They have to move quickly. Deliberately Taewoon gives his brother little time to think over the commitment he's just made, butting in as soon as he speaks to start outlining the plan. It won't be long before Jiho's absence - and the absence of ten members of wait staff - is noticed, and then the red alert will go off and the city will be swarming with guards. "We're safe down here," he says, "the sensor system doesn't work at the deepest levels - they never bother tagging the invisibles. But as soon as we start moving out, the slightest bit of attention will bring them after us."

"Will they think to look through the chutes?" Jungwoo says. Taewoon shifts uneasily, shrugging.

"I'm not sure. I've never been caught in there before, but they must realise by now that we've got a secret way of getting around the city. It'd only take a bit of clever thinking to figure it out. Still," he tries to brighten his tone as the others shift their gaze towards the chute they came from, as if expecting a hundred armoured guards to stream out of it instantly, "there's miles of chute, and only a few of us. Sound carries, the guards are covered in metal. We'd hear them coming."

"What worries me," Sungjong says slowly, and it doesn't escape Kyung's notice how his eyes are flickering towards Sungmin as he speaks, "is whether we're really going to be able to start riots as easily as you think. I mean, no offence but you never lived in the lower levels."

"You're expecting too much from them," Minhyuk says bluntly. "A lot of people don't know any other way of life. They're looking to be promoted, they've been told that's the only way."

"I don't know if we can persuade them to take action out of the blue like this," Taeil agrees. Among themselves the rest of the staff begin to murmur, casting sceptical looks at the two brothers, and Kyung knows exactly what they're thinking: what gave these boys the right to dictate their actions like this? How could Taewoon presume to know the way in which they had lived their lives - the fear and oppression, the deadening repetition, the constant understanding that despite what they were told, this really was as good as it could get for them. He didn't understand the task ahead of them, of converting in such a short space of time a mass of people who had only ever known inferiority, who had been raised since birth to expect nothing more.

Despite the mutters of dissension, Taewoon doesn't lose his composure. He raises one hand for quiet, smiles with his head on one side like he's amused by their lack of faith. "I can't believe I'm hearing this from ten guys who did nothing in their dorms but complain about the conditions. It's pretty fantastic though - quite the coincidence that your teams came together, the only people in the whole of the lower levels who really understood how bad things were. It's amazing none of you were arrested sooner, if that's really the case."

His clanging sarcasm doesn't go over well; Kyung sees a couple of the boys lowering their eyebrows, Minhyuk's face assuming that flat glare which is still familiar despite the changes. Jaehyo goes a little pink in the cheeks, protesting, "That's not what we're saying - it's just that they don't know us, or you, and they don't know if they can trust us."

"They don't need to trust you," Taewoon says. He holds up his wrist, displays the red mark splashed across the inside. "With this, we can show them what we mean. I'm not asking you all to go in there and start preaching - there aren't enough of you. All you need to do is use the operative moment to spark the flames. You've heard of mass hysteria, surely? It only takes one person to make a crowd into a mob. You'll be that one person, in various places."

"So what will the operative moment be?" Jongkook asks, looking excited in spite of himself.

The outlaw smiles wider, raises his eyes briefly to the ceiling, and they all look up as if expecting to find the answer hanging over them. "When the scrutiny switches from the top to the bottom."

Kyung's still not really sure if he's convinced. The climb to the very top of the city is a long one and gives him plenty of opportunity to think things over. The immediate worry is that there will be guards in the lower level, and it would be all too easy to pick out the one dissenter - but he has enough faith in his friends' intelligence and ability to go unnoticed; they've been doing it long enough after all. 

What he's really concerned about is whether Sungjong's objection will hold water: whether the other people of the lower levels are truly cowed to the point that, if shown what they've been missing out on, they would applaud the nobility for their high standards and think it all right and proper that they should be slaving to support them. Whether, in the end, they would rather turn on the dissenter and tear him to shreds than have their own understanding of the hierarchy disrupted. Whether they've really been living like this for so long that they don't believe they deserve any better.

