Anxiety and tension are the two most recurring emotion for the Khuns; every single one of them had felt those two emotions more than they’ve felt emotions like happiness or love. The Khuns were a special breed of their own; a big family of trained assassins and operatives. For all the evil that they live around, all the evil that they’ve done, and all the evil that they’ve faced, not a lot of humanity remain in the members of the family. They learned at a painstakingly early age that the world are two different sides of the same coin, and they were born into the lesser one. No one that lived through that much pain comes out the other side unharmed; they are less of what they were and more of what they weren’t. Someone who had lost that much was never going to be fine.

Thus, they all had a deep consensus about one thing. The only thing that counts as a principle in their life, as something important and worthwhile, a value in their grey lives: Family above all else.  

~~~

“I can’t believe it.” Key whispered underneath his breath, shaking his head. “The next time I see them, I will punch them. Age seniority be damned, I’ll do it.”

The Khuns were gathered in the public library that constitutes as their Headquarters. Despite their dark background, the Khuns were a prestigious family with deep connections and deep pockets. Although most of those connections and expenses are now managed by the Company, they had some facilities that they kept to themselves. When their parents were still alive, they had built a huge library facility near the centre of the town, mainly to store their archives, records and historical artifacts. It was more of a museum, but a private one. When their parents died in the fire, the leftover Khuns had decided to publicize the library, however keeping only one section private. They used the private sector as their base of operations, a safehouse of sorts. Publicising the library was a cover tactic--it’s easier to hide in the public than a small crowd. Key and Baekhyun had hacked into the government records and deleted their connections to the library, any paper trail that links them back is gone, except for their names, which they never had records of.

“Jessica.” Sooyoung reached over the table to grasp her hand. The unvoiced question brought attention to the silent blonde woman.

They were sat around a circle table with screens built into the table--it looked awfully empty with the the missing three seats. Tao had just finished debriefing everyone of what had happened to him at the beginning of the month; both he and Baekhyun had called for the meeting immediately, but their schedules were in contrast with each other.

Jessica honed an ghostly face; her eyes clouded and perpetually ajar. She tried to voice her response, but her emotion caught up to her, “I thought she betrayed us, ran away.” The blonde looked around her, tears hanging by her lids, looking for someone to forgive her. “I didn’t know.”

Sooyoung stood from her seat across from her, enveloping her cousin in a tight embrace while Tao, who sat next to her, grasped her hand for comfort. “Sica, it’s not your fault.” Sooyoung tried to console her but they knew it wouldn’t work.

“I hated her.” Jessica snapped and faced her, her voice wavering. “I despised her for leaving. And now she’s--” A single tear shed down her face “--Dead.”

Key took one look at Jessica and resumed to bending his head down, grip uncharacteristically hard on his arm-rest. “We didn’t know. How could we have? The Company doesn’t tell us anything.”

“They’ll pay for this.” Sooyoung whispered to everyone. “We’ll make sure they do.”

“Who?” Tao demanded, confused and frustrated as the rest of them are. They were losing family members like dominoes, who wouldn’t be? “Who are they?”

“SM, the Company, anyone.” Sooyoung countered her little brother, daring him to stop her plans. “Everyone.”

Jessica grasped the small of Sooyoung’s wrist on her shoulder, squeezing it. “Stop.” She wiped her tears, emotion gone as soon as they appear. “We can’t condemn those who are innocent from this.”

“No one is innocent, Sica.” Key piped from his seat, hands pulling each other apart. “We have to do something about every single one of them.” He ruffled his hair from its perfect style, huffing a loud breath that broke the tension in the room.

“I wasn’t going to use this, but now that this happened, there’s no other choice.” Key murmured, sitting up straight, fingers flying at the keyboard in the touchscreen in the table. Swiping up once he found the document he was looking for, the rest of the group simultaneously getting a file share from the man.

Once everyone opened the document, the file revealed a voice recording clip that began with static. The silence was deafening with the static from the loudspeaker under the desk, but then short technic tones rang out and then a very familiar voice sounded under the rough static. “Is the package ready?... I’ll take care of it when I get there. Prepare for the exchange.” Then the static cut out.

Tao was the first to break the questions. “That was Lee Soo Man’s voice.” He stated in monotone. “What is that?”

“A Trojan Horse.” The older cousin announced. “If we’re to dismantle LSM’s operations, we need proof. So far, all the company’s tasked us to do were killings or intel gathering; we’ve never gotten solid proof of any legal wrongdoings.”

Sooyoung added to his point. “Anything we’ve obtained from our mission goes directly to the Company, and who knows why or how long they’ve been sitting on them claiming to be ‘gunning for the bigger picture’.” She followed his trail of reasoning. “But this one, you want to take straight to the authorities?”

Baekhyun’s eyes flew wide, looking to his older male cousin. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“No, in fact it’s the exact opposite.” Key sighed. “But in this world, there’s no justice unless we make it for ourselves.”

Jessica resolutely glared at her monitor. “We can’t trust the Company any longer to extract revenge for us. Not after what happened with Krystal.”

