The fitting room felt more clinical than any place he had seen in W-03.
White walls. Seamless floors. A single platform at the center surrounded by suspended instruments that moved with quiet precision.
The gray-coated technician gestured for him to step forward.
Tae-Hyun removed his outer jacket and stood where indicated.
A thin band of light passed slowly over his body, mapping, measuring, translating him into layered data.
"Baseline capture," the technician said, mostly to the air.
Another device descended. Cool contact against his upper spine. Then a faint pressure, like a touch held half a second too long.
The tracer integrated.
Inside him, the hum shifted, folding around the foreign presence without resistance.
On the technician's display, lines spiked.
Then smoothed.
He paused.
Adjusted a setting.
"…Interesting," he murmured.
"What is?" Tae-Hyun asked.
The man hesitated, then returned to procedure. "Your internal variance corrected faster than expected."
He finished sealing the device beneath Tae-Hyun's skin.
"Monitoring will run continuously," he said. "Neural, biological, and environmental resonance. You won't feel it."
"I already do," Tae-Hyun thought.
But he said nothing.
A thin interface band was fastened around his wrist. Another at the base of his throat.
"Proximity parameters will display here," the technician said, gesturing to the band. "Green indicates optimal range. Yellow indicates field overlap. Red indicates destabilization."
"And red means?" Tae-Hyun asked.
The technician's gaze lifted briefly. "Intervention."
He stepped back.
"You'll be positioned within the inner wing during interface preparation," he continued. "Movement restricted to assigned zones. All interactions monitored."
Tae-Hyun inclined his head.
The door slid open.
Beyond it waited a corridor he hadn't walked before.
Shorter.
Smoother.
Leading inward.
The inner wing had been rearranged.
New walkways extended toward the central chamber. Additional observation nodes hovered above the space. More personnel stood behind glass, their attention focused inward.
At the center of it all stood Eun-chae.
She wore a fitted training garment now, woven with fine sensor threads that glimmered faintly under the lights. A light framework curved behind her shoulders, thin filaments connecting it to the ceiling.
She wasn't restrained.
She was positioned.
Her gaze lifted when he entered.
Recognition crossed her face.
Then curiosity.
Then something quieter.
He moved to the marked zone indicated by the band at his wrist.
Green light pulsed.
"Subject E-17," a voice said over the system. "Your interface support has arrived."
Her eyes flicked briefly toward one of the overhead lenses.
Then back to him.
"So they've decided," she said.
"Yes."
She studied the bands at his wrist and throat.
"They're measuring you now," she observed.
"They were before," he replied. "Now they've admitted it."
A faint curve touched her mouth.
"Come closer," she said.
The band pulsed yellow as he took a step forward.
He stopped at the edge of overlap.
The hum inside him deepened.
Her breathing shifted in response.
"You feel different," she said quietly.
"So do you."
She tilted her head slightly.
"They've been preparing me all day," she said. "Running baseline integrations. Teaching my nervous system to hold layered signals."
"And?"
"And it feels like standing in wind that keeps changing direction," she replied. "You learn to move without bracing."
He watched her hands, the slight tension in her fingers.
"They're starting phase one tomorrow," she continued. "They say this is where structure becomes function."
The phrase echoed what he had heard before.
"What happens to you?" he asked.
She hesitated.
"Then I stop being a subject," she said. "And become a platform."
The hum tightened.
"What do you want?" he asked.
She met his gaze directly.
"I want to remain… here," she said, touching her chest lightly. "Where I can still feel myself."
Silence moved between them.
The band at his wrist glowed steadily yellow.
On the observation deck above, Director Han watched the field readings populate his display.
"Hold them there," he said quietly. "Let's see what the system chooses to do."
Below, in the center of the inner wing, two biological anomalies stood within a designed distance of each other.
And for the first time, W-03 was not only shaping a process.
It was beginning to study a relationship.