In the end, the group had been almost equally split between those who thought things coudn't possibly change, and those who understood Taewoon's comment about the unlikelihood that they were the only ones to ever notice a problem. Those who disagreed maintained they had never understood the true disparity until they awoke in those glorious surroundings; until then they had not known that they were being robbed, had only thought that society had an order and they happened to be at the bottom of it. They complained about the conditions, but they never believed they could change them. 

Kyung can understand this; he's not sure that, days ago before everything turned so rapidly on its head, he really would have believed himself capable of this kind of rebellion. He had dreamed of discovering the truth behind their situation, but he had never thought it could be toppled, not really. He was just one person, after all. The city is vast; the reach of its control, seemingly limitless.

Then again, to think of them accepting such powerlessness is vaguely sickening, and he could see in some of them - the older ones, mostly, the ones close enough to the end of their natural youth that the question of what happens next had weighed on their minds for some time - a shift from scepticism to abashment as they realised what they were denying themselves: agency in their own lives. They had a choice, just like he did, and to choose not to do anything - to choose to make themselves powerless and refuse the agency that was offered - that was what really meant they deserved nothing more than filth and toil. If they weren't willing to fight against it, then they couldn't complain about it.

"It's not fair," Sungmin had said, close to tears and utterly ignoring everything Sejoon was attempting to show him about the little laser pistols they would each carry, just in case. "I don't want to shoot anyone - I don't want to start riots - I never asked for any of this, it's not fair." 

He had a point, Kyung couldn't help but think, and he knew by the way the red-rimmed eyes flickered up at Sejoon that Sungmin was only inches away from throwing accusations at his former cook. It had, after all, been his indiscretion that had placed the day shift under scrutiny. Sungmin is young - younger even than Jihoon - and he has real stars in his eyes, or he had before all of this happened. Kyung remembers the way he would line up behind his friends every morning and no matter how grouchy and exhausted the rest of them were, he kept himself bright, urging them on and trying to raise their spirits. He'd been truly invested in the ideal of their level; he was determined that he would be chosen. 

There is a grim sort of irony in the fact that he'd got his wish, after all, but at such a price. It's the kind of dark humour which Minhyuk, standing nearby with a few others going over a map of part of level three, doesn't fail to pick up on.

"It's not fair, you're right," he said bluntly, and Sungmin looked up, his face quavering. "But you said you wanted to be moved up to level five. You thought you deserved that, right?"

"Yes," the younger said defensively, following immediately with, "but not like this, not like a - a criminal!"

"If you really want something - if you really believe you deserve it, you should be willing to fight for it. Otherwise you're no better than the ignorant self-serving bastards who sit at the very top. You're not entitled to anything any more than they are. Got it?"

Sungmin had shut up then, lips pressed together furiously but clearly too close to crying to say anything else. Despite the bite in Minhyuk's voice he was completely right. Kyung could see that the older boy looked at him with more than a hint of new-found respect, now he'd had a chance to relay everything he'd done since his arrest. He wasn't the only one either; Yukwon had sidled up to him, announced himself only by the tentative brush of fingers over his newly-defined jawline, and when he turned it was to be met with awe.

"I can't get over it," he'd said, covering up his awkwardness with a little laugh. "I mean everyone else looks great but you - this is something else."

"They had quite a bit more to fix," he said wryly, but he appreciated the words anyway. It's unsurprising how little about Yukwon has changed; he was always beautiful anyway, smooth skinned and delicately featured with that natural upward sweep to his eyes and lips. The newly white-blonde sleek hair just accentuates that bone structure, and they've done something to his skin too, making it utterly flawless, near translucent in its fineness. But apart from that he's still Yukwon, and his eyebrows still have the familiar sceptical slant, his mouth still twists to one side when he's not sure what to say.

It did it then, while he was still looking over Kyung's altered face, and then he'd darted his eyes across the room to where Jiho is still huddled up against the wall. "I can't believe what you did," he said.

