"Fuck!" Seojin swore in complaint.

"Language!" The earpiece boomed. Tobias.

Thirty-six hours after that thrilling heist, Seojin was hanging on to the rope for dear life. He had assumed that this would be short, but he had not anticipated the fall to be this dramatic. He thought he would just have to take a chance because it was about 12 feet to the ground from where he was hanging. He shifted about in his black vest, rechecking that he had everything. He grinned inwardly.

Tobias had cross-checked three times before pulling in the chords and settling on the plan. The best time to sort this out was the fifteen minutes between 3.45 and 4.00 am, when the doors were left unattended. Was it a smart idea? To sneak into a highly guarded government building at the crack of dawn, enter his DNA samples and corrupt the files. No.

Was it the only idea? Yes. Sejin would never accept his crimes. Stealing his identity was the only option.

Tobias had meticulously studied the building's security system, mapping out blind spots and identifying the easiest way to gain entry. Armed with this information, he successfully executed the plan for those precious fifteen minutes of vulnerability, leaving no trace behind.

He could argue that Tobias's actions were not morally justified, as he invaded someone else's property and potentially put others at risk by exploiting the building's security vulnerabilities, but he wasn't exactly wrong.

Earlier that day, just before the room closed off, Tobias had managed to hack into the cyber system and place a loop of recording into the security camera of that very room, showing that no one was in the area. It wasn't really an easy spot; he had to fail multiple times, got logged into some anonymous network, but he did succeed. A very risky take, but somehow it didn't cause havoc; hence, none had really sensed the glitch.

He hoped that no one would figure it out until it was too late, but he still needed to work quickly, just in case.

"You need to pull the lever down at the end of the room to block out the sensors around the computer. I tried to locate the sensor heads, but some nasty artificial intelligence is getting better at it, Seojin," Tobias had reminded him at least a dozen times.
And he had nodded religiously.

If anything, Seojin had to do this tonight, before dawn, or else everything would crumble. He would be killed, or worse, captured. Mentally and physically bracing himself, he untied the rope around himself and dropped to the ground. He landed on all fours with a muffled thud, and he held his breath for a moment, looking to see if any alarms had gone off.

As he cautiously looked around, his eyes widened in disbelief. The alarms remained eerily silent, and he couldn't help but feel a surge of relief mixed with confusion.

"Fourteen minutes, Seojin," Tobias spoke through the earpiece again, "The alarm will ring within fourteen minutes."

Something hit him in exactly those areas that needed attention: His left foot was still moving despite its numbness, as though it were attempting suicide, but the most startling of these events was what happened next. The fingers clenched tightly around his right earlobe and made a ragged sound like nails on wood.

Involuntarily, he tiptoed right through the befitting darkness, reaching for the lever. The sensors had to be somewhere around the corner, and if anything, he needed to find them quickly instead of stepping on them. The urgency in his movements was evident as he manoeuvred through the darkness, guided only by his instincts and the faint sound of his own breathing. It took him nearly three minutes just to find what remained.

The handle of the lever felt cold beneath his latex palm as he pulled it down with a sharp, decisive motion. A low hum reverberated through the air, signalling that the sensors had been deactivated. Relief washed over him as he knew he had successfully bypassed the security system.

The darkness seemed to retreat slightly, revealing a dimly lit room. "Fast, Seojin, ten minutes now," Tobias whispered again.

With cautious steps, he continued his mission, knowing that time was of the essence. The adrenaline coursed through his veins, fuelling his determination to complete the task at hand. Sneaking at his pace, he quickly toggled the spare glasses on his nose, hunching the butt and making his way to the computer at the corner.

Handling the wheeled chair, he sat right in front of the computer monitor, the glow of the screen illuminating his face. Seojin's heart hammered in his chest as he wrote quickly, conscious that any noise or blunder may alert the guards patrolling outside. The weight of the assignment weighed against him with each passing second, encouraging him to finish before it was too late. But he had logged in, and no faults were detected. Tobias knew the exact keys; he was indeed a genius.

The next was what surprised him. A drawer like, hi-tech metal dashboard pushed out of what Seojin thought was the CPU and an alert showed up on the computer screen: ENTER THE DNA SAMPLE.

"We need a drop of your blood and a hair strand. The needle is in your vest pocket." Tobias spoke again.

