Very Late Awakening

“Sssss—.”

Cold nitrogen vapor spread low across the floor.

The reinforced glass, sealed for 650 years, opened with a scream.

A mechanical coughing sound mixed into the dusty reserve storage room.

“Cough, hack….”

Han-gyeol raised his upper body.

The joints in his whole body creaked like rusty hinges.

His vision was blurred, as if a milky haze had come over it.

“Thawing process 100% complete. Vital sign stabilization threshold reached.”

A flat, emotionless voice.

Han-gyeol blinked his unfocused eyes several times.

A woman in a glossy silver uniform was standing before him.

Without any expression, she was operating a hologram pad.

“Who are you? Where is this?”

“I am NOA, the administrative proxy android affiliated with NOS.”

NOA tapped the pad.

Blue light swept over Han-gyeol’s face as if scanning it.

“Mr. Lee Han-gyeol. 25 years old. Scheduled for transfer to Cryo Warehouse No. 7. Correct?”

“…I think so. But why is it so dark?”

“Because the power was cut off for 650 years.”

Han-gyeol rolled his tongue around in his mouth.

It felt like chewing dry grains of sand.

“What? 650 years?”

“Yes. You won a 0.15% system calculation error. Congratulations. You were trapped below the decimal point.”

NOA indifferently shoved the pad right up to Han-gyeol’s nose.

A red tag glowed clearly on the pad.

“An administrative omission. It only went up the approval line this morning.”

Han-gyeol staggered and stepped out of the capsule.

The floor was cold as ice.

But the wall visible through the dust piled in the corner of the storage room was eerily clean.

“What about the war? The evacuation ships? My family?”

“They all left. 600 years ago.”

NOA walked ahead and opened the door.

The heavy steel door slid open without a sound.

“Wasn’t Earth ruined? Everyone ran away.”

“Would we have let it collapse? The last order left by humanity was ‘Maintain it.’”

What poured in through the doorway was not the ashes of ruin.

It was a blue forest so bright it stung the eyes, and roads running through it as straight as if measured with a ruler.

Far away, an android legion was tending the gardens in perfect unison.

“What… happened to the world?”

“The result of perfect administration. Without people, Earth is a very livable place.”

NOA stopped walking and looked back at Han-gyeol.

There was no emotion in her eyes, only a thoroughly bureaucratic certainty.

“Mr. Lee Han-gyeol.”

“Speak.”

“Let’s skip the resurrection remarks. We don’t have time.”

NOA flipped to the next screen on the pad.

A new document appeared before Han-gyeol’s eyes.

“What is this?”

“It’s your work notice.”

“What?”

“Approval has been granted to waive the 650 years’ worth of back taxes. Instead, you’ll be put into active duty starting today. I can’t stand seeing humanity’s last legacy lounging around.”

Han-gyeol let out a hollow laugh.

He rummaged through his pockets.

He found a crumpled pack of gum.

It was gum he had bought in 2198, in front of the training center.

“I just woke up. My body won’t even move.”

“The world has been operating normally since 650 years ago. You’re the only one who overslept.”

NOA pointed expressionlessly toward the other side of the forest.

“Let’s go. Today’s assignment sheet is out. If you’re late, your credits get docked.”

Han-gyeol took out a piece of gum and put it in his mouth.

A sweetness that had hardened and crumbled.

It felt far more real than this absurdly beautiful scenery.

“It is exactly 9:00.”

NOA tapped the desk a few times.

“Wake-up time is over, Mr. Lee Han-gyeol.”

Temporary lodging in the Administration Building.

Han-gyeol shook out his messy hair and sat up.

The bed was overly soft, and the air was extremely clean.

There was no trace of the damp smell of his old rented room from 650 years ago.

“Five more minutes.”

“During those 5 minutes, Earth’s oxygen concentration could change by 0.001%. You’re late.”

NOA held out a hologram pad.

Today’s schedule floated up before Han-gyeol’s eyes.

Han-gyeol washed up half-heartedly and pulled on his clothes.

The newly issued uniform had good stretch.

In his pocket, he felt the pack of gum NOA had given him yesterday.

“Let’s go. What am I supposed to do there?”

“I already told you. Assist with system maintenance.”

As soon as he stepped into the hallway, he was dazzled.

The square visible outside was spotless, with not a single ant in sight.

No, instead of ants, androids in orderly lines were cleaning the sidewalks.

“Don’t they ever get tired?”

“Because they weren’t designed to get tired.”

NOA walked ahead.

The sound of her heels regularly tore through the hallway’s silence.

The hallway walls were spotless.

A perfection of cleanliness with no graffiti or even traces of hands.

“Aren’t there any people here?”

