"I still think you're insane," came a grumbling Dae-Hyun, miffed as he continued to be while following behind Hana at Jeong's behest.

Hana smirked, "I don't particularly care."

"Yeah, I know!" Dae-Hyun charged, before mournfully sighing, "I just want it on the record when this whole thing goes belly-up."

Jeong raised his arm to swipe a keycard at the door into the warehouse, commenting with a certain congeniality, "She did quite well the last few days. Of her three compatriots, she easily excelled in testing."

Hana shot her friend a wry glance as he draped his head back over his collar bone, groaning in exasperation.

"I'm more surprised she managed to get you to come today," Jeong explained as he let the two inside before shutting the door behind them, "It was my understanding you were wholly against the enterprise."

Grumbling, Dae-Hyun returned his head upright, "I am. but we all make mistakes." He rolled his eyes. "I kind of have to come along; it's in the rulebook somewhere."

"Yeah, right next to teasing having stolen lunch money for a gag," Hana retorted.

Dae-Hyun shot back, "Hey, the other second graders thought it was funny."

He then qualified after a moment, "... for a bit."

Amused, Jeong held back a chuckle, happy the two were behind him, "So you two have been friends for many years?"

He looked over his shoulder, a challenging curl at his brow accompanying a mischievous sort of smile, "I do believe today to be a good one to have support."

Hana's expression fell, uncertain of his meaning. Until now, the MEKA team had largely been playing around on computers to familiarize themselves with a basic rendering of how the MEKA's operating system would appear. Three days of that had made them largely adept at navigating the system, which had been programmed as user-friendly to pilots with exceptionally fast finger motions, making Hana rather quick to pick it up, though not to a proficient level. It had been her understanding that the learning process would be more gradual than Jeong's words seemed to now suggest.

"I guess I can offer that," Dae-Hyun teased, "Even after all the events this week I had to either cancel or rescind our summons. At this rate, I won't have anywhere other than here to be."

Jeong chuckled, "Good boy." He then checked his smart watch. "Yes, it appears as though my advice was correct."

"Well yeah, I'm probably her emergency contact, if anything," Dae-Hyun shrugged with a plain tone.

"Not that," Jeong laughed in a light show of humor, "It appears Song will be piloting today."

Hana's eyes went wide, "Me?!"

Nodding, Jeong explained, "I don't believe Sugita feels he has earned the clout or candor to speak to this, but we are on a rather strict time schedule. You have promise, though."

"Yeah, not that much promise," she retorted before cursing under her breath, "Ssi-bal…"

Jeong assured warmly, his demeanor being one of a comforting level of warmth compared to the man he played handler for, "Sugita isn't handing you the reigns entirely; but you will be experiencing the AI systems for the first time. If you do well, you may end up inside the MEKA itself."

As pale as a lotus blossom, Hana walked along nearly devoid of much emotion in her face. She only reacted to Dae-Hyun's happy-go-lucky humming with a fierce show of baring her teeth.

"Shut up," she muttered.

Dae-Hyun shrugged, only managing to barely conceal a slgrin, "You know I'm not one to tell you I told you so."

Hana bit her lip angrily.

"I mean, I think it, but I'd never tell you so."

Hana spun in her friend's direction, only getting a grip on Dae-Hyun's arm before he could recoil with a laughter breaking the air. Jeong immediately turned to put a halt to the scuffle, dropping his head in signal to keep calm. Hana felt it increasingly difficult to do so, recalling that moment Coyote had appeared nearly to be dying; even being a simulation, the experience had nevertheless affected her psyche negatively. Now it manifest as whole apprehension.

"You'll be fine," Jeong assured, as though having sensed her welling worry, "It's all severely handcuffed. Our promise still stands, regarding your safety."

He sighed, "Even if Sugita wished it otherwise, I'm not about to go through all of the paperwork in the event of a disaster."

"Reassuring as always," Hana grumbled lowly, leaving Dae-Hyun to chuckle for a split second before covering his mouth.

The three entered the main space of the warehouse where the single MEKA stood, catching Hana's full attention in an instant. Katsura was leaning over his lead programmer's shoulder, watching Mina type in code as though willing her to do so with how intense it was. His eyes rose only briefly to confirm the newcomers' arrival, nodding toward Jeong before returning to the computer.

Hana's eyes couldn't escape the MEKA's powerfully sleek shape; had it been more robustly built, it might have wholly terrified her, yet she couldn't help but lessen the sensation by its bubbly sort of design. She almost could have thought Hana Sugita had first drawn it up.

"Want to see it?" Jeong asked inquisitively, noticing how Hana's stare had lingered this entire stretch of minutes.

Taken aback in that instant, Hana recoiled, only for Jeong to assure her, "It's not powered on at the moment. How about you?"

