Collapse Sync

It was supposed to be the loudest night in the Circuit's history.

Eight cities.

Twelve rooftops.

One synchronized signal drop.

They called it "Collapse Sync" — not because they planned to fail, but because if they pulled it off, the structure of the industry would never recover. At least, not the same way.

Miri had spent seventy-two hours in her bunker-corner of the Yeonnam rooftop, cables running like veins from her laptops to power banks and satellite routers. Sweat and caffeine kept her going. She didn't sleep. She barely blinked.

Minjun wrote three new verses in the stairwell, pacing so much he wore the paint off two steps. His notebook was full of jagged lines, crossed-out stanzas, and sketches of falling towers. It wasn't poetry. It was warning.

Jiwoo prepped five kits — alternate percussive rigs in case rooftop wind killed their rhythm. One was made entirely of bicycle parts. Another used hollowed-out ventilation ducts. Everything was experimental now.

They weren't just making music.

They were building a controlled detonation.

—

The collapse would start with Minjun's new verse. Delivered simultaneously across every rooftop, every node synced to the millisecond. A ghostbeat under the track — designed to trigger audio reactive lights from Tokyo to Busan to Bangkok.

For thirty minutes, the Circuit would dominate the skyline — a constellation of rooftops flaring and pulsing in harmony. A song across nations. A protest. A claim.

And if the system held…

If it held…

Minjun could already imagine the silence afterward.

Not defeat.

Awe.

—

The night of the drop, Jiwoo stood on their home base rooftop holding his sticks like weapons.

"You ready for the collapse?" he asked.

Minjun nodded, earbud already in, mic line humming against his palm.

Miri's voice crackled through the channel. "All nodes live. Ten seconds to sync point."

Below, Seoul throbbed with midnight traffic.

Above, the stars held their breath.

"Five… four… three…"

Minjun took a deep breath.

"Two…"

He opened his mouth.

"One—"

—

The world exploded.

But not in light.

In silence.

The feed cut.

All at once.

Minjun's in-ear went dead. The rooftop lights blinked and stayed dark. Jiwoo's snare echoed into nothing.

Then a second signal hit — one none of them had authorized.

Across all twelve rooftops, across all eight cities, a hijack broadcast took over.

Screens went black.

Then white.

Then static.

Then a symbol appeared: a single broken circle, pulsing.

Minjun froze.

He'd seen it once before.

On the Phantom Feed.

—

Miri was screaming into her headset. "It's not us — someone's hijacking the relay— it's coming through an unauthorized subnet— they're riding our sync—"

Then her screen went black.

Minjun dropped to his knees beside her terminal. "What is that?"

Miri stared, stunned. "It's… it's a clone of our system. A perfect mirror. But older. Like it's been running alongside us."

Jiwoo squinted at the pulsing circle. "Is that a— heartbeat?"

It was.

A low-frequency thump, steady, mechanical, alive.

Then a voice.

Feminine.

Distorted.

But familiar.

"You wanted collapse. Now listen to the ruins."

—

All twelve rooftops stayed dark for 93 seconds.

Then, one by one, they flickered back online.

But the feeds were changed.

Not hacked — edited.

Rooftop videos replayed — but not their current performance.

Old footage.

From their earliest shows.

Minjun's first verse from Seoul.

Jiwoo's solo snare improv in Busan.

Miri's first feed link-up.

Clips they never published. Clips no one else should have.

The Phantom Feed had archived everything.

And now, it was broadcasting their past to the entire world.

—

The chat feeds exploded.

WHO IS THIS?

IS THIS THE CIRCUIT?

WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?

IS THIS… MINJUN?

AGENT SHADOW?

IS THIS… REAL?

Some viewers cried. Some screamed. Some started remixing the clips in real-time.

But to the team, it wasn't inspiring.

It was terrifying.

They'd been stripped down to their origin.

No masks. No shadows. No mystery.

The rooftop rebellion had just been doxxed — artistically, beautifully, completely.

—

Minjun's voice was hollow when he spoke. "Why now?"

Miri didn't answer.

Jiwoo muttered, "This wasn't sabotage."

Minjun looked at him. "What?"

Jiwoo's eyes never left the screen. "This wasn't meant to destroy us. This was... a reveal."

Miri leaned over her terminal, voice low. "A message inside a message. A collapse, yes. But not ours."

Minjun stared at the symbol — the broken circle — still pulsing, steady, soft.

It wasn't noise.

It was signal.

—

Later that night, hours after the streams ended and the rooftops fell silent, a private packet hit Miri's inbox.

No header.

No IP.

No reply field.

Just a video.

She opened it.

It was grainy.

Shot on a rooftop. Somewhere in Seoul. Maybe years ago.

A girl stood at the edge, facing away from the camera.

She wore a hoodie. No mask.

And she sang.

Raw. Off-key. Beautiful.

Her voice cracked on the high note.

Then she looked back at the lens.

And said:

"I was the rooftop before you were."

The feed cut to black.

Minjun sat in silence, staring at the empty screen.

Collapse Sync hadn't failed.

It had revealed what had always been there.

They were not the beginning.

They were the echo.