The restaurant was warm, elegant, dim — all honey-colored lights and quiet evening jazz. Couples murmured over pasta. A waiter drifted past with wine balanced like treasure.
None of it mattered to Mr. Hwang.
He sat hunched at a corner table like a man who had escaped an alien abduction.
His hands were still shaking.
The woman from Black Wall arrived smoothly and sat down, gaze sharp.
"You're late," she murmured.
"I had to check if something was following me," he whispered.
She frowned. "…What?"
He leaned forward, looking offended she didn't understand. "After what I saw today? I don't trust my own shadow."
She slowly blinked. "…You were doing a simple supply run."
He let out a short, humorless laugh.
"Simple? That place is a fortress."
A beat.
"A fortress?" she echoed.
"A fortress with layers. Like an onion. Or an ogre. Only this one makes sure you never leave with your dignity intact."
She lifted an eyebrow. "…It was a supply delivery."
He scoffed loudly enough that the couple beside them paused mid-bite.
"Delivery? delivery!?" His voice cracked at the absurdity. "It was military-level clearance. I had three security checkpoints before I even touched a crate. They scanned my badge three times. Different scanners — each one more judgmental than the last."
She blinked. "Three scans?"
"Oh, and each one beeped differently. One beeped cheerfully. One beeped ominously. The last one vibrated. I swear it whispered my sins."
"And then they let you unload?" she asked skeptically.
"That was only the beginning," he hissed. "Every single crate was weighed, laser-mapped, and logged before I could move it a centimeter. There were cameras everywhere. One rotated with my heartbeat. I felt watched on a molecular level."
She nodded slowly, impressed despite herself.
"And then," he continued, lowering his voice, "the drones."
"Drones?" she repeated.
"Yes. Floating surveillance drones. Not big and clumsy — sleek. Silent. Cold. They hovered above the pallets like vultures with PhDs. These drones were not normal. They were military drones. The kind that can probably tell your cholesterol level."
She squinted. "That doesn't exist."
He slapped the table again. "Exactly. Why does NovaSec have it?!"
She blinked.
"And the security guards?" he whispered. "They didn't walk. They glided. One of them appeared behind me without footsteps. I turned around and almost screamed. I was one heartbeat away from dropping the crate and running for the exit!"
"You're exaggerating," she murmured.
"exaggerating!?" His voice pitched up — a man betrayed by reality. "If anything, I'm downplaying for your sanity!"
She opened her mouth.
He cut her off.
"And that wasn't even the scary part. They required a… retina scan."
Silence.
"A what?" she breathed.
"Retina. As in eye. As in why? Since when does making deliveries require retinal clearance?! They aimed this little beam at my eyeball. It hummed. I felt it scrape through my soul. For a second I saw every bad decision I've ever made."
Her eyes widened slightly. "…Retina scan?"
"You told me to check the disposal chute." He continued.
"…Yes," she admitted carefully.
"Well, I tried," he breathed, traumatized. "I didn't even touch the door handle. I just angled my head. Just a tiny innocent tilt — curiosity! And suddenly—"
He flung his hands up.
"Alarm blasted. A red alert. A drone rushed over like it was about to arrest me."
She blinked fast. "A red alert?"
"Yes! And then — this is the part that ruined my appetite for life — the drone spoke."
She leaned forward. "…Spoke?"
He mimicked the cold robotic voice with tragic flair:
"'Route flagged. Deviation logged.'"
Silence.
"I'm sorry?" she asked faintly.
"You heard me," he said. "It logged my deviation. And then — then — it followed me for the rest of the shift. Hovering. Watching. Breathing down my neck. I turned left? It turned left. I picked up a crate? It scanned the crate and then scanned my face."
"You're joking."
"I wish!" He slapped the table. "It kept blinking this accusing yellow light at me. The kind of light that says: 'Make one more move and I'll vaporize your entire family line.'"
Her jaw tightened.
"And the workers?" he demanded, pointing wildly. "They didn't flinch. They didn't blink. One of them told me calmly, 'Stay on your assigned vector.' vector!? I'm a delivery man, not a spaceship."
She exhaled slowly, dread crawling into her expression. "…Retina scans, drones, deviation logging…?"
"And the badge," he interrupted, digging into his pocket.
He slapped it down between them like cursed evidence.
She picked it up. At the bottom, printed neatly:
Acting is a dangerous profession.
He stared at her with dead eyes. "They figured me out. AGAIN. And mocked me. On official print."
"And no one confronted you?"
"That's the worst part," he whispered. "They didn't have to. Walking out was the scariest thing I've done. I felt that drone glaring into the back of my skull. It let me leave on purpose. As a warning."
She went quiet — truly quiet.
"…NovaSec has figured us out."
"Completely!" he agreed. "They knew I wasn't a real supplier. They let me in anyway. They watched. They studied. I think they analyzed my posture."
She slid an envelope across the table — thick, heavy, deliciously distracting.