Following Tobias's directions, Seojin pulled out the impossibly small needle, its tip glistening with an unnatural sharpness. He pricked his middle finger, a bead of crimson welling up. He dabbed it onto the designated glass panel, then plucked a hair from his temple, placing it beside the blood and clicked enter.

The computer whirred, a brief light show on the screen, and then, predictably, a new demand: ENTER THE USB.

Without delay, Seojin plugged in his flash drive, sat at the workstation, and launched the coding interface. He began by bouncing his left knee. The secret would soon be his; all he needed was a simple search algorithm to scan through the insides of the computer's hard drive, following which he could choose the files of interest and save them to his USB stick. The files took a lot of time, but at least they were found, being detected across the web interface. The world would lose its trace soon.

A few minutes after he set the programme to work, the monitor displayed a message: "Foreign programme detected, initiating security firewall startup."

Once he comprehended the meaning behind those words, his heart fell.
"Shit! Tobias-" His voice died down as the siren rang through the air.

"Try to close the window fast!"

Shaking off his fears, he attempted immediately to stop the function, but it was too late. The security firewall began to restrict his access, leaving him with the unnerving feeling that his covert mission was being impeded.

"The setup is not responding, Tobias; what do I do?" He sounded helpless, but Tobias was still headstrong. "The files will copy either way, Seojin. Another minute, and just pull the USB drive out and rush to the rope."

Seojin's hands trembled as he desperately searched for the USB drive amidst the chaos of flashing warning lights and blaring alarms. The stampeding footfalls outside had been chaotic enough to raid his brain. The seconds ticked away ominously, each one amplifying the pressure mounting in his chest. With sweat trickling down his forehead, the documents fit in, and he finally yanked out the USB from the computer's port.

Time seemed to slow down as he clutched the precious device in his hand, knowing that the success of their entire mission depended on it.

Amidst the haul, the door opened with a blast, stirring up dust in the process. Seojin could only presume that the flash lights that were the source of the light coming through the cloud were linked to firearms; although it was unclear whether they were or were not, the chances weren't nil.

He instantly made a dash towards the outlet where the rope was hanging. Six armed guards burst inside. The majority of the weapons they carried were compact, light submachineguns of modest calibre.

"You know it'll be really easy to escape, right?" Tobias mumbled into his earpiece wistfully.

"I know. It should be easy, but I have a bad feeling about this one."

There had been a sense of foreboding since they made their plan to get into the building. It all made sense, but what about the faults? What if he got caught? That wasn't very unlikely here. Security was extremely rigid.
It wasn't his fault entirely; it was just because Seojin had never done anything like this before. He had stolen hidden candies, cheated on tests, gotten into fights, and snuck into clubs, but this is a riot. A totally different story.

He reached out and grabbed the loose end of the rope, pulling it through his fingers, wrapping it around his knuckles, ready to roll up when one of those tingling reds fell across his body.

"He is there!" The guards roared, their lasers gearing up to target his movement.

"Pull me up, Tobias!"

Seojin yelled, the clicks of the triggers rumbling loudly.

"Tobias, hurry!" He tried again, but the silence on the other side felt too heavy. Had the connection died?

"Tobias, Tobias, are you there?" The whispers had now turned to cries, he was already seen, and the earpiece had to die at this very point. Any moment now, and one fine bullet would tear across his heart, stagnating his life and mulling his breath.

Would he die? Would his only chance to prove himself and justify those humans his brother had butchered ruthlessly come to an end? Will he lose?

The thoughts in his head fell silent with the scrawny rustle of the trigger, the rotating wheel of bullets falling into the slots, and the shell of the system hatching and tumbling back through the air.

He managed to distinguish each sound, one step closer to his end. Perhaps the only chance of falling through time back into his real death.

"Tobias!" The last call of help came with a pull as his body slithered through the air, arms gripping the rope tight, a tiny drop of bullet cutting through the air right by his ear as the rope ascended into the air, the little window gyrating as the glasses closed.

The bullets were let loose, but he had sneaked right through the rain.

He was safe. He was safe.

The momentum halted with a swing as a pair of hands pulled him up, the glass closing right below him. He climbed through the fall, panting and sighing as he fell on his knees.

"I thought," Seojin gasped, eyes cast down, hands resting on his knees, "I thought I was dying."

"Oh,you won't die, brother. Where's the fun in that?"

__________

Update update!
The story is near its climax.
Take care ♡