SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: You are reading [Threshold Walker: The Silver Circuit]
Jin slumped against the backseat of Tae-Woo's car, exhaustion washing over him in waves. The adrenaline of their escape from Dr. Seo's office was fading, leaving only bone-deep fatigue in its wake. He pressed a tissue to his nose, which had finally stopped bleeding, and stared absently at the case containing his father's research.
"You should rest," Jin-Ah said, studying him with concern. "Your threshold signature is flickering. That's never a good sign."
"Can't rest yet," Jin muttered. "Need to understand what we found."
Dr. Ha, seated in the front passenger seat, turned to face them. Rain still pattered against the windows as Tae-Woo navigated through Seoul's late-night traffic, taking an intentionally circuitous route to avoid potential Division pursuers.
"Your sister is right," Dr. Ha said. "Threshold ability evolution causes significant physical strain. The Line Manipulation you demonstrated during our escape was at least two tiers above your previous capabilities."
Jin shook his head, wincing at the renewed pounding in his temples. "Dad is alive, Ha Ji-Ah. Alive. In some place called the Between-Space. I can't just sleep on that."
"Yet you can barely keep your eyes open," Dr. Ha countered, her tone softening. "We need you functional, Jin. Especially now that we know the stakes."
Jin wanted to argue, but the silver lines across his vision were blurring, doubling, then resolving before blurring again. His body was demanding respite whether he liked it or not.
"We'll be at the safe house in twenty minutes," Tae-Woo said from the driver's seat, his eyes constantly checking the mirrors. "I've sent the all-clear signal. The Network will have food, medical supplies, and a secure room for analyzing the research case."
Jin nodded absently, his gaze drawn to the raindrops sliding down the window. For a moment, they seemed to move in unnatural patterns, forming geometric shapes similar to those he'd seen in the Origin Point.
"Jin?" Jin-Ah touched his arm. "Are you seeing something?"
"Not sure," he said slowly. "The rain... it's—"
Jin's words died as he realized what he was seeing. The raindrops weren't moving randomly; they were being manipulated by something outside the car—something following them through the storm.
In the side mirror, a flickering humanoid figure of silver-blue light moved in perfect pace with their vehicle, staying just beyond normal perception.
"Stop the car," Jin said suddenly, sitting upright.
"What?" Tae-Woo glanced at him in the rearview mirror. "We can't stop now. Division might be—"
"Stop the car," Jin repeated, his voice tight with urgency. "Something followed us from the Origin Point."
Dr. Ha turned sharply, peering through the rain-streaked windows. "What are you seeing?"
"An entity. But it's... different from the others."
Tae-Woo muttered a curse but pulled the car into an empty parking lot beside a closed convenience store. He kept the engine running, ready for a quick departure.
"Jin, be careful," Jin-Ah warned as her brother reached for the door handle. "What if it's one of those Evolved?"
"It's not," Jin said with certainty. "It's an echo, like Dad was. But more stable somehow."
Before anyone could stop him, Jin opened the car door and stepped into the rain. Immediately, the silver lines in his vision intensified, highlighting the figure now standing motionless ten meters away.
In the harsh glow of a street lamp, Jin could see it clearly—a man in his fifties, wearing what appeared to be an old-style research uniform. Unlike the shadowy entities Jin had encountered before, this one had definite features—thinning hair, wire-rimmed glasses, a thoughtful expression. Its form was comprised entirely of shifting silver-blue threshold energy, occasional ripples of static disrupting its outline.
Dr. Ha exited the car, hand moving to the taser concealed in her jacket. "Jin, get back in the car. Now."
"He's not hostile," Jin said, taking a step toward the entity. "He's been following us since the Origin Point. He wants to communicate."
The figure lifted a hand in greeting, its movement causing ripples in the rain around it. When it spoke, the voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, resonating in Jin's mind rather than his ears:
"Jin Hyeon. Son of Dr. Seo. I've been waiting for you to notice me."
"Who are you?" Jin asked, aware of Dr. Ha and Tae-Woo flanking him protectively. Jin-Ah remained in the car, but he could feel her anxious gaze on his back.
"Dr. Kang Min-ho. Your father's research partner during the early threshold experiments. I've been... preserved... since the First Breach."
Jin's breath caught. "You knew my father?"
The entity's form flickered, momentarily destabilizing before resolving again. "Knew him. Worked with him. Warned him."
Dr. Ha stepped forward, her scientific curiosity overtaking caution. "You're a threshold echo. Far more stable than any I've documented. How are you maintaining coherence outside a convergence point?"
"The Origin activation. Jin's genetic key. Circuit energy." The entity gestured to itself. "Temporary stability. Limited time."
"We need to get off the street," Tae-Woo said urgently, scanning the area. "Jin, if this... echo... is really Dr. Kang, ask if it can continue this conversation somewhere less exposed."
