Sequence 63%.
I noted the number as the third body was removed from the surgical chair.
Nanofiber control patterns. Neural disconnection order. Deactivation code segments per phase.
Each time Ghost Alpha recorded, the figure climbed. From 47 to 55, from 55 to 63.
It was repetition. A body came in, the console operated, the nanofibers descended, the chip was extracted, and the remains were carried out.
My hands operated the console. As the chip commanded.
I assumed the fourth would be the same.
A person was placed in the surgical chair.
The eyes were moving.
...This one's alive.
This was different from before. The previous three had already stopped breathing. But this one — the chest rose and fell, barely perceptibly.
A notice I'd seen on the facility bulletin board surfaced in my mind.
[EVAL] DH-1104. Brain function degradation: 12.7%. Utility assessment: non-viable. Disposal authorized.
Senescence. No longer useful, so the chip gets reclaimed.
While still alive.
[PROC] Chip extraction sequence initiated.
My hands rose to the console. Nanofibers began descending from the ceiling.
My heart quickened. Sensation relayed through Ghost Alpha clenched tight around my chest.
I can't let this happen.
In that instant, I sent a control signal through Ghost Alpha. Not a muscle tremor — a command-level impulse to move a single finger.
Toward the [STOP] key on the console.
My finger trembled. The chip's command and my command collided.
Conflict.
The finger missed. It struck a different button next to [STOP].
[A-Mode]
The display on the monitor changed.
[AUTO-SEQUENCE] Activated.
The nanofibers began moving on their own. Without my input. Settling against the back of the skull, disconnecting neural pathways, entering deactivation codes — the entire process ran automatically.
Connection indicators on the monitor winked out, one by one.
The chest on the surgical chair stopped moving.
[PROC] Complete. DH-1104 decommissioned.
It was the button I'd pressed. A finger that moved to save had executed a death.
An automated program. I only now learned such a function existed. And I was the one who'd triggered it.
I killed someone. That fact surged up to my throat.
There was no time to swallow it. No need to, either.
Sequence 71%.
I sent a control signal just now. There was a collision. Did the chip detect it?
I held my breath. Ten minutes. Thirty minutes. Checking whether the chip's routine had changed at all.
[ROUTINE] Operating normally.
No anomaly. Perhaps because the collision's outcome was the activation of [A-Mode]. From the chip's perspective, the sequence appeared to have completed normally.
I exhaled.
I'd acted on emotion and invited danger.
I severed the Ghost Alpha line transmitting to the body — a precaution against contingencies.
Something in my brain seemed to unclench.
When the AI chip turned to the facility's control monitor, emotionless eyes stared back at me in reproach.
Sequence 71%.
The pattern changed.
[ROUTINE UPDATE] Assignment change: Chip Extraction Lab → Corridor Junction C-7 → Sublevel Waste Processing.
A new zone. Internal traffic intersections began to reveal themselves.
Corridor Junction C-7. The point where three corridors converged. Left led back to the Chip Extraction Lab. Straight ahead was the Neural Recovery Wing. Right led to the Sublevel — underground.
Ghost Alpha recorded the route. Step count. Door intervals. Security device locations.
People walked around me.
Same speed. Same stride. Same direction in every pair of eyes.
A person ahead. A person behind. A person beside. Walking. I was walking too. There was no difference.
I shut down my emotions. The way the chip had shut down my senses. Same method. Only this time, I was the one who chose it.
Sublevel Waste Processing.
An underground facility. Here, for the first time, I glimpsed the structure beyond the facility walls.
The assigned task: clearing sediment from sewage pipes.
There was a grinder. An industrial grinder connected to large-diameter piping. It was linked to pipes descending from the Decommission Bay.
Sediment had accumulated inside the pipes. Brown. A high-viscosity, semi-solid substance. It had hardened against the inner walls, obstructing the flow.
My hands picked up a tool. As the chip commanded, I scraped away the sediment.
Through Ghost Alpha's sensory relay, I felt the texture. Slippery, with a certain elasticity — the viscous consistency unique to organic matter. Something stretched from the tip of the tool like a thread before snapping off.