Tao massaged his temples, his brain profusely aching. “Okay, so what do we do with this ‘Trojan Horse’ and what is it exactly?” He gestured to the file recording on their screens.

“I planted a recording device in Soo Man’s office when I went there for SHINee’s evaluation last month.” Key confessed, the group understandably reacting all different varieties of shock. “Relax, I took it out when I went back in for personal evaluation two weeks later.”

Sooyoung trained a furrowed brow at the man, silently conveying her reprimanding message. “And, so what does this recording imply?”

Key smiled fauxly at her. “Well, when I surveyed the recording, this came up as the most informational. The tone you heard earlier was a landline number--which made it relatively harder for me to trace, but I did, and it led to an amusement park.”

Baekhyun scoffed condescendingly, the bitter tone of the news of Krystal still fresh, “An amusement park? What’s he doing? ic business?”

The oldest man in the room turned the smile towards Baekhyun, his smirk intelligent. “No, well, I don’t know. But all I know is a trade is happening at that place.” Key opened some more files and sent it through the connection. “There’s a closed off section of the amusement park--under construction for over two years, which is considerably weird. So,” Multiple finance documents and a blueprint of the amusement park popped up in each of their screens. “I cross-checked it with some of their expenses spent in the past two years, and none of it listed anything remotely similar to construction work.”

“Either they’ve gone impossibly environmentally-friendly and pulled their construction back to the dark-ages with stone stacking, or that’s their blacksite.” Baekhyun snarked at the revelation, mischievous. He leaned forward from his seat, zooming in on his screen to the construction location. “Well, it’s convenient, the site is basically blocked from view. Boxed in by the roller coaster and the the wall of the center aquarium.”

“What are they trading?” Baekhyun inquired from his seat.

Key scratched the back of his head, shifting in his seat. “That’s the weird thing, it’s the who that’s more incriminating. I checked the company that owns the amusement park, linked it as a subsidiary to the SUN Corporation; a multi-billion dollar company in the business of high-end development of ground-breaking research in science technology and medicine.”

Jessica snorted sarcastically, “Why is that incriminating?”

“Because,” He sent another wave of documents over, this time including tax payments and official government records, “SUN Corporation is the working face of the American-Italian mafia, La Cosa Nostra.”

Baekhyun almost fell from his seat, hanging on by the end of his chair. “How the hell do you know this?”

“I found a worker with a pair of loose lips, with the right type of persuasion of course.” Key smirked his devilish smile--he was their best ‘interrogator’, knew all the ways of making people talk through pain.

“You think he’s trading with the Mafia’s?” Jessica offered.

“Oh, I know he is, but I don’t know what he’s trading.” Key backhanded the revelation, typing away at his screen.

Tao inspected the documents. “Do you know when this trade is going down?”

Key shook his head, grimacing in the process. “That’s another thing I haven’t figured out.”

All the personnel in the room looked towards the brunette silent woman, Sooyoung. She was analyzing data, that much everybody knew. So they waited for her to formulate something out of the haystack, and she always did.

“What are these maintenance logs?” Sooyoung highlighted a couple entries in the logs. “Especially these, aquamarine tank inspections?”

Jessica took a closer look at the data. “Uh, repairs mostly, I guess.” She opened new tabs on the inspection. “Huh, that’s odd. It’s been scheduled for 13 inspections in the last five months alone.”

Sooyoung shook her head. “No, these aren’t inspections, the aquarium was open on all of those dates. Plus, the tank systems are self-sustaining, their eco-friendly bull was broadcasted louder than a siren.” She looked at Key. “When was this recorded?”

“Three weeks ago.” Key answered from the top of his head, eyes moving across the ceiling as if filing through the information in his head. “Approximately at 3 a.m.” He blinked to focus his attention at her. “Why?”

Baekhyun slowly understood the path his sister took. “Because you think this is it, don’t you?” Sooyoung smirked at his brother, allowing him to cinch on the suspicion. “These inspections are cover-ups, allowing them to go into the aquarium undetected and out the back to the construction space for a trade. Equipment luggages won’t be checked this way, it’s the perfect method.”

“And they’re scheduled for another inspection tomorrow evening at 5.” Sooyoung continued. “The only way to find out is if we go there ourselves.” She stood from her chair, striding to the coat hanger to grab her garment. “My schedules free tomorrow, I’ll go.”

Tao stood from his seat as well. “I’m going too. I need to know if what they told me was real.” He looked towards Baekhyun.

Baekhyun nodded to the unvoiced question. “Of course I’m in, but I’m thinking I should stay back in the command centre, monitor the operation.”

“I’ll be damned if I don’t see how this pans out, I’ll help you in monitoring.” Key slugged his hands over around Baekhyun’s shoulders, to which the man gave a grateful smile for.

“Jessica?” Sooyoung asked.

Jessica raised her eyes from the screen, shaking her head slowly. “I’d want to, but SM’s sending me on solo promotions, I’m packed this whole week.”

Sooyoung gave a sympathetic look at her but said nothing otherwise. “Okay, well, we need to go back.” She tossed her cousin’s coat at her. “Our manager will want us back in time for dance practice.”

Key stood up along with them, adjusting his cap. “Then, ground forces will meet up here while we meet up at the command centre.” He shot Baekhyun a look, outlining their agenda. “12 noon sharp, we need to canvas the place and get our plan straightened out.” The older man hung his head before sighing. “Or help us God, we can finally end this.”

