NTN 03

Chapter 03

Re-Examination

The elevator kept descending for what felt like forever before it finally stopped.

When Seong Geon-woo stepped out and turned left, he saw a pair of heavy metal doors sealed tight. Four armed security guards—lizard-like in their bio-engineered armor—stood motionless before the giant doors.

Instead of approaching them, Geon-woo followed the hallway to the right.

At the end of the corridor were several unmarked rooms. Under the ceiling lights he stopped before the very last door and knocked.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Come in,” a gentle woman’s voice called.

Geon-woo opened the door and found a woman in a white lab coat.
Behind a solid wooden desk sat a woman in her thirties with neatly pinned-up hair and gold-rimmed glasses.

“It’s you.”
She smiled and gestured to the chair across from her. “Sit down.”

Geon-woo sat, smiling as if he were back home.
“Hello, Instructor In.”

“Hello, Geon-woo.”

She brushed a loose strand of hair back and opened a file. Fingering a black fountain pen, she asked casually,
“How have you been lately?”

“My appetite’s up. I sleep well. I feel healthy.”
He flexed his biceps to prove the point.

In nodded. “Your application to withdraw from the communal-marriage program has already been filed. Have you checked the result?”

“Yes, thank you,” he said with a grin.
“As thanks, should I sing you a song?”

“That’s quite all right.”
She shook her head without hesitation and tapped the desk with her pen.

“I have wondered, though—why were you so determined to give up the communal marriage? Your condition isn’t that serious.”

Geon-woo’s face grew solemn. His voice dropped.
“To save humanity.”

“….”

With her pen she drew a circle on the file, around the words:

Moderate mental disorder (suspected delusional thinking—observation recommended).

Setting the pen aside, she smiled.
“That sounds like a Salvation Army slogan.”

Geon-woo made a thoughtful hum. “Instructor In, I think you misunderstand me. You take perfectly normal thoughts and treat them as symptoms of illness.”

She straightened a little, a faint smile on her pale face.
“And what part do you think I misunderstand?”

He paused for a couple of seconds, choosing his words.
“You don’t understand a pure and noble passion. You don’t know what it means to break free from base desires.”

Her lips pressed together, as if she were suppressing laughter. She pushed her glasses up and exhaled slowly.
“True. There’s no place for such idealists in this era. Even the Salvation Army has fallen.”

After a brief silence she continued,
“I can try to understand you. But you need to tell me what made you think this way. Was there some event?”

“No event. That’s simply how I think.”
He sighed, smiling faintly.
“Instructor, you’re the warmest, most dignified person I’ve ever met. There’s something I’d like to tell you.”

Her eyebrows twitched. “I already—”

Before she could finish, he went on,
“I once thought you could become my spiritual mother. But now I see our ideals belong to completely different worlds. That’s truly a shame.”

Cough, cough!

She choked and coughed several times, then took a sip from the mug at her side.
“Ah, I’ve used up this month’s tea ration,” she muttered.

Before he could speak again, she lowered her voice as if sharing a secret.
“Recently…have you heard sounds no one else hears? Seen anything others can’t?”

He shook his head firmly. “No.”

She studied his face for a few seconds, then moved on with other questions.

About ten minutes later a sweet female voice echoed through every floor of the building.

—It is now exactly 6 p.m.

“The time signal,” In murmured as the announcement repeated three times.

Rubbing her brow, she said, “Let’s stop here for today.”
After a moment’s thought she added,
“If you’re sleeping well and not hallucinating, I won’t prescribe medication. Let’s meet again next week at the same time.”

“Yes, Instructor.”

He rose and headed for the door. Just before leaving he turned back.
“Thank you, Instructor.”

She smiled. “Nothing to thank me for.”

When he closed the door carefully behind him, In let out a sigh and murmured with a faint smile,
“Such polite manners.”

She opened the file on her desk and read the notes inside:

Name: Seong Geon-woo
Age: 21
Date of Birth: Year 25 of the New Era, September 8
Family: Father Seong Se-won, D7 team leader, disappeared in Year 37 with the entire rescue team. Mother Jang Yeo-hyang, D3 employee and elementary teacher, died of illness in Year 40, cause presumed to be grief. From Year 40 to 43, Geon-woo lived in the orphanage on the 495th floor, then entered university to study electronics.
Situation: In Year 46 volunteered for classified experiment “Project C-14,” hoping to gain strength to investigate his father’s disappearance.
Result: Failure—no changes compared to control group.
After-effects: Occasional logical disruptions leading to illogical conclusions; otherwise normal.
Genetic tests: Normal.
Assessment: Moderate mental disorder (suspected delusion, observation recommended).

She added with her pen:

Re-examination, New Era Year 46, July 10: Symptoms neither improved nor worsened. No violent or aggressive tendencies. For now, likely harmless.

Six p.m. marked the company’s official end of shift. Except for certain teams on extended or 24-hour duty, employees left the 5th-floor administrative sector, the 6th–45th-floor research sector, the 46th–145th-floor factory/maintenance sector, and the 146th–345th-floor internal-ecology sector to return to the residential levels—over 300 floors of them.

Because of energy-ration limits and the likelihood that both spouses and older family members worked, most employees ate at the supply market on their floor.

The market was split in two. One side sold goods from the ecological sector—sweet potatoes, potatoes, rice, flour, meat, vegetables, fruit—and factory products like cloth, sugar, and salt. The other side sold ready-to-eat food, effectively serving as the staff cafeteria.

Meals there were pricier and not especially tasty compared to home cooking, but for tired workers with limited energy rations it was the better choice. The company encouraged this unified dining to control energy use.

When Geon-woo reached the 495th floor, about twenty minutes remained before the cafeteria opened at 6:30. The half-hour delay gave certain employees time to wash, disinfect, and settle before dinner. To keep things fair, the board set that opening time.

Before 6:15 many workers returned to their living quarters, but the activity center beside the supply market was the best place to pass the time. Under its lamps people exchanged stories about life and work, feeling a quiet superiority over those struggling to survive outside.

Some used the moment to sell unneeded items and earn extra contribution points, turning the hall into a small market every evening from 6:00 to 6:30 and again from 7:00 to 8:30.

Entering the center, Geon-woo spotted the supervisor, Jin Hyun-oh, perched on a squeaky stool, odd objects scattered before him.

“What’s this?”
Geon-woo crouched and pointed to a square metal case with a cracked black screen.

“Who knows? It’s tough enough you could use it to hit someone or maybe as armor,” Jin said, poking his own chest.

“Where’d you get it?” Geon-woo asked, turning the object in his hands.

Jin cleared his throat. “From my comrade’s youngest son. The kid works in Security now. He just got back from ruins of some Old-World city. Time flies—seems like yesterday he was a newborn…”

He smiled at the memory.
“Anyway, the company decided it wasn’t needed, so he gave it to me to sell. You know I’ve got someone who cooks for me, so I don’t need the cafeteria.”

That was true—Jin oversaw many employees.

Geon-woo studied the spider-web cracks on the screen, then asked, “How much?”

“Not expensive. Five hundred points.”

Geon-woo set it down slowly, muttering in mild protest,
“That’s ten pounds of meat.”

At the word meat, both men swallowed hard.

END