the first IP, and according to his phone, he was nearly on top of it.  The warehouse looked almost identical to the rows of other buildings along the street; there was nothing spectacular about this one, except that at some point in the past, Baekhyun or someone close to him had been here, walking these same streets, intent on gathering Kris’s former cohorts back together. 

He tried the main door, and found it unlocked.  Making sure that Zelo had a clear view of things through the combutton, he slowly pushed it open and wished for a gun.  It was unlikely they were still here, but if they were it probably wouldn’t end well for him.  Wondering where Lay got the courage to throw himself into these kinds of situations over and over again, he stepped inside.  The dust was two inches thick on everything, and it looked like no one had been inside for a long time; there weren’t even footprints in the dust on the floor, except the ones he was making himself.

Whipping out his flashlight, he examined the door, and the dust.  “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been in here recently,” he commented for the record.

“Unless they used the backdoor,” Zelo cautioned.  “Just be careful anyway.”

“Yes mother,” Yongguk muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Yongguk-hyung.”

It was easier to accept Zelo’s whining now that he knew the kid wasn’t actually a computer, but he was beginning to have concerns about how old he was, and whether or not he was qualified for a job like this.   

Inching carefully through the dust, Yongguk ignored the whine and continued into the warehouse.  He saw several empty office rooms, and then a long hallway leading to what was probably the main floor.  The offices were empty, so he gave them nothing more than a cursory glance before moving on. 

“Okay, here goes,” he said, and pushed the door open.  The room was immense, and the flashlight only illuminated a few feet of it.  Already, Yongguk could see that this floor had been swept clean, and probably recently, considering that the dust wasn’t nearly as thick in here.  The next thing he noticed were the computers.  Huge towers, massive screens, it all looked like something off the set of a sci-fi movie.

“Are you seeing this?” he asked.

“Yes, we’re getting it,” Zelo replied, sounding excited.  “This is definitely where it came from, then.  Who needs this kind of computing power?”

“Speaking of power, is there any in this place?”

“I can’t tell,” Zelo said.  “Try a light switch?”

Yongguk swallowed the retort he was about to make, and searched the wall for the switches.  He located them a moment later, and turned them all on, hoping that no one was hidden in the warehouse.  The lights came on suddenly, blinding him.  He heard a popping sound, and squinted into the sudden brightness, only to discover that one of the bulbs had blown in the large overhead lights.

“Wow!” There was a burst of static over the combutton following Zelo’s outburst, and then it went silent for a moment.  “I guess that answers that question.  What about the computers?”

“First let me check the periphery,” Yongguk said.

“Oh, right.”

Unseen by the combutton, Yongguk rolled his eyes and suppressed a sigh.  He made his way along the wall, checking to make sure he really was alone in the room.  Apart from some rodent droppings, the dust had no recent footprints apart from his own, and he breathed a little easier.  He did find the back door, and a broom and dustpan propped up beside it.  The door, when he tested it, was locked, and he wondered why they’d lock the back door, but not the front.  That made him wonder what was behind the building, and he added it to the mental list of things to check as soon as he was done inside.

“Looks clear,” he said out loud for Zelo’s benefit. 

“I concur,” Zelo replied.  “Let’s see if those computers are still working.”

Yongguk nodded, and headed towards the nearest interface unit. Aloud, he wondered, “Why would they need so much computing power for a website?” 

“Beats me.” 

“That was rhetorical.”

“Just turn it on.”

Yongguk muffled a sigh and flipped the power switch.  To his surprise, the computer booted right up, not even asking for a password before revealing its operating system.  He pulled one of Sehun’s devices from his pocket and attached it by the USB cable to the computer.  It automatically began downloading all of the information contained within the computer, and Zelo huffed a laugh. 

“Either they’ve got nothing worthwhile on here, or they were expecting to come back.  Just be careful, okay?”

“Yes, mother,” Yongguk muttered.  The pocket-hack reached 50% and slowed down as it encountered larger files.  Yongguk casually scanned the area, wondering if he should continue with the other computers.  The pocket hack beeped to alert him it was done doing its thing, and somewhere nearby, a door slammed.  Voices echoed through the building, and there was something odd about them.

