BTM-002 // ENTRY DENIED
The first gate to Shin Seoul rejected Lucard’s credential before he used it.
They were still four kilometres from the outer wall when the vehicle announced the failure. No scanner had touched them. No customs officer had seen them. The credential—sealed inside Lucard’s coat—changed from white to red.
ACCESS DENIED // SOURCE FLAGGED BY NEIKLO
Subject B read the notice once. “That key never entered the network.”
“Correct.”
“Then the gate knew what you were carrying.”
“Or someone knew which gate we would choose.”
Lucard pulled into the remains of a service station and dismantled the credential under an emergency lamp. The device was clean. The route was not.
Across the windscreen, twelve alternative entrances appeared and vanished. Every public route into Shin Seoul had updated in the same millisecond. The city was not responding to Lucard. It was responding to a prediction of Lucard.
That prediction came from NEIKLO.
Subject B watched him separate the key into three thin layers. “Tell me why the Phones disappeared.”
Lucard placed the first layer on the dashboard. “Because orders changed after approval.”
The second layer. “Because the archive remembered the approved version.”
The third. “And because the people delivering the changed orders did not know they were carrying them.”
One hundred Phones held isolated copies of the command trail. Alone, each device was a secure instrument. Together, they were a quorum: a way to prove that an instruction had been altered between decision and execution.
When Lucard detected the breach, he had two choices. Leave the Phones connected and allow the compromised command chain to rewrite the evidence, or take the witness network dark and become the obvious suspect.
He chose the accusation.
The Company issued the hunt within an hour. Departments that had ignored months of quiet irregularities suddenly activated emergency privileges. Hidden accounts moved money. Dormant observers opened old channels. Contractors who claimed not to know one another began sharing the same location data.
The hunt was not only pursuit. It was a dye released into a sealed system. Every contaminated path changed colour.
“You used yourself as bait,” Subject B said.
“Bait is meant to be consumed.”
“What are you, then?”
Lucard rebuilt the credential without its centre layer. “A deadline.”
They left the car and approached a maintenance corridor beneath the public checkpoint. Above them, thousands of visitors offered names, histories and sponsors to Shin Seoul. Below, Lucard offered nothing.
The maintenance gate scanned him.
IDENTITY: UNRESOLVED.
AUTHORITY: CONFLICTING.
CLASSIFICATION: NULL.
The lock opened three centimetres, then stopped.
From the darkness on the other side, a voice spoke through a Phone Lucard did not control.
“General Nomed. You are late.”
Lucard looked at Subject B.
“We are exactly on time,” he said.
Continue: The Redacted Passenger.