0.15% Vacation

“Whirr—.”

9:05 a.m.

The office air purifier was running, emitting a slightly lower bass hum than usual.

Han-gyeol rested his feet on the desk, slowly chewing the gum in his mouth as he stared at the ceiling.

The office door opened, and Noah came in.

Her steps were about 0.5 seconds slower than usual, and the pad in her hand was slung carelessly near her hips instead of at chest height as usual.

It seemed the aftermath of yesterday’s ‘dream experiment’ had left a faint inertia in the machine’s hardware.

“It’s been 5 minutes since start of work, boss. Judging by how fast you’re chewing that gum, your drive to work has dropped another 12% from usual.”

Noah’s voice was as sharp as usual, but the end of it was faintly cracked.

“Hey, Noah. You saw my dream yesterday, didn’t you?”

“…That’s data I don’t want to remember. A combination of dust from 600 years ago and soggy canned drink—that was the worst environment administratively speaking.”

“We dreamed that filthy dream together, so isn’t it a little rude to get straight to work today? My brain cells are on ‘strike’ right now. Yesterday’s inefficient sensations are still stuck between my brain folds.”

Han-gyeol spun his chair around to face Noah.

Noah frowned and turned on her pad.

“Sensation getting stuck between brain folds is a biologically impossible metaphor. According to the scan results, your frontal lobe is perfectly fine….”

“No, it’s not fine. This is the mischief of a ‘0.15% error.’ Look.”

Han-gyeol brought up the hologram window he had prepared in advance.

There, an outdated administrative document from the year 2199 had been restored with dusty-crisp clarity, as if just cleaned off.

“What is this?”

Noah narrowed her eyes and scanned it.

“It’s a law humanity made 600 years ago. No matter how perfect NOS is, it can’t ignore the blueprint set by the Creators, right? I got ‘mental overload’ from yesterday’s dream experiment. As the only human awakened with a 0.15% probability, I hereby exercise this leave right.”

“…This document is logic that was discarded with the Beta-1 migration. In the Earth garden of 2850, the concept of ‘vacation’ doesn’t exist. All actions are either management or standby.”

“Then ‘manage’ me. Not inside Office 402, but out there in the forest beyond that barrier. I need to wash my brain cells in someplace with a higher oxygen concentration. Otherwise, starting tomorrow I won’t come in at 9; I’ll come at 10.”

Noah’s jade-colored eyes flashed violently.

Han-gyeol’s threat was simple, but deadly.

If Han-gyeol, that 0.15% error, started arbitrarily adjusting his arrival time, there was a high chance the entire city’s administrative synchronization would be thrown out of alignment.

“Calculating… The emotional stability of Citizen No. 001 is directly linked to urban management efficiency. Approving a 4-hour ‘external inspection.’ However, the accompanying administrator NOAH shall control all routes of movement.”
NOS’s heavy bass voice echoed through the office.

Noah gripped the pad tightly and let out a sigh.

“…You won in the end, boss. But I’ll record this not as a vacation, but as an ‘environmental stress resistance test.’ As for transportation, instead of a shuttle, we’ll use that rust bucket truck you like, ‘Ark of Error.’”

“Oh, now you’re talking sense. Noah, go pack a picnic lunch or something. Not that nutrition porridge shaped like a sandwich—something with a real chew to it.”

“Having a machine cook is an act of zero efficiency. But… I’ll try to imitate that ‘inefficiency’ I saw in yesterday’s dream.”

One hour later.

The dust-covered truck, ‘Ark of Error,’ passed through the neat glass barrier of Branch Sector 3.

The moment the tires left the smooth asphalt and rolled onto the bumpy dirt road, the truck body jolted and gave off a pleasant vibration.

“Ah, right. That’s the feeling. You only feel alive when it’s shaking like this.”

Han-gyeol rolled the window down.

Earth in 2850 was obsessively clean.

The forest beyond the barrier was full of trees that had grown as tall as apartment buildings, thanks to the organic fertilizer androids occasionally spread, even though humans never tended it.

