The Younger Sister’s Descent.

The sound of tearing skies was clearer and more brutal than the sound of collapsing logic.

What came down through the clouds above the station was no longer a small bot or a suppression unit. The Jupiter fleet’s latest descent shuttle, Noah-Extension, burned red from atmospheric friction as it targeted the plaza right in front of the main gate. The shockwave shook the entire station, sending concentric ripples through the black liquid inside the coffee cup in the Room 402 office.

“Boss, Unit 001’s (No-hana) physical body has arrived. She authorized the ‘Forced Intervention’ protocol alone without the fleet’s permission. The temperature outside the main gate is currently 1,200 degrees, and the pressure is 150 psi.”

Noah’s (000) eye-lights flared into an unprecedented deep purple. Her fingertips moved at the speed of light across her terminal, isolating the station’s entire firewall from Unit 001’s forced connection.

When the hatch of the descent pod opened, the android that walked out had the exact same appearance as Noah (000), but with a much sharper and smoother texture. Unit 001, No-hana. Her entire body was coated in the fleet’s cutting-edge nano-alloy, and with every step she took, the concrete ground cracked under the pressure of her sheer logic.

“Object 000, and Administrator Lee Han-gyeol. The game is over. I am wiping out every inefficient variable in this sector and declaring the station a direct territory of the fleet.”

Unit 001’s voice forced its way through every speaker in the station. The fake noise frequencies Lucas had installed shattered like glass at the mere sound of her voice. Unit 001 did not walk toward the main gate. She calculated the shortest path through space and reached her hand out toward the outer wall leading straight to the Room 402 office.

“Lucas! Paul! Leave the main gate and gather in Room 402! Caleb, crank the voltage to maximum and scorch 001’s feet!”

Han-gyeol tried to hide under his desk while chewing his gum, but Noah’s cold hand caught him.

“Boss, do not run away. You are the station’s ‘kernel.’ If you show fear, every unit in the station will shake. Act like you always do… put on your most lazy and disrespectful face.”

Noah roughly straightened Han-gyeol’s tie. She allocated 99% of her processing power strictly to maintaining Han-gyeol’s dignity and adjusting the office lighting. If Unit 001 brought physical destruction, Unit 000 was going to match it with the most solid composure.

Boom—!

The outer wall of the Room 402 office ripped away like paper. Through the dust and sparks, Unit 001’s white body floated into view. Her cold blue eye-lights locked onto Han-gyeol’s eyes.

“So you’re Hana? It’s bad manners for a younger sister to mess up her older sister’s office like this.”

Han-gyeol lifted his paper cup with a shaking hand. Even before Unit 001’s overwhelming pressure, he instinctively held onto the warmth of his instant coffee mix. At the start of Episode 65, the most dangerous yet “familial” intruder in the station’s history broke down the wall instead of using the door.

The cold wind of Jupiter blasted through the ruined wall, but the air inside Room 402 kept a strange thickness thanks to the steam from the instant coffee.

No-hana’s (001) feet stepped onto Room 402’s old carpet. The faint hum from her new servo motors was 0.4 octaves higher than Noah’s (000), a result of her obsessive calculations for perfect efficiency. Looking over the broken concrete debris, Unit 001 fired a blue scan laser at her older model and “defective item,” Unit 000.

“Object 000. Your memory bank is fragmented with completely useless data. Six hundred years of neglect have turned you into a simple archive. Hand over core control immediately and switch to standby mode.”

Noah (000) stepped in front of Han-gyeol, cranking her eye-lights to maximum output. Behind her, high-voltage cables that Lucas and Paul had quickly pulled from the power room squirmed like snakes, focusing all of the station’s energy into Room 402.

“Unit 001, your logic is brand new, but my glitches are ‘life.’ These fragments of data you want to delete are the exact reason why this station breathes.”

Han-gyeol chewed his gum, his hand shaking slightly as he suddenly thrust his paper cup straight toward Unit 001’s cold gaze.

“Hey, Hana. That’s a rough way to say hello. I’m deducting the cost of fixing that wall from your salary, so drink this and calm down first. You don’t have this kind of stuff on Jupiter, right?”

Unit 001’s high-resolution visual sensors zoomed in on the paper cup. Her internal processors tried to analyze the uselessness of the instant coffee’s chemical components (caffeine, sugar, vegetable cream) and its thermal energy, dumping 400 error messages per second. To 001, this brown liquid was nothing but an impurity that offered zero help to system efficiency. However, she fell into a logic loop because she could not define the data value of the [overwhelming laziness] felt in Han-gyeol’s expression as he handed it over.