Jin relayed the question, and Dr. Kang's echo nodded.
"Can follow. Circuit energy creates path. But must hurry. My essence dissipates with distance from Origin Point."
Back in the car, Dr. Kang's echo somehow phased inside, occupying the space between Jin and Jin-Ah without displacing them physically. Jin-Ah gasped as the threshold energy brushed against her, silver sparks dancing briefly in her eyes.
"You're like the entities in the hospital," she said, studying the echo with fascination rather than fear. "But you've retained your consciousness."
"Memory imprint. Self-awareness preserved in threshold energy." The echo turned to Jin. "Your father designed the process. Emergency protocol if something went wrong."
As Tae-Woo drove, the echo began to explain, its voice creating strange harmonics in the car's interior that only the threshold-sensitive passengers could hear.
"The circuit was not Jin-Woo's first project. We began with simple threshold detection, then communication experiments. The Division wanted weapons. We wanted understanding."
"That matches the records I found," Dr. Ha noted. "The Division redirected funding toward military applications around seven years ago."
"The First Breach was not an accident," Dr. Kang's echo stated, causing everyone to fall silent. "It was deliberate, but not by us. Someone within Division leadership wanted access to threshold weapons immediately. They bypassed safety protocols during a test."
"That contradicts everything in the official record," Dr. Ha said, her expression hardening. "The Division blamed Dr. Seo for the breach."
"Convenient scapegoat. Jin-Woo knew too much. Had evidence of sabotage."The echo flickered, its form destabilizing momentarily. "Created contingency plan. The circuit. Dual purpose system."
Jin leaned forward intently. "What were the dual purposes? My father mentioned it was both a rescue system and a safeguard."
The echo nodded, pleased by the question. "Rescue system for those trapped by breach events. Stable pathways through the Threshold. But also safeguard against those who would merge realities permanently."
"The Evolved," Jin said grimly.
"They existed even then. Small group. Division experiments gone wrong. People changed by prolonged threshold exposure." The echo's form wavered again, more violently this time. "Growing stronger now. Your father foresaw this. Split the keys between his children."
Jin-Ah spoke up, her voice tight with intensity. "The mathematical formulas in my notebook. They weren't just childhood lessons, were they? He was teaching me how to stabilize the circuit."
"Yes. Jin has genetic key. Circuit responds to his blood. You have mathematical key. Circuit requires precise calculations to remain stable." The echo looked between them. "Together, you can complete what your father started."
The car turned down a narrow alley, approaching a nondescript apartment building that served as one of the Network's safe houses. Tae-Woo parked in the basement garage and killed the engine.
"We're here," he announced. "I need to check in with security and make sure we weren't followed."
As they exited the vehicle, Dr. Kang's echo became increasingly transparent, the effort of maintaining cohesion away from the Origin Point clearly taking its toll.
"Limited time," it repeated, its voice growing fainter. "Must share critical information."
They hurried into the building, taking a service elevator to the fifth floor. Tae-Woo led them to an apartment at the end of the hall, unlocking it with a specialized key card that emitted a brief pulse of threshold-dampening energy.
The safe house was modest but well-equipped—a main living area with secure communication terminals, a small kitchen, two bedrooms, and what appeared to be a modified medical station in one corner. Most notably, the walls were lined with a specialized material that Jin recognized as threshold shielding, designed to block both incoming and outgoing threshold signatures.
Dr. Kang's echo stabilized slightly once inside, the controlled environment helping to preserve its cohesion. Jin offered it the center of the room, everyone else gathering around as the echo began to share its memories of the days before the First Breach.
"Jin-Woo discovered the convergence pattern during routine mapping of threshold thin spots. Seventeen points across Seoul, forming a perfect geometric circuit when connected. Not natural—deliberate."
"Not natural?" Dr. Ha interrupted. "Are you saying someone created these weak points intentionally?"
"Yes. Ancient. Pre-dating modern Seoul. Jin-Woo believed circuit was created as communication system between worlds. Or perhaps emergency response system."
The echo flickered, growing fainter still. Jin could sense its struggle to maintain coherence.
"Final days before the breach. Jin-Woo discovered Division plans for weaponization. Director Kang—no relation—wanted to force threshold merger in controlled environment. Created special task force called 'Evolution Protocol.' Jin-Woo warned against it. Showed mathematical proof of catastrophic consequences."
"That must be what the Evolved are trying to do now," Jin said. "Complete what the Division started five years ago."
"Yes. But different approach. Division wanted controlled merge. Evolved want complete integration." The echo's form wavered dangerously. "Jin-Woo's final project—circuit activation prevents unwanted merging. Creates stable, navigable pathways instead of chaotic breach. The Between-Space was proof of concept."
Dr. Ha was taking rapid notes on her tablet. "So the Between-Space wasn't an accident. Dr. Seo created it deliberately as a safe zone within the Threshold."