"It was Tae - Jiseok's idea, really."

Yukwon shook his head. "How did you even know he would recognise you?"

"I didn't," he said, and Yukwon blanched. "I had to try," he explained, "it was the only way to get you guys out of there." And he has a hunch that this is the only reason that Yukwon then agreed, so easily and quietly, to the plan Taewoon laid out to them.

Sungjong had remained unconvinced - he had only ever wanted a quiet life, and agreed to go back among the crowds only when Yuwhan said he would go along with him. Jungkook had been ready to barrel out of there as soon as Taewoon gave the word, hanging onto Sejoon's arm with a barely repressed look of near genocidal glee. It was funny how, after the monotonous life they had lead and the few days of total erasure, their own characters in truth lay buried just below the surface, and it took just a few hours of total freedom and a little tension to bring them to the fore. Kyung had seen more laughing, bickering, frowning in the last half a day than he thought he ever had in their time in the slums. And if their plan failed, if they lost and were obliterated and the world carried on the way it was, how many personalities would be lost to that suffocating fog of regulation and dreary toil? How much difference, how much variety, how many ideas and dreams were being smothered over?

One thing was certain, and that was that no one could stand idly by and watch their friends take action. Once half of them were decided, the other half agreed, however reluctantly. One by one - or in pairs, Yuwhan tugging a still reluctant Sungjong after him while he muttered about having a bad feeling about this; Sejoon escorting Sungmin in case he took fright - they disappeared into the chute to spread themselves out among the lower levels, strategically distributed like mines spread across a battlefield: none close enough to spark another, but enough that the fires they started individually would swiftly meet at the centre. "We don't want them to be able to trace this back to any one district," Taewoon said.

Kyung had held back until the last minute, knowing that Taewoon would have been watching his brother the entire time, and seeing the slow discomfort begin to settle on his features as he understood just how little control they would have once they had fanned the flames into an inferno. Sure enough, a large hand comes down on his shoulder just before he follows Taeil into the chute, and he turns to see the large figure behind him, reluctantly grim.

"I want you to come with us," Taewoon said, voice lowered so that Jiho wouldn't hear - he was a few feet away, head down, picking absently at the mark on his wrist. "I don't know - he might back out at the last minute, and he's the one with the control here, really." It had become obvious to Kyung in the past few hours that Taewoon did not trust his brother - and Jiho was, perhaps understandably, angry at having been left behind to be controlled. Much as he disliked being forced to mediate, he knew Jiho would more readily listen to him than he would to his sibling - and Kyung could tell him the truth about the lower levels, could make him understand quite viscerally what he was condemning thousands of people to if he failed to act. Taewoon's control over the central data hub had been dissolved the day he ran away; once they were up there, they were completely reliant on Jiho to do what needed to be done.

Kyung hadn't said anything, just nodded quietly and slipped out from behind Taewoon to stand by the younger brother's side, waking him out of his daze with a firm hand at his wrist. "You okay?"

Jiho's face was terrified, fierce and furious. It almost made Kyung retreat but he held his grip and shook the other boy gently. "It's gonna be alright, I promise."

"If it's not?" Jiho said. "If something goes wrong - if they hurt - " His eyes flashed to the looming figure behind them and the anger grew in his expression - a protective sort of anger which Kyung couldn't pin to any one person. "He doesn't understand," he said more quietly. "He's been gone ten years, he doesn't understand."

Kyung didn't understand either but he'd pretended he did, up and down Jiho's arm soothingly and murmured, "I know, I know, but you have to be brave," all the while wondering who he was so keen to protect.

They crawl for what seems like hours before they finally stop at an intersection; the faint sound of chamber music drifting down the chute brings a shiver of recognition to Kyung's spine and he knows they must be at the very top, near the living quarters of the highest level. Taewoon crunches himself up and twists around enough to look back at the two of them: Kyung, breathing hard and gritting his teeth, and Jiho behind him, trembling so hard he can feel the vibration of the metal under his hands.

