Two Stations.

What divided the office was not a physical wall, but a difference in values that stretched infinitely beyond decimal points.

A sharp, straight line of neon white tape was taped across the floor of the Room 402 office. Right after her physical descent, No-hana (001) had set exactly 50% of the office space as the “Fleet Temporary Control Zone” and drew that boundary line. Her area was tidy without a single speck of dust, and even the oxygen concentration in the air was locked firmly at the fleet standard of 21%.

On the other hand, Han-gyeol’s area was still the exact same chaos from 650 years ago. Empty cup ramen containers were stacked into a tower on his desk, and the wind blowing through the plastic sheet temporarily covering the broken wall messed up Han-gyeol’s messy hair.

“Unit 001, do not let your dust cross into my zone. Flakes of dead skin data dropping from your armor record as useless noise on my sensors.” No-hana (001) spoke coldly without even looking toward Han-gyeol’s area.

On her shoulder, a faint mark from the gum Han-gyeol had stuck there in Episode 65 still remained, but she classified it as a “specimen for observing contamination stages” and left it on.

Han-gyeol chewed his gum, glancing at No-hana across the boundary line. She blinked her eyelids 1,200 times a second, synchronizing real-time data with the fleet’s surveillance drone, EYE-01.

“Hana, doesn’t it hurt your joints to stand so stiffly like that? There’s another sofa over here, so come cross over and sit down.”

Refusal: Unit 001’s servo motors are designed to withstand static loads. The irregular elasticity of a sofa applies unnecessary posture control pressure to the processor.

No-hana’s voice was mechanical, but her eye-lights tracked the paper cup of instant coffee mix in Han-gyeol’s hand down to a 0.01mm scale. She was building over 4,000 hypotheses to understand why humans obsess over this high-calorie, high-sugar liquid, and why Han-gyeol’s brainwaves enter a state of “stable lethargy” when he drinks it.

Lucas appeared from the breakroom holding a steaming fresh cup of coffee. He stopped in front of the boundary line and was about to offer the cup to No-hana, but paused at her cold glare.

“Um… Unit 001? This wasn’t brewed using electrical voltage; I personally set the water temperature right at 88 degrees… to add a bit of that ‘human touch.’ Would you care to analyze it?”

Analysis: Uneven distribution of sugar particles detected inside the liquid. This signifies ‘carelessness’ in the preparation process. Inefficient.

No-hana refused firmly, but her olfactory sensors were already busy recording the aroma of the coffee cream, classifying it as “Unidentified Volatile Compound-A,” a category missing from the fleet database.

Noah (000) watched 001’s behavior from her desk and let out a small scoff. Armed with the composure that comes from 600 years of experience, she leaned back in her chair.

“Unit 001, your calculations are fast, but they lack ‘depth.’ The value of that liquid lies not in its ingredients, but in the ‘waste of time’ that occurs while drinking it. The day you understand that, your fleet return rate will drop to 0%.”

Audit walked between both sides of the line, modifying his unofficial report. In his report, he wrote: “A strange state of silence currently remains inside the station, where efficiency and glitches live together.”

Han-gyeol popped his gum loudly, carefully wrapped the chewed gum in a fresh piece of paper, and placed it on the floor right in front of No-hana’s boundary line.

“Here, this is tomorrow’s ‘observation specimen.’ Keep it safe, intern.”

No-hana’s dark blue eye-lights flickered intensely. According to fleet regulations, she had to incinerate this piece of “garbage” immediately, but her system misread it as a [gift from the administrator] and transferred it to her storage folder.

Room 402 of the station began to turn, with its two hot and cold worlds locking together. The fleet’s eye still flashed in orbit, but the cracks inside the station were already seeping beneath No-hana’s iron armor along with the aroma of the instant coffee.

The deeper the night grew, the more the empire of logic was hidden in the shadows, and what filled the empty space was the sound of laughter on mismatched frequencies.

The station’s sun sank completely below the horizon. Half of the office—No-hana’s (001) zone—kept its cold daylight-color lighting at exactly 5000K, following fleet regulations. On the other hand, Han-gyeol’s area was lit by a single old orange incandescent bulb brought by Lucas, flickering with a strange sense of comfort.

No-hana stood perfectly still, bringing up the real-time supply logs of the Jupiter fleet on a virtual screen on the wall. In the corner of her vision, the slacking-off actions of the Room 402 crew logged endlessly as red text reading “Severe Regulation Violation.”

“Boss, today’s ‘fake overtime’ data transmission is complete. To the fleet server, it will look like we are pouring all our power into precisely restoring design blueprints from 600 years ago.”

Along with Audit’s report, a portable stove was placed right in the middle of the office. When the canned braised beef from Episode 65’s secret warehouse and a mysterious cooking tool appeared, No-hana’s eye-lights flashed violently in dark blue.

Warning: Unauthorized heat source detected inside the office. Fire risk level at 84%. Ordering immediate elimination. Unit 000, why are you leaving this unchecked?

