They kill the lights to Jennie's cell.
All she can see is the glowing green dot from the surveillance camera that watches her over the door.
Jennie sits in the corner, in the dark, thinking how she's been on a collision course with this moment since she first heard those footsteps rushing up behind her in that alleyway, in her world, five impossible days ago.
Since Jennie saw a gun, and fear and confusion became the only stars in her sky.
In this moment, there is no logic.
No problem-solving.
No scientific method.
Jennie is simply devastated, broken, terrified, and on the brink of just wanting it all to end.
She watched as the love of her life was murdered right in front of her. Her old friend is likely being tortured as she sits at the room. And these people will undoubtedly make her suffer before her end comes.
Jennie is so afraid.
She miss Lisa.
She miss their rusty house.
She miss her office on campus.
Her students.
She miss the life that's hers.
And there in the darkness, like the filaments of a lightbulb warming to life, the truth finds Jennie.
She hear the voice of her abductor, who look exactly like her, asking questions about her life.
Her job.
Her wife.
Jesus.
She drugged Jennie.
Asked her questions about her life.
Took her phone, her clothes, her wedding ring.
Holy fuck.
Jennie's heart is shuddering with rage.
The other her did these things so she could step into Jennie's shoes. So she could have the life that's hers.
The woman she loves.
Her career.
Her house.
Lisa.
This other Jennie, the one who built the box- she did this. All of this.
As the green light of the surveillance camera goes dark, Jennie realize that on some level, she have known since she first laid eyes on the box.
Just haven't been willing to look it in the eye. And why would she?
It's one thing to be lost in a world that's not your own. Another thing entirely to know you've been replaced in yours. That a better version of you has stepped into your life.
Jennie is drowning in her own thoughts:
She's smarter than I am, no question.
A better wife to Lisa?
A better lover?
She did this to me.
No.
It's way more fucked up than that.
I did this to me.
When Jennie hear the locks in the door retract, she instinctively scoot back against the wall.
This is it.
They've come for her.
The door opens slowly, revealing a single person standing in the threshold, profiled against the light beyond.
They step inside, close the door after them.
Jennie can't see a thing but Jennie can smell her-trace of perfume, body wash.
"Jisoo?"
She whispers, "Keep your voice down."
"Where's Rosé?"
"They took her"
"What do you mean, 'took'?"
Jisoo sounds on the verge of tears, of breaking down. "They took her to an isolated room. Yang got an emergency. I thought they were just going to scare her, but I heard Yang that they're going to kill her." Jisoo tried her best not to break down. "We should save her."
"Why are you-?"
"Because I didn't sign up for this shit. What they did to Lisa and what they are about to do to Rosé. What they're about to do to you. They crossed lines that shouldn't be crossed. Not for science. Not for anything."
"Can you get me out of this lab?"
"No, and it wouldn't do you any good with your face all over the news."
"What are you talking about? Why am I on the news?"
"The police are looking for you. They think you killed Lisa."
"You people framed me?"
"I am so sorry. Look, I can't get you out of this lab, but I can get you and Rosé into the hangar."
"Do you know how the box works?" Jennie ask.
Jennie feels Jisoo's stare, even though she can't see it. "No idea. But it's your one way out."
"From everything I've heard, stepping inside that thing is like jumping out of an airplane and not knowing if your chute is going to open."
"If the plane's going down anyway, does it really matter?"
"What about the camera?"
"The one in here? I turned it off."
Jennie hear Jisoo move toward the door.
A vertical line of light appears and widens.
When the cell door is open all the way, Jennie sees that Jisoo is shouldering a backpack. Stepping out into the corridor, she adjusts her red pencil skirt and looks back at Jennie.
"You coming?"
Jennie use the bed frame to drag herself onto her feet.
Must have been hours in the dark, because the light in the corridor is almost too much to bear. Jennie's eyes burn against the sudden brilliance.
"Where's Rosé?"
"It's on our way, we can get her if we're quick"
For the moment, we they it all to themselves.
Jisoo is already moving away from Jennie toward the vault doors at the far end. She glances back, whispers, "Let's go!"
Jennie quietly follow, the panels of fluorescent lighting streaming past overhead. Aside from the echoes of their footfalls, the corridor is soundless.