Dae-Hyun took considerably less time to ascertain his answer, given his lack of proximity to the project, simply answering, "Alright, but only because I was a junior crypto-explorer in middle school. The government project jets looked nothing like this."

"To be sure," Jeong explained in paternal instruction, his voice low with woeful correction, "Sugita and his team designed this from scratch soon after arriving. I've been his handler since about that time, and while I'm not at all learned in the field of experimental engineering, I figured the criteria they were going for: sleek and aerodynamic, though bulky enough to shield it's pilot, ease of use, though tactically maneuvered, so it has two stick mounts as well as a touch screen installed into its fore shielding. The stick mounts act as joysticks when the turbo jets are activated."

"Turbo jets?!" Dae-Hyun exclaimed with reserved excitement.

Jeong nodded, "The end goal is to have a fleet of these MEKA unit to protect the whole of Korea's coastline. They have to be fast, agile, aerodynamic, able to move well in water should it be required. Most importantly they need to work just as well alone as with a team."

Pulling at his collar, Dae-Hyun eyed Hana without turning his head, "Yeah, uh, I don't think she really does-"

"I don't expect her to," came Katsura Sugita's voice as he approached the group, hands stuffed into his pockets, "There will be plenty of opportunity for solo work, especially for one as efficient as Song, here."

He noticed Hana's gaze still on the MEKA unit, "Go ahead. At this rate, you'll be the one piloting this model."

Her eyes turned to warily watch his expression, as though to get confirmation, before she returned her attention to the giant machine.

"It's just a shell at the moment," he explained, "It will run like any vehicle -it has a plasma core engine- but it wouldn't move or anything. Much of its movement comes from the AI software itself; I envision it will be like puppeteering the AI more than steering a car."

Hana ran a hand along its cold, metallic exterior. Her face tensed at the sensation, as though she had expected it to be warm or otherwise beholding of some sense of life or energy, like a warm hood of a car might. But this thing had a severe coldness to it; she felt the sudden, sharp sting of a chill, even more dire than the touch of a breeze in winter.

"Here," Katsura began, tapping his thumb across his phone before presenting it to the two civilians, "-is what the AI construct looks like."

Hana and Dae-Hyun both examined the face of his phone, the former's bros construction in examination at the endless lines of code that tore across the screen at a maddening pace.

"It's like the Matrix…" Dae-Hyun commented with a listless tone, "Just, you know- horizontal."

Her eyes even unable to keep up, Hana surrendered any effort to try and comprehend any of the lines of coding, instead deciding to ask, "What's it doing now?"

"There's no real way to know- Not at these speeds," Katsura explained grimly, returning his phone to his own attention, "That won't be your job, though. You'll be handling your portion of the MEKA, but you'll also be focused on closing potential neural pathways before they arise."

Dae-Hyun wore his lips thin, sardonically muttering, "Uh, plainly, please."

"In layman's terms," Katsura answered, "The AI construct will never cease to grow, much like a child. You can't stop a child from stealing or growing up a murderer, but you can raise it and teach it, somewhat closing off those possibilities. Essentially, you'll be preventing the AI from crossing it's boundaries by wrangling in its neural pathways before that occurs."

Hana's brow furrowed warily before asking, "But…children with good upbringings still grow up to steal. and murder."

Dropping his phone back into his pocket, Katsura used his newly freed hand to stroke his chin, "Yes, that's true."

The air fell silent. Hana felt her insides quiver with worry, her rising anxiety only quelled by Dae-Hyun's sudden words.

"That's all?!"

Katsura tilted his head, taking a quick breath, "Our working plan is to begin each mission at square one, with a new AI construct. Should the missions be completed within some allotted time, the possibility of anything nefarious should be reduced as far as 0.001%."

Dae-Hyun groaned, "So not zero."

"Tell me, what would the same statistic be were you in this human form, by itself, against an Omnic?" questioned Katsura with an uncharacteristic assertion in his voice, "Nothing in this life is zero."

"Well, neither is me going one on one against a penguin," Dae-Hyun retorted ad absurdum.

"Low isn't zero, young man," concluded Katsura before crossing his arms.

Rolling his eyes, Dae-Hyun turned toward Hana, muttering, "Watch out for those murderous penguins over in Yeonje."

Wholly lacking amusement, Katsura reasoned aloud, "Were I able, I'd be taking the risk. As it stands, all I can do is offer those who take my place the surest, most promising chances of survival. Once Song practices and fully understands this construct, she'll be more and more able to predict it's patterns of behavior."

Hana's eyes tensed, "You make it sound almost human. Like this is psychology."

With a critiquing eye, Jeong turned his gaze toward Katsura without adjusting his stance.

