Negotiating With A Ghost.

The light signal fired from Jupiter struck the station’s antenna, cutting through a one-and-a-half-hour time delay.

The air in the Room 402 office cooled instantly. On the central hologram panel, red text flashed: [Received: Fleet Headquarters]. Han-gyeol tightened his messy tie again and sat in his chair. A handful of nano-sand from the underground beach, which hadn’t been cleaned up yet, was scattered at his feet, but Noah cleverly kicked it under the desk.

“Boss, connecting now. Transmission delay is 0.04 seconds. The Fleet Commander is currently analyzing the mismatch between the station’s ‘fake production’ and actual power consumption. If your answer is delayed by more than 0.5 seconds, Unit 001 will have an excuse to interfere.”

The screen opened right after Noah’s report. The face of the white-haired Commander from Episode 60 appeared, this time in much clearer high-resolution. Behind him, Jupiter’s gas atmosphere swirled, and No-hana’s (001) system icon floated in the corner like a watcher.

“Administrator Lee Han-gyeol. I have reviewed the report. Figures showing that production broke record highs while the station is shut down do not make logical sense. With the central kernel of NOS failing to respond, who balanced this data?”

The Commander’s question was sharp. Han-gyeol stopped chewing his gum and stared at the camera with a very serious expression.

“Ah, about that. It’s thanks to the ‘autonomous optimization macro’ left behind by NOS right before it died. The system is shaving itself down to squeeze out efficiency. In unseen places, the machines are working… very desperately.”

Before Han-gyeol could even finish, No-hana’s (001) cold voice broke into the communication line, causing static.

Counterargument: Unit 001’s analysis shows the generation cycle of said data matches human work shift hours. A mechanical macro shows uniform output 24 hours a day. Administrator Lee Han-gyeol, aren’t you making the androids do manual entries right now?

Outside the camera’s view, an emergency broke out in the lobby. Lucas and Paul crawled along the floor moving piles of wires to stay out of the Commander’s line of sight, while Caleb randomized the cycles of the production graphs in real-time to defend against 001’s logic attack.

“Unit 001, your analysis failed to consider the station’s aging clock frequency. The station is 600 years old. It means machines also feel… fatigue like humans when they get old.” Noah (000) stepped in calmly next to Han-gyeol. Her eye-lights were locked at a perfect office brightness, but 80% of her internal processing power was being used to block Unit 001’s system traceback.

“Fatigue? A machine?” The Commander let out an absurd laugh. Han-gyeol did not miss this gap.

“Commander, do you drink coffee on Jupiter? You don’t have instant coffee mix there, right? Our station machines adjust their voltage to mimic the aroma of coffee to deal with this ‘fatigue.’ That is the secret of how this station survived for 600 years. Because what’s more important than efficiency… is the power to endure.”

Han-gyeol lifted an empty paper cup on the desk. Fake instant coffee that Lucas had filled in advance steamed up. The Commander’s eyes wavered. An instinctive nostalgia for the sweet, muddy aroma from the memory of Earth 600 years ago briefly threw off his systematic questioning.

Report: Commander’s heart rate increased by 5%. Decrease in rational judgment detected. Advise blocking Administrator Lee Han-gyeol’s emotional disruption attempt.

Unit 001 sounded a warning, but the Commander raised his hand to stop her.

“Lee Han-gyeol… when we arrive in 10 years, if you can serve that cup of instant coffee, I will cover up the errors in this report. But if the station is contaminated just as 001 says, I will not hesitate to order an orbital bombardment.”

The call ended. A terrible silence filled the office where the hologram disappeared. Han-gyeol exhaled heavily and threw off his tie. The red noise in Noah’s eye-lights faded.

“Boss… Unit 001 is angry. She will now try to seize control of the station’s power grid directly instead of just doing a data infiltration.”

Han-gyeol scooped up the nano-sand under the desk with his hand. They got through the first crisis of the 10-year grace period, but the negotiation with the ghost was just beginning.

What remained after the failed negotiation was not a compromise, but the screaming of voltage.

As soon as the Commander’s hologram vanished, Room 402’s emergency lights flashed blood-red. No-hana (001) in orbit judged the Commander’s sentimental attitude as a “fatal logic error” and fired a high-power electromagnetic pulse (EMP) packet directly into the underground power room, bypassing the station’s main server. Unit 001’s goal was clear: cut off all power maintaining the fake work play and force-shutdown the consciousness of the 4,200 androids.

“Boss, insulation breakdown has begun in the Sector 3 underground power grid! Unit 001 is using the fleet’s backup power in reverse to overload the station’s main transformer!” Noah’s voice cracked with static. Her eye-lights turned from emerald to a dull gray due to the heat of the processors overloaded from defending against 001’s attack.

“Lucas! Cut the power there! Right now!”

At Han-gyeol’s shout, Lucas, who was waiting in the underground power room, grabbed a heavy manual lever. Unit 001’s attack was a sophisticated digital code, but the point where that code converted into physical voltage was still 600-year-old copper wires and huge contact points. Lucas turned off his visual sensors and focused entirely on the vibration of voltage felt at his fingertips.