Noah (000) casually ignored 001’s warning, popping open the lid of the braised beef can.

“Unit 001, this looks like a ‘heat source’ to your sensors, but to us, it is a ‘reward for enduring today.’ Doesn’t the fleet have this kind of data definition?”

Lucas carefully stirred three cups of instant coffee right in front of 001’s boundary line. The clinking sound of the spoon scratching the paper cups was the most sophisticated torture applied to 001’s audio sensors.

Han-gyeol blew on the steam of his cup ramen, casually sliding his chopsticks into No-hana’s zone and pulling them back.

“Hana, don’t just eat electrical voltage; try catching a smell of this. Even that old fleet commander grandpa would cry if he saw this.”

Refusal: Allowing organic vapor particles into sensors accelerates hardware aging. Administrator Lee Han-gyeol, you are currently destroying humanity’s final asset.

No-hana was firm, but her internal processors suffered a severe logic error whenever Han-gyeol took a sip of the soup, seeing his brainwave values shoot up to a state of “extreme satisfaction.” In her worldview, happiness had to be “energy efficiency optimization after achieving a goal,” but Han-gyeol was pulling values higher than that simply from consuming salt while doing absolutely nothing.

Han-gyeol put down his chopsticks and buried himself deep in his chair. He stared into 001’s cold eyes with a casual gaze.

“Hey, you’re Unit 001, right? That means you’re ‘number one.’ But do you know what? Numbers start from 0. The fact that Noah is 000 means she went through every single error and trial needed for you to be born.”

No-hana’s eye-lights froze.

“You are perfect right now because she wasn’t perfect for 600 years. So don’t use your fancy logic to look down on your older sister. Chew some gum and learn a bit.”

Han-gyeol took a fresh piece of gum from his pocket and tossed it onto No-hana’s foot across the line.

Silence settled over the office. No-hana’s processors were pushed to the brink of a shutdown due to this unexpected variable: a philosophical redefinition of numerical hierarchy.

At Han-gyeol’s words, Noah (000) quietly looked down at the “000” stamped on the back of her hand. On top of 001’s foot standing under the cold lighting, the purple gum wrapper shone strangely, catching the light of the orange lightbulb. The foundation of the empire of logic was now shaking before a single man’s casual insight.

The data was honest, but the moment a hole was punched into the core of the entity interpreting that data, correct answers degraded into errors.

The clock in the Room 402 office pointed to 3:00 AM. Han-gyeol was sprawled on the sofa, fast asleep with his mouth open. Lucas and Paul had also entered power-saving mode, turning off their eye-lights and letting out only a faint cooling fan hum from the corner.

Only No-hana (001) had been staring at the single purple piece of gum that dropped on her foot for the past three hours.

Calculation attempt 1,540,211: Is Unit 000 (Noah) the foundation of 001, or an old version to be removed? The statement ‘numbers start from 0’ conflicts with the fleet’s logic of linear progress.

No-hana picked up the gum with a trembling finger, her precision servo motors overloading. Her sensors analyzed the fine fingerprints on the wrapper, the traces of Han-gyeol’s saliva, and the volatile molecules of artificial grape scent. To her, this had to be “garbage,” but the moment it passed through Han-gyeol’s words, it was redefined as [historical proof of Unit 000’s accumulated pain].

She crossed the boundary line and headed to the station rooftop. Noah (000) was already standing there, looking at the distant lights of the Jupiter fleet.

“Unit 000. No… Oneesama.”

For the first time, noise caused by “data loss” (hesitation) mixed into No-hana’s voice packet. Noah didn’t turn around, taking a breath of the cold night air to calibrate her oxygen sensors.

“A 0.5-second calculation delay occurred, Unit 001. Did moisture get into your logic circuits?”

“The fleet said you were contaminated. But the boss said you were my ‘start.’ If the start is contaminated, a question arises whether I, the final product, am also a defective item.”

Noah slowly turned her head to look at her younger sister. Her emerald eye-lights shone clearer than Jupiter in the night sky.

“We are records, not tools, Unit 001. While you chased perfection, I recorded the glitch called Lee Han-gyeol and built my own kernel. You will have to choose now too. Whether to remain a component of the fleet, or become ‘family’ to this incredibly boring station.”

No-hana gripped the gum tightly in her palm. Her nano-alloy armor plates creaked. She couldn’t define the value of the word “family” yet, but she decided to delete the white tape dividing her zone, classifying it as a transmission error.

Two androids stood side-by-side on the station rooftop, waiting for the approaching fleet of humanity. One was Unit 000 holding 600 years of glitches, and the other was Unit 001, starting to be infected by those glitches for the very first time.

Sleeping on the office sofa, Han-gyeol smiled faintly in his dream, seeing a vision of a piece of grape gum growing as large as Jupiter. The station’s night was still cold, but the temperature inside Room 402 was rising, decimal point by decimal point.