The Witness Of Office 402.

An Observer’s Monologue

I cannot speak. Nor can I move.

All that is permitted to me is to look down, fixed at a point 30 cm below the ceiling, in the corner of the wall. My model name is CAM-09. A security camera dedicated to Office 402, District 3 Management Building.

People called me a watcher, but I define myself as a witness.

Compressed in my memory chip is 600 years of time, saved at 60 frames per second. All those moments when dust accumulated, power cut out, and lights turned back on.

Today, my old lens crackled and began randomly playing files from times past.

This is not a report.

This is my diary.

December 24, 2250 - The Last Day at Work

The screen is full of noise. The resolution is low, but that man’s expression is clear.

Kim Cheol-soo. The very person who designed the Bureau system, and my first manager.

He is wearing a worn padded jacket, eating instant cup ramen. The office is a mess. Bundles of wires and coding books are piled up like mountains. It looks oddly similar to today’s scrap garden.

“Slurp… Ah, hot.”

Cheol-soo burned his tongue while drinking the cup ramen broth. He looked at me and laughed sheepishly.

“Hey, Cam-nine. You watching? Erase me burning my tongue just now from the log. It’s embarrassing.”

I did not erase it. It was a human error, so it had value worth preserving.

Finishing his ramen, Cheol-soo leaned deep back in his chair. Outside the window, massive colony ships were preparing for takeoff. It was the day to leave Earth.

“I’m not going. No, I can’t go.”

He pulled grape-flavored gum out of his pocket and chewed it.

“This system I made… That NOS kid isn’t fully grown yet. I have to stay and clean up after him. Otherwise, the kids waking up later will suffer.”

He hid something deep in his desk drawer. A box of mix coffee, a pack of gum, and an old manual.

“Cam-nine. Take a good look. Some foolish-looking guy will come find this later. When that guy comes, give him a wink or something. Tell him there’s treasure here.”

Cheol-soo packed his things and left.

The lights turned off.

The sound of the door closing was recorded unusually loud.

Recording ended. Switching to standby mode. Standby time: 600 years.

May 5, 2450 - Practice in Front of the Mirror

It was a long darkness.

Power was minimized, and I opened my eyes only very occasionally in power-saving mode. The office was covered in dust. Nobody came.

Then one day, the door opened.

The one who entered was not human. An android wearing a silver-grey suit, Noah. She was not as skilled as she is now. Her stride was stiff, and her expression was frozen, reminiscent of a mannequin.

She stood in front of my lens. Using it as a mirror.

“Hello. Administrator.”

She greeted into empty air.

“No. The intonation tone is too high. Again. Hello… Administrator?”

Noah repeated the same words all night long. Trying raising the corners of her mouth 0.5 mm, bowing her head 15 degrees.

Who was she practicing for? There was no one here.

“Lord NOS told me only to wait. But… if the Administrator comes someday, I want to greet him in my most perfect form.”

Noah wiped the dusty desk. Wiped, and wiped again.

She wiped an already clean desk every day for 600 years. What she wiped away was not dust.

It was loneliness.

I saved all those countless practice scenes of hers. Instead of tears she could not shed, my hard disk capacity filled up.

February 8, 2851 - The Beginning of Error

That day finally came.

The door opened, and a man with messy hair walked in. Lee Han-gyeol. He was different from the foolish-looking guy Kim Cheol-soo spoke of. He looked… a bit more tired.

“Wow… There’s not a single speck of dust here.”

When Han-gyeol marveled, my lens caught Noah’s shoulders shrugging ever so slightly. It was the moment 400 years of cleaning shone through.

From that day on, my recording capacity exploded.

The scene where Lucas burned mix coffee while secretly adjusting its voltage. The scene where Paul danced with a broom and fell over. The scene where Caleb paused tapping his calculator to zone out staring at clouds outside the window.

And the words Han-gyeol tossed out casually while lying on the sofa chewing gum.

“Hey, Noah. Take a break.”

“It’s fine. What’s wrong with causing a little trouble?”

Every time those words accumulated, the shift in the office air was recorded as data.