"Right," he says in an urgent whisper. "We're near the very centre of the city, where the controller has his rooms." Kyung notes that he doesn't say 'father', and he's glad for it; it could only have unsettled Jiho still further. "Remember, there'll be guards all over the place so as soon as you get out of the chute, get to your feet and get your guns ready. Shoot first, don't think about it. We'll only have a minute at most to switch the cameras over, and then we have to get back in here and go - as fast as you can. Jiho?"

Jiho nods, finds Kyung's hand in the darkness and grips it painfully tight.

"You're sure you know what to do?"

"I've seen the control room before," he says. "All I have to do is get access to the data banks and you can do the rest."

His brother nods sharply, and they move on a few more metres until they come up against the smooth opening of the chute. As a thin chink of light appears around the edges, as it makes a soft grating sound and slides open, Kyung tenses himself up, grips the unfamiliar handle of his weapon, and gathers everything inside himself up. This is the moment, he thinks. This is the moment his dream comes true.

There's a soft thud as Taewoon lands, and Kyung finds himself stumbling straight into his broad back when he exits behind him, Jiho in turn staggering into his shoulder and freezing up almost instantly. Trapped between the taller boys Kyung grows a little frantic, unable to see the inside of the room.

Despite his instructions Taewoon hesitates - only for a second, but he hesitates - before firing two sharp shots. Two bodies hit the floor with a dull slap.

"Well well," someone says. "Jiseok, you've become a killer." The voice is harsh, grating, refined and deadly, a blade that, although rusted, still cuts with perfect accuracy, and Kyung's insides turn to ice. Only then does Taewoon step forward, and he sees the shimmering expanse of ceiling; the wide semi-circle of the desk knotted with screens and keys; behind it, the man whose features are bold and startlingly handsome but so inhuman - so utterly inhuman.

"Like father like son," Taewoon snarls, and steps further out into the room, enough to let the two boys beside him spread out.

"I have never killed anyone," the controller says, and his eyes flick with that penetrating, ruthless focus, between the faces of his two sons.

"Maybe not directly," Taewoon spits right back. "I guess that makes me the braver man."

His father inclines his head, very slowly, not taking his eyes off them. "Everything you've done has been very brave," he concedes, "if ridiculously foolish. But are you brave enough to commit patricide?"

At Kyung's side Jiho sinks a little like his knees are giving way, and his father turns a satisfied, carnivorous smile on him. "Jiho, are you really willing to throw everything away for the sake of these dissidents? I thought I had adequately warned you against the dangers of sentimentality when I showed you what became of your young friend. The one you whined so much about."

For a moment Kyung is baffled, thinks about how he hadn't seen Jiho in ten years until just a day ago - but he sees the way Jiho's face turns first sickly white and then pink with anger and it dawns on him with an ugly shock. "What you did to Jihoon," Jiho croaks out, "all that did was warn me never to become like you."

For a moment irritation crosses the set features, and then the controller waves a hand, dismissing the show of emotion that he obviously finds so repulsive and pointless. "Everyone has their place. It is necessary that they adhere to theirs, that we might properly occupy ours. A city needs a leader."

"A true leader shares in the lot of his people," Taewoon says sharply, and his father sneers.

"Your mother and her glorious ideals. I should never have let her interfere with your education." At this both brothers tense, hands balling into fists.

Between the three family members, Kyung feels utterly forgotten, but it gives his brain some time to work and for that he's thankful. He can see, on the control desk, the screens which undoubtedly control the cameras; even at a distance small figures are visible flickering on them, fading in and out as the display cycles through circuit after circuit, level after level.

"If she had taken control, things would never have ended up this way."

"If she had taken control, there would be chaos. Some people," and this time Kyung feels the full force of that stare, quails as savage eyes rip him apart with a single look. "Some people will never be suited for anything more than mediocrity. Whatever false disguises they take on."

