Pluto nodded.
“It’s not just wiretapping. Talos monitors everything about us. That’s why I couldn’t get close to you easily.”
It hit her hard. Mika couldn’t make sense of a single word Pluto was saying. Why would the Seoul Metropolitan Police AGI be wiretapping its own citizens? Her questions went unanswered. Spiegel im Spiegel kept repeating, filling the empty space around them.
“This music interferes with Talos’s surveillance. The way the piano and violin call and respond to each other — it’s like two mirrors facing each other. Just as a conversation bouncing between two mirrors generates infinite reflections, this music buries Talos in an endless stream of voice patterns. It can no longer tell where the real conversation ends and the echo begins.”
“Hmph. Is that so.”
Mika answered curtly. She didn’t care how music could jam surveillance. What she wanted to know was everything about him — Pluto. Why he had killed. Why he had put the body on display for the world to see. And why, in the same breath, he had saved someone else. Without being asked, Pluto began answering — as if he already knew.
“Hanging Jo In-cheol from the crane was a message, just as you suspected. But it was a message only certain people could read. It was a declaration of war — directed at Talos, and at the club pulling its strings. Oracle.”
“Oracle?”
Pluto kept talking, and every word was something Mika had never seen coming. The AGI Talos surveilling its own people. A club called Oracle pulling the strings behind it. A declaration of war. What on earth was any of this supposed to mean?
“The hanging meant accountability. You will all die paying for what you’ve done.“
Mika understood that part — it was a message to Oracle: judgment is coming. But the next words made no sense at all.
“Oracle is our enemy. And their identities — you’ve already uncovered them.”
“Our? You and I are not our anything!”
Mika snapped, her voice rising. Pluto didn’t flinch. He kept going, calm as ever.
“April 23rd, 2034. That day, you received a message from Jo In-cheol, head of Tera Motors Union No. 1, and went to Plant No. 2.”
She had no memory of any of this.
“What are you talking about? I’ve never met Jo In-cheol. Not then, not now.”
Pluto turned toward the camera drone.
“Drone. Connect to me. Pull up the footage.”
The drone linked in and projected a beam into the air. Clips stored in Pluto’s memory fanned out in front of them. One expanded.
The footage showed a wide rooftop clearing on top of Tera Motors’ Plant No. 2. Jo In-cheol stood there with three Underdog Trackers, all armed with machine guns. The Mika on screen faced them, tense. Wind tore hard at her back.
“How do civilians have guns? Machine guns, at that?”
Jo In-cheol smiled.
“Because we made them. Plant No. 2 doesn’t just build electric cars. We make electric APCs, laser turrets, electric machine guns — the kind of hardware standard defense contractors can’t produce.”
He gave the gun a little shake, showing it off.
“This is the EMK-246. We engineered the trigger pull to replicate the MK46. Fires beautifully. Quality is so good I helped myself to a few.”
Mika asked:
“But why would union workers need guns? It’s not like you’d ever actually fire them.”
Jo In-cheol let out a loud laugh, then turned a cold stare on her.
“Whether we fire them — you’ll find out soon enough. And one more thing you got wrong: I didn’t call you here as a union president. I’m sorry you had to come all this way.”
Reporter Yoon Mika had come because Jo In-cheol said he had a tip about Tera Motors. She hadn’t expected gun barrels on a rooftop.
“Then why did you want to meet?”
She pressed him. She had a guess already. But she couldn’t say it. Jo In-cheol tilted his head as if he found this amusing.
“Come on. Playing dumb? I know you have the list.”
“List? What list?”
She pushed back, but she already knew what they were after. The list — a record of every Oracle member.
Mika turned to Pluto, stunned.
“I know about Oracle?”
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