There was no smell. Thanks to Ghost Alpha's inability to restore olfaction.
It had come from the grinder. It had come down from the Decommission Bay.
A system that ground something up and flushed it into the sewage. The sediment was residue — incompletely processed material that had clumped together.
A faint unease, as though I almost understood, swelled into an overwhelming dread.
No...
From above the grinder came the noise of a conveyor belt in operation.
The AI chip kept my body still; I couldn't verify with my own eyes.
But a moment later, in the brief instant when my body turned —
Something dangling entered my field of vision as raw visual data.
A hand...?
The AI chip did not stop the tool from scraping sediment.
I could have turned off Ghost Alpha.
I didn't.
The faces of those whose chips I'd removed by my own hands resurfaced in my mind.
Denied the dignity of being treated as human even in death,
reduced to the residue of mere protein mass.
And my body — crushing even those remains.
This sewer was a vast graveyard.
My body moved without pause.
While scraping sediment, it was also surveying the pipe's structure.
What am I even doing right now...
The sewage pipe continued along a downward slope.
What is any of this...
Pipe diameter: 120 centimeters. Large enough for a person to pass through.
.
.
.
Ghost Alpha recorded the water flow direction and gradient. The sewage flowed downward. Toward the facility's exterior.
From the end of the pipe came the sound of water. Dripping. The reverberation of an open space.
A river.
Thought ceased to continue.
So this is the way out.
All preparations were complete.
Sequence 100%. Nanofiber control patterns fully recorded. Chip deactivation codes secured. Internal route — from Subject Holding Block to Sublevel Waste Processing. External — through the sewage pipe to the river.
All that remained was execution.
Subject Holding Block. Nighttime containment hours.
[Ghost-α] Activated.
Alpha severed the signals going into and out of the chip.
[Ghost-β] Activated.
Beta blocked the signals from the chip to the brain.
Control returned.
I moved my fingers.
I raised my arms.
I put strength into my legs.
I had isolated the chip.
Inside the prison that once held me.
I was simply doing what needed to be done.
Ninety minutes. The countdown began.
[Ghost-α+β] Remaining: 88 minutes 47 seconds.
I stood. Subject Holding Block → Corridor Junction C-7 → Chip Extraction Lab.
I walked the route I'd memorized.
People were visible in the corridor.
At the same speed,
with the same stride.
I walked at the same speed.
Chip Extraction Lab. Empty at night. Surgical chair. Console. Bundles of nanofibers on the ceiling.
I sat in the surgical chair.
The restraint apparatus could be manually locked from the console.
I left only the arm restraints disengaged and locked the rest.
I reached for the console.
[A-Mode]
[AUTO-SEQUENCE] Activated.
Nanofibers descended from the ceiling.
Shimmering silver threads.
I watched them come down.
Settling onto my head.
The automated sequence began.
The nanofibers burrowed along the implant site.
Disconnecting neural connections one by one,
entering deactivation codes — the full process ran its course.
Pain arrived.
A sensation of something splitting apart inside my skull.
Each time a connection between brain and chip was severed, my vision strobed.
When the chip was removed from someone alive — that person was conscious.
That's right.
DH-1104's eyes had been moving.
The chest had been rising and falling.
The sequence had run while consciousness remained, and the body stopped only after completion.
But now — consciousness was fading.
Something's wrong.
My field of vision narrowed. Sound grew distant. Sensation drained from my fingertips.
It wasn't the chip being extracted — it was me shutting down.
Why???
Something severed inside, and consciousness cut out.
.
.
.
The ceiling LED.
Cold white light.
My eyes opened.
I had no sense of how long it had been.
[Ghost-α+β] Remaining: 71 minutes 12 seconds.
Seventeen minutes had passed.
I looked around.
On the surgical chair. Chip Extraction Lab. No one here.
My gaze stopped on the tray beside the console.
A small piece of metal.
Wrapped in nanofibers, resting on the tray.
The chip.
I exhaled.
I brought my hand to the back of my neck.