~~~

“Why didn’t you tell them about Project Alpha?” Tao crossed his hands where they were on the table, eyes trained on his brother who was pacing by the small island by the refrigerator.

Baekhyun levelled him with a blank stare. “Why didn’t you? You were commandeering the debrief on your kidnap by our two oldest traitorous cousins, no?”

The younger brother raised his folded hands and extended it towards his direction. “Okay, so we both didn’t tell them, care to ask why?”

Holding two cups of freshly brewed coffee, he added two cubes of sugar and a packet of creamer to one. “You know why.” He stirred the coffee with one hand while the other poured milk into the black coffee. “‘Paradise Lost’ is a Khun family code. The sender has to know that. I doubt anyone outside our family or the Company would know.”

“So you’re saying the third party is someone related to us?” Tao almost accused his brother, to which he got a glare at.

“You’re basically thinking the same thing, I’m just have the nerves to say it out loud.” Baekhyun grumbled and walked over to him, placing the sweetened coffee in front of his brother. “I’m not saying--Look, I don’t know what I’m saying, I don’t know what it means, and frankly, I’m scared to know what it means--”

“But, in the end we must know.” Tao finished for him, hands playing with the rim of the cup. The fact that the sender of the letter knew of their codes, meant that they were closely related to the Khuns or, heaven forbid, is a Khun. “Hyung, I don’t want to lose anyone if I don’t have to.” He looked up to his brother who was still standing at the head of his chair. “We don’t have to know.”