“Why are the lights on?”

“The power bill’s going to be astronomical.”

“Yongguk,” Zelo hissed. 

Yongguk shushed him and packed up his equipment before beating a hasty retreat.  Once he was clear of the building, he realised what had bothered him about the voices.  “They were speaking Korean!”

“What?  That’s impossible.  Why would they – Oh, .”

Yongguk made it safely to his car and locked the doors, considering.  No one had been in that building for a long time.  Long enough for the dust to accumulate.  And yet, serendipitously, at the very moment he was there collecting information, people speaking Korean appeared in the building. Belatedly, Zelo’s language filtered through his occupied brain.  “What’s wrong?”

“We just got word that someone matching Kai’s description broke into the high-security asylum in Seoul and killed most of the guards.  Suho escaped.  You don’t think…?”

Yongguk paused in the act of starting the car, frozen in place by his thoughts.  If Suho’s free, that means someone is definitely collecting high-ranking members of Kris’s cartel.  That means someone is definitely trying to restart it.  Who?  Who!  Baekhyun?  Has to be.  He was Kris’s right-hand man.  Kai – Kai worked in the Agency for a long time before they realised he was a double-agent.  Suho was a businessman, one of his backers and biggest clients.  Arrested running the Circus, which was also a cover for moving the drugs and laundered money.  If he’s here…

“Yongguk.  Yongguk-hyung!  Are you alright?”

Zelo’s voice, rising in volume, shattered the train of thought.  “I’m fine,” he said.  “Let me get back to the hotel and see what we’ve got.”

*

Zelo tapped his fingers against the desk and moved another red six onto a black seven.  He’d been stunned when Sehun approached him and offered him a job after they hadn’t seen each other in years, and he’d leapt at the chance – it beat working as a server in a restaurant by a long shot.  And all he had to do was cut ties with all his friends and family, and basically never leave the building again while acting as the “computer” contact of an agent in the field.  He liked Yongguk, and enjoyed their verbal spars, and now that they were both out of training, he was beginning to feel like they would make a difference in the world. 

He hadn’t anticipated their first mission being intercepted, however.  Nor had he expected the sensation of being helpless as Yongguk was moving around, somewhere in China, while he sat here in his room playing solitaire to pass the time.  Yongguk returned to his hotel room safely, and sighed.  Zelo picked up the headset he used and settled it over his ears, repositioning the microphone and setting it to the privacy option; Yongguk wouldn’t hear him unless he pressed a button.  A black five went onto one of his sixes. 

He overheard Yongguk ordering room service in his faulty Chinese, and checked the computer screen to make sure he was okay.  He missed Yongguk being in his apartment, where the cameras were everywhere, and he wasn’t dependent on the small single camera installed in the combuttons.  He couldn’t see anything except Yongguk’s arm, which told him the man was probably holding his head or messing with his hair.

He depressed the button. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Yongguk sighed.  “Can’t believe I almost got caught in there, that’s all.”

“But you didn’t,” Zelo reminded him. 

“Fortunately.”  Yongguk sighed a third time, and Zelo rolled his eyes. 

“Go ahead and upload the data you got so we can analyze it,” Zelo said, and reshuffled his draw deck.  He saw Yongguk moving around the hotel room, connecting the little pocket-hack to his laptop.  Someone knocked on the door, and Zelo watched disinterestedly as he collected the food he’d ordered and sat down in front of the TV to eat.  Deciding it wasn’t a bad idea to get some food into him, Zelo rang the front desk to order him some takeout. 

I’m going to get fat eating like this, he thought.  Maybe after he goes to sleep, I’ll head up to the gym.  He’d been super excited to get their first mission, but now that it was over for the day he was feeling pent up energy that had no release, and drummed his fingers on the desk again before pushing the button to connect with Yongguk’s combutton. 

“What’s your take on tonight’s events?” he asked, once his partner was done eating. 

“Failure,” Yongguk said morosely.  Zelo rolled his eyes and injected some cheer into his voice.