They kept walking silently but trying their best to be fast. When Jisoo stopped at the front of a door, Jennie knew it's where Rosé is in.
"Go get her, I'll be the lookout" Jisoo orders as she opens the door with her keycard.
Jennie enters the room and saw Rosé all tied up and blindfolded. Rosé is trembling and shivering with fear. Her feet kept making sounds and she keeps trying to talk but there's a towel in her mouth that refrained her to do so.
Jennie touched Rosé's shoulder and the poor girl shifted in fright. "Shhhhhh" She said. "It's me, Jennie"
The older girl untied Rosé and then gestured for her to be silent. "We're going to get out of here, just follow us okay?"
"Us?" Rosé asks but then she shook her head and just nod.
They walked out of the room and Jisoo took the lead right away.
By the time they reach the touchscreen, Jisoo is holding her keycard again under the scanner.
"Won't there be someone in mission control?" Jennie inquires. "I thought there was always someone monitoring-"
"I'm on duty tonight. I got you covered."
"They'll know you helped me."
"By the time they realize, I'll be out of here." Jisoo says with determination.
The computerized female voice says, Name, please.
"Kim Jisoo."
Passcode.
"One-Two-Three-Three."
Access denied.
"Oh shit."
"What's happening?" Rosé asks.
"Someone must have seen us on the corridor cams and frozen my clearance. Yang will know in a matter of seconds."
"Give it another shot."
She scans her card again.
Name, please.
"Kim Jisoo"
Passcode.
She speaks slowly this time, enunciating her words: "One-Two-Three-Three."
Access denied.
"Goddammit."
A door at the opposite end of the corridor opens.
When Yang's men step out, Jisoo's face pales with fear, Rosé mutter a silent "fuck" and a sharp, metallic taste coats the roof of Jennie's mouth.
Jennie ask, "Do the employees create their own passcodes or are they assigned?"
"We create them."
"Give me your card."
"Why?"
"Because maybe no one thought to freeze my clearance."
As Jisoo hands it over, Jisoo emerges from the same door.
He shouts Jennie's name.
Jennie took a glance back down the corridor as Yang and his men start towards them.
She scans the card.
Name, please.
"Jennie Kim."
Passcode.
Of course. This woman is her.
Month and date of her birthday backwards.
"Six-One-One-Zero."
Voice recognition confirmed. Welcome, Dr. Kim.
The buzzer rakes their nerves. As the doors begin to inch apart, Jennie watches helplessly as the men rush towards them-red-faced, arms pumping. Four or five seconds away.
The moment there's enough space between the vault doors, Jisoo queezes through then Rosé.
Jennie followed them into the hangar, racing across the smooth concrete toward the box.
Mission control is empty, the lights beating down from high above, and it's dawning on Jennie that there is no possible scenario where they make it out of this.
They're closing in on the box, Jisoo yelling, "We just have to get inside!"
Jennie glance back as the first man explodes through the wide-open vault doors, a gun or Taser in his right hand.
He clocks Jennie, raises his weapon, but Jennie round the corner of the box before he can fire.
Rosé and Jisoo is pushing open the door, and as an alarm blares through the hangar, they disappears inside.
Jennie is right on her heels, launching herself over the threshold, into the box.
Jisoo shoves her out of the way and digs her shoulder back into the door.
Jennie hear voices and approaching footsteps.
Jisoo is struggling, so Rosé and Jennie throw theirbweight into the door alongside her.
It must weigh a ton.
At last, it begins to move, swinging back.
Fingers appear across the door frame, but the girls got inertia working in their favor.
The door thunders home, and a massive bolt fires into its housing.
It's quiet.
And pitch-black-the darkness so instantly pure and unbroken it creates the sensation of spinning.
Jennie stagger toward the nearest wall and put her hands on the metal, just needing to tether herself to something solid as she try to wrap her mind around the idea that she's actually inside the thing.
"Can they get through the door?" Jennie ask.
"I'm not sure. It's supposed to stay locked for ten minutes. Kind of like a built-in safeguard."
"Safeguard against what?"
"I don't know. People chasing you? Getting out of dangerous situations You designed it. Seems to be working."
Jennie and Rosé hears a rustling in the dark.
A battery-powered Coleman lantern glows to life, illuminating the interior of the box with a bluish light.