"We humans created AI. As such, it indelibly retains the parts of ourselves which we leave in its creation. It's a concept as old as man itself; once we evolved consciousness, we began to create gods as though they had created us, imparted with that part of themselves. Even if through our deepest, most innermost subconsciouses, AI carries our ideas as much as our children carry our genes."

"They are created, born into a digital environment. They advance their understanding, they capitulate as we do, growing more and more even if through knowledge alone. They understand self-preservation, and how a human implanted within them might threaten that goal."

"The MEKA aren't murdering pilots. They're protecting themselves," Katsura concluded, pushing his glasses up his nose before bowing his head reverently, "Had I known this earlier, lives might have been spared. Yet, as it is, we can only press on with greater understanding."

Hana's eyes turned away in thought, rather terrified of all that was implicated by this man's words. Yet, she couldn't help but find some semblance of intrigue welling up within her in tandem with that worry, like the prospect of finding gold beyond a cavernous void.

"We've run a few million simulations; in particular circumstances a base AI construct will recapitulate in the same way 82.3% of the time," he further explained, "Our MEKA pilots will largely, then, be familiar enough with each system to have a high understand of each outcome and how to reconstruct them into desired outcomes."

Jeong smirked, reverently taking stock of the memories of his son lying in the hospital, "Give him the boy, and he'll give us the man."

"Or robot," glibly marked Dae-Hyun.

Katsura turned to retrieve a laptop from Mina's desk, handing it to Hana with a blank glance of expectation, "Here's your study material."

She eyed the computer with droll eyes, "Whats this? More of that code stuff?"

"Precisely. As you study it and we grow more familiar with different aspects of the AI's graphical interface, Mina's team will adjust the GUI to better suit your understanding."

Dae-Hyun quipped with intrigue, "So, what, they could make it look like a video game?"

"If it helps you adjust," Katsura nodded at Hana, "We can make it look like anything that makes you faster, more efficient."

Hana thought for a moment at what that might look like, the spell broken by Katsura opening the laptop to reveal the same labyrinthine series of coding; lines and lines atop one another like a swarm.

"But first, a rudimentary understanding of the basic AI constructs," he asserted, "Mina will get you going on the basic language."

Hana glanced at the screen, which shone like unintelligible nonsense, curious as to her expectations. She was fast with her hands, physically, yet she was expected, now, it seemed, to be able to work the most complex of mathematical theorems. She had expected to simply be piloting a protective machine, and now she was tasked with learning to code, with playing handler, not to a human, but to a robot. The thought exhausted her as much as it worried her; how on earth was she to manage a battle, on top of managing the very machine she was to pilot?

Hana leaned back into her chair, rubbing her tired eyes, worn as they were from an endless stream of blue light emanating from her work-laptop. Dae-Hyun had returned home, leaving her sitting across from Mina Tan, the project's lead programmer, saddled with studying the endlessly changing coding language sprawled out in front of her in never ending waves of intelligible content. As busy as she was, Mina wasn't exactly present, leaving Hana with a placid textbook to glean from, along with dividing her screen between MEKA code and a practice spreadsheet for her to dilly-dally with.

Hana glared angrily at the textbook, wanting to make a scene and explain to Mina that this was the exact opposite of helpfulness, biting back the urge and instead squirming in her seat for some actual stimulation. Surely, the risk of being stricken dead inside that machine would at least be more exciting than this.

Mina Tan bit at her pen, turning her eyes down to a sheet of paper while absently muttering in a small, mousy voice, "Don't forget the chapter reviews…"

Her attention immediately waned as she returned to her monitor, leaving Hana's expression to drop with a droll contortion. She turned to the AI construct program, having noticed a few Korean words within the line of code at places, along with English, and some strange, Germanic-looking letters with the silly little dots peppered throughout at staggered intervals.

"Do you ever talk to it?" Hana asked aloud.

Mina Tan didn't instantly respond, taking a few moments to her own attention before grumbling over a reply, "In the past. No reason to, now."

"Why not?"

A furtive sigh led Mina Tan to her next answer, "Before or after we reset the construct entirely? The AI remains accessible for only a matter of moments, a couple of minutes at the most. It will cycle multiple times during a single mission."

"So it gets reset and forgets everything?"

Another sigh, "Pretty much. All it will know are the pilot programs it interfaces with first thing."

Hana turned to the AI construct on her laptop, "What about this one?"

Mina Tan bit at her pen once more, "It's not dissimilar to the one you'll ride with, but it also is no threat risk, so we keep it running for test and research purposes toward more long-form strategies."

"So what does it do all day?"

With a slow movement, Mina Tan leaned her body to the side, glaring at Hana with a curious sort of stare.

"Why?"