“You got what we came for.  We’re looking for the source of the website, right?  This should lead us straight to the people running it.” His computer beeped, informing him that the upload was complete. A moment later, Yongguk’s computer also made a sound signaling the end of the transfer.  Zelo pulled up the information, patched it through to Ace’s office, and started scanning it.  Log information and specs rolled across his screen, but then a series of names jumped out at him.  Kim Jongin, Lee Chaerin, and Park Bom.  Sandara Park and Gong Minji were followed by Kim Joonmyun and Kim Minseok.  He recognised the Kims, but couldn’t say why until he ran their names through a database and discovered they were the real names of former Agency employee Kai, as well as two of Kris’s cohorts who’d been arrested – Suho and Xiumin.  Zelo’s mouth dropped open as an article flashed up from the government.  It hadn’t leaked to the news yet, but not only had Suho been broken out of jail, but so had Xiumin.  They were all loose.  And they were all associated with the computer headquarters running that website.  The other names were completely unfamiliar, and didn’t even come up when he searched the government databases.

“Holy , Yongguk-hyung,” Zelo whispered.  “You hit the jackpot.” He glanced up at the screen, and his mouth went dry.  Yongguk was in the bathroom, hanging his clothes up on a peg on the door.  It afforded a limited view of the room, but a very clear line of sight directly at the mirror – which reflected the room.  And it’s half- occupant.  He’d worked with Yongguk for three years as trainees, but he’d never paid much attention to the man’s physique, except for an idle record of his gym habits.  As it turned out, those gym habits were a blessing in disguise; he’d had no idea the man was hiding that body under the baggy clothes he always wore.  He hit the button and repeated his statement, swallowing to get some saliva into his mouth.

“You hit the jackpot.  We got three confirmed names associated with Kris, and four people I’ve never heard of.  It’s got to be them.”

In the mirror, he saw Yongguk’s head come up and he spoke around the toothbrush in his mouth.  “What names?”

“Kai,” Zelo said, and switched his microphone to On so he wouldn’t have to hold the button down to speak.  “Suho.  And Xiumin.  Who, by the way, was also busted out of prison shortly after Suho.  The government is keeping a lid on the news, though.”

Yongguk spat and rinsed his mouth out.  “Wouldn’t do to let the people know that two highly dangerous criminals are on the loose,” he scowled, and stretched. 

“W-well, yeah,” Zelo stammered, distracted as Yongguk leaned over and casually turned the water on.  In the mirror, the sleek, rippling skin stretched over tight muscle was visible all the way to the end of his spin, with just the barest hint of a rounded curve reflected into the camera.  Zelo swallowed again, convulsively.  He’d essentially lived with this man for three years and never really noticed him.  It was a crime to cover up that body in the types of clothes he wore.  “Um, what?”

Yongguk straightened, gazing at the camera in the mirror so that it looked as if he was looking directly at Zelo through the computer screen.  “I didn’t say anything,” he said.  His voice was neutral, but there was a faint hint of a curve at the edge of his lips, suggestive of a smile.

“No, I didn’t… You… Yeah.  Sorry.”

The smile became a full-fledged smirk, and Yongguk stepped into the shower, mercifully hiding his body from Zelo’s sight.  Zelo cut the microphone off and sighed loudly. 

“Damn,” he said, and let his head flop back against the chair. 

“How long ago did Xiumin and Suho get free?  Was it Kai who broke them both out?  What else did you find in the files?”

Zelo blinked at the computer screen in silence for a long moment.  Was Yongguk really about to carry on a conversation with him while he was in the shower?  Where was his shame?  Where was his modesty?  He was in there!  Zelo couldn’t hold a conversation with a man.  “D-De- descriptions match Kai, yes,” he stammered, pulling up the reports of the breakouts.  “Most of the guards didn’t make it, stabbed multiple times each, but one guy lived long enough to pick Kai’s picture out of a lineup.”  It was easier to concentrate when he focused on the facts in front of him.  “Apparently Kai posed as a member of the KCIA, that’s how he got in.  No one even noticed anything was wrong until one of the other inmates saw a body and raised the alarm.” 

“Our justice system at its finest,” Yongguk muttered. 

“Is that why you stopped being a lawyer?” Zelo asked.