"For your services."
He peeked inside. Stacks of cash. Glorious, crisp sanity.
His hands suddenly stopped shaking.
"Oh," he whispered. "This… this helps."
She stood, voice smooth.
"We'll be in touch."
He croaked, "There's… more work?"
She leaned down, voice velvety and sinister.
"Acting," she murmured, tapping the badge, "really is a dangerous profession."
Then she glided away, leaving him whispering to himself:
"I should've been a dentist."
- - -
The murmur of voices bled through the glass walls of the BlackWall conference room. Fingers tapped against sleek tablets, jackets were adjusted, and tension coiled through the air like static before a storm. When the last department head took their seat, the automatic doors whispered shut, sealing the room in silence.
Director Park Do-Hyun cleared his throat. "Let's begin." His eyes swept the table. "Ms. Cha Eun-Seo—report."
Chairs shifted as Cha Eun-Seo rose. Her heels clicked softly as she walked to the screen, shoulders straight, gaze sharp. The chatter died instantly.
"I'll get straight to it," she began, voice smooth but weighted. "NovaSec is not a company to trifle with. The actor I hired—Mr. Hwang—couldn't obtain a single piece of viable intel."
Brows furrowed around the table.
"What?" muttered Director Kim Jae-Sung, incredulous. "Not even a crumb?"
Eun-Seo shook her head once. "Before his meeting even ended, they had already identified him. Full background. Full alias."
A ripple of shock traveled the room.
"That's impossible," scoffed Executive Lim Dong-Ha. "No queries, no investigation traces? That would require passive, autonomous surveillance."
"Exactly," Eun-Seo replied. "And that's not all."
She tapped her tablet. "We tried again. This time through the supply chain."
Heads nodded approvingly.
"That makes sense," said Director Han Seol-Gi, leaning forward. "Supply is where security is weakest. Everyone is lax there."
"It was good strategy," chimed Executive Choi Min-Soo. "Efficient and unexpected."
Eun-Seo's lips tightened. "NovaSec was… not lax."
The room froze.
"There were CCTV grids covering every inch. Three separate security points. Badges scanned multiple times. Retina clearance. High-tech drone patrols. Advanced scanning rigs—thermal, electromagnetic, behavioral."
Voices erupted.
"That level of surveillance belongs in military labs— not corporate docks," Kim Jae-Sung hissed.
"How are they justifying the budget?" Seol-Gi demanded, eyes wide. "Simply for supply?"
"Those drones," Dong-Ha murmured, tapping his pen anxiously. "Pattern recognition systems… autonomous deviation logs… We're talking about tech at least five years ahead of market release."
Eun-Seo let them spiral before dropping the next strike.
"And before Mr. Hwang left the warehouse, they had already figured out his alias. They allowed him to walk out. No restraint. No interrogation. No alert."
Silence crashed down.
"That's—mockery," Min-Soo whispered. "They're laughing at us."
"A company with sloppy organization does not handle breaches calmly," Eun-Seo pressed. "We pulled messy files from their systems, yes—but their field behavior contradicts every line of it."
Dong-Ha frowned. "Are you saying they know we infiltrated their servers?"
"Yes," she stated. "And they're letting us get away with it. Which means—"
"Absurd," Seol-Gi cut in. "If they knew, they wouldn't let us access their project files."
"I've analyzed those projects," Min-Soo interjected eagerly. "The profit margins are off the charts. Why would NovaSec let us find that?"
"Unless," Eun-Seo said quietly, "it's a trap."
Gasps. A few scoffs. Someone laughed nervously.
"A trap that pays profit?" Dong-Ha shrugged. "I'll take that risk."
Nods followed—too quickly. Too shallow.
Eun-Seo's jaw tightened. "You're not hearing me. Nothing about this aligns. Their calmness, their tech, the contradictions—"
"Maybe you're confused," Seol-Gi said gently, condescending. "NovaSec must have rattled you."
"I second that," said Min-Soo. "You're connecting dots that don't connect."
"I'm connecting patterns," Eun-Seo snapped—then immediately regretted the heat. "Listen—"
"No." Park lifted a hand. Decision etched across his face. "We launch the project next week. We cannot allow NovaSec to beat us to market. Not now."
Agreement surged like a wave, carrying the room with it.
Eun-Seo stayed frozen, watching influence outweigh logic right in front of her.
Executive Dong-Ha rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder as he passed. "Soon you'll realize NovaSec simply… scrambled your nerves. Once the profits roll in, everything will make sense. For now, we attack NovaSec with all we've got."
It felt like a verdict.
Chairs slid back. Papers snapped shut. One by one, bodies filed out through the whispering doors.
Eun-Seo remained alone, spine rigid, eyes flickering to the static screenshots still glowing on the screen.
Messy systems don't move like ghosts.
They don't smirk in silence.
When she finally stepped out, the lights dimmed automatically—leaving the empty conference room cold and waiting.