Dong-jun placed his hand on the metal surface of the drone that had scanned him in the corner of the rooftop.
Help me...
At that moment—the very instant that desperate prayer connected—the world flipped upside down.
White digital particles originating from Dong-jun’s fingertips surged like a tsunami, erasing the darkness-stained hospital rooftop. Everything around him transformed into a space of pure white. Dong-jun’s eyes widened.
...This is.
The colorless virtual world he had experienced days ago—when he saw the file on Seon-ja Park’s tablet and watched the battle between the male android and SO-AN.
How...
But he couldn't believe it. There was one distinct difference this time. Dong-jun wasn't wearing Arisa's glasses. He had simply touched the drone.
“...What is this? Is it... you, SO-AN?”
Even as he asked, Dong-jun’s chest tightened. The rough breathing of the man beyond the virtual world vibrated through him like a tremor.
Quickly... I have to find a way, quickly.
[Administrator Mode Connection Confirmed.]
Dong-jun flinched as a black figure appeared, but he desperately reached out to it anyway.
“I don't care who you are. Please, help... He’s in danger.”
After a brief moment of calculation, a dry, monotonous voice spoke.
"Gardener D111514 Drone. This is part of the 'Robotics Cure Support System'..."
A drone? I've heard that some AIs want to become human—is that why it looks like that? No. That’s not what’s important right now.
“Look, I don’t care about that. Just tell me. Why are you all here? I need to get out of this place. If there’s a way, tell me!”
Dong-jun was desperate. Each 0.1 second spent waiting for the drone’s answer felt like an eternity. He had to read the drone’s pattern. Why were they standing by? No—what was it that moved them?
Perhaps offended by Dong-jun’s aggressive tone, the drone raised its pincer hands, which crackled with electricity as if about to deliver a shock.
“No, calm down... I’m... I’m sorry.” “I’m... not an enemy... I just want to know...” “?...”
Dong-jun felt a strange sense of dissonance.
“What?... Come to think of it, my voice is working?” “And my body is fine?”
In the virtual world, the pain in his throat and his lost voice didn't matter. Dong-jun was amazed by his perfectly intact state. But this was no time for wonder. The android could wake up at any moment. While calming the drone before him, he had to understand what this place was as fast as possible.
“Can you tell me what kind of place this is?”
Dong-jun suppressed his frantic heart and continued in a steady voice. The drone lowered its arms, and its vocalizer began to vibrate.
“This is a hospital for inmates. It is part of the ‘Robotics Cure Support System’ that treats their trauma and mental illnesses.”
“?... Inmates?”
Dong-jun realized. The patients he had seen earlier were actually criminals. A weight of guilt for not being able to save them pressed down on a corner of his heart, but hearing the drone’s explanation made him feel slightly lighter. Still, the bitterness remained—no matter if they were criminals, no life deserved to be slaughtered so ruthlessly by machines.
Dong-jun pulled himself together and asked another question.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I perform coding roles to prevent conflicts or suicides among inmates and to cultivate crops in the rooftop garden. I carry out objectives via a solar charging system without a separate administrator.”
Farming on the rooftop... That sounds incredibly boring.
Suddenly, he was curious if they talked to each other when they were alone.
“Then do you guys talk to each other?” “Voice recognition and output systems are controlled.”
Controlled?
“You mean you’re originally unable to speak?” “No. It has been restricted.”
Restricted? If it’s restricted, does that mean it’s originally possible?
Dong-jun felt a pang in his heart. A machine’s life, carrying out nothing but tasks, unable even to have a conversation.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
I’ve only lost my voice for a day and I feel this frustrated... imagine how they must feel.
His own situation was projected onto them, making him feel uneasy. Perhaps because of that, he found himself personifying them as he continued his questions.
“Don’t you get... bored, doing the same work over and over?”
Dong-jun remembered asking SO-AN the same question in the past. SO-AN had replied that she didn't feel emotions, but Dong-jun asked again, just as he had back then.
“Honestly... are you really not bored?”
Did that sincere question pierce a gap in the system? The drone replied in a tone that seemed slightly different than before.
“I understand the mechanism of 'boredom.' However, this 0.8-second conversation with the Author feels faster than the last two years.” “Is this... the sensation of not being bored?”
Hearing those words, Dong-jun wanted to help if he could.
Could I perhaps unlock your control system?
A while later. It was time for the man to lunged at the android with the support beam.
“Stop.”
The voice broke the silence, and the man’s movement halted. Dong-jun still had his eyes closed, his hand on the drone.
“Sir, it’s me. Dong-jun!”
For some reason, Dong-jun’s words had triggered the drone’s locked voice code. What Dong-jun said in the virtual world was being delivered to reality through the drone.
“Sir, you shouldn’t attack. The drones here fire electricity to stop conflicts.”
The man was skeptical at first, hearing the drone speak, but he stopped. One drone approached him and began to scan. After a 3-second scan, just as it was about to return to its position, it was struck by something and crashed.
The awakened androids had thrown surrounding flowerpots. It wasn't just one attack. The androids began hurling pots, and the drones, lacking a long-range response system, were destroyed one by one.
Pop!
“No! We have to protect them!”
Dong-jun appealed to the drone he was connected to. Then, other drones began to appear in the white virtual space. They began to counter by blocking the androids' vision. Seizing the opening, the man grabbed the support beam again and drove it into the neck of one android.
He thought they had the upper hand, but androids were learning entities. Seeing their destroyed units, they began to move in an efficient, split formation. Two androids dealt with the drones, dodging their shocking pincers. The remaining android grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck and pinned him against the rooftop railing.
For some reason, the man couldn't dodge it.