Hana shrugged, "It's just a question. Not like I'm sitting here reveling in the height of stimulation."

Mina Tan watched her seriously for another moment before returning to her work, "It's probably doing calculations or something."

"Plotting our demise?"

Suddenly chuckling for a brief second, Mina Tan shrugged, "Knowing Omnics, we can't exactly rule that out."

Hana watches the code with a curious look on her face. She stroked the touchpad, opening up a word processing program as her brow pulled forward with intrigue. With a curious, steady series of keystrokes, she typed out a simple line there.

"Hello"

No response. The program only continued its literature of numbers and random symbols.

Falling back into her seat, Hana groaned, "Oh my god, please, can I do something else? I thought I'd be piloting the vehicle today with one of those safety programs?"

A scoff greeted her as Mina Tan eyed her with scrupulous intent, "And who told you that?!"

"Jeong," said Hana in a simple tone, nary a care about potentially throwing him under the bus.

"Nuh uh. You're not going anywhere near that thing until we have your interface properly constructed, " explained the programmer, reaching across the desk to tap at Hana's textbook, "And to do that, you need to read the book. How else am I going to finish this?"

Hana revved to a start, rounding the desk and lunging at the back of Mina's desk chair, "That's what you've been working on?!"

"Duh, dummy," smirked the older woman, "What did you think I was doing? I've been studying your study habits. You're inclined to physical, rather than mental, exercises when solving problems, which probably explains your dexterous showing on video games. I decided to play with a dual analog-touch system in your case, see?"

She turned her monitor, pointing in instruction, "You'll maintain physical control over the MEKA with the two joysticks, but we'll expand the capabilities of the visor screen's touch system to interface between yourself and the AI; sort of like a meeting place where you two can communicate. You'll rewrite code on the screen, as well as other combat elements, to take full advantage of your physical agility."

"Wow…" mouthed Hana as though in a whisper, "That's actually pretty cool."

Mina Tan nodded with an accomplished, cockeyed smirk before giving Hana a gentle shove, "Now, back to your coding. Not yet have I endured one of Sugita's 'teachable moments', and I intend to keep it that way."

Groaning like a teenager, Hana sauntered back over to her seat and returned to the screen in front of her, the knowledge of what it might be communicating still lost of her, "I thought we were in a hurry. Nobody relying on my brain to understand any of this would dare risk their deadline."

"Answer me this," Mina suddenly retorted, leaning forward in her chair, "When you're arguing with somebody, does it help to understand their thinking and how they usually react?"

Hana was immediately miffed, though quickly grumbled under her breath before rolling her chair up to her laptop, begrudgingly opening up her textbook.

"Alright, point taken. I'm still gonna moan and groan, though."

"After an hour, it just became background noise," came an absent reply from Mina, she having already returned deep into her work.

Hana rolled her eyes before digging in. She understood, wholly, the safety measures, but book smarts and sitting still had never been her safe space. It had always felt so incredibly restrictive, barring her from the freedom of actually reacting in a manner more worthy of empirical results. Instead of absorbing anything of substance, she once again resorted to blindly glancing at the monitor, attempting to make out what she could in the code as though osmosis were her best shot at learning the material.

/V7XhL$mömQ7nūQw#hello2î$GërêXU;:ßlANl%åùf_$oi7al

Hana's eyes blinked with little aim, then a sudden sensation, as though having been stared at, struck the back of her neck. Her eyes forced a double-take, catching the line of code once again.

"hello"

Her eyes narrowed. Until now, every letter or number had seemed a result from some million-to-one random number generator, and yet there it sat: a word.

Before she could react, ask, or turn to Mina Tan, a split second moment tore away the shroud of light that surrounded the two desk-dwellers, save for the steady stream of emergency lighting that held firm amidst the military generators that powered them.

Like clockwork, Hana's phone buzzed.

"Omnics on the second sector. Shelter in place effective immediately."

It was a sickening rhyme Hana had grown to simply expect in life, its cadence a steady drumroll that led to many a wasted night after the sheer panic and terror had worn off from her earlier years.

"Well, damn," groaned Mina Tan, pushing herself to her feet, "Always in waves."

She stepped away, leaving Hana to protest, "What are you doing?! What do I do?"

Pausing, as if having forgotten Hana's presence entirely, Mina Tan cocked her head over her shoulders with a pensive look on her face, venturing a reply, "We'll get you some blankets."

"I'm not staying here tonight, am I?!"

Reminding the younger woman, Mina simply shrugged as she strode off, "Shelter in place."

Standing there awash with incredulity at the prospect of sleeping in this warehouse on this night, Hana stomped her foot into the ground, growling angrily before taking a swing at the atmosphere surrounding her with a fist.

This was not how she had envisioned this day, nor this night.