The Expert in Disguise
On the hologram spread across the test beta zone, Noh Hoojin’s figure was captured from countless angles as he moved slowly through the living room.
He deliberately passed through the lighting a little too quickly, or gave a subtle wave of his hand near the sensors’ blind spots—places where recognition was hardest. It looked completely natural, as if he were simply recreating an ordinary user’s unconscious habits.
But Kang Jinsu, watching closely, realized at once that these were no ordinary gestures. The differences were so minute that even he would have missed them if he hadn’t been paying careful attention.
“Hmm… intentional, is it?”
More precisely, every movement took into account sensor sensitivity, response time, and even the possibility of algorithmic error—executed in a way only an expert could detect.
Soon Hoojin moved into the kitchen. He stood in front of the refrigerator and repeated the half-motion of opening the door, then lingered before the smart cooking appliance’s AI panel, eyes lowered slightly as he murmured something under his breath. He was testing whether the voice-recognition function worked properly across specific vocal ranges.
It was baffling.
“Is Junghyuk even watching this properly right now?”
Kang Jinsu manipulated the hologram and switched to the real-time view of Chief Researcher Yoon Junghyuk. Junghyuk wore a relaxed smile, but it seemed he hadn’t fully registered Hoojin’s actions. If he had, he would certainly have asked about them.
At that moment, an error log flickered briefly on the formula display beside the hologram.
Motion Recognition Deviation: 3% → 6%
“So he found the weak spots after all.”
Kang Jinsu leaned back in his chair for a moment, then straightened again. His expression grew steadily more serious. This was no coincidence.
“Noh Hoojin… just what kind of person is he?”
He already knew Hoojin was neither a center researcher nor an engineer. He belonged to LK Telecom’s marketing team—a field with zero connection to science. Yet the man’s actions suggested he understood the technology more precisely than the technicians themselves.
A short while later Hoojin seemed to finish his testing. He sat on the sofa and began carefully offering his opinions to Yoon Junghyuk. Yet the content itself sounded rather vague.
“Well… the lighting response feels a little slow when moving between spaces,” Hoojin said cautiously from the sofa. “An actual user probably wouldn’t notice, but in environments where the brightness changes abruptly from outside, it might feel a bit awkward. Just my personal impression.”
His tone carried more caution than certainty—exactly the nuance of an ordinary user with limited technical background offering a timid suggestion.
“One more thing: the kitchen panel’s voice recognition seemed to drop out momentarily because of wall reflections. When I lowered my tone and spoke a beat later, it picked me up again. That might just be the microphone placement.”
Yoon Junghyuk’s eyes widened; he nodded repeatedly.
“That’s something even our internal tests never caught. Impressive.”
Hoojin lowered his head and answered carefully.
“I’m not really the type who knows much about this sort of thing. I just felt it from a user’s perspective.”
“That’s exactly it. They say a monk can’t shave his own head—developers find it hard to see through a user’s eyes.”
Junghyuk took notes on the feedback without the slightest suspicion. The other researchers watching the feed remained silent as well. The person who had pinpointed the system’s blind spots more sharply than anyone sat right in front of them, yet not one of them realized it was an act.
“Ah, what would I know? I just spoke from a user’s point of view… Glad if it helped.”
Hoojin scratched the back of his head and gave an embarrassed smile. After that he continued offering feedback only within the range anyone might reasonably expect. Sharp insights that startled the researchers were slipped in one by one, yet each passed so naturally that no one felt any dissonance.
“This man… what is he really?”
Only a few sentences of feedback. Yet within them lay calculated distance, feigned ignorance, and a precise sense of limits. Like one genius recognizing another, Kang Jinsu had sensed it.
“If he were truly ignorant of the field, he could never have given feedback that accurate.”
For a moment Jinsu wanted to speak with the man himself and confirm the reality. He reached for his terminal to send a message.
That was when it happened.
Ding!
A private call window for Kang Jinsu alone appeared on the panel.
V-Proxima Project Emergency Meeting
Report to the Operations Room immediately
Kang Jinsu looked at the message and let out a light sigh.
“That damn V-phone again…”
He saved the invitation message he had been about to send as a draft and slowly rose. The curiosity and interest of a moment ago would have to wait.
Yet something still nagged at him. As he left the center director’s office he placed a call. The name Kang Hanna appeared on the screen.
I need to ask about Bitna before I can settle my mind.
Kang Hanna headed the group’s entertainment division and managed even the most sensitive issues while living flamboyantly in the outside world; among the family she was the one who knew the most.
“Oppa? What’s going on at this hour?”
“You busy?”
“You’ve been so quiet I thought you’d run away from home. What’s up?”
“Run away at my age? Please.”
Hanna’s cheerful voice came through, but Jinsu went straight to the point.
“How’s Bitna these days?”
“…Bitna? Why? Did something happen?”
“No. Just curious. I heard she’s working in the telecom marketing team these days?”