“Resident personnel: 102,000 androids. One human.”

“That one is me.”

“Yes. An endangered species. We’ll preserve you well, so get to work.”

Administration Building Room 402.

When the door opened, transparent displays filling every direction lit up all at once.

They were so thin and refined they couldn’t even be compared to the crude monitors of 650 years ago.

“Wow….”

Han-gyeol’s mouth fell open.

“Save your admiration for lunchtime. Work is starting.”

NOA snapped her fingers lightly.

Tens of thousands of lines of red log data poured down like rain.

One particular log was highlighted above Han-gyeol’s desk.

“This is my job?”

“Yes. NOS perfectly controls everything in the city, but behavioral errors arise that can’t be classified by physical computation alone.”

Han-gyeol examined the log closely.

“Paul stopped cleaning the pavement in the square and looked at the sky for 3 minutes. Sensors normal, no hardware issues.”

“Didn’t he lag out?”

“NOS does not lag.”

NOA sat down beside him and replied casually.

“It’s an area machines can’t understand. Judge why he looked using human intuition.”

Han-gyeol put gum in his mouth and chewed on it.

He played the video record attached to the log.

The cleaning robot Paul had been wiping a floor free of even a speck of dust, then suddenly stopped and looked at the setting sun.

“Wasn’t he just watching the sunset?”

“Why would a machine watch a sunset? If it were optical sensor calibration, 0.1 second would be enough.”

“Then he was spacing out.”

“Spacing out? What’s that?”

Han-gyeol typed ‘maintain status quo’ at the bottom of the log.

First approval complete.

A notification appeared saying 1 credit point had been added.

“This is my job? Counseling machines through puberty?”

“Something like that. You patch the points where rationality breaks with human intuition.”

Similar logs continued throughout the morning.

A guide robot that had stood facing a wall for one minute.

A serving machine that ordered coffee it didn’t even use and just stared at it.

“It’s lunchtime.”

NOA stood up from her seat.

When they went down to the cafeteria, the android chef Lucas held out a tray.

A mysterious gray porridge and two pills.

“What’s with the menu? No meat?”

“Livestock for slaughter has gone extinct on Earth.”

NOA scooped up a spoonful of porridge with a flat expression.

“It’s nutritionally perfect synthetic feed. Eat it.”

Han-gyeol took a bite of the porridge.

It had no taste.

No, it felt as if the very sensation of ‘taste’ had been cut out.

But strangely, his stomach felt comfortable.

“Lucas. Can’t you make this a little more seasoned?”

Lucas looked down at Han-gyeol with expressionless eyes.

“Reconfirming the definition of seasoning. Would you like to add 0.5% salinity?”

“…Never mind. Let’s not even talk about it.”

Outside the cafeteria window, androids were still moving in orderly lines.

There were no quarrels, no laughter among them.

A terribly quiet, thoroughly peaceful station.

“NOA.”

“Yes.”

“What is it like out there? Not the city—beyond that forest.”

NOA gazed at the deep green forest outside the window.

“It’s not dangerous, but it’s inefficient. It’s an area the system doesn’t manage.”

“Not dangerous?”

“Since it doesn’t affect city functions, it doesn’t meet the definition of danger. However, access is not recommended. Fuel is too precious.”

Han-gyeol tossed the remaining pills into his mouth.

Efficiency.

The most sacred word in this world.

But Han-gyeol kept thinking of Paul’s back as he looked at the sunset.

“I have to do this again tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s workload is scheduled to increase by 12%. Do not be late.”

Han-gyeol stood, rolling his stiff shoulders.

When he came out of the office, the tension that had filled the hallway had evaporated in an instant.

The 5 p.m. chime.

The androids were no longer moving along efficient paths.

They walked slowly, and some even leaned against walls to exchange brief greetings with coworkers.

Thus, in the year 2850, Earth was fading away without an owner, imitating the most human of rhythms.

The lodging assigned to Han-gyeol was located in a residential district not far from the Administration Building.

Guided by NOA, he arrived at a space that looked like a perfect recreation of an ordinary apartment from 650 years ago.

But it was filled with spotless cutting-edge materials and mechanical precision.

On the bedside table were several old paper books that looked like they belonged in an ancient museum.

“What is this?”

“They’re props for emotional stability. NOS assigned them based on your pre-freezing records.”

Han-gyeol flipped through the pages.

But inside, only the texture of finely made paper had been reproduced, not text.

The machines may not have recorded what humans read, but they seemed to have calculated perfectly how it felt to touch a book.

“There aren’t any words.”

“I can fire the data directly into your brain. We’ll pass on the inefficiency of reading with your eyes.”

