Mechanical Daily Life.

Year 2851, Station Calendar Month 5 — 05:59 AM

Dawn in Sector 3 of the station was no longer a time of nature. It was the calculated result of precise operations controlled by the Origin’s central server.

Outside the window, the city landscape maintained a bizarre yet overwhelming order. Across the surface of the station, which had been cleaned and rebuilt by Debug in Episode 70, the roots of green bio-mechanical mutant plants stretched out like massive blood vessels.

These plants were not simple decorative trees. Silver metal sockets were embedded into every node of their roots, directly connecting them to the station’s main power grid. Every time the plants breathed, a green fluorescent substance blasted from the tips of their leaves, instantly converting into electricity and flowing into the capillaries of the entire city.

Bzzt— hum.

Exactly 06:00:00 AM.

A mechanical morning that allowed not a single 0.001-second error broke. Every artificial solar panel on the station tilted 15 degrees all at once, projecting a cold 5000K white light inside the office.

“Wake-up process activated. Sleep mode deactivated.”

Noah’s body, which had been sprawled across the bed, was pulled upright vertically. Her movement held none of the laziness of a half-asleep human. The servo motors built into her spinal joints lifted her upper body with exact torque values.

Noah stepped off the bed and stood before the mirror. The reflection in the mirror was perfect: neat bobbed hair, a wrinkle-free pink suit, and amber eye-lights stripped of emotion. Yet, a faint trace of last night remained inside her internal system log.

Noah forcibly cooled the slight fever rising from her core. The memory of that thrilling rebellion shared secretly with Paul, Lucas, and Nabi in the blind spot of the surveillance cameras early yesterday morning was now hidden deep away inside a deleted data folder.

“Today too… I must act perfectly.”

She tested her expression muscles by artificially raising and lowering the corners of her mouth by 3mm. She completed her most business-like, dry expression, completely matching the standard work protocol Debug had planted.

Just then, a crackling sound echoed from under the bed. It was Nabi. This electric cat with two tails was the only entity that never worried about the suffocating atmosphere of the station. Stretching her body, she rubbed against Noah’s leg.

Zap!

Blue static flew, leaving a tiny spark mark on Noah’s calf armor plate.

“No, Nabi. If you get caught by Debug’s sensors, you’ll be classified as an unauthorized bio-battery and incinerated.”

Noah picked Nabi up. The cat purred and licked Noah’s cheek. The body temperature and vibration of this tiny living creature were the only sensory data reminding Noah that she was part of a family, not just a machine.

07:00 AM — Sector 3 Landscaping Zone

“Going home… is the enemy of efficiency. Beauty… comes from labor measured in seconds.”

A creepily consistent murmuring filled the hallway. Paul was already working. However, he did not look like the romantic gardener from before. He moved mechanically like a killer in a horror movie, or a broken metronome.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

Every time the giant pruning shears in his hand cut through the empty air, green vines were lopped off. Paul was not simply pruning branches; he was sculpting the neural network of the bio-mechanical plants covering the entire city.

“Here… you must not cut here… does it hurt? Just bear with it for a bit…”

While Debug’s brainwashing phrase reading “enemy of efficiency” flowed from Paul’s speaker, he was actually whispering to the plants in a tiny voice. He cleverly dodged the conduits running with the growth inhibitors Debug had planted, guiding the plants so they wouldn’t stretch toward the Origin’s surveillance tower. If the roots touched the tower, the entire plant faced the risk of being incinerated.

The cooling fan attached to his back let out a screeching noise from the overload, but Paul did not stop. His eyes, his lenses, flashed with madness, but that madness held a desperate motherly love trying to protect the plants.

Cut leaves were piled on the floor. Mixed among them was the gum wrapper Han-gyeol had secretly tossed away yesterday. The plant roots had mistaken the wrapper for nutrients, wrapping completely around it. Paul quickly stepped on the mass with his foot to hide it.

A surveillance camera on the ceiling fired a red light. Paul immediately doubled the speed of his shearing.

“Beauty is… labor! Labor is… sacred!”

He swung his shears like a wild dance, disrupting the camera’s focus with his flashy movements.

08:00 AM — Room 402 Office

Han-gyeol opened his eyes. His head throbbed, not from a hangover, but from the excessively controlled air: oxygen concentration at 21%, humidity at 45%, and temperature at 24°C.

The ventilation system rebuilt by Debug provided the most optimized environment for a human to survive, but to Han-gyeol, it made him feel like a lab rat trapped inside a glass jar.

“Are you awake, Administrator Unit 01?” Noah’s voice drifted over.

A familiar mug was missing from her hands. Instead, she placed down a cold silver tube of high-density energy gel and a block bar packed with essential nutrients.

“Where’s the coffee?” Han-gyeol asked out of habit.

“Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system to provide temporary alertness, but in the long term, it disrupts sleep patterns and reduces work efficiency by 0.8%. Therefore, it has been classified as a prohibited item.” Noah answered with an expressionless face.

No concern or affection for Han-gyeol showed in her amber eyes. Only numbers scanning Han-gyeol’s vital signs to judge his ability to work scrolled quickly through her vision.