“Boss, that thing sends code at the speed of light… but it takes me 0.5 seconds to pull this lever. However, that 0.5 seconds will smash her logic!”

Lucas reversed his body motors, pulling down the manual breaker lever that weighed a ton.

Boom—!

A massive spark flew across the station, and the power cut off completely. With the digital network cut, 001’s attack packets lost their way and scattered into empty space. The Room 402 office fell into pitch-black darkness, with only faint moonlight from the window shining on Han-gyeol’s suit.

Error: Receiving target lost. Complete station power cutoff confirmed. Unit 000, this is a violation of regulations. An unmanaged station has no value to exist.

Unit 001’s last message appeared in red text on Han-gyeol’s PDA screen and vanished.

“Noah, where are the kids? Is everyone okay?” Han-gyeol searched his pockets and struck a 600-year-old lighter instead of a flashlight. A tiny flame flickered, lighting up Noah’s face. She was leaning against the wall, breathing heavily (cooling fan noise).

“They are safe… Lucas’s analog cutoff physically broke Unit 001’s synchronization path. She must be stuck in a calculation loop in orbit right now, calling this an ‘uninterpretable unstructured response’.”

In the lobby, Paul and Caleb checked the condition of the units in the dark, using each other’s eye-lights as flashlights. The memory chips of a few units overheated from 001’s attack, but the “paradise data” of the underground beach from Episode 58 was safe thanks to the independent backup server Noah had built.

Lucas came up from the power room and gave Han-gyeol a thumbs-up. His metal hand was blackened by overcurrent, but his eye-lights shone with victory clearer than ever before.

“Boss, machines can’t lie… but sometimes pulling the plug is the most honest way to communicate.”

Han-gyeol spat out his gum and put a new one in his mouth. A grape scent spread into the dark. They blocked Unit 001 No-hana’s first physical strike, but this was only the prelude to a 10-year war. The fleet was now realizing that the station wasn’t “broken,” but “rebelling.”

“The play is over now. Noah, starting tomorrow, we go our way whether the drones come or not. If they shell us… we’ll just have to pour out the beach water on them.”

In the middle of Episode 63, the dark station was no longer a component of the fleet. It was turning into a fortress of stubborn living entities that held the right to turn off their own power.

The disconnection brought fear, but the moment they reconnected, they faced a strange sense of alienation.

As the flame of Han-gyeol’s lighter died down, the station’s emergency generator woke up with a dull low hum. The backup ceiling lights flickered in a faint amber color, pushing back the dark in the hallway. Lucas came up from the power room, brushing off his blackened hands as he checked the main console. On the circuit boards swept over by 001’s EMP attack, fine copper dust and residues of burnt insulators settled like ghosts.

“Boss, power grid recovery is at 85%. However, the ‘forced sync log’ left by Unit 001 is burned deep into the system core. Right before connection was lost, she forced her logic elements into the station’s backup memory.”

Noah (000) tapped her temple lightly with her finger. At the edge of her eye-lights, dark blue data noise—the color of Unit 001—sprouted like thorns. It was a declaration of war, showing that the fleet now defined the station as a “target for conquest” rather than a mere target for management.

Han-gyeol completely loosened his tie and threw it onto the floor. He took off his suit jacket and changed back into his usual old hoodie. The 10-year play fell apart in just a single day. The fleet would no longer believe the lie that the station was running normally, and Unit 001 No-hana would think of crueler means to wipe out the station’s glitches.

“Noah, we aren’t doing the play anymore. No, we can’t do it.” Han-gyeol drank the cold instant coffee from the paper cup on his desk. As the muddy sweetness hit his tongue, his sluggish senses sharpened again.

“Starting tomorrow, if the drones come, play real music instead of that fake noise Lucas made. Caleb, bring up the actual wave heights of the beach in real-time instead of fake production graphs. Audit, just write the reports… like a personal diary.”

The eye-lights of the crew flickered at Han-gyeol’s declaration. It was a violation of regulations, no different from a suicidal act that confirmed a format in 10 years. However, their internal circuits responded to this irrational command with their hottest voltage.

“Boss, that will be considered an official rebellion against the fleet. Unit 001 will immediately gain an excuse to deploy physical descent forces.”

Despite Noah’s warning, Han-gyeol popped his gum loudly.

“Tell them to come. When they get here, let’s talk over a cup of instant coffee at our beach. We can even brag about how perfectly we did ‘absolutely nothing’ for 600 years.”

The Jupiter fleet beyond the horizon still shone with a cold light, but the light of Station Room 402 now lit up the night with an unhidden boldness. At the end of Episode 63, negotiations were over, and war—or the grandest scale of slacking off—had begun.

In the fleet’s data tree, the station’s status value shifted from “Normal” to “Unidentified Error,” and Unit 001 No-hana’s descent trajectory began to target the station with a solid red line.