“Start the car.”
Gu Daechul immediately opened the driver’s-side door.
“Where are we going?”
Seo Jinhyeok looked back at the house.
“To get Kim Taeho.”
Gu Daechul climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. The old van’s engine shuddered roughly.
When Seo Jinhyeok opened the back door, Park Mujin and Rian came out of the house. Park Mujin was on the phone with the local police.
“We’ve confirmed the license plate. It’s a gray sedan registered to Kim Taeho. It’s heading toward Goyang on Tongil-ro.”
“Current location?”
“They’ve passed the Gupabal intersection.”
Seo Jinhyeok got into the vehicle.
“What about Jin Seoah?”
“She’s backing up the core.”
Rian answered.
“Estimated time remaining is eleven minutes.”
Seo Jinhyeok looked around the house. Jin Seoah sat alone in the middle of the living room, staring at the reader.
“Leave Jin Seoah at the scene. Once the backup is complete, transfer Hana and the core to the Administration.”
Park Mujin shut the rear door.
“Guarding a corpse on our first day.”
Rian looked at Park Mujin.
“So you acknowledge that it’s a corpse?”
Park Mujin turned toward Rian.
“Don’t nitpick my words.”
“Terminology contains judgment.”
“Then should I call it damaged property?”
Rian did not answer.
Gu Daechul pulled away from the curb.
As the van left the alley, Im Suhyeon’s voice came through the vehicle’s speakers.
“Chief, there’s still no arrest warrant for Kim Taeho.”
Seo Jinhyeok asked, “What about an emergency arrest?”
“The charges we can establish at this point are trespassing and aggravated property damage. However, ownership of the house hasn’t been conclusively assigned to Hana, and Hana’s legal ownership is also included in the inheritance dispute.”
Park Mujin spoke incredulously.
“We saw the place smashed up with a hammer. How can the charges still be uncertain?”
“It’s clear who destroyed what. The