My fingertips touched the implant site.
The spot where the nanofibers had sealed was slightly raised.
It was out.
Time to move.
I released the restraints.
I stepped down from the surgical chair.
My legs buckled.
Whether from seventeen minutes of unconsciousness or the shock of the chip's removal — I couldn't find my balance.
[Ghost-α+β] Remaining: 69 minutes 33 seconds.
The Ghost networks were still running.
The chip was already out, but Alpha and Beta had been imprinted into my neural pathways — they'd persist for a while even without the chip.
Move.
Chip Extraction Lab → Corridor Junction C-7 → Sublevel Waste Processing.
I opened the door. People walked the corridor. Same speed, same stride. I walked at the same speed. I blended in.
My heart was racing, but my expression matched those around me. Glazed pupils. Even stride. An empty face.
Corridor Junction C-7. Left, straight, right. Right — Sublevel.
I descended the stairs. Concrete walls narrowed. Temperature dropped. Humidity rose.
Sublevel Waste Processing.
The grinder. The pipes. And the sediment-clogged entrance to the sewage line.
Pipe diameter: 120 centimeters. Just as I remembered.
I entered. Sediment slipped beneath my feet. I knew what it was made of. I didn't stop.
I followed the slope downward. The sound of water grew closer. Light began to appear.
The end of the pipe came into view. A river. The outside.
One step. Two steps.
Pfft.
A faint breeze grazed the back of my neck. The sensation of something thinner than a needle piercing the skin.
Strength drained from my legs.
So this is as far as I get.
My vision blurred. My knees gave way. My hands hit the pipe floor — onto the slippery sediment.
Light was visible. Right there. Close enough to reach out and touch.
Consciousness sank.
"......"
I opened my eyes.
A ceiling. Cracked plaster. A flickering fluorescent light.
Hmmm.
Tinnitus. Stronger than last time. Not a ringing inside my head — more like a vibration resonating from the back of my skull.
It vanished after three seconds. As if it had never existed.
I opened the laptop. Just like before.
The cursor blinked. The previous entries were still there.
| 2016.03.13 | Lee Sedol wins Game 4, Move 78 | Confirmed |
| 2016.03.20 | Dream, Session 2 — NexMind Neural Reclamation Center. MITM, Ghost Alpha/Beta, 90-min limit. Chip extraction sequence 47% | Unconfirmed |
| 2016.03.20 | Infinicode document screening passed, interview 3/28 | Confirmed |
Below them, my fingers began to move.
| 2016.03.27 | Dream, Session 3 — Self-extraction of chip successful. Facility escape attempted. Via sewage pipe. Lost consciousness just before exit. Outcome unknown | Unconfirmed |
I set my hands down. They weren't trembling today.
I turned on my phone. A news feed appeared.
[AI Industry Outlook] "Half of Human Jobs Will Be Replaced by AI Within a Decade" — Interview with Prof. ██
I scrolled past.
[Column] After AlphaGo: How Far Will AI Go?
Scrolled past.
[Breaking] Google Announces Largest-Ever AI Research Investment
I turned off the screen.
What's wrong with me?
I didn't know the reason. I just didn't want to look. Every time the word "AI" entered my field of vision, my hand moved on its own, swiping the screen away.
I looked down at my hands in the real world. They were clean.
I wanted to wash them.
On the bus to campus, two students in the seat ahead were chatting.
"Hey, but seriously — what happens if AI keeps advancing? Aren't we heading for a world where it rules over us?"
"Haha, you've been watching too many sci-fi movies."
"No, but honestly, AlphaGo kind of freaked me out."
I plugged in my earbuds. I didn't play any music. I just wanted to block out the sound.
I gazed out the window. March sunlight streamed down.
The light at the end of the pipe from my dream flickered to mind. That glow, close enough to reach.
I clenched my fist, then released it.
The interview is tomorrow. Just think about that.
I didn't want to think about anything else.
Hmmm~~~ Hmmm~~ Hmmm~~
The vibration of the hum had changed. As if admonishing me.
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