Baekhyun grimaced, knowing what will happen if there’s another Eunhyuk and Ryeowook or Krystal, and what it will do to them as a family. “I don’t think we have much of a choice.”

~~~

Baekhyun arrived at the command centre the earliest. Ever since the black ops he did with Jessica, no one’s been back here. The Company owns almost every asset they had, but they had one command centre issued all to their family; this one. They called it the Beacon Base in code.

The young Khun went to the generator, lighting the whole place up; starting with the fluorescent lights that circled the circular panel controls, to the machinery on the walls and the large screen mounted to the front wall. He wheeled two chairs into the circle of command, plugging in cables to activate the systems.

Key barged in shortly after, announcing his presence with a loud, “And here for our young prince Baek, a box of sweet sugar powdered donut and two iced americano with too many extra shots of espresso, it’s more water drowning in espresso at this point.”

The younger Khun chuckled at his cousin’s behaviour, pushing a wheeler towards his direction with his foot while he slid himself underneath the panel. Key plopped on his seat, wheeling his way to the main computer at the middle of the circular panels. “Have you got the comms up and running yet?”

Baekhyun dragged himself from under the panels on the end, “Uh, the cables somehow overheated and now--there we go.” He huffed, standing from his lying position, jogging towards one of the server machines on the wall. “I changed the wire and we’re ready--,” Drawing open one of the retractable inputs, he switched the cables around, waiting for the green signal of the bulb to finally light up, “--to go.”

Key smiled at the fast work, gearing his comms to his ear and watching Baekhyun do the same. He waited for the static to disappear before testing. “This is Beacon Base, calling to RedEye, are we live?”

The comms broke in a second later, in the amusement park where Tao and Sooyoung were docking under the carousel with their newspaper cover up. “This is RedEye, calling in to Beacon Base, we’re live.”

They all knew not to use real names in transmissions like these. Even if the connection line is private, there could still be another party listening in to every broadcasting line. It’s a safety discretion that not enough people followed.

Baekhyun started pulling up their trackers on the screen where there was a layout of the park. “We hear you, loud and clear.”

Key got his hands to work, splitting the big screen into half with security live footages of the amusement park, hacking into it in a blink of an eye. “Cameras are live. Nice outfits, very chic and casual, I approve.”

They could see Tao hide his scoff under his grey thick fleece sweater and black & white striped pants, Sooyoung openly laughing with her maroon burgundy turtleneck and white jeans. It was nearing the end of November, the weather turning a harsh cold temperature.

“Yeah thanks, before we freeze to death, mind telling us where to go?” Sooyoung chattered underneath her clamped teeth, hugging herself.

Key rolled his eyes and started typing. “We’ll get you inside the aquarium and out the back for recon.”

Tao and Sooyoung walked out of the screen and into another in the camera feeds, making their way to the aquarium.

They watched Sooyoung buy entrance tickets for two while Tao looked directly into the camera. Baekhyun hacked a satellite feed surveilling the place, simultaneously talking Tao through the security measures.

“Uh, the closest access point I can get you through is the basement door next to the polar ice section.” Key typed a sequence code in, waiting for the next procedure. “All you need to do is attach the magnetic implant on to an online server so that I could access the security servers remotely.”

Tao nodded to a security camera, walking to the concierge with pamphlets stacked on his arm. “Hi, excuse me.” He greeted the lady on duty.

“Why, yes sir, how may I help you?” The lady smiled brightly at him.

Tao chuckled and tilted his face at an alluring angle. “It’s embarrassing but I’m rather lost on where all the toilets are.” He set the pamphlets on the edge of the desk.

The concierge lady laughed with him. “Sure, there’s one next to the sea-life section and another next to the touch-experience area, that’s the closest from here.”

The man smiled thankfully before knocking the pamphlets over to the concierge desk. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” He walked over to the inside of the desk, collecting the papers on the floor. “I’m such a clutz, this happens all the time.” The concierge lady bent down to help him, Tao taking this chance to accidentally bump his hands to hers.

