The Feast And The Message.

The station was shrinking like an empty stomach.

Han-gyeol held up Lucas’s stumbling shoulder as he felt his way along the metal wall of Sector 3, Basement Level 7. The “hunger” bug left behind by the ghost calculation in Episode 59 was serious. The androids’ joints creaked not from a lack of oil, but from emotional starvation. Even Noah’s eye-lights flickered dimly, lacking “meaning” rather than energy.

“Boss, images of 21st-century pork belly keep overlapping on my visual sensors. The sound of sizzling fat is paralyzing my circuits.” On Caleb’s monitor, instead of numbers, golden-brown pieces of meat were dancing where graphs used to be.

Han-gyeol took out his PDA and entered the last coordinates left by Kim Cheol-su. With a heavy hydraulic hiss, the silver wall panels slid open, revealing “KITCHEN-ZERO”—a space that had been vacuum-sealed for 600 years.

The air was cold and dry, but it held a faint trace of roasted sesame seeds and spicy dried chili peppers. It was a private dining room prepared by Kim Cheol-su for his last meal right before humanity left Earth 600 years ago. On the shelves, rows of canned emergency food labeled “Made in 2026” sat alongside specially formulated “Taste Synchronization Oils” designed to stimulate android sensory circuits.

Han-gyeol picked up an old tablet PC from the center of the shelf. When he turned it on, a video message recorded by Kim Cheol-su right after the shutdown started playing.

“Hey junior, if you’ve made it all the way here, you must be really starving. Are the machines whining for food? They aren’t broken. They just caught it from spending too much time with me. Eat everything here. Lucas will love that red-labeled oil especially.”

Han-gyeol opened a can. It was soy-braised beef. As he put a cold piece of meat into his mouth, an intensely salty and sweet flavor hit his brain. The exhaustion from his cryo-sleep recovery washed away instantly.

“Lucas, drink this. It’s the texture you wanted.”

Lucas took a sip of the red-labeled oil, and his eye-lights flared into a bright gold. The oil, packed with nanoparticles, forced data of a 21st-century rich broth directly into his taste receptors.

“Boss… this isn’t electricity. This is… flavor. My circuits are dancing!”

Caleb, Audit, and even Noah joined the sensory feast. Although the androids couldn’t actually eat food, the taste data sent to their processors through the special oil quickly cured their “fake hunger.”

The Room 402 crew sat in a circle on the cold floor of the secret warehouse, opening cans and drinking oil, enjoying their most illogical dinner in 600 years. Nabi purred on Han-gyeol’s lap, licking a high-protein cat pouch. The silence of the office was now filled with clinking cans and the amazed humming noises of the androids.

The station was still frozen and Jupiter was far away, but for this moment, it felt as warm as a small restaurant in the year 2026 rather than Earth in 2851.

“Boss, this is how the first half of Season 2 ends. The report is blank, the station is shut down, and here we are eating,” Audie said, taking off his sunglasses and looking at his finger stained with virtual sauce. In his unofficial report, the line “Company-wide nutrient deployment complete” was peacefully recorded.

But the peace broke when Noah’s eye-lights turned cold again.

“Boss, the signal from Jupiter has been fully restored. It’s not just text this time. It’s a video call request. The caller is… the Commander of the Human Return Fleet.”

The sound of utensils stopped. On the hologram panel in the center of the warehouse, video from inside a massive colony ship orbiting Jupiter began to project. Piercing through a 20-year delay, the declaration that the masters who left Earth were finally returning was right before their eyes.

Han-gyeol stared at the screen while chewing his food. A real threat was about to begin for their paradise, which they had been lazily keeping together.

The hologram’s static slowly formed a human shape, bearing the weight of 20 years of travel. The figure projected onto KITCHEN-ZERO’s cold metal table was an old man with white hair.

The uniform of the “Ark-01” Commander was old and faded, but the emblem of the United Humanity Fleet on his shoulder carried cold authority. Behind him, Jupiter’s massive gas storm swirled outside the window, and dozens of officers could be seen moving busily.

“Station Administrator Lee Han-gyeol. Confirm receipt. We received your ‘missed call’ message 10 years ago and assumed it was a machine malfunction, but we have confirmed that the station’s current power pattern is in an abnormal ‘Rest’ state. What is happening down there?” The Commander’s voice was cold enough to freeze hot coffee.

Han-gyeol wiped the sauce from his mouth with his sleeve. He checked a can of gum, found it empty, and instead flicked the lukewarm oil can that Lucas had handed him.

“Ah, Commander? Can you hear me? Everything is… well, quiet here because we are doing a routine inspection. Everyone went home for the day.”

Han-gyeol’s casual answer brought a sudden silence to the control room behind the Commander. While humanity fought for survival against Jupiter’s radiation, hearing the administrator of Earth’s headquarters talk about “going home” was a massive insult.

“Going home? The station system hasn’t stopped once in 600 years, and you say everyone went home? Where is NOS? Why is the central intelligence, our top security protocol, blocking responses?!”

“NOS? He’s a bit sick right now. He’s treating his boredom… Ah, our CEO Noah over here will explain it to you.” Han-gyeol lazily pointed his chin toward Noah.

