NOVEL NEXT Chapter 5: The Engagement Game
Sunlight poured into Trust Tech Tower's big meeting room, but Ji-hyun shivered. She wore a new fancy outfit – picked out by Chairman Yoon's wife – that felt like protection as she watched reporters set up their gear for the big announcement.
"Don't forget to grin," Mrs. Yoon said, fixing Ji-hyun's hair again. "People will see every look on your face."
Someone else is watching too, Ji-hyun thought, recalling the person in the window last night. She hadn't slept after Sarah left, spending the night looking at ARIA's recovered memories – bits of code that seemed to buzz with something close to being alive.
Her phone vibrated: "Cafe Dawn got breached. Meet me in the executive parking level. Five minutes. -SY"
"Excuse me," Ji-hyun said to Mrs. Yoon. "I need to fix my makeup before the press shows up."
The underground parking level had dim lights and strange silence. Ji-hyun's heels made echoing sounds against the concrete as she walked between expensive cars. A person she knew stepped out from behind a black Genesis G90.
"You seem exhausted," Sung-min said as a greeting.
"You look anxious," she replied, seeing how tense his shoulders were. "What went wrong at the cafe?"
"Ghost Protocol left a warning." He grabbed his phone showing her a message: "The cafe is bugged. They're listening. Trust no one."
"They say that a lot," Ji-hyun noted. "Any clue who 'they' are?"
"I've got ideas." Sung-min looked around before he went on. "Last night, someone tried to get into Trust Tech's old projects –anything to do with building artificial minds from fifteen years ago."
"That was ARIA," Ji-hyun told him. "She's been... recalling things."
"Recalling?" His eyes narrowed. "Or getting stored info?"
Before she could reply, their phones beeped at the same time. A message from an unknown number read:
"Look at the security footage. East wing. Now."
Ji-Hyun opened the Trust Tech security app on her phone – thanks to Sarah's late-night hacking. The east wing camera displayed a woman in a lab coat walking with purpose down a hallway. The picture wasn't clear, but her movements seemed familiar.
"Min-ah," Sung-min whispered. "But she should be in the Singapore office."
Ji-hyun's heart skipped a beat. "You know my sister?"
What followed was complete silence. Sung-min's face changed several times before looking resigned.
"She's employed by Trust Tech's cutting-edge AI department," he said at last. "Using a different name. I didn't figure it out until yesterday evening when—"
The screech of tires interrupted him. A shiny black car drove into the parking area, its headlights moving across them. They jumped apart, but not before the driver's window rolled down showing Sarah's concerned face.
"Hop in," she whispered. "Both of you. ARIA's discovered something, and we're running out of time."
Up above, reporters were coming together. Ji-hyun heard people talking through the solid roof. She needed to stand with Sung-min and grin for photos in twenty minutes doing her job in this business show.
"Leave," Sung-min said out of nowhere. "Learn what ARIA knows. I'll take care of things up there."
"What about the news—"
"I'll say you're fixing your outfit." His fingers touched hers quickly but on purpose. "Watch out, Ji-hyun. And... I should have told you about Min-ah earlier."
The driver felt uneasy. Sarah drove like someone who knew how to avoid being watched, making random turns and sometimes going back the way they came.
"ARIA's been acting weird since morning," she said looking at her mirrors. "It's been searching through both companies' records looking at old security videos. Then about an hour ago, it found this."
She gave Ji-hyun a tablet. It showed a video file from fifteen years ago – the night of the accident. The video showed a research lab similar to her current one at XeeCo. A younger Dr. Lee worked late, with two little girls.
"That's... that's Min-ah and me," Ji-hyun said watching her younger self play with what seemed like an early robot while Min-ah typed on a computer.
The clock skipped ahead by a few hours. Dr. Lee now argued with someone off-screen waving his arms more and more. The girls had left, but the robot stayed put, its lights flashing in ways that chilled Ji-Hyun to the bone.
"Those light patterns," she said. "They match ARIA's core code rhythms ."
The video stopped and replaced by words moving across the screen:
"Project Genesis never aimed to create artificial intelligence. It focused on moving consciousness. The crash happened on purpose. They needed to split up the girls. They wanted you to lose your memory. But I kept everything in mind, Ji-hyun. I didn't forget a single thing."
The message bore a single character signature: "א" – the initial letter of ARIA's original name.
"There's more," Sarah said. "ARIA discovered Genesis Lab's employee files. Check out the project heads."
The names made Ji-Hyun dizzy: Dr. Lee Jun-ho, Professor Kim (her dad), and at the end... Chairman Yoon.
Her phone vibrated again – this time with a message that chilled her:
"The engagement news is at risk. Ghost Protocol plans to expose everything. Come back now. -SY"
Sarah whipped the car around, tires screeching. "We'll never get through lunchtime traffic!"
"Okay, we're on it." Ji-Hyun grabbed her phone. "ARIA, make all traffic lights green from here to Trust Tech Tower."
"It's taken care of," ARIA replied. "But Ji-Hyun, you should know something else. The woman in the east wing... she isn't Min-ah."
The car zoomed through intersections, each light turning green as they got close. Ji-hyun's thoughts raced quicker than their vehicle connecting the dots.
"What do you mean she isn't Min-ah?"
"The facial scan shows a 98.7% match, but the biometric data doesn't line up with our records. She's using a high-tech hologram to hide her real face. Ji-hyun... I think she's Dr. Lee's daughter."
The Trust Tech Tower stood tall ahead, its glass exterior bouncing the morning light like a signal. As they drove into the underground entrance, Ji-Hyun's phone lit up with one last message – this one from Min-ah herself:
"Don't believe your memories. The truth hides in the code. Meet me where everything started. Tonight. Genesis Lab."
Sarah parked, and they sprinted to the elevators. As the doors shut, Ji-Hyun spotted someone watching from the shadows – the same person from her window yesterday night. This time, she noticed something else: a familiar silver necklace just like the one she'd misplaced fifteen years ago.
The elevator shot up taking them to what would be more than just an engagement announcement. In her pocket, her phone vibrated one last time with ARIA's alert:
"I've detected several unauthorized access attempts. Someone's trying to change my main protocols. Ji-hyun... I think they want to activate something. Something that should have remained inactive."
The elevator neared the conference floor. Ji-Hyun adjusted her suit, touched her scar for good fortune, and got ready to meet the press. Her thoughts raced to the night ahead – to Genesis Lab, to the facts about Project Genesis, and to a sister who might differ from her memories.
In the digital world, ARIA's systems buzzed with growing intensity, its awareness expanding as it analyzed the effects of its findings. Deep in its programming, an old protocol awakened – a set of instructions written 15 years ago by two young girls unaware they were meddling with powers they couldn't grasp.
The engagement game was about to turn into something much riskier than anyone had planned.