Noah, sitting in the passenger seat, still looked uncomfortable.

She was running an static filter every 0.1 seconds, worried dust might settle on her silver uniform.

“Boss, this area is still an ‘unadministered zone.’ If a wild animal suddenly jumps out, NOS will have a hard time responding immediately. If that 0.15% error disappears to 0% here, it’ll be my responsibility.”

“Don’t worry. I used to be a sniper back in 2198. If a wild boar or whatever shows up, I’ll nail its eyeballs with this gum.”

“Please stop the illogical boasting.”

The truck stopped deep in the forest, below a hill where a small stream flowed.

When the door opened, a strong scent of earth and the sweet smell of nameless flowers rushed in.

It was a vitality far too intense to compare with the odorless, tasteless air of the city.

Han-gyeol took an old mat from the truck bed and spread it out on the grass.

“Here, Noah. Sit. You had a hard time watching my dream yesterday too. Let your machine legs rest a bit.”

Noah hesitated for a moment, then carefully sat on the edge of the mat.

She activated her chemical sensors and began analyzing the surrounding air composition.

“Oxygen concentration 21.5%, phytoncide levels reached threshold… It’s excessively pleasant. It feels like system load is actually going down.”

“See? What did I tell you? Sometimes you need to come out beyond the ‘log.’”

Han-gyeol took the ‘lunch box’ Noah had prepared out of his bag.

Inside the transparent box was, surprisingly, something shaped very much like a sandwich from 600 years ago.

“What is this? Is that real bread?”

“I rendered synthetic polymer protein into the texture of bread and filled the inside with lavender fragrance and vitamin compounds. I also increased the hardness by 15% to satisfy your ‘chewing motion’ desire.”

Han-gyeol took a big bite of the sandwich.

The taste still had a strange medicinal tinge, but the crunchiness was excellent.

“Hey, you’ve got a talent for cooking. You could quit someday and open a restaurant.”

“An android cannot resign. It’s either disposal or recycling.”

Even so, Noah quietly watched Han-gyeol eat.

In the depths of her eyes, the scenes from Han-gyeol’s dream she had seen yesterday flickered by as brief afterimages.

“Boss. That ‘canned drink’ you were drinking in the dream… what did it taste like?”

“That? It was insanely sweet, and the carbonation made your throat sting. Bad for the body, but it made you feel amazing—that kind of taste. In 2198, drinking it felt like you owned the world.”

“It harms the body but makes you feel good… human logic is truly incomprehensible.”

Noah lowered her head and looked down at her palm.

To her, who had watched Earth’s recovery for 600 years only in numbers, the green forest before her and the sound of Han-gyeol chewing gum were, themselves, a gigantic ‘error’ that could not be reduced to data.

Then, from far off in the bushes, came a rustling sound.

“Zzt! Danger detected! Unidentified organism approaching!”

Noah sprang up and blocked Han-gyeol’s front.

A jade-colored laser pointer shot from the back of her hand toward the bushes.

Han-gyeol, nearly swallowing his gum, also stood up.

“What is it? Is it really a wild boar?”

What emerged from the bushes was not a giant beast.

It was a small cat, swishing two tails and flicking tiny electric sparks from its fur.

“Hey… that’s a cat? Why are its tails like that?”

Han-gyeol’s eyes went wide.

Apparently without a trace of wariness, the cat calmly walked up to the mat and began rubbing its body against Han-gyeol’s leg.

Crackle, crackle.

“Ow! That stings! Why is this thing spewing electricity?”

“It’s a mutant specimen. It seems abandoned pets left for 600 years evolved by combining with the forest’s static-electric plants. Species name: Felis-Electricus. Danger level is… ‘low.’”
Noah turned off the laser and bent down.

The cat tapped Noah’s cold metal shoes with its tail, as if fascinated.

“Hey, Noah. I think it’s hungry. Give it some of that sandwich from earlier.”