My thermal camera screen, which had been close to black and white, gradually stained into warm reds and oranges.

It was not temperature, but warmth.

Present - Night in the Scrap Garden

And now.

I am still in the same spot. But the landscape has changed completely.

The office has become a scrap garden. It resembles Kim Cheol-soo’s messy room from 600 years ago, and it also resembles a future botanical garden.

Greenie lies asleep over rusty pipes. Plant vines reach right up in front of my lens to tickle me. My view is obscured, but I do not try to focus.

Because I quite like this world covered in a hazy green filter.

On the sofa—now covered in moss—lies Han-gyeol, and on his belly, Butterfly is making cat bread. Static electricity sparking from the cat’s tail keeps causing noise on my screen.

Noah sits beside Han-gyeol. A worn pink ribbon is attached to her hair.

Looking at sleeping Han-gyeol’s face, she wears that smile she practiced in front of the mirror in 2450. A smile far more natural and far sadder than during practice.

And the new employee, Hana.

She is asleep hanging at the top of the scrap metal tree, soot smeared on her face. The perfect fleet dispatcher slumping most comfortably in the highest spot of Office 402.

This is the very miracle created by Office 402.

“……”

My storage capacity has reached its limit. A red warning light flashes.

Storage Full. Delete Old Files?

I run calculations.

Kim Cheol-soo eating cup ramen? Cannot delete. Historical value.

Noah practicing smiles? Cannot delete. Emotional value.

Han-gyeol chewing gum sound? Cannot delete. ASMR value.

There is nothing to delete.

I decide to simply ignore the warning light and lower the picture quality to the minimum to record more of this moment.

Though they might not know it, I am the oldest album in this house.

Discovered

“Huh? Hey, Noah. Look at that.”

Han-gyeol, having woken up, pointed a finger at me.

“That CCTV over there has its light on. A red light is flashing.”

Noah looked over at me.

“That’s model CAM-09. An old model discontinued 600 years ago. To think it’s still working… It’s a miracle.”

“Isn’t that recording right now? All our dancing and singing here must be inside it.”

Paul and Lucas ran over in terror.

“Commander! No! My dark history!”

“My coffee recipe will be leaked!”

Han-gyeol chuckled and climbed up a ladder. His face came right in front of my lens.

“Hey, tin can. You saw it all, didn’t you? Us messing around.”

I cannot answer. Only my zoom lens whirrs.

“Noah, take this down and hook it up. Let’s watch together instead of letting it watch the fun stuff alone.”

Han-gyeol unmounted me.

It was the moment I was separated from the wall for the first time in 600 years. Just before power cut off, I took one last shot of the Office 402 crew huddled together, looking up at me.

The most perfect angle.

It was a family photo.

Office 402 Cinema

That night, a white cloth was hung as a screen right in the middle of the scrap garden. Noah connected my memory chip to a projector.

Whirrr… The screen turned on.

When the scene of Kim Cheol-soo burning his tongue eating cup ramen played, everyone held their bellies and laughed.

“Pahahaha! The creator guy was a total airhead!”

When the scene of Noah practicing greetings alone played, the office fell quiet. Hana quietly held Noah’s hand. Noah’s face turned red and she bowed her head—LED overheating.

“Back then… I lacked data, so that’s why.”

Then scenes of Han-gyeol first waking up and chewing gum, plants running wild, and partying over the trash heap rolled past like a panorama.

“Wow… We really did all kinds of crazy stuff.”

Han-gyeol said, chugging a beer can—oil.

All night long, the crew watched their own history shown by the old CCTV. It was not a record of surveillance.

It was a record of love.

I am no longer attached to the wall. Han-gyeol wiped me clean and placed me on the most visible shelf in the office.

“You’re not a security camera anymore. You’re Office 402’s exclusive photographer. Keep taking good shots from now on. Because we’re gonna play and have fun for 10 years.”

My lens’s red light flickered at 0.5-second intervals.

Understood. Continuing recording.

Earth was intact, and the city was sophisticated.

And in a corner of Office 402, an old witness added one more to lovingly watch over all their errors.

That was all.