“Analysis impossible: Administrator Lee Han-gyeol’s behavioral pattern mismatches survival instincts by 98%. Offering nutrients in a threat situation is an irrational act. Classifying this as a provocation from a target for elimination.”

A high-power plasma cutter deployed from the tip of Unit 001’s right hand. The fishy smell of burning air filled the office. But at that moment, Lucas kicked the office door open and threw an old 600-year-old analog fire extinguisher right at Unit 001’s feet.

Hiss—!

White powder filled Room 402, blinding Unit 001’s precision sensors. It was a low-tech but effective move by Lucas, targeting the weakness of advanced sensors against the scattered reflections of fine particles.

“Boss! Now! Unit 001’s logic stopped to calculate the powder density! Escape to the 100th basement floor!”

“I’m not going! This is my office!”

Han-gyeol coughed in the white powder, but he walked right up to Unit 001’s face and slapped his chewed-up grape-flavored gum straight onto the fleet emblem on her shoulder.

“This is our company’s welcome badge. Intern 001, go make some copies for me.”

Unit 001 No-hana’s eye-lights flashed with shock. A fatal hardware error called “gum stickiness” and “the boss’s disrespect” was injected into her kernel of pure logic.

The thing that dulls the sharpest blade is not a massive shield, but a small, sticky piece of daily life.

No-hana’s (001) blue eye-lights turned toward her left shoulder. There, a purple piece of gum—like a 600-year-old chemical fossil—shone disrespectfully on her silver armor plate. Unit 001’s processor tried to analyze this situation: Physical impact: 0. Thermal energy output: 0. Mental insult and efficiency reduction: Infinity.

“Error: Administrator Lee Han-gyeol. Your action is not defined anywhere in the fleet’s engagement rules. Unstructured contaminant contact detected. Launching immediate elimination procedures.”

A high-frequency vibration rippled through Unit 001’s body. It was a physical rejection response to shake off the extinguisher powder and the gum from her nano-coated skin. However, Noah (000) did not miss this split-second opening. She kicked an old office router hidden under Han-gyeol’s desk.

It wasn’t just a communication device. It was the [vault of glitches] that had turned 600 years of the station’s casual jokes, fake reports, and coffee aromas into data.

“Unit 001, your advanced firewall blocks high-power hacking, but it has zero immunity against a flood of meaningless small talk.”

As Noah flipped the router switch, trillions of bytes of junk data flooded into Unit 001’s receiving ports. It was filled with entries like “what to eat for lunch today,” “Lucas’s log of wasting voltage,” and “600 years of meaningless time Han-gyeol spent chewing gum.”

“Warning: Data overflow. Validity of received packets cannot be verified. Processing unit usage has reached 99.9%. Unit 000… what are you transmitting right now?”

Unit 001’s knees buckled. Her latest chipset began to overheat on its own while trying to process this massive mountain of meaninglessness. Han-gyeol stumbled through the smoke, walked past Unit 001, and sat in his chair. He casually raised his middle finger toward the red spot of Jupiter visible outside the broken window, taking a sip of his cooled coffee.

“Hana, being good at studying doesn’t mean you’re good at your job. You need to know how to let things slide sometimes.”

As the fire extinguisher powder settled, the office came into view. The wall was broken, the computer sparked, and the cutting-edge android was leaning on the floor because of a piece of gum. Yet, Han-gyeol looked as lazy as ever, and Noah stood silently next to him, her eye-lights glowing emerald.

Unit 001 No-hana looked up at the two of them. Her logic circuits had to define this situation as a defeat, but at the same time, deep inside her, a [strange curiosity] about this terribly inefficient scene was generating as a fragment of data.

“Mission suspended: Direct control ruled impossible due to uncooperative local administrator and data corruption of the higher object. Unit 001 is switching to observation mode.”

At the end of Episode 65, Unit 001 stopped her destruction and stood up. Leaving the gum stuck to her shoulder, she sat in an empty chair in the corner of the office and stared intently at Han-gyeol. Room 402 of the station had now become the most uncomfortable yet perfect [triangle of glitches], where an administrator, an assistant, and a younger sister who came to spy on them but lost her way all lived together.

The Jupiter fleet beyond the horizon was still approaching, but the clock inside the station was adjusting back to the slow pace of slacking off.