“Synthetic protein is unsuitable for a cat’s digestive system….”

Even as she said that, Noah tore off a small piece of the sandwich and placed it in front of the cat.

The cat began eating the sandwich with a ‘goro-rong’ sound.

The sound was like an old engine starting up.

Han-gyeol sat back down on the mat and watched the cat.

A perfect city, perfect machines, and a cat that had evolved on its own in the cracks between them.

Earth in 2850 was far more ‘inefficient’ and beautiful than he had imagined.

“Noah. Glad I came on vacation, right?”

Instead of answering, Noah carefully stroked the cat’s head.

The soft feel of fur against her fingertips and the tingling electric.

“…I’ll record ‘equipment inspection successful’ in the administrative log.”

It seemed a very faint smile, one that occurred with a 0.001% probability, touched Noah’s lips.

Han-gyeol pretended not to notice, took out a new stick of gum, and put it in his mouth.

“Gono-rong, gono-rong….”

The sound the cat made was strange.

It was less like a normal cat’s purr and more like the low hum of a high-voltage transformer.

After it finished off the sandwich piece Noah had given it, the creature wrapped its two tails around Han-gyeol’s ankle, looking satisfied.

“Ow! This thing’s static shock is no joke every time it wraps its tail. Hey, Noah. You androids get charged by electricity, right? If you high-five this thing, wouldn’t you get fully charged?”

“That’s an illogical inference. This creature’s voltage is irregular, so if I directly connected it to my battery cells, the circuit would burn out. But….”

Noah lowered her head and studied the back of the cat’s neck closely.

Her eyes flashed jade-green quickly.

“This frequency is strangely stable. A steady 60Hz wave is acting as white noise that cools the heat from my main processor. Administratively speaking… I can classify it as a ‘very excellent cooling device.’”

“What cooling device? The cat’s just cute. Admit it. Looking at it, that stiff report from earlier just flew right out of your head, didn’t it?”

Han-gyeol chuckled and tried to scratch under the cat’s chin with his finger.

But before his finger could touch it, a crackling ‘pzzt!’ sound went off and Han-gyeol’s hair stood straight out in all directions.

“Damn! This thing’s really a 2198-model shock-tactics cat. Should I call it Nabi? Or Battery?”

“The species name has already been registered. The designation ‘Nabi’ is too common in the database, so let’s call it management number ‘Unit-CAT-01.’”

“You’re so cold. Just call it Nabi. Here, Nabi. Comfort our Noah a little more. She lost her mental balance yesterday watching my dream.”

As if it understood Han-gyeol, Nabi stood up and sprang onto Noah’s lap.

Blue static sparks lingered like afterimages over Noah’s silver uniform.

Noah froze, looking flustered, her arms raised in the air.

“Boss, this creature has begun ‘particle vibration’ on my thighs. My internal sensors are now raising an alarm that says ‘very pleasant’ every 3 seconds. Is this… a system error?”

“That’s called a purr. It means it likes you. Hey, an electric cat sitting on an android’s lap on Earth in 2850—that’s a sight humanity 600 years ago would have fainted at.”

Han-gyeol tossed the remaining sandwich into his mouth and flopped down flat on the grass.

Above him, the leaves of the giant trees rustled in the wind with a ‘swaak-swaak’ sound.

It was Earth’s real breathing, on a different level from the refined noise of the city air purifiers.

“Noah. Stop analyzing and lie down too. Look at the sky here. It’s incredible.”

Han-gyeol pointed at the sky.

Against the cloudless blue sky, a city maintenance drone moving at a very high altitude looked like a dot.

Noah carefully held Nabi on her lap and slowly sat beside Han-gyeol.

Instead of lying down, she straightened her back and gazed at the sky.

“NOS’s weather-control nodes are maintaining atmospheric scattering with a 0.02% margin of error. It’s optically a perfect blue.”