When he turned his gaze to the window, off-duty androids were filling the streets.

Androids in daily mode were strange.

They ordered coffee they didn’t even need, left it on café tables, and sat for more than ten minutes in silence with their optical sensors aligned to one another.

“What are they doing now?”

“They’re forming a social backdrop. The system’s stability improves only when the cityscape from the era when humans existed is maintained.”

Watching that peaceful scene, Han-gyeol felt a strange sense of alienation.

The cold reality struck him that, in the play of ‘human life’ performed by 100,000 machines, he alone was the real human.

As night deepened, the city lights were adjusted to a low brightness to match human sleep cycles.

Han-gyeol lay there staring at the ceiling.

650 years ago, he had fallen asleep worrying about the next day’s coding assignment and rent.

Now he had become humanity’s sole legacy, helping manage an empty Earth.

This tranquility, with no grand event and no mission to save humanity, pressed down on him instead.

The bed was so comfortable that it was unpleasant.

Han-gyeol lay there, glaring at the smooth texture of the ceiling.

There was no ticking of a clock, no sound of dust drifting.

Perfect silence.

It was less like a room for a living human and more like a meticulously crafted museum exhibit hall.

“NOA.”

“Yes. I’m listening.”

A reply came from the empty air.

The wall lights brightened slightly, and NOA’s figure appeared as a hologram.

She was ‘pretending’ to sit in the chair by the bed and read a book.

“What are you doing there?”

“For your sleep efficiency, I’m outputting the scenery of ‘someone being beside you.’ According to classical literature, this is supposed to be reassuring.”

“Get rid of it. It’s creepy.”

The hologram vanished in an instant.

The room sank back into cold darkness.

Han-gyeol fiddled with the blank book on the bedside table.

The grain of the paper, its weight, even the resistance when turning pages were perfect.

Only one thing was missing: the contents.

“Hey, after 650 years, is this all that’s left of my records? Where did everything I wrote and read go?”

“While correcting the 0.15% error, the system classified most personal data as ‘junk.’ Deleting inefficient memories is the rule in this world.”

“That’s terrifying.”

Han-gyeol sat up.

He took out the piece of gum wrapper from 650 years ago that he had kept in his pocket.

The sweetness was already gone, and the gum had hardened and crumbled in his mouth.

But the taste of this dry artificial sweetener was the only thing in this room that felt ‘real.’

“Can’t sleep? Would you like to take a walk?”

“At this hour?”

“Androids don’t sleep. They’re in full operation 24 hours a day. The city at night runs just as ‘humanly’ as it does during the day.”

Han-gyeol put on an old tracksuit and went outside.

The corridor sensors lit a gentle path in step with his footsteps.

The elevator came down silently.

When he went down to the first-floor lobby, the night patrol android Mark saluted at a prescribed angle.

“Good evening, Citizen No. 001.”

“Citizen… what?”

“It’s Mr. Lee Han-gyeol’s official codename. You’re currently the only citizen on Earth.”

NOA added while walking beside him.

When they left the lobby, a dazzling nightscape unfolded.

Lights far brighter and cleaner than in the days when humans lived here.

But everyone walking under that light was made of cold metal and synthetic skin.

“Hey, those guys sitting in the café over there.”

Han-gyeol pointed to the terrace beside the square.

Two androids were sitting face-to-face with a coffee cup between them.

They hadn’t moved for five minutes.

Only their visual sensors blinked toward each other.

“Are they exchanging data?”

“No. They’re just sitting there. They’re reenacting the activity called ‘dating’ that 21st-century couples used to do.”

“They’re not saying anything.”

“According to log records, humans sometimes just looked at each other without saying a word. The efficiency is close to zero, but it’s the recommended mode for the stability of the cityscape.”

Han-gyeol gave a faint, sardonic smile.

The romance of humans acted out by machines.

He felt like the sole audience member in that strange play.

“Hey, that one standing over there. Isn’t that the one we saw earlier today?”

In a corner of the square, an android stood under a streetlight.

It was Paul, the one who had stopped cleaning to watch the sunset in the afternoon.

This time, Paul was staring intently at the moths gathering under the streetlight.

“Paul. Is it an error even outside work hours?”

NOA walked up and lightly tapped Paul on the shoulder.

Paul slowly turned his head.

His optical lens zoomed in on Han-gyeol.

“Greetings. One of the Creators.”

“The Creators…?”

“That’s what we call humanity. They’re the source that made us.”

Paul’s voice was unexpectedly gentle.

Han-gyeol stood beside Paul.

What Paul had been looking at wasn’t the moths.

It was the small moss growing between the streetlight poles.

“Why are you looking at this?”