He watched the lady blush as he kept hold of her hand, smiling shyly while his other hand reached into his pocket and placed the implant on the server computer under the desk. He apologized profusely to the attendant before swiftly making his exit to meet the amused eyebrows of his sister.

“Great, I have the connection!” Key burst through the comms, making quick use of the action and remotely accessing the security doors lock system as the switches on the left side of the circular panel they were in light up with a green shine. “We have complete access.”

“And I have a disturbing amount of pheromones in the air.” Sooyoung joked, following Baekhyun’s instruction to the nearest basement door.

Baekhyun flipped one of the switches on the panel, watching as the locked door become unlock for his siblings to enter. Following their movements through the security cameras, the middle sibling saw his sister turning her flashlight on, commenting, “Wow, for the number of inspections they have, this is a pretty badly maintained place.”

Tao looked at both directions of the basement pathways. “Is it just me or does this basement have way too many doors.” He went up to them, jiggled the doorknob. “All steel enforced and air-locked.”

“At least now we know we’re in the right place.” Sooyoung grumbled underneath her breath, checking the end of one of the pathways that led to a huge steel double door, complete with a hand scanner and a card ID reader. “Hey, Key, I got a massive door with excessive security down here, mind telling me what’s on the other side?”

Key tried to follow her movements but lost her in the camera. “I can’t see you. Where are you?” Looking to Baekhyun, the younger pulled up the construction layout.

“What do you mean? I’m right here.” She waved to security camera next to the pipeline.

Baekhyun frowned at his screen. “According to this, there’s no construction beyond that hallway you’re supposedly in.”

Sooyoung walked up to the camera, squinting her eyes to watch the small lens which remained steady even though she moved from place to place. “This camera’s a fake.”

“Adding that to the list of ‘weird and stupid decisions bad guys make’ unknown, we’ll come back to it later.” Key tracked a path to the enclosed space behind the aquarium, unlocking the doors by the switches next to him. “I’m leading you to our more pressing matter of the deal, I’ve got heat signatures on the fake construction site.”

Tao and Sooyoung broke out into a sprint, going door to door until they reached a door opening to the outside world. They sneaked behind a pile of crates conveniently placed next to the door, covered with a tarp from the steel construction structures circling the space.

“We have eyes on the trade.” Sooyoung whispered, knowing that their command centre couldn’t hear or see. “8 guys, maybe 9. Package is a huge crate box, no clue what’s inside. I can’t get a good visual, closing in to eavesdrop.”

Tao nodded at her sister, starting to climb the railings of the steel beams, Sooyoung staying on the ground in case anything went sideways. The younger kept scaling the structure until he got to the third level, where he got a pretty good aerial view and a clear pathway for him to listen in. He got his camera out and hunched down, taking snapshots of the trade. “I’ve got visual confirmation that Lee Soo Man is here. I repeat, Lee Soo Man is here.”

Setting his camera aside, he took out the audio recorder he had, pulling out the antenna that flipped to an umbrella for long distance bugging. In the distance he could hear the opposing trader say, “Here’s your next shipment. Now where’s mine?” Lee Soo Man replied, “In this briefcase, same as always.” The trader seemed to be alone on his side, the other 7 guys allying as backup for LSM, “I can’t keep doing this with the frequency that you keep needing them, it’s too risky.” The bodyguards on LSM’s side move forward only to be stopped by Soo Man himself, “That’s not my problem. I’ll call you if I need another one.”

The exchange ended there, each respective party about to go their separate ways. Lee Soo Man and the trader had left the premise, leaving the bodyguards behind to move the crate. Tao dusted himself off, placing his foot down to descend the tower, but--

CLANK!

“.” Tao gasped, watching one of the screws that held the structures together fell down to the ground.

“What was that?” The bodyguards left behind turned around, unholstering his gun, pointing it towards his direction. Coming closer.

Sooyoung tried to help him get down but made a mistake by revealing her position.

“There!” One of the men warned before firing, bringing about a rain of bullets to Tao and Sooyoung, who both were unarmed to pass the security of the amusement park.

Should have known it wasn’t going to be as easy as splat.