Taewoon steps ahead of him, his shoulder blocking Kyung from view, so that the controller is likewise hidden by his furiously tensed arm. "Stop stalling. We're going to take things down, whatever you say. And whatever you think," and he raises his gun arm, points it steadily across the desk, and the room becomes so quiet that their breathing is audible, "I will happily kill you if I need to. It's not patricide. I don't have a father. Only a controller."

There's a deep and ugly laugh, and Kyung hears a dull click. For a moment he thinks Taewoon must have fired and he's so shocked by it that he hasn't seen the smoke or heard the impact. 

Then he becomes aware that the room is glowing, softly around the edges like the sun above is smiling down just on them, in this single suspended moment, and a golden warmth sweeps up his body, bathing him.

It's simple, now Taewoon is standing limply with his gun at his side, to slip past him and walk towards the desk. His tread is firm and steady, and his heart is singing - the controller is beckoning him with a tender expression, like he's his own son, and his bold stern face is all he can see: all-consuming, all-powerful, all-knowing. He has been chosen; he is blessed.

And behind him the boy with the soft blonde hair gasps, mumbles something, and the other one makes a loud noise, but whatever he's saying it doesn't matter: they are both so beautiful and the room is arranged like a picture, like an exquisite painting of the most essential moment in someone's life. He steps behind the desk and turns to face them, smiling, perfectly at ease. The hand that clasps his shoulder floods his veins with strength and self-assurance. He is coherent and he fits and whatever happens, everything is going to be perfect. It could not be otherwise.

"Now," the voice rings out - that loving voice which holds them all so securely, shows them what is right and wrong. "Is your choice so simple?" He doesn't understand why the taller boy looks so furious - how can he be angry when this is only the way everything is supposed to be? It was inevitable that they should end up like this, and he is blessed to be a small part of it. "What did they have planned, son?" The voice addresses him this time - addresses him directly, how could he have ever deserved such a gift? "What were they going to do? You can tell me; they're dissidents, they can't be trusted."

"Kyung," the blonde boy sobs out. It's a nice word but it doesn't mean anything to him. He turns his face up to the one bending over him, meets the deeply pooled eyes with perfect love and perfect trust.

"There are rebels spread throughout the levels," he says, and his heart almost bursts with joy when he receives a beneficent smile. "They planned to switch the cameras so everyone in the lower levels can see the glory of the top. They planned to instigate rioting. They intend to upset the natural order of our city."

The taller boy storms forward, stops with a hand on his arm, but he doesn't spare them a glance; his gaze is entirely taken up with this benevolent and awesome figure who holds him so tightly, and he knows he's keeping him safe, protecting him like he protects all those below him, and he wants to kiss the knuckles of the hand that clasps him. All of this beauty is of this man's creation, held under his watchful gaze, and tears of adoration spring to his eyes.

The other hand - broad, steady - stretches towards the control desk, towards the screen where thousands of people are playing out their lives and in the ceaseless flicker of images he sees ghosts, here and there, of things which might be familiar, but it doesn't matter because he is high above them now and soon, he knows, his feet will leave the floor. The light floods the room, continues to suffuse his body until his skin heats up, his bones feel like they're quite easily disintegrating and he begins to grow loose, joints sliding against one another until the hand around his shoulders is the only thing supporting him.

"Stop," someone screams; the word is garbled and too frantic for the celestial air he breathes. It's the last thing he hears properly, juddering through him and knocking his legs from under him so he sinks to the floor, suffocating on this divine, rare, beautiful light.

He surfaces, gasping for air, with Jiho's hands on his shoulders, shaking desperately. It's just like that first time but twice as frantic. When his vision rights itself and he meets his eyes clearly, Jiho sits back on his heels and sobs with relief.

"Oh thank you," he says to no one in particular, "thank you, thank you."

Kyung's brain is buzzing and everything aches. It takes a moment for him to sit up, dizzy from the lack of oxygen. Only then does he see the body sprawled on the floor and the pool of blood that just touches his feet. He looks to Jiho; Jiho stares back.