There was a long pause, and then Yongguk stuck his head out of the shower, once again meeting Zelo’s eyes unerringly in the mirror, through the camera.  “Yeah,” he said.  “I couldn’t stand knowing that these people were guilty, and watching them walk away.”

“Kai won’t walk forever,” Zelo said softly.  “We’ll get him.  That’s what we’re here for.”

“I was on the team that put Suho away after you guys took him down at the Circus,” Yongguk said suddenly.  Baffled, Zelo pulled up the records of Suho’s trial, and was surprised to see that the prosecuting lawyer had indeed been one Bang Yongguk.  “I can’t stand knowing that Kai just walked right in and got him back out.”

“Baekhyun walked out of a holding cell with known assassin D.O. once,” Zelo reminded him.  “And that was while he was dating Agent Lay.  How do you think Lay felt, knowing he had Baekhyun in his hands that whole time and let him get away?”

“Baekhyun turned around and helped catch Kris, though.  If he hadn’t been at the Agency, Kris never would have shown up, and Luhan wouldn’t have gotten his chance at being a hero.  Same as Chen.  I know Luhan broke him out under Agency custody, but you can’t deny he’s turned a new leaf since.  Besides, what did Chen do that was all that bad?  Baekhyun was mentally ill, Chen was just misguided.  He usually only killed other criminals.  In the grand scheme of things, they were innocent.  But Suho.  Suho is a monster.” The water cut off and Yongguk stepped out of the shower.  Zelo forgot to take his hand off the button before the noise – an embarrassingly unmanly squeak – escaped his lips.  For a moment, Yongguk smiled, but then a haunted expression entered his eyes as he reached for the towel.

“Suho took the stand in his own defense, and didn’t even bother denying anything,” he said distantly.  Zelo opened a new window and sought out the records of Suho’s trial, finding the transcripts with ease.  “He stood up there, calm as you please, and said, ‘Yes sir, I ran the circus.  I was happy to do it.  It was funny to watch them die.’”  Yongguk slammed his fist into the wall.  “We had him on everything, drug charges, the whole shebang, and now he’s free?”

“We got him once, we’ll get him again,” Zelo said soothingly, forgetting Yongguk’s for a moment.  “This time we won’t leave anything to chance,” he added, as a message from Ace popped up on his computer.  This time, whoever we assign to track them down will have authorised use of deadly force.  ChanTao will be going out to trace them soon.  “When we find them, they’re dead,” he related to Yongguk.  The tension visibly drained out of the man and he looked in the mirror again.  Zelo had the feeling that he knew a lot more than he was letting on. 

“Good enough for now,” he said.  “I think I’m going to bed.  It’s been a long day.” 

“Take the combutton with you and set it up where I can see the room,” Zelo warned. 

“Yes, mother,” Yongguk said, chuckling as the solemn mood broke. 

“Yongguk-hyung,” Zelo whined, and drew a full laugh from Yongguk.  Zelo killed the microphone and sat back with a smile as Yongguk hung up his jacket on the back of the door, where the camera would have a full view of the room.  A moment later, Zelo was insanely grateful he’d cut the mic, because Yongguk was still wrapped in a towel.  He pulled pyjama pants from his suitcase, straightened, and then very deliberately dropped the towel.  Zelo stopped breathing with a strangled “Gurk!”.

Later that night, Zelo was pulled from a sound sleep by the motion-detector alarm going off on his computer.  It could be that Yongguk had gotten up to go to the bathroom, but Zelo knew from experience that he wasn’t that type.  He usually slept like the dead, actually.  Concern drove him from his bed and he settled on the computer, checking his screens, but something was wrong.  He couldn’t see the room at all; just a pale green-grey expanse of blankness. 

The motion sensor beeped again as the camera moved, and Zelo was treated to the dizzying sight of the door swinging gently closed again, bringing the rest of the room into focus.  The first thing he saw when the door came to a stop was Yongguk, still peacefully in bed asleep.  The second thing he realised as the motion sensor beeped a third time was that someone else was in the room with him.  They dropped something small to the ground, and crept towards the bed, raising a hand that held –

A knife.

