The inner wing grew quieter the next day.
Not in activity.
In sound.
Doors opened and closed with more care. Conversations shortened. Even footsteps seemed to register their presence and soften.
Tae-Hyun noticed the new order immediately.
He was scanned twice before reaching his assigned route. A gray-coated technician observed his ID band longer than necessary before waving him through.
Inside the inner corridor, two analysts stood at a wall display he hadn't seen active before. Its surface shifted constantly, translating streams of biological data into layered visualizations that looked almost organic.
One of them murmured, "The reflective variance appeared again at 02:14."
"Consistent?" the other asked.
"Yes. Narrow-band. It coincides with subject E-17's stabilization point."
They continued walking before Tae-Hyun reached them.
But the words stayed.
He passed Eun-chae's chamber an hour later.
The space had changed.
Additional monitors now ringed the platform. New conduits threaded the air, thinner and more numerous. A soft harmonic tone lingered, just perceptible, like the aftertaste of sound.
Eun-chae sat on the edge of the platform while a medical assistant adjusted a sensor at her wrist.
She looked up.
Found him.
The recognition was immediate.
Then her gaze flicked briefly to a new camera installed above the glass.
She straightened.
He slowed.
Not stopping.
Letting their attention align only for a second.
Enough.
Later, during a transfer run, he heard her name spoken aloud for the first time by someone other than him.
"E-17 has been reclassified," a man said to his colleague near the monitoring station. "She's no longer logged as a subject."
"What now?" the other asked.
"Interface candidate."
The phrase settled into the space between them.
"She's not being measured anymore," the first continued. "She's being prepared."
"For what?" the second asked.
The man shrugged. "Whatever they think they're close to."
Tae-Hyun moved on.
The hum inside him tightened subtly, as if registering a pressure shift.
Interface candidate.
They were no longer testing whether Eun-chae could hold their system.
They were shaping her to meet it.
That evening, he was redirected.
Not to storage.
Not to sanitation.
To observation support.
The assignment was temporary. The clearance narrow but specific.
He would maintain peripheral equipment, manage environment controls, and assist analysts during live sessions.
It placed him in the inner wing for extended periods.
And it placed him closer to her.
He worked along the edge of the central chamber, adjusting climate inputs and recalibrating display panels.
Above, three analysts tracked data streams across a curved surface.
"Her baseline coherence has improved by twelve percent since activation," one said.
"Cross-reference with the reflective anomaly," another replied.
The first nodded. "Already done. There's a consistent correlation."
"With what?"
"With proximity," he said.
They both fell silent for a moment.
"That doesn't make sense," the second said.
"Neither does anything else here," the first replied.
Tae-Hyun kept his attention on the control panel.
But he felt the way their systems were beginning to orient.
Not to the wing.
To him.
When he finally reached E-17's chamber again, the space was empty of technicians.
Eun-chae stood alone within the luminous boundary, her posture relaxed but alert.
She turned toward him the instant he entered her range of vision.
"They're watching more closely," she said.
"So are you," he replied.
"Yes," she agreed. "Because something is changing."
He stepped nearer.
The hum responded, subtle but precise.
"What do you feel?" he asked.
She considered.
"Before, the array felt like a structure being built around us," she said. "Now it feels like something testing its own shape."
"And you?"
A pause.
"Now I feel like something testing it back."
The words carried quiet certainty.
"They reclassified you," he said.
"I heard," she replied. "Interface candidate."
"How does that sit with you?"
Her gaze drifted toward the ceiling again.
"It means they're no longer asking whether," she said. "They're asking how."
He studied her.
"You don't seem afraid."
"I am," she said. "But fear has become… background."
She stepped closer to the inner edge of the barrier.
"The difference," she continued, "is that now there's something else in the room with me."
He held her gaze.
"Me?"
"Yes."
A faint curve touched her mouth.
"Whatever they're building," she said, "it doesn't move the same way when you're near."
The hum tightened, not sharply, but with clarity.
"I don't know yet what that means," she added. "But they're starting to."
He exhaled slowly.
"Which means," he said, "we have to be careful."
She nodded.
"And ready," she added.
Footsteps approached from the observation deck.
He stepped back into the posture of a worker returning to his panel.
But as he did, he felt it.
The directed focus.
The subtle alignment of sensors.
The beginning of a system learning where to look.