~~~

The comms were put on radio silence to not interfere with Tao’s intel gathering, so no one knew the situation back at the command centre, but they weren’t worried in the least bit.

Key kept grumbling into his coffee mug, a new one mind you, and Baekhyun’s just about had enough of it. “Will you please stop that, lovely cousin of mine, I am so close to throttling you.”

The older man simply made faces at his annoyance but leaned back onto his chair, contemplating. Baekhyun, the ever so sympathizing creature, folded. “Okay, what’s wrong?”

“I think we’ve made a mistake.” Key sighed, not bothering to look at Baekhyun’s confusion. “This mission is going to be useless regardless of the information we get out of it.” He ran his hand down his face. “I should have thought this through, this is why I didn’t want to use it now.”

“Uh, excuse me, what part is trading with one of the biggest mafia in the world, ‘useless’ information.” Baekhyun was taken aback by the statement, still taking time reeling the information in his head.

“Because you can’t prove that the Cosa Nostras are linked to SUN co., and then the case is baseless.” Key pieced the truths together, frustrated at the simple facts.

Key pointed a finger at the big screen where the trackers on their family was moving around, clicking his tongue. “Why was the meeting held there anyways? SUN Corporation only has that one base in Korea, while the rest mainly operate in America, it’s not exactly discreet.” He swivelled in his chair, head laid back and pondering. “I’m running a check the integral systems of the park, look at what makes this place so important.”

“Okay, hope our tac team is getting better action than us, because we’re definitely going to need it.”

~~~

The tactical team were getting more action, but just not the right type of action nor the good kind. If dodging bullets while climbing a highly unstable steel skeleton frame of the continuously undone construction site which happened to be a mafia black site counted as getting more action, then yes, Tao and Sooyoung would safely concur. Although not that safely either.

“Move!” Sooyoung shouted a warning while dodging a bullet by ducking and rolling behind another crate.

The younger sibling looked down from his climbing and saw a spray of bullets by a semi-automatic coming his way. He slotted himself onto the bridges of the skeleton frame, where he could actually walk, and ran. Three of the five men left behind followed him, two of them climbing with difficulty while the other was already hot on Tao’s trail, shooting at him. “Get back here!” He shouted.

Tao rolled his eyes, jumping between the bars to the connecting bridge to get some distance. The man missed his shot due to the nimble movements of his target. After Tao heard the bullet run out of the magazine, he held one of the bars sideways, swinging his legs and holding his body weight with his hands, so that he turned 180 degrees and slammed the guy in pursuit with his legs. The bodyguard fell on his back, unable to get up while Tao slammed him down for good with his fist.

Sooyoung dealt with the other two without much difficulty, going out of her hiding while one of them was reloading, taking the chance to steal the gun from him and knocking him out with a well delivered uppercut. She quickly slid over the crate, air kicking the other bodyguard aiming after her, and landed before swiftly roundhouse kicking his consciousness five ways to Sunday.

The older woman saw that her brother was fighting off two men while keeping his balance on the structure that was swaying dangerously. She ran to him.

Tao wanted to curse the two idiots, they were taking the bars of metal beam off of the skeleton structure, I mean, he gets they want to kill him, but this doesn’t have to be a suicide mission. He could feel with every bar they take, the structure was getting more loopy and falling.

He knocked every bar out of the way from their hands, trying to knock them off balance and onto the ground. But, he heard a big creaking sound and his view started tipping over.

“TAO!” His sister screamed, aiming her gun and shooting one of the bodyguards down. “Get out of there!”

He did exactly as she told, holding on of the supporting beams and sliding down with it. He stopped at the lowest bridge, running for another access to slide down with before the bridge he was on collapsed. “!” He slipped, the bridge tipping down, making him body slide his way down into a mass of steel beams. The younger jumped last minute, away from danger, and rolled before running to his sister.

The steel structure collapsed after they were at a safe distance, a gust of sand and debris engulfed the area. The two siblings heaved the crate with them, dragging it half-blind searching for the door. Tao and Sooyoung went back into the building with fits of heavy coughing. When the younger finally caught a fresh breath, he straightened his back and his comms.

“Well, that definitely went well.”

With the amount of eye rolls that Sooyoung did, it was a wonder how she still had perfect eyesight.