"Yes. Emergency shelter. Research continuation. When sabotage happened, Jin-Woo entered Between-Space with critical research. Couldn't return without complete circuit." The echo looked directly at Jin. "Division doesn't know he's alive. Evolved suspect but cannot reach him. Only the completed circuit can bring him home."
Jin felt a surge of hope and determination. "How? How exactly do we use the circuit to bring him back?"
Before the echo could answer, its form destabilized dramatically, parts of it dissipating like smoke in a strong breeze.
"Research case contains—" Its voice fragmented into static. "—coordinates for final—" More static. "—need both keys to—"
"Stay with us!" Jin urged, reaching out instinctively. His fingers passed through the echo, but he felt the circuit energy responding to him, briefly stabilizing Dr. Kang's form.
"One last thing." The echo's voice was barely audible now. "Trust Song. She was part of contingency. Helping from inside. But beware—"
A loud alarm suddenly blared from Tae-Woo's communication device, cutting off the echo's final warning.
"Proximity alert!" Tae-Woo shouted, rushing to a monitoring station set up near the window. "Division vehicles approaching from the east and south. Multiple signatures—at least two tactical teams."
Dr. Ha moved quickly to gather their equipment. "How did they find us so fast?"
"The Origin Point activation," Jin realized. "It must have triggered some kind of trace protocol. They followed the energy signature."
Jin-Ah had already opened the research case and was rapidly scanning through its contents, photographing key pages with her phone. "I need more time with this data!"
The echo of Dr. Kang flickered one final time. "Memory crystal. In base of case. Priority access." Then, with a pulse of silver-blue light, the entity dissolved completely, leaving behind only a faint trace of threshold energy that quickly dissipated.
"We've got five minutes, maximum," Tae-Woo announced, checking the security feeds. "They're setting up a perimeter."
Jin moved to help Jin-Ah. "Is there a memory crystal?"
She nodded, pulling apart a false bottom in the case to reveal a small crystalline device unlike anything Jin had seen before. "This technology... it's not from our world."
"Threshold-derived," Dr. Ha said, peering at it. "Your father must have developed it in the Between-Space."
Jin-Ah carefully secured the crystal in a specialized container from her bag. "I've copied as much as I could, but there's too much here to process quickly."
"Take what we can, abandon the rest," Tae-Woo instructed, already preparing their escape route. "We have a backup safe house in Dongdaemun district. Network operatives are creating diversions to split Division forces, but we need to move now."
Jin helped Jin-Ah pack the most essential documents and equipment while Dr. Ha gathered her research materials and medical supplies. As they worked, Jin noticed the silver lines around the apartment shifting, forming new patterns that seemed to point toward a service entrance at the back of the building.
"There's a pathway," Jin said, pointing. "The silver lines are showing us a route."
"That's not on the building schematics," Tae-Woo said, frowning.
"Trust it," Jin insisted. "It's responding to the circuit energy we activated at the Origin Point."
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Ability [Path Finding Level 1] has awakened!
Tae-Woo hesitated only briefly before nodding. "Alright. Jin leads, I'll take rear guard. Dr. Ha, stay with Jin-Ah in the middle. If we get separated, head for the secondary rendezvous point we discussed earlier."
They moved quickly through the apartment to what appeared to be a solid wall. Jin followed the brightest silver line, placing his hand against a specific section. To everyone's surprise, a hidden panel slid open, revealing a narrow maintenance corridor.
"Maintenance tunnels," Tae-Woo whispered, impressed. "The building plans didn't show these."
"They're not just maintenance tunnels," Jin said as they entered the dimly lit passageway. "These were designed for threshold energy circulation. Look."
In the darkness, faint silver lines traced the walls, floor, and ceiling—subtle pathways barely visible to normal perception but brilliantly clear to Jin's enhanced sight.
"The whole building is built on threshold principles," Dr. Ha realized. "The Network has been utilizing threshold architecture without fully understanding it."
They moved swiftly through the hidden corridors, Jin following the brightest silver pathways that seemed to be actively guiding them away from danger. Occasionally, they passed what appeared to be small anchor points—minor variants of the convergence points that Jin had first discovered in Chapter 4.
"The Network must have built this safe house on top of an existing threshold structure," Dr. Ha theorized as they descended through the hidden passages. "Possibly one of your father's early projects."
Just as they reached what appeared to be an exit point leading to an adjacent building's basement, the narrow corridor behind them filled with harsh light. Division tactical operatives had discovered the hidden passage.
"Halt! Threshold Containment Division!" a mechanized voice commanded. "Surrender and remain still!"
"Run!" Tae-Woo shouted, pulling a small device from his pocket and tossing it toward the Division agents. The device emitted a bright flash and a pulse of threshold-dampening energy, temporarily disorienting their pursuers.
