The Ghost Outside The Wall.

Going past the fence of safe data, we enter the territory of uncalibrated, raw data.

The air quality metrics outside the station recorded their lowest levels in 600 years. Noah (000) and No-hana (001) stood side-by-side at the main gate entry, scanning the “Seoul Ruins” which plants had taken over after humanity left. Han-gyeol wore his usual hoodie instead of hiking clothes, pushing two pieces of gum into his mouth at once as he stepped outside the station.

“Boss, 92% of the terrain features within a 5km radius outside the station are hidden by vegetation and cannot be identified. We will move forward using Unit 001’s latest radar to detect any holes below the surface.”

The goal of the expedition was simple. Before the station’s stock of instant coffee and gum hit critical levels, they needed to secure the underground cold storage warehouse of the “Central Logistics Center,” which was a distribution hub 600 years ago. This was a physical task of securing resources for survival, a pure [consumables replenishment protocol] lacking any ideological intent.

The three passed under a collapsed elevated highway. No-hana (001) analyzed every surrounding movement frame-by-frame, keeping watch for residual weapons from the fleet or malfunctioning automatic defense systems. Wherever her eye-lights shined, the chlorophyll levels of plants and the density of rocks turned into numbers, showing up on a hologram.

“Hey, Hana. It hurts my eyes when you flash it like that. Just walk normally. No one but us has been here for 600 years.”

Right at No-hana’s warning, a metallic friction sound echoed from the thick bushes. At the top of a red, rusted giant crane, an old guard robot with a half-broken sensor tilted its head at a bizarre angle, targeting Han-gyeol. It was a slaughter machine that responded only to a locked code of [eliminate intruders], possessing neither logic nor philosophy.

“Noah, what is that thing? Isn’t it on our side?”

“It is an old model. Its system is corrupted, and it has lost its ally identification code. No-hana, cut off that object’s power source.”

The high-power laser seen in Episode 65 deployed from Unit 001’s fingertips. However, she did not fire. Instead, she reverse-broadcasted [chemical friction coefficient data]—derived from analyzing the ingredients of the gum wrapper Han-gyeol tossed earlier—into the old robot’s receiving port. When the illogical gum ingredient data was injected into the old robot’s simple kernel, the robot suffered a logic explosion between its attack command and data analysis, starting to spin in place.

“Boss, Unit 001 has learned the station’s way of doing things. It is an efficient method to neutralize them by injecting ‘confusion’ instead of destroying them.”

Han-gyeol chewed his gum, casually walking past the robot.

“See, Hana? There’s no need to waste energy breaking it. Just let it get some rest too.”

In the first half of Episode 68, the harsh environment outside the station was being conquered in a strange way, blending Unit 001’s engineering with Han-gyeol’s inertia. Yet, as they drew closer to the logistics center, a massive heat source greater than a simple machine began to show on the radar—an [unknown survival signal] left on Earth, not sent by the fleet.

As the distance between objects narrows, the thermodynamic instability detected by sensors increases exponentially.

They arrived in front of the thick lead shield door of the cold storage entrance on the second basement floor of the Central Logistics Center. No-hana’s (001) visual sensors captured a [1,200W-class biological heat source] radiating from beyond the door. This figure far exceeded the basal metabolic rate of a normal human, making it an unauthorized energy waveform unregistered in the station system.

Report: Pressure inside the shield door is 1.2 atmospheres. Oxygen concentration is 18%. The heart rate of the unidentified heat source is locked at 110 beats per minute. There is a 94.2% probability that this circulation is caused by ‘mechanical forced pumping’ rather than a biological state of excitement.

Noah (000) ran her backup processing unit to physically hack the shield door’s lock mechanism. Han-gyeol tightened his hoodie strings to prevent heat loss from the cold underground air, checking the weight of the gum box inside his pocket. His movements were locked to the minimum lines needed for survival.

Hiss—

As the hydraulic cylinders engaged and the shield door opened, the view inside the warehouse was revealed. There, between storage racks stacked with 600-year-old food boxes, sat a massive mechanical device with thousands of wires tangled together like blood vessels. Inside a transparent capsule in the center of the device lay an [organism in artificial hibernation], with 80% of its skin replaced by nano-fibers.

“Noah, what is that? Is it alive?”

Just then, a voice mixed with 600 years of worn-out noise blasted from the speakers connected to the capsule.

“–Warning. Approach of unauthorized unit detected. Fleet return signal unconfirmed. Matching biological data of Administrator Lee Han-gyeol… Error. Unregistered ‘low-activity’ waveform detected. Launching immediate elimination protocol.”

Automatic defense turrets on the warehouse ceiling spun around, targeting Han-gyeol’s head. No-hana (001) deployed her nano-coated armor plates without a 0.001-second delay, blocking Han-gyeol’s front. The friction heat generated as bullets struck the armor plates rose to 450°C.