~~~

“So, basically, we’ve got nothing.” Key summarized. “Are you sure they weren’t trading with the mafia?”

Sooyoung paced in the dark and dirty basement hallway, her words laced deep with sarcasm and spite. “Yes. He was alone and shaking timidly like a chihuahua, he had less of a menacing presence than a ing turtle--doesn’t really scream mafia gang-lord to me. But hey, I might be wrong, after all you’re doubting me, oh great mafia-seonsaengnim.”

Key enlarged his eyes in question to Baekhyun, whom which just shook his head exasperated with his sister’s behaviour.

Meanwhile, Tao busied himself with trying to open the crate. “Don’t bother guys, some untrained suicidal goons from SM’s side were all up on our business, so the results are quite unfavourably pissing at this point.”

“Please tell me you have something else, because if all this was for nothing, I am going to throttle the next living thing I see, doesn’t matter if it be an innocent squabbling penguin or a run of the mill serial killer.” Sooyoung huffed, checking all the doors in the hallway--which were all closed--on her way back.

“Nothing yet, I mean, we’re trying to run checks on why the trade was done on this property--which is not a million dollar question, seeing that they didn’t trade with the owner.” Baekhyun answered, wary of his sister’s reaction. “Results should be coming up at my monitor in just a minute.”

Tao just about gave up. Standing from his crouched position, kicking at the crate, he went back to the scene of destruction and started pulling the bodies back inside. They were all dead, to be expected. Sooyoung took one look at them then back at the mysterious double-doors that she was staring at. “Wait a minute.” She sped walked down the hallway to access the door, hands trailing down the hand scanner without touching it, then back to looking at the bodies. “Tao bring one of them here.”

“Uhh, which one?” He mused.

“This is a secret facility, so it must be the biggest honcho of their branch.” Sooyoung thought out loud, met with a ‘really?’ expression. “Just the one that looks to be most important!”

Tao shook his head, giving in to his sister’s whims, but went for the guy who had a big earpiece in his ears and a fairly nice suit. He dragged the man by his legs, grumbling while he reached his sister down the long hall-way. “You really think he has access through those doors.”

“Fingers-crossed.” She hoped as she searched his suit for an ID card, running her hands into pockets.

Tao stayed back, watching her, when the comms came back online. “Hey, we’re trying to open the secret undocumented and unfilmed door, you find anything?

“The data’s streaming in, we need to check it for a moment.” Key mumbled, eyes focused on the data he was receiving.

“A-ha! John Smith. Hope you’re much more important than your name sounds.” Sooyoung ran the card through the card reader, letting a brief squeal when the light turned green. “Atta boy, Johnny.”

“Huh, this is odd. Hey, Baek, are you seeing this?” Key shouted over the panel to Baekhyun who was hunched over his own screen.

“Yeah, what am I seeing? Does an amusement park usually have highly protected security firewalls?” Baekhyun worked his way through the constant algorithm that he was battling. “It’s good, but we’re better.”