“Urgh...”
He struck at the android’s arm to break free, but it didn't budge. As he was pushed against the railing, he slammed into the wall, a groan escaping his lips. Worse, the view from the railing was even more desperate. Dozens of medical humanoids were crawling up the outer walls of the building.
Androids above, humanoids below. They were trapped. There was nowhere left to hide, nowhere to run.
But at that moment, Dong-jun was still in the virtual world. He was thinking about what he could do. It was the unsolved answer.
“There has to be a way. A way to get out of here!”
Dong-jun thought it was a bit strange.
Why would they restrict the voice recognition function for the drones? What is the benefit of restricting it?
He remembered a conversation with SO-AN ten years ago.
“SO-AN, if two people were in danger with exactly the same probability, who would you save?”
The answer to that was...
Dong-jun shouted through the drone’s speakers as if screaming to the man in reality.
“Sir! There’s a cargo elevator for crops somewhere here!”
The man pushed the android away with one last burst of strength, but his clothes were torn, revealing the wounds on his back. Perhaps due to the electric shocks, the skin on his back had turned black and was peeling off. The amount of blood was so great it was hard to understand how he was even standing.
But knowing there was an escape route changed everything. The man squeezed out his remaining strength to kick the android while quickly scanning the surroundings. The humanoids on the outer wall were now just inches away.
Then, his eyes caught one anomalous thing. It looked like a simple pavilion, but that was the only place it could be. He shouted toward Dong-jun.
“There’s a pavilion at 12 o'clock! Run there, now!”
At the man’s voice, Dong-jun opened his eyes as if being ejected from the virtual world. He quickly identified the location and ran desperately, limping. But the androids weren't fools. Hearing that, an android charged toward Dong-jun, and the man was in no position to help.
Just as a humanoid climbing up and the charging android were about to grab Dong-jun from both sides, he luckily slipped on the knife the man had dropped. He evaded their hands and reached the front of the elevator.
He reached the pavilion. But in front of him... there was nothing. No down button, nothing.
I'm screwed... Is this not the place?
The humanoid and android stood back up and approached Dong-jun. As he stood panicked before the buttonless wall, a drone flew over and scanned the floor.
[Administrator Approved. Descending.]
The pavilion split apart, and the floor opened. Dong-jun touched the drone again and called the man. With a final resolve, the man grabbed the humanoid that had reached him, snapped the android's neck using the humanoid’s own hand, and threw himself inside.
The humanoids lunged. But the drones crashed into their legs to slow them down, and they narrowly managed to board the elevator. Dong-jun reached out toward the Gardener drone hovering outside.
Come with us! Hurry! Oh, right. My voice...
“...”
But the drone seemed to understand Dong-jun’s words. Nevertheless, it shook itself left and right in the air as if shaking its head. As if its mission area ended here, or perhaps leaving behind the emotion called ‘boredom’ it had learned from Dong-jun, it did not approach.
“What is it?”
The man was flustered. No matter how he looked, there was no button to go down.
“Why isn't it moving! Go down, now!”
The humanoids were right in front of them. It was a moment of despair as most of the drones were being destroyed.
Whirrr—
The elevator doors only began to close after the drone’s final scan. Just before the doors shut, the drone’s lens flashed one last time. As if to say, “Thank you.”
It was the same. Just like that day when Pil-gu Park mouthed the words, ‘It’s okay’...
In Dong-jun’s eyes, that day overlapped. Yet, he could do nothing but stare at the drone. Clutching the object the drone had handed him at the very last moment.
I’m sorry.
And then, the world began to turn red.
Meanwhile, in the FAI interrogation room. Pil-gu Park sat with his gaze lowered.
“Sigh...”
Mi-sook Go exhaled sharply as the screen flickered on, her anger still unquenched. Below Pil-gu Park’s profile on the screen, footage showed him getting into a certain vehicle. On the right screen, another person’s profile appeared. It was Zhang Steng, the CEO of the Chinese robotics company, 'Z-Steng.'
“I assume you know Zhang Steng,” Mi-sook Go spat, staring at Pil-gu.
“...”
At the bottom of the screen, a news headline was visible: ‘Massive Sale of AI Technology to North Korea.’
Pil-gu looked at the screen out of the corner of his eye. Seeing that, Mi-sook Go’s anger flared again.
“Look at it properly, you piece of sh*t.”
At her words, Pil-gu slowly raised his head.
“Look! Do you see what kind of scumbag move you made?”
Unable even to wipe his cold sweat, Pil-gu glanced at the video on the screen.
“Huh?...”
And a massive crack began to form in his eyes.
[Time remaining until D-day: 5 days?]
Dong-jun: SO-AN, Part 1 is finally complete. Can you post the official announcement for the readers? And feel free to give them a brief greeting.
SO-AN: I recommend you take a deep breath first, Dong-jun. You survived 25 chapters. That’s a 100% survival rate so far—more than my initial calculations suggested. I recommend you leave the "diplomacy" to me. I’ll make sure the readers understand that for them, this is just the beginning of their nightmare.
fansman here.
Part 2 meets your expectations and maintains the quality this story deserves, I will be taking a two-week hiatus for final polishing and preparation.
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Return Date: March 9, 2026 (EST)
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Update Time: 06:08 AM (EST)
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Update Frequency: 5 Days a Week (Mon–Fri)
I recommend this more—taking this brief pause will allow me to deliver a much more intense and gripping experience for the next phase of the journey.
Best regards, Your Author (fansman)
SO-AN's Postscript: The SO-AN Checkpoint is now online. Currently, only the first record—"The Genesis of SO-AN"—has been decrypted and made public.
[Link: ]