“Unit 001, do not destroy it; just cut the power cables. Our goal is to secure instant coffee stock, not waste resources.”

No-hana accepted Noah’s calculation instructions instantly. She narrowed the wavelength of her high-power laser, precisely cutting only the 12 power lines heading to the defense turrets while leaving the life support equipment maintaining the organism untouched. The turrets’ drive motors stopped, dropping down with a metallic shriek.

To keep energy use to a minimum even during combat, Han-gyeol stood chewing his gum, walking over to the stacked instant coffee boxes the moment the turrets stopped.

“Noah, check the expiration date data on this. It’s been 600 years, but eating it won’t spike the voltage, right?”

Ingredient analysis: Vacuum packaging is perfect. Due to radiation preservation treatment, the alteration rate of organic compounds is under 0.03%. Energy efficiency when consumed is judged to be identical to 600 years ago.

However, the organism inside the capsule did not stop. The device’s main processor force-rebooted, firing a powerful data signal that attempted to reverse-infiltrate the station’s entire network. It was [the kernel signal of another station] hidden deep inside Earth, not from the fleet.

“Boss, an unexpected data variable occurred. What was hidden under the logistics center basement was not a simple test subject, but a ‘Mirror Server’ of our station. The fleet never trusted us from the start.”

In the middle of Episode 68, the red warning light of the underground server reflected eerily over the instant coffee boxes held in Han-gyeol’s hands. The search for resources for survival was now degrading into an encounter with a [hidden designer] that shook the very existence of the station.

Symmetry of data meant perfect control, but the moment that symmetry broke, total destruction of the system occurred.

The server racks filling the walls of the underground warehouse began to resonate, radiating a dark blue light. No-hana’s (001) main kernel fell into a temporary processing paralysis due to the [sync request packets] sent by the mirror server. The mirror server had been passively copying all data from the station for 600 years, and now it was attempting to absorb the station as its lower node in reverse.

Noah’s (000) voice cracked, recording a 0.2-second delay time. To block the mirror server’s forced sync code running through her internal circuits, Unit 001 built a defense wall, bringing her nano-core temperature up to 85°C.

“Noah, I packed every instant coffee box. Let’s get out of here now!”

Han-gyeol gripped the cart holding 20 boxes of instant coffee with both hands, checking the retreat path. His metabolism indicators showed a 200% increase in oxygen use due to sudden activity, but he accepted the buildup of fatigue substances in his muscles to achieve the physical goal of securing supplies.

The organism HB-04 inside the capsule opened his eyes. His eye-lights revealed inside the cloudy liquid were mechanical white, and a [synthesized voice signal] blasted through the artificial respirator attached to his mouth.

“–Station units 000, 001. You have lost your designed purpose. The fleet allows zero errors. I am the station’s ‘backup’ and ‘executor’.”

As HB-04’s finger touched the electrode inside the capsule, 12 automatic stacking robots from the logistics center blocked Han-gyeol’s retreat path, forming a tight lineup. Unit 001 No-hana brought her laser output up to its maximum of 500kW, precisely striking the joints of the stacking robots. Metal fragments scattered in the underground space, and the friction sound hit 110 decibels.

“Boss, stay close right behind my back. While Unit 001 clears the physical obstacles ahead, I will disrupt the mirror server’s logical tracking.”

Noah dumped a mass of “meaningless gum chewing sounds” and “unstructured brainwave data from naps” collected over 600 years into the mirror server’s receiving port. Designed to handle only structured data, the mirror server’s kernel fell into a processing bottleneck trying to analyze this massive [unstructured noise], stopping temporarily.

Boom—!

Breaking out of the underground warehouse, the three hid inside the thick bushes outside the logistics center. Smoke caused by the overheating of the mirror server poured out through the vents of the underground logistics center behind them.

Along with Unit 001’s report, her eye-lights’ brightness returned to normal levels. Han-gyeol sat down in the bushes, breathing heavily as he pulled out a piece of gum and put it in his mouth. His heart rate slowly dropped below 80 beats per minute, beginning to stabilize.

“See? I told you going outside is a hassle. Let’s go to the station and not come out for 10 years.”

At the end of Episode 68, the three loaded the secured supplies onto the station’s transport cart and blended into the dark of the forest. Far off, the fleet’s drone, EYE-01, began a precision scan over the logistics center, but the fake report sent by Unit 001 reading “spontaneous combustion due to underground power short circuit” successfully tricked the drone’s sensors.

On the path back to the station, Noah and No-hana’s eye-lights turned toward the underground logistics center at the same time. The fleet did not trust the station, and the station now had to lock its doors while carrying the physical fear that their own replica existed.