The Fear of Fascination || Ateez SciFi x Fantasy

Chapter 19

Seonghwa paced restlessly inside a low-level conference room, a rendezvous point he picked in favor of its distance from his workplace. He knew meeting – conspiring – at the top floors, so close to the chairman and the minions who worked for him, would increase his risks of being caught.

He turned around to the giant pillar in the center of the room that rose from ground to ceiling, penetrating the table in the middle and serving as a monitor, clock, control center, and anything else people in a conference would need. It was an old design before they shifted everything to one large screen on all tabletops, which were a lot less bulky.

The constant outpour of newsfeed and advertisements would have been distracting to anyone, but Seonghwa only cared about the time. 4:03 PM, the big red letters read. It had been six hours since his meeting with Mr. Yoo and Yeosang in the morning, and with the knowledge that they were going to harm Hongjoong, yet not exactly when, he decided to take matters into his own hands. To do that, he needed help.

A glass door as tall as the fat cylinder swung open and Seonghwa's pounding heart settled when he recognized his two new interns walking in. They had obediently changed out of their lab coats like he'd instructed them to an hour ago on the phone; those ridiculous white clothes would only draw unwanted attention to them, not to mention how unfitting of an attire they were for an engineer.

"Thanks for coming," Seonghwa said, "I know both of you were about to go home." The two men exchanged glances and shrugged, smiling nervously. He did not blame them for being uncomfortable; it was only their second time seeing each other, and frankly, he could not trust them fully either.

But he would rather take his chances on strangers than an old friend who'd betrayed him.

He peered out the door warily before turning back to the pillar again. "Walls, privacy," he ordered, and although there was no visual cue except for the glass turning slightly cloudy, he could tell by the sudden deafening silence that any sound or conversation made in this room from now on would be rendered to nothingness for the people outside. He had also made sure beforehand that all the cameras were switched off, which was not a hard thing to do considering his elite position at the company. To be extra safe, he even bought the head of security on this floor coffee just to keep his mouth shut.

Seonghwa eyed Changbin, the one with ash-grey hair. "Time is short, so I'll get straight to the point." He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and handed a transparent tablet no thicker than a sheaf of papers to his intern. "This is Dr. Han Dong's PM. She'd have all the records from yesterday's incident; I want you to find out where they're keeping Hongjoong captive."

The device was already between Changbin's fingers when he suddenly tensed at the information. "The– the botanist?? From this morning? How did you get your hands on her Portable Monitor? It's supposed to be personal! Besides, it'll be locked––"

"That's why I asked you," Seonghwa said firmly, cutting him off. "I read your resume. You're an excellent hacker. Do as I say and you won't get in trouble. As for the PM... I had my own ways." In truth, he had to pay half his salary to a cleaner to do the dirty job for him, but if he was doing the right thing, then it was a price he was willing to pay.

Before Changbin could protest, he turned to the other one. "You're good with navigation, right?" Hyunjin nodded, his ponytail bobbing with the motion. "Then you're going to plot a route for us from here to wherever Hongjoong is, and from there to an exit out of this building. We have to avoid as many cameras as possible, and VIP capsules are a no-go; once they find out their Mythlikeen prisoner is loose, they'd pinpoint it to me and block off the most obvious escape paths."

Seonghwa surveyed the two young men one last time. "Can you... will you do it?"

Changbin opened and closed his mouth with uncertainty. His friend was less hesitant and stepped forward. "We don't like trouble as much as anyone does, but it's a whole different matter if we're walking into it ourselves. We agree with you, Mr. Park; we're basically asking for war by capturing one of theirs. So, how can we fix this?"