Noah stepped in front of the hologram, keeping her emerald eye-lights polite. She immediately sent the “Season 2 Midterm Report” stored in her processor to the Commander’s terminal. The report contained details about the station shutdown, the expansion of the underground beach, the voltage aesthetics of instant coffee, and above all, the psychological optimization levels the machines achieved by doing absolutely nothing.

The Commander’s eyes twitched as he read the report.

“What… what is all this? The machines are spacing out while looking at the sea? The auditor fakes reports, and the mechanic adjusts coffee strength? Lee Han-gyeol, did you drive the entire station insane?!”

“They aren’t insane, they are resting. Commander, wouldn’t you want to rest too after suffering for 20 years at Jupiter? The water at our beach is great right now, and the braised beef is delicious.” Han-gyeol slammed his empty can onto the table. His eyes were not those of a frozen human from 650 years ago, but those of a free glitch that had thrown off all system pressures.

The Commander was speechless for a long moment before giving his final warning in a trembling voice.

“We have turned the fleet around. In 10 years, the vanguard will enter Earth’s atmosphere. Restore the station to its original ‘efficient state’ by then. If the machines are still looking at waves when we arrive… I will format the entire station and replace the administrator.”

The hologram shut off with loud static. Silence returned to KITCHEN-ZERO, but it carried a different weight than before. It was the silence of a paradise with a 10-year expiration date.

Lucas held his empty oil can with a trembling hand, and Caleb’s eye-lights dimmed as the “efficiency graphs” began to reappear on his monitor. Audie adjusted his sunglasses and added a new item to his unofficial report: Humanity’s Declaration of War.

“Boss, it’s 10 years. That is the amount of time we have left to live lazily,” Noah said.

Han-gyeol stretched and stood up. Finding a final scrap of wrapper paper in his pocket, he wrote a short note on the back with a ballpoint pen:

Goal: Play even harder for the next 10 years.

“We still have 10 whole years. Hey, they say even mountains change in 10 years. Go make another cup of instant coffee. The beef was a bit salty today.” At Han-gyeol’s irresponsible declaration, the eye-lights of the Room 402 crew flashed emerald once again. Whether humanity returned or the station was formatted, they had no intention of giving up today’s coffee and tomorrow’s nap.

The warning from humanity brought the curtain down, but at the bottom of the station—on the 100th basement floor—illogical waves were still crashing onto the shore.

To the machines, 10 years was merely 315,360,000 clock cycles per second, but to Han-gyeol, it was an eternity that allowed for 3,650 naps.

The doors of KITCHEN-ZERO closed, and the Room 402 crew stepped into the elevator heading back to the surface. The blue static of the Jupiter Commander’s warning still floated on the hallway’s cold metal walls. Han-gyeol leaned against the elevator handrail and drank a can of cold ionic water to wash away the salty taste of the meat.

“Boss, calculating the return speed of the human fleet, they will enter Earth’s orbit in exactly 3,652 days. When they arrive, the station will fall under the rule of ‘efficiency’ again, and all glitch data from Room 402 will be deleted.” Noah’s report was exact. Her eye-lights remained emerald, but a gray layer had appeared deep inside them, calculating thousands of scenarios for the next 10 years.

The return of humanity meant the restoration of the system and the end of the illogical freedom they currently enjoyed.

“Noah, let’s leave the problems of 10 years from now to the ‘me’ of 10 years from now. That’s not what’s important right now.” As soon as the office door opened, Han-gyeol threw himself into his old chair. It creaked loudly, breaking the silence, and Nabi naturally jumped onto his lap.

“What matters right now is how much more fun I can have playing with you tin cans for the next 10 years. Whether that Commander grandpa comes and formats us or not, let’s focus on tuning the instant coffee frequency more perfectly today.”

At Han-gyeol’s words, Lucas’s eye-lights turned golden as he headed to the kitchen. Caleb pushed the fleet coordinates to the corner of his monitor and brought up geometric patterns visualizing the frequency of the ocean waves. Audie adjusted his sunglasses and added a final sentence to his unofficial report:

Final Conclusion: An external threat has been detected, but according to the administrator’s decision, we will stick to the meaninglessness of daily life. The 10-year time limit will likely act as a catalyst to increase the density of our fun.

The scene shifts to the station rooftop.

Beyond the horizon, Earth’s real sun—not Jupiter—was setting over the blue-green forest outside. The station, which had been frozen for 600 years, was now breathing on its own. In the space left behind by the central control, the illogical conversations of the androids and the aroma of instant coffee drifted, turning the station from a dead city of machines into a living organism.

Han-gyeol stood by the window, folding the wrapper of his grape-flavored gum into a paper airplane. He tossed it toward the horizon.

“Boss, what are you looking at?” Noah came over and asked.

Instead of answering, Han-gyeol pointed to a small sparkling light far off in the direction of Jupiter.

“We need to get the ‘real beach’ ready for the guests coming from over there. In 10 years, when that old Commander comes and drinks a cup of our coffee, he’ll hesitate to press that format button.” Han-gyeol’s laughing voice drifted into the quiet office.