They burst through the exit into a maintenance area of the neighboring building, racing toward a loading dock. Jin could hear the Division agents recovering and giving chase, their heavy footsteps echoing through the corridors behind them.
As they emerged onto a rain-soaked alley, Tae-Woo pointed toward a van parked fifty meters away. "That's our extraction! Sprint for it!"
They ran through the downpour, Jin helping Jin-Ah who was struggling with the heavy research materials. They had covered half the distance when a Division transport vehicle screeched to a halt at the alley entrance, blocking their path to the extraction van.
"This way!" Jin shouted, following a new silver pathway that had appeared, leading down a narrow side passage.
Tae-Woo and Jin-Ah followed immediately, but Dr. Ha stumbled, dropping her tablet. She turned back to retrieve it just as Division agents poured from their vehicle.
"Leave it!" Jin called, reaching back for her.
"The research data—" Dr. Ha insisted, scooping up the device.
Before she could rejoin them, two agents tackled her to the ground. More agents were rapidly closing in, cutting off any chance of rescue.
"Go!" Dr. Ha shouted, making eye contact with Jin as she was restrained. "Complete the circuit! I'll find a way out!"
Jin wanted to go back for her, but Tae-Woo grabbed his arm, pulling him away. "We can't help her by getting caught ourselves. The Network has protocols for this!"
With a final agonized look at Dr. Ha, Jin turned and fled down the alley with Tae-Woo and Jin-Ah. Behind them, he heard Agent Song's voice giving orders to secure Dr. Ha and continue pursuit.
They navigated a maze of back streets and service corridors, finally losing their pursuers in the industrial district. Soaked and exhausted, they eventually reached a secondary Network safe house—a small apartment above a 24-hour repair shop.
As Tae-Woo secured their new location, Jin slumped against the wall, the full weight of the day's events crashing down on him. They had gained critical information about his father and the circuit's purpose, but lost Dr. Ha in the process.
Jin-Ah sat beside him, clutching the memory crystal from their father's research case. "We'll get her back," she said with determination. "But first, we need to decode what Dad left for us."
Jin nodded, his resolve strengthening despite his exhaustion. "Path Finding," he murmured, recalling the system notification from earlier. "The silver lines aren't just showing me existing pathways anymore. They're creating them. Guiding us."
"Like Dad's voice in my dreams," Jin-Ah said softly. "Guiding me through mathematical principles I shouldn't have been able to understand."
Tae-Woo joined them, his expression grim. "We've got a problem. The Division isn't just after you anymore. They've issued an official detention order for Dr. Ha under charges of treason and unauthorized threshold experimentation."
"That's absurd," Jin protested. "She's been helping people!"
"It's about silencing her," Tae-Woo explained. "The Network just intercepted Division communications. Agent Song personally requested to lead the interrogation team."
Jin recalled Dr. Kang's final words—trust Song, but beware of something left unsaid. Was Agent Song truly their ally, as his father's research partner had suggested? Or was her request to interrogate Dr. Ha a sign of something more sinister?
"We need to rescue her," Jin said firmly.
"Not without a plan," Tae-Woo countered. "And not without understanding what's in that research crystal. If Dr. Ha was willing to sacrifice herself to protect this information, we need to know why."
Jin-Ah held up the crystal, which glimmered with faint silver light in the dimly lit room. "I'll need specialized equipment to read this. Based on what Dr. Kang said, it contains threshold-encoded data."
"The Network has a technical facility in the university district," Tae-Woo said. "We can go there tomorrow, after things cool down."
Jin looked out the window at the rain-slicked streets, thinking of Dr. Ha in Division custody and his father trapped in the Between-Space. Two people who had sacrificed everything to protect the truth about the circuit.
"First thing tomorrow," he agreed, determination hardening his voice. "We decode the crystal, then we find a way to rescue Dr. Ha."
Jin-Ah nodded, a similar resolve in her eyes. "And then we find the next convergence point."
As they settled in for what remained of the night, Jin couldn't stop thinking about Dr. Kang's unfinished warning. Trust Song, but beware of what? And was his father truly safe in the Between-Space, or was the Evolved woman's claim about his transformation more truthful than Jin wanted to believe?
The answers, Jin suspected, were hidden somewhere in the glimmering crystal that now represented their best hope of completing the circuit and bringing his father home.
Author's Note: The plot thickens! Dr. Ha has been captured, and our heroes now have a mysterious memory crystal from the Between-Space. What do you think Agent Song's true allegiance is? And what might be on that crystal that was worth Dr. Ha's sacrifice? Share your theories in the comments!
Coming Next: Chapter 9: Secrets Encoded - Jin and Jin-Ah work to decode their father's memory crystal while planning a daring rescue operation for Dr. Ha. Meanwhile, Agent Song reveals her true agenda during Dr. Ha's interrogation.