Tao smirked at their intelligence, helping his sister drag the body so they could place his fingers on the hand scanner. The door let out a sound before the metal bolts inside the door unlocked.

“We’ve got the doors on our end.” He slipped through the door, carrying the burly unconscious man with him in case they encounter more hand scanners. “Leads to a very clean and modern hallway, too nice to be underground, no cameras but there’s a white door to our direct right, so we’re checking that out. ”

The other side didn’t reply to them and were instead stuck in their own work. “I’m over the firewalls.” Key nodded to Baekhyun who was similar in his progress. “Files are coming in, but--”

Sooyoung opened the door with the card, no scanner, and found herself and her brother in a small white room with a drain and water hose and another steel reinforced door, without a lock. The older sibling reached forward and touched turning handle, cold and biting at the touch. She frowned.

“Oh my god.” Baekhyun whispered, a clattering noise sounded from the comms. “Key-hyung, is this--”

Key gaped at the new intel, the realization of what it means. “Holy . It is.”

“What?” Tao hissed when he touched the door along with his sister, the wheel shaped handle under their hands, turning it.

“Th-the data. It’s huge.” Key breathless in his smile, raking over the sheer amount and what it implies. “This reads a pick-up of multiple gigabytes of data streaming through the server banks on that exact location.”

“So?” Sooyoung struggled under the coldness of the steel, finally heaving when they got the door open, only for it to let out a cold angry steam of white clouds at the seams of the door.

“So,” Baekhyun laughed, out of his seat and looking at the trackers. “It means that we were wrong. You’re not in their blacksite.”

Tao and Sooyoung braced themselves for the cold as they stepped inside what looked to be as a giant walk-in freezer. The mist from the cold air fogging the view, they waited for the air to clear out to the now open space. And when it did, their mouths dropped in a loud audible gasp.

“Yeah you’re damn right to be shocked.” Key chuckled along with Baekhyun, beaming to his cousin.

Sooyoung looked ghastly pale, taking in the inventory of the freezer--hung with large meat hooks to the ceiling as if like a clothes rack in display. She spared a look of fear to her brother, unsure to be worried or relieved that he was sporting the exact same expression.

“Now we have all the information we could, it’s all there. The proof, everything. We found it!” Key almost squealed in rapid succession, unable to keep his excitement under wraps, mistaking the gasps and trembling breath of his cousins to be of joy.

Now, Tao understood the weight of the words that their oldest surviving family member said to him. How they should hope for forgiveness in the war they were about to partake in. He was deadly sure that they would extract their revenge, no doubt there. But the price of that, the humanity in their doings and what they’re about to do, Tao wasn’t so sure anymore.

Only now, he was sure this went way beyond what any of them had expected.  
Baekhyun cheered, uncharacteristically happy in the otherwise horrendous mood in the freezer. “You’re in their main server hub!”

On the hooks, pierced through, were bodies. Dead bodies frosted over in the tens, twenties and maybe thirties. Mangled and dismembered, all different shades of colours and contusions. Bodies stripped down to their underwear, strung up like livestocks in a freezer. Horrifying, unspeakable and disgusting to humanity in every sense of the word.

Sooyoung drew a shaky breath, unable to form words except for, “Oh my god.”

I'm sorrryyy! This is a very late christmas gift! But yeah, this chapter took longer than expected, this is the semifinale of the first season guys! We're here! After the next chapter, I'm going to be taking a break to work on the next season and at the same time revising the first few chapters to make it more plot-aligned and interesting, so yeah that will change (So excited for the next season, it has my favourite action scenes and developments). Next update will be the crazy ending of the first season and a very dramatic revelation and action and everything!!! The title says all~ Anywaayysss, the longest chapter we have so far! 6300 words. , im sorry for the crazy amount but hope you like it :) Next chapter will be with you at around new years so :) Please comment on what you think about. Thanks for reading and merry christmas!!!!