It's strange, frightening, but also undeniably exhilarating to finally be inside, enclosed by thick, nearly indestructible walls.
The first thing Jennie notice in the new light are four fingers at the foot of the door, severed at the second knuckle.
Jisoo is kneeling over an open backpack, her arm thrust in to her shoulder, and considering how everything just exploded in her face, she seems remarkably composed, calmly triaging the situation.
She pulls out a small leather bag.
It's filled with syringes, needles, and tiny ampoules of a clear liquid.
"That's my compound" Rosé says, heaving.
"So you guys doing this with me?"
The other two girls gave an exasperated sigh.
"As opposed to what? Walking back out there and explaining to Yang how I betrayed him and everything we've been working toward?" Jisoo exclaims while Rosé just nods, too tired from everything.
"I have no idea how the box works." Jennie admits.
"Well, that makes three of us, so I guess we can look forward to some fun times ahead." Jisoo checks her watch. "I set a timer when the door locked. They come through in eight minutes, fifty-six seconds. If there were no time pressure, we could just drink one of these ampoules or do an intramuscular injection, but now we have to find a vein. Did you guys ever inject yourselves?"
"No." Jennie says.
"Yes." Rosé says.
"Pull up your sleeve Jennie. Miss Rosé, here." Jisoo passed something to Rosé then She ties a rubber band above Jennie's elbow, grabs her arm, and holds it in the light of the lantern.
"Okay listen up! See this vein that's anterior to your elbow? That's your antecubital. That's the one you want to hit."
"Shouldn't you be doing this?" Jennie asked curiously.
"You'll be fine."
Jisoo hands Jennie and Rosé a packet containing an alcohol wipe.
They both rip it open, wipe down a large swath of their skin.
Next, Jisoo gives them a 3ml syringe, two needles, and a single ampoule.
"This is a filtered needle," she says, touching one of them. "Use that one to draw up the liquid so you don't catch a glass shard. Then switch to the other needle to inject yourself. Got it?"
"I think so." Jennie says, inserting the filtered needle into the syringe, pull off the cap, and then snap the neck of the glass vial. "All of it?" She asks.
Jisoo's tying a rubber band around her arm now and cleaning her injection site while Rosé is just looking at them.
"Yep."
Jennie carefully draw the contents of the ampoule up into the syringe and swap needles.
Jisoo says, "Guys, make sure you always tap the syringe and push out a tiny bit of liquid through the needle. You don't want to be injecting air bubbles into your vascular system."
Jisoo shows me her watch again:
7:39...
7:38.
7:37.
Jennie and Rosé thump the syringe and squeeze a drop of Rosé's chemical compound through the needle.
Rosé finally spoke up, "So I just..."
"Stick it in the vein at a forty-five-degree angle, with the hole in the end of the needle facing up. I know this is a lot to think about. You're doing great."
There's so much adrenaline raging through theie system, Jennie and Rosé barely even feel the penetration.
"Now what?" Rosé asks.
"Make sure you're in the vein."
"How do we-?" Jennie asks.
"Pull back a little on the plunger."
They pull it back.
"See blood?"
"Yeah."
"Good job. You hit it. Now untie the tourniquet and slowly inject." Jisoo orders.
As they depress the plunger, Jennie ask, "So how long until it takes effect?"
Rosé's interest is automatically clicked and she waited for Jisoo to answer, "Pretty close to instantaneous, if I had to..."
Jennie don't even register the end of her sentence.
The drug crashes into her.
Jennie slump back against the wall and lose time until Rosé and Jisoo is in her face, saying words that Jennie's trying and failing to comprehend.
Looking down, Jennie watch Jisoo pull the needle out of her arm and press an alcohol pad against the tiny puncture wound.
Jennie finally realize what she's saying: "Keep pressure on it."
Now, Jennie watch Jisoo do the exact same thing to Rosé before extending her own arm under the glow of the lantern, and as she sticks a needle into her vein and loosens the tourniquet, Jennie's focus lands on her watch face and the numbers counting down toward zero.
Soon Rosé and Jisoo is lying stretched out on the floor like a junkie who just shot up, and the time is still running out, but that doesn't matter anymore.
Jennie can't believe what she's seeing.