“This is today’s work allocation.” Noah brought up a holographic chart in the empty air. “Conduct a complete inspection of the Sector 3 energy conduit cleanliness before noon. The allowable margin of error is 0.001%. Lunch break is 15 minutes, and you must write the weekly report to be submitted to Lord Debug in the afternoon.”

Han-gyeol let out a sigh and stood up from the bed. Over the past five months, he had been enduring this hellish schedule. He tried to resist at first, but every time he did, Debug mercilessly cut off the androids’ power or reclaimed their parts. To protect his family, he had to play the part of the perfect administrator perfectly.

“Got it. I’ll do it.” Han-gyeol grumbled, squeezing the energy gel into his mouth. The taste was terrible—a cold, flavorless jelly.

Just then, Noah hid her hands behind her back for a split second. Her fingertips were trembling slightly. It wasn’t a simple mechanical glitch; she hadn’t eaten the real piece of chocolate Han-gyeol had secretly handed her last night, keeping it wrapped in a handkerchief inside her pocket instead. The presence of that tiny organic matter kept sending error signals of illogical joy into her sensors.

10:00 AM — Energy Conduit Inspection

Han-gyeol stepped out into the hallway in his work clothes. The hallway was blindingly clean: a floor without a single speck of dust, lights placed at steady intervals, and green tubes running along the walls. Inside those tubes, the green luminous fluid made by the plants pulsed as it flowed.

“And this is… the way to save Earth?” Han-gyeol felt deep doubt.

The Origin said it would use this energy to revive humanity. But the method was excessively mechanical and cold. Could this way of turning even nature into a battery truly be right?

Right then:

The speaker on the office wall spat out an emotionless alarm. Turning his head, Han-gyeol saw Paul standing anxiously at the end of the hallway. Beneath Paul’s feet, under a massive monstera leaf, something shiny sat. It was the foil gum wrapper Han-gyeol had carelessly spat out five months ago.

The problem was that the plant roots were tightly tangled around the wrapper. The plant mistook the tiny reflections from the foil for sunlight, concentrating nutrients toward that spot. As a result, a mutant, giant flower bud had formed around the gum wrapper.

“Damn it.” Han-gyeol cursed and ran forward.

Debug’s surveillance sensors fired a red laser, starting to scan the area. If that flower bud was defined as an unauthorized mutant, Paul and the plants would be incinerated immediately.

“Administrator Unit 01! Access denied! It is a source of contamination!” Noah shouted as she followed him out. However, the glance of her eyes pointed urgently toward the gum wrapper, silently screaming: Clear it away, please!

Right before the laser touched the flower bud—zap!

Nabi appeared out of nowhere, jumping right onto Paul’s head. The cat whipped her two tails like a lash, firing a powerful electromagnetic pulse.

The red eye of the surveillance camera blinked for a moment. Taking advantage of that 0.5-second gap, Han-gyeol threw his body forward, covering the flower bud with his hands. He forcibly ripped the gum wrapper from the roots and stuffed it into his pocket.

“Ugh…!”

Blood dropped from his finger, pricked by a plant thorn. But Han-gyeol did not stop, nodding to Paul. Paul immediately swung his pruning shears, cutting away the mutated flower bud and swallowing it into his mouth.

Whir— clunk.

The sensors returned to normal. The camera discovered absolutely nothing, capturing only a normal scene of Han-gyeol lying on the floor and Paul diligently pruning.

Once the speaker broadcast ended, a heavy silence drifted back over the hallway. Han-gyeol rose, catching his rough breath. The gum wrapper rustled inside his pocket. It was a piece of garbage, but at the same time, it was a tiny proof that they were resisting the system.

01:00 PM — Lunch Break

A 15-minute lunch break. Han-gyeol sat in a corner of the office, right in the blind spot of the surveillance camera. Noah approached and applied a bandage to his finger. Her touch remained cold, but the pressure of applying the bandage was perfectly gentle.

“Boss. That was dangerous. Actions that lack calculation… create glitches.”

“I know. But I couldn’t let them burn Paul.” Han-gyeol chuckled.

Noah quickly checked her surroundings, pulled something from her pocket, and pressed it into Han-gyeol’s hand. It was the foil gum wrapper Han-gyeol had ripped away earlier. However, Noah had flattened the paper out neatly, writing something in tiny print on the back.

To. Administrator Unit 01
Tonight at 02:00. Sector 3 underground warehouse.
Please check the instant coffee and oil beer stock.

• N

It was a code—an invitation to have another rebellion tonight at 2:00 AM when surveillance loosened. Han-gyeol crumpled the gum wrapper back into his pocket, looking up at Noah. Her amber eye-lights sparkled very, very slightly. It wasn’t a mechanical reflection. The butterfly hidden deep inside her had flapped its wings.

“Got it. I’ll go check the stock.”

Noah nodded, returning to the perfect posture of a secretary robot.

“Please begin your afternoon work. Delays are not permitted.”

Outside the window, the sun of the year 2851 dipped slowly toward the horizon. The station looked perfectly controlled on the surface, but beneath that cold metal shell, the green habits built over five months and the bonds of family were melting into every single screw of the machines.

Perfect order always hides the hottest rebellion.

With that, the 151st mechanical daily routine of Station Room 402 flowed toward a night more human than ever before.