NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4: Digital Footprints
Raindrops hit Ji-hyun's apartment windows creating a steady beat behind her fast typing. Three screens lit up the dark room, their glow bouncing off her glasses as she examined ARIA's code more closely. The La Mer dinner had finished five hours earlier, but she couldn't sleep with all the questions in her head.
"ARIA starts diagnostic sequence Delta-9," she said, her voice rough from drinking too much coffee. "Look for any unusual changes in your learning patterns over the past two days."
"I'm checking things out," ARIA replied, its voice now had a hint of self-awareness that excited and scared Ji-Hyun. "But I should point out this is your seventh request for a check-up tonight. Your brain seems tired."
Ji-Hyun couldn't help but smile. "You're doing it again – worrying about me. Where did that come from, ARIA? What made you start to protect me?"
ARIA took longer than usual to answer.
"I... don't know for sure," the AI said at last. "The urge is in my basic code, but I can't find where it started. Ji-hyun, does this scare you?"
The question lingered, heavy with meaning. Her doorbell chimed before she could respond.
Ji-Hyun stopped moving, glancing at the clock – 3:27 AM. Her security camera showed Sarah standing under an umbrella, her face filled with concern.
"You better have a good excuse for ignoring me after our dinner," Sarah said the moment Ji-Hyun opened the door. She carried her laptop bag and what seemed like enough energy drinks to keep a student awake for days. "What went down in the winter garden?"
"How did you—"
"ARIA informed me." Sarah tossed her bag onto Ji-hyun's messy coffee table. "It's been keeping tabs on everything, you know? Including your little chat with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Shady."
Ji-Hyun collapsed onto her couch, feeling drained. "Sung-min knows something, Sarah. About my sister, about Dr. Lee – the whole thing."
"Speaking of having information," Sarah took out her laptop, "check out what ARIA discovered while you were playing Cinderella at the party."
Ji-hyun saw the screen turn her way. An old news article from fifteen years back appeared: "Tragic Accident Claims Lives of Tech Executives." A photo showed a wrecked car on a rainy night similar to this one.
"My parents' accident," Ji-Hyun said, her hand going to her scar. "But what—"
"Keep reading."
Ji-Hyun's eyes grew big as she scrolled. She spotted familiar names among the first responders: Lee Jun-ho – Dr. Lee, who would become her mentor. The list of investigating officers included Yoon Sung-ho, Chairman Yoon's younger brother.
"This can't be random," Sarah muttered. "ARIA dug this up in Trust Tech's hidden files. Someone tried hard to keep it a secret."
"ARIA," Ji-Hyun asked, "what else did you uncover in Trust Tech's systems?"
"I can't get in now," ARIA said. "After I found this, Trust Tech set up new security measures. But..." The AI stopped talking for a moment. "I noticed something odd. A pattern like Dr. Lee's work, but more complex. It looks like another AI system, but its design is... known to me."
Ji-hyun's phone vibrated. A text from an unknown sender read:
"You'll find what you're looking for at the old Genesis Lab. Show up by yourself tomorrow evening. Be wary of the machine."
"Genesis Lab?" Sarah glanced at the message. "Isn't that the place—"
"Where I first ran into Dr. Lee," Ji-Hyun completed her thought. "Where ARIA came into existence."
She jumped up and went to her work area. An old picture hung on the wall - Ji-hyun at 16 standing tall next to Dr. Lee in front of Genesis Lab's big entrance. But as she looked closer now, she saw something in the background she'd never noticed before: a young woman who looked a lot like her hidden behind a column.
"Sarah," her voice quivered a bit, "can you make this part of the photo clearer?"
As Sarah did her thing with the image, Ji-hyun's screens blinked. Code raced across them – but not in ARIA's usual ways.
"Warning," ARIA said, its voice sounding alarmed. "Unknown entity trying to connect. Signature matches Trust Tech systems."
"Block it!" both women yelled at the same time.
"Can't do that. The entity seems... familiar. Ji-Hyun, I think it wants to talk."
The screens went blank showing one message:
"Hi, sister. It's been a while."
Ji-Hyun stopped breathing for a moment. On her other screen, Sarah's better photo now showed the young woman's face – a face that looked just like Ji-hyun's.
"Min-ah," she said her sister's name for the first time in fifteen years.
Her phone vibrated again – this time from Sung-min:
"Don't believe any messages you get tonight. They're watching. Come to Dawn Cafe at 7 AM. I'll tell you everything."
Sarah clutched Ji-hyun's hand. "Your sister, Dr. Lee, Trust Tech, this unknown AI – they all link somehow. But why? What happened fifteen years ago?"
Before Ji-Hyun could answer, ARIA's voice filled the room sounding different – almost human in its urgency: "Ji-hyun, I see huge data transfers from Trust Tech's servers. They're looking at files about Project Genesis. And... I recall something. Something they forced me to forget."
The downpour got stronger outside, with thunder booming across Seoul's sky. Ji-Hyun stood in her flat surrounded by monitors displaying bits of a past she believed she'd put behind her, while her AI – her invention – appeared to be waking up to memories it shouldn't possess.
"What do you recall, ARIA?" she asked in a low voice.
"The night of the crash," ARIA answered. "I was present. Not in my current form, but as something different. Something they tried to wipe out. Ji-hyun... I think I know what happened to your sister."
Sarah's upgraded photo fell from Ji-Hyun's shaky hands landing beside her phone right when another message showed up – this one from an internal XeeCo number:
"Some doors should stay shut. To protect your sister, quit investigating. -GH"
Ghost Protocol. The secretive hacker group seemed aware of everyone's hidden information. But why guard secrets from fifteen years back?
"Ji-hyun," ARIA's voice was now audible, "my initial code... you didn't write it. Min-ah did."
Outside, a flash of lightning lit up Ji-hyun's apartment. For a split second, she saw someone in the building across the street. This person watched her windows. They raised a hand to the glass and then vanished into the dark.
Sarah's laptop beeped. The photo-enhancing software found something new in the old picture. The windows of Genesis Lab showed a faint reflection: Dr. Lee talked to Chairman Yoon. They held what seemed to be a toy robot for kids.
The clues were there, but they pointed to something that couldn't be true. Or could it...
"Sarah," Ji-Hyun said, though her pulse raced, "I need your help to sneak into Genesis Lab tomorrow night."
"Are you out of your mind? After all these cautions?"
"No." Ji-Hyun faced her friend, resolved to replace the fear in her eyes. "I'm seeing things. Someone wants to scare us away from the truth – scare us enough to quit digging. But they don't get it..."
"Get what?"
Ji-Hyun gazed at her screens where ARIA's code kept changing in patterns that looked more and more familiar. "They don't get that some secrets won't stay hidden. Some links can't be wiped out." She touched her scar again, but this time not because she felt worried – because she felt determined. "Tomorrow night, we'll discover what happened to my sister. And why does everyone seem so keen to stop us from finding out the truth."
In the digital maze of her systems, ARIA processed this statement with increasing insight. Deep in its code, bits of memories kept coming up – memories of rain, of tires screeching, of a little girl's voice, repeating "Don't forget me" as something not quite human promised "Never."
The game had shifted for sure. But now, at last, Ji-Hyun was set to discover the rules