Zelo hit the button for his microphone so hard he cracked the keyboard.  “Yongguk, wake up!”  he screamed.  For once in the years Zelo had known him, the former lawyer came awake instantly, moving just as the dark-clad intruder jumped for him.  Zelo clasped both hands over his mouth, rooted to the spot by terror.  He knew a moment of perfect despair as the knife came up, glinting in the dim light streaming through the half-closed curtains, and there was nothing he could do.  Yongguk grunted, struggling against his attacker, but things were dim and blurry and in the monochromatic green of the night-vision, Zelo couldn’t see what was happening. 

Someone knocked on his door, scaring him half out of his wits, but it opened before he could say anything and Sehun let himself in.  “What’s going on?  I heard you – oh .”

Chen was half a step behind him, both of them looking like they’d dressed in a hurry.  Zelo had no time to be amused by them because Yongguk was still fighting for his life – half a world away.  B with impotent fury and fear, Zelo clenched his hands into fists and stared at the screen.  The two combatants rolled, each one trying to gain the upper hand against the other, but in the dim lighting Zelo couldn’t tell which one was which.  They rolled clear off the bed, and Yongguk cried out.  Zelo felt his heart stop, but a moment later the intruder also let out a pained noise and jumped to his feet, running for the door.  He wore a mask that covered every detail of his face; there was barely room for his eyes to look out.  The rest of him was covered from head to toe in black.  No way of identifying him. 

“Yongguk!  Yongguk-hyung!”

“I’m alright,” he said, climbing to his feet.  Zelo collapsed as relief tried to push the adrenaline away, and then Chen was pulling him up by the arms. 

“Come on, Zelo, come away for a moment and calm down.  You’re a computer, computers don’t freak out.”  He escorted Zelo into the medical bay where he promptly dissolved in tears, releasing the tension. 

*

Sehun took over the computer after Chen removed Zelo, and sent a soundbyte of static crackling through the microphone on the combutton.  A moment later, he settled the headset over his ears and turned it on.

“Sehun here,” he said.  “We’re having technical difficulties with the computer, so I’m taking it offline for a few –”

“Cut the crap,” Yongguk said, and on the screen Sehun could see him pick up a discarded towel and dab at what was apparently a cut on his arm.  “What’s wrong with the kid?”

Sehun was stunned into silence.  “I… are you okay?  Did you hit your head?”

Yongguk came closer to the combutton, snatching up whatever it was attached to and shaking it so the video wiggled nauseatingly for a moment.  “Zelo!” he shouted.  “Is Zelo alright?”

“It… he… He’s in medical, having hysterics because you almost died and he wasn’t able to do anything,” Sehun revealed listlessly. “Are you alright?”

“Just a little cut,” Yongguk said.  “I think I broke his arm, though.  Keep an eye out for criminals with casts.”

“Okay,” Sehun said.  “Now do you want to tell me how you know…?”

“Obviously computers aren’t that advanced,” Yongguk said, as casually as if he was discussing the weather.  “Had to be someone real.  Is he going to be okay?”

Sehun shook his head and cut the mic long enough to call down to medical.  “They had to sedate him,” he reported.  “He was freaking out pretty hard.  I’ll stay with you tonight in case whoever that was makes another try.”

Yongguk looked down and didn’t answer.  A moment later, he reached and picked up something from the floor, and a light, killing the night-vision for a second in a wash of white before the camera adjusted to the light-source.  “A keycard,” Yongguk said, and went to the door.  Noises suggested he was testing it.  “It opens my door,” he added.  “Someone knew I was here.  This was a specific and deliberate attack on me.” 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sehun asked, suddenly concerned.  He’d had quite a large shock, after all, and he was taking it supremely calmly.  Zelo freaking out wasn’t a big deal; they’d sedated him and Sehun could take over for a bit until he came back around and calmed down.  But Yongguk was entirely on his own, alone in a strange country.  If he fell apart, it would be hours before they could reach him. 

“I’m fine,” Yongguk said, looking directly at the camera for a moment.  “A little shook up, but nothing I can’t handle.” 