"You - you didn't," he says hoarsely. Like he's not even aware of the still-smoking gun in his hand, Jiho twitches his shoulders up.

"I had to," he says, "he was going to kill you."

"Less talk, more speed," Taewoon snaps from above them, and Jiho staggers to his feet somehow, dropping the gun and gripping the side of the desk for support. With him out of the way Kyung can see the face, twisted in a rictus of fury in the moment of death, and can't comprehend how he ever found it anything but frightful. He shivers and looks away, scrambling to his feet next to the two brothers, whose heads are bent low over the control desk. "Change the inputs over," Taewoon mutters, "Then we should get the hell out of here."

Jiho grabs his elbow with a look of amazement and - to Kyung's absolute astonishment - he laughs, laughs right in Taewoon's grim and increasingly annoyed face. "Idiot," he says, "You think they'll come and arrest the person who shot the controller?" And he flashes his wrist at them, and the big red W is brighter than ever, the skin raised and almost visibly pulsing. "I am the controller now."

With their plan now neutralised there's not a lot else to do. They sit; they wait; the body behind them doesn't move and the blood seeps across the floor until it begins to congeal. Kyung tries hard not to look at it, watching instead the two brothers and their glowing faces as they discuss how they're going to restructure the city now they're in control. The guards arrive only a minute later, stumble in and halt in total confusion as their control patches go haywire; Jiho settles them all easily with a show of his wrist and a display of the body behind them.

They assume the wrong thing, of course, and round on Taewoon immediately - the only person without a patch of his own, and his royal insignia long since disabled - but a single ferocious sound from Jiho stops them as they're pulling his hands behind his back. "The former controller became corrupted," he says without hesitance. "He had to be brought down for the good of the city. My brother and I will be taking charge as of today, and you will direct your loyalty towards us." Kyung gets the feeling that Taewoon rather enjoys turning a haughty look on the guards hastily shuffling away from him. "I understand there is unrest in the lower levels," Jiho continues. "The ringleaders are escapees from level five - you should have their details in your data banks. Bring them here - unharmed, is that clear? Do not use force. Anyone found employing force will be dismissed from their post immediately."

Despite her confusion the leader of the guards clearly knows her job well, salutes Jiho smartly - and Taewoon as well, after a moment's pause - and leads her group from the room. "That should occupy them a while," Jiho says. "I hope the guys down there haven't made things too bad already."

"I guess this is a lot easier than starting a riot," Taewoon says, although the way he's chewing on his thumbnail suggests that he's still not entirely happy with how things have turned out. He has a lot more experience with the guards' violence than Jiho, after all; Kyung can't help but be worried for their friends in the lower levels. "We were stupid not to think that he'd be waiting for us here."

"The plan would still have been of use, if he hadn't - " Jiho starts out consolingly, and then his attention switches to Kyung, still huddled up and small in his chair, faintly nauseous from his brush with oblivion. "I didn't come in here prepared to kill anyone," he starts again, covering up the quaver in his voice manfully. "I didn't want it to turn out like that."

"My fault," Taewoon says, and then they're both looking at Kyung, and unwillingly he raises his eyes to meet theirs. They're both nervous but Taewoon looks nearly distraught, miserable and apologetic in a way Kyung didn't think his jovial, blunt face was even capable of expressing. "I'm so sorry Kyung. I brought you in here with that patch on - I totally forgot, I didn't even think he'd be able to switch it on."

Seeing that distress on his face just makes Kyung uncomfortable. He shifts in his chair, shrugs uneasily. "I dunno, it's kind of my fault too. When I got rid of everyone else's I didn't even think about mine."

"Let me return a favour, then," Jiho says, and holds his hand out for the little tool which Kyung still carries with him. It doesn't hurt when the pins slide out, but he understands why Jiho had to lie down for a little while, and he does the same - well away from the sticky puddle of blood.