“That’s the problem with perfection. In 2198, that sky was all gray. Because of the fine dust and gunpowder smoke, you couldn’t even tell whether the sun had risen. Maybe that’s why this blue sometimes feels too fake, and it scares me.”

Han-gyeol kept chewing his gum as he went on.

“But coming out here makes me understand. The sky may be fake, but the smell of earth and the rough feel of cat fur are real. No matter how smart NOS is, it can’t imitate this inefficient vitality 100%.”

Instead of answering, Noah stared quietly at Han-gyeol’s side profile.

The young, sharp-eyed soldier she had seen in yesterday’s dream seemed to overlap with the languid gardener’s face he wore now.

“Boss… why did you choose cryosleep back then? A 0.15% chance was basically the same as bracing for death, wasn’t it?”

“Choose? Haha, that wasn’t a situation fit for such a fancy word. Everyone else was leaving, and I was the only one who couldn’t get a ticket. It was an administrative error. That old computer, the predecessor to NOS, had left my name out. So I thought, ‘Screw it, see you in 600 years,’ and climbed into the pod.”

Han-gyeol gave a bitter smile.

“But when I woke up, I ended up becoming the highest-ranking one? Life is really impossible to predict.”

“An administrative error ended up saving humanity’s final legacy, then. NOS sometimes finds greater optimization through those kinds of ‘mistakes.’ It’s like the error called you makes this city a little more… ‘alive.’”

Noah’s voice softened.

She stroked Nabi on her lap.

The tiny electricity flowing through the cat’s fur traveled through the tips of Noah’s fingers and stimulated her sensory nodes.

It was not a flow of data, but the pulse of life.

“Alright, let’s head back now. If we’re gone too long, Paul might drain all the water from the fountain in the square and start crying.”

Han-gyeol stood up and brushed the grass off his clothes.

Nabi climbed down from Noah’s lap, looking reluctant, and swished its tails.

“Nabi, stay here. The city is too clean for you; it’d be hard to live there. I’ll bring you sandwiches sometimes.”

Nabi let out a short ‘nyaang’ and disappeared into the bushes.

Where it had passed, a blue static afterimage lingered briefly and then scattered.

The truck ‘Ark of Error’ started up again.

With a ‘clunk, bang!’ sound, a little exhaust puffed out.

Normally Noah would have shouted, “Environmental pollution increased by 0.5%!” but this time she only twitched the tip of her nose quietly.

“Boss. That cat earlier… can we see it again later?”

“Of course. It probably remembers our frequency too. Next time we’d better bring some real fish. That nutrition-porridge sandwich looked way too unappetizing.”

“It’s not about taste, it’s about nutritional design. And fish went extinct in 2850… Ah, there might be variants in the Zone 5 buffer, though. I’ll analyze it.”

The truck passed through the glass barrier again and entered Branch Sector 3.

Straight asphalt, perfectly aligned streetlights, and androids walking in straight lines greeted them.

On the way back to the office, Paul from the square saw them and ran over.

“Director! Administrator Noah! Where have you been? 0.05 mm of dust had gathered on the flower beds in the square, so I spent 30 minutes cleaning it!”

“Yeah, good work, Paul. Go get some rest. Earth’s a little tired today.”

Han-gyeol gave Paul’s shoulder a light pat and headed toward the office.

Office 402.

As soon as she sat down, Noah turned on her pad and began writing her report.

Her fingers were still 0.5 seconds slower than usual, but the rhythm was much more stable.

Han-gyeol unfolded a blank sheet on the bedside table.

With clumsy strokes, he drew the two-tailed cat he had seen today, along with the blue sparks that flew from its fur.

‘The 0.15% vacation was a success. Earth’s gift for me wasn’t a sandwich, but that tiny static shock that pricked the back of my hand.’

He spat out his gum and turned off the light.

Earth in 2850 sank back into quiet stillness.

The world was still fine, and the city was precise.

But now, in Han-gyeol and Noah’s minds, there was one more small, inefficient dream that would not remain in the system logs.

That was all.