Sehun considered, and then made an executive decision.  “I want you on the next plane back to Seoul,” he said.  “We’ll be processing the information you got for a couple weeks, and I don’t want you there any longer than you have to be.  Don’t worry about returning the rental or checking out, we’ll cover the costs.  Just get out of that country, now.”

“Done,” Yongguk agreed, and packed up the few items he’d taken out of the suitcase in the few days he’d been in the hotel. 

*

Upon returning to Agency HQ, Yongguk was forbidden to return to his apartment and was instead confined to a room on the third floor.  “While they investigated the attack on him in China,” was the official reason, but he’d also been denied when he asked to see Zelo.  Sehun had agreed not to tell Zelo he knew, but had to report it to Ace, and he’d gotten it from the Agency’s leader himself.  Absolutely no direct contact between Contact and Agent.  That was the rule, and he wasn’t breaking it for anyone else.  

Yongguk seized on the wording of his statement, and took his suspicions to Chen, who was the most likely to reveal it to him.  “Who else was a contact who met their agent?” he asked.

Startled, Chen looked up from his newest project.  He claimed he was working on a truth serum that actually worked, but hadn’t been able to successfully test it yet.  “Ah,” he said.  “Well, I’m not supposed to be talking about it.”

“It was Luhan, wasn’t it?” Yongguk guessed.  “Luhan was Lay’s contact, and something happened, and he ended up going out in the field with him.”

Chen covered his mouth with his hand, but his eyes made it clear he was smiling, and he nodded.  Aloud, he said, “You know I can’t answer that.” 

Yongguk grinned.  “So why can’t I meet Zelo?”

“You have,” Chen said, and pointed down before holding up two fingers.  Second floor, he mouthed silently.  Room two-two-five.  He flashed the fingers in addition, just in case Yongguk couldn’t read his lips.  Then with a wink, he turned his attention back to the serum.  “So, want to play guinea pig for me?”

“Are your needles clean?”

“What a ridiculous question,” Chen said.  “Safety first,” he added, and opened a brand new hypodermic needle, pulling the plunger back to up some of his serum.  Yongguk sighed and extended his arm.  He barely felt the needle going in, but the liquid was cool.  “Anything?”

“I think you’re a son of a ,” Yongguk said.  Chen blinked, startled.  Masking a grin, Yongguk continued, “I don’t think you’re a son of a .  Doesn’t work.  I’ll be back later.”

His arm tingled, and he felt like he wanted to talk, but had nothing to say.  He took the stairs two at a time and was surprised to find the door on the second floor was unlocked.  They worked on a surprising honour-system here, he decided, and found Zelo’s room with ease.  The door was open, and there were multiple computer screens taking up one huge desk in the corner, most of them displaying Yongguk’s own apartment.  The kid was relaxed on his bed, out of work while they were waiting for confirmation on the info he’d brought back from China, and had his eyes glued to the TV. 

Yongguk cleared his throat noisily from the door, and Zelo leapt up.  The first thing he noticed was how tall he was.  The second, how skinny.  Thirdly, Yongguk took in the youthful cast to his features and the shock lighting his eyes, and crossed his arms over his chest.

“How old are you?” he demanded.

“Yongguk-hyung!?”

Present…

“Why do we even bother pretending anymore?” Sehun lamented.  Lay clasped Luhan’s hand, remembering the existential crisis he’d suffered when he realised his longtime computer partner was actually a real person.  Yongguk, on the other hand, was thrilled.  “Anyway, I told you most of the important stuff.  Be careful in China, both Xiumin and Suho escaped prison shortly before Yongguk was attacked there, and we have reason to believe it was because someone made him as an Agent.  We’ve narrowed it down to a couple of mountainous towns, so you’ll be turning off the paved road at some point to reach some of them.”

“I don’t get it,” Luhan said.  “Why use such a backwoods town for their headquarters.  It’s easier to hide in a city.” 

Sehun shrugged.  “Search me,” he said.  “But it’s definitely one of these little villages here, in this region.  Signal’s been bouncing back super strong, so we know it’s originating there.  Good luck, Agents,” he said formally, and handed over their files.  “See you when you come back.”

“Sure thing,” Lay said, and followed Luhan out of the room to go catch their plane to China.