“Yeah. She looks pretty busy, though. Lately she hasn’t been causing any trouble and her personality’s gotten firmer. Why? Something going on?”
Kang Jinsu fell silent for a moment.
She’s doing well. Kang Bitna.
“No. Just… glad to hear she’s fine.”
“Why don’t you just call her yourself? Still sulking about the last fight? You’re the older one—just give in first. It’s not like siblings need to fight over pride.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
After hanging up, a strange emotion brushed through him. The little girl who used to trail after him as a child was now a proper adult walking forward on her own. It was something he should feel proud of, yet for some reason the man named Noh Hoojin kept lingering in his mind.
Why?
He reset his expression and quickened his pace toward the conference room at the end of the corridor. Several researchers and executives were already gathered in small groups outside the door.
After leaving the LK Future Technology Center I took one last look around the massive dome-shaped research complex before getting into the car. The silver dome looked like an alien base straight out of a science-fiction film. The technology housed inside was just as far beyond imagination as the exterior.
Participating in the center’s internal test today had given me a considerable amount of useful information. I closed the car door, reclined the seat, and a peculiar fatigue washed over me—not simple physical exhaustion, but the kind that comes from deep mental immersion.
Still, it was a pretty meaningful day.
I set my bag on my knees, closed my eyes, and slowly retraced the day’s flow. The core technology applied in the beta zone wasn’t merely smart appliances or automation systems. User path prediction, sensor response optimization, emotion-recognition algorithms, and real-time accumulation of reaction data—this went beyond making a house smarter. It was technology premised on patterning and synchronizing human behavior. It was research several steps more advanced than the home AI project we were currently preparing.
They said the research center was working several stages ahead of commercially available technology. Turns out that was true.
I looked out the window and drew a deep breath. I couldn’t put it into exact words, but it felt as though the territory of my thinking had expanded another level. The flat, scientific knowledge I had once stacked up from books and the internet was now interlocking organically, taking on a three-dimensional form.
Using everything I had experienced today, I began sorting simple business ideas in my head: an adaptive emotional lighting system, a real-time feedback AI cooking assistant, an automatic scent-and-music system linked to psychological state, space-responsive furniture modules that adapted to user patterns… Concrete concepts floated through my mind. It was precious experience I never would have gained without visiting the LK Future Technology Center.
I want to accumulate scientific knowledge across even more fields.
My brain craved still more information.
Today I had gone straight home after the off-site work at the tech center, so I arrived a little earlier than usual. Yet the door leading to the basement was open, and I could hear someone moving around downstairs. Beomjin couldn’t possibly be back at this hour, which left only Junseok—yet that guy had never shown any interest in the basement. Curious, I headed down the stairs.
In the brightly lit basement, Junseok was grunting as he stuck something to the wall. Looking closer, I saw it was the pre-pasted wallpaper I had ordered a few days earlier.
“What are you doing down there?”
“Whoa! You scared me!”
I crouched halfway down the stairs and asked; Junseok jumped and stared up at me. Beads of sweat already dotted his forehead.
“No, the wallpaper delivery just came, and it looked fun, so…”
“Well, that’s a first.”
I continued down and looked around. One wall already had the wallpaper applied neatly; surprisingly, Junseok had a decent hand for this sort of thing. Nearly all the renovation work in the basement was finished. The old, damp walls had been double-layered with plywood and covered in clean white wallpaper, giving the space a much brighter, more orderly feel. The lighting had been switched to indirect LED fixtures, casting a soft glow that gently wrapped the entire room. The floor’s waterproof coating was complete, and the concrete ceiling had been thoroughly cleaned of moisture and mold stains; new micro-ventilation ducts had been installed. It felt clean and comfortable enough to live in as-is. Clearing out all the junk had also made the floor space larger than expected.
I joined Junseok and we started applying the remaining pre-pasted wallpaper together. Working as a pair sped things up.
“So what are you going to use this basement for?” Junseok asked, wiping sweat from his brow as we neared the end.
I carefully pressed the wallpaper into every corner as I answered.
“I’m going to turn it into a lab.”
“A lab?”
Junseok paused and looked at me, clearly puzzled.
“What are you planning to research?”
“Nothing decided yet, but something will come up soon. I’ve got a few ideas sketched out.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Did you ever study science? As far as I know, you never did.”
He frowned and tilted his head; I simply admitted it.
“You’re right. I’ve only started studying it recently.”
“Man… it’s ridiculous, but when you say it like that I somehow believe you. You’re not going to blow up the basement later or anything, right?”
“Don’t worry. That won’t happen.”
I gave a short laugh and answered. Then I slowly looked around the basement once more. It wasn’t grand like the LK Future Technology Center, but to me it was a perfect space that existed nowhere else in the world. I didn’t know when, but this basement would become a small foothold for me to climb higher.
Just then faint voices drifted down from the top of the stairs. Two people—one of them a woman. Junseok didn’t seem to hear anything; he was finishing the last of the wallpaper. Strange. There shouldn’t be any woman coming to this house.