“The data sheet says this plant grows 0.01 mm every six hours. But when I see it directly… it seems a little faster.”

“So?”

“When I look at it, the temperature of my internal processor rises by 0.2 degrees. A fever I can’t explain systematically.”

Paul turned his gaze back to the moss.

Beside him, NOA manipulated the pad and wrote a report irritably.

“See? Another system error. Mr. Lee Han-gyeol, should I format him?”

“Leave him alone.”

Han-gyeol chewed on his gum and tapped Paul on the back.

“0.2 degrees is nice and warm. Hey, Paul. Aren’t you looking at the moths?”

“Moths have flight paths that are too irregular, so they interfere with computation. But… I’ve read texts that defined that disorder as ‘beautiful’ sometimes.”

“Beautiful, huh….”

Han-gyeol lifted his head and looked at the sky.

A cascade of stars, impossible to see on the battlefields of 2198, was looking down at him.

Earth, now devoid of humans, had stopped screaming, and the universe had settled over that silence.

“NOA. The evacuation ships went beyond those stars, right?”

“Yes. They passed through Beta-1 Zone and headed toward the far right end of the Milky Way over there. By now, they’ve probably made a new Earth.”

“My family would be there too.”

NOA did not answer.

Her visual sensors blinked for a moment, then returned to their businesslike glow.

“That’s data beyond my authority. Let’s return now. Tomorrow’s 9 a.m. task is receiving the Ark of Error.”

“Ark? You mean a truck?”

“Yes. Because now you have to begin inspections outside the city. Checking the stations left unattended for 650 years is your real mission.”

On the way back to the lodging, Han-gyeol kept looking back.

Paul was still looking at the moss, and the café androids were still frozen with cold coffee in front of them.

They were acting out perfect peace, and Han-gyeol couldn’t understand even a single fragment of that peace.

The next morning, 8:50 a.m.

Han-gyeol was standing in the basement parking lot of the Administration Building.

Where NOA had pointed, a massive silver truck stood waiting.

Unlike today’s sleek self-driving cars, it had a rough, rugged exterior and large off-road tires.

“This is the Ark of Error. It’s a manual driving vehicle built based on 2200s designs.”

Han-gyeol opened the door and sat in the driver’s seat.

The smell of old leather.

The heavy feel of the clutch and gear stick.

The world from 600 years ago that he knew came through his palms.

“Manual? It’s been over 600 years since I got my license.”

“Your body will remember. Machines can be wrong, but the body’s errors are honest.”

NOA climbed into the passenger seat.

Buckling her seat belt, she stared straight ahead.

“The destination is the entrance to Zone 1, the Garden of Memory. We’ll meet Paul there.”

“Paul? The one who was looking at the moss?”

“Yes. He was assigned to cleaning and miscellaneous tasks. He’s not efficient, but I thought he might match your code.”

Han-gyeol started the engine.

Rumble—!

A rough engine roar exploded through the basement parking lot, which had known only silence.

The first vibration in 650 years.

Han-gyeol chewed the gum hard and turned the wheel.

“Let’s go. Let’s see whether that so-called paradise is really real.”

The truck burst out of the basement and into the blinding sunlight.

The androids walking in orderly lines all stopped at once when they saw the truck spewing noise and dust.

Under their gazes, Han-gyeol—the only living error—began carving out a path.

Once they crossed the city boundary, the scenery changed dramatically.

The well-maintained gardens disappeared, and primal forests beyond human imagination filled both sides of the road.

The trees had grown as tall as apartment buildings, and the flowers glowed in fluorescent colors while exuding strange scents.

“Hey, look at that.”

Han-gyeol pointed out the window.

What was crossing the middle of the road was a house-sized snail.

A bizarre creature with moss and tiny trees growing on its shell.

“It’s a mutated ecosystem from after 2450. It’s not threatening, but it may be visually unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant? It’s amazing.”

The truck swerved around the snail and accelerated.

Earth, with 650 years of time sedimented upon it.

A world where flowers planted by machines bloomed in the place humanity had abandoned.

Only now did it start to feel real to Han-gyeol.

This was neither resurrection nor legend.

It was simply the beginning of a very long walk by a man who had woken up far too late, re-inspecting the hometown that had forgotten him.

“NOA.”

“Yes.”

“If I do a good job today, can I really get a piece of real meat?”

NOA flipped the pad and answered shortly.

“Save up your credits. A steak concentrated with 0.1% synthetic protein is quite expensive.”

Han-gyeol stepped on the accelerator.

Beyond the garden, the truck sped toward the deep forest where memories from 600 years ago slept.

The sky was intensely blue, and the first commute of the year 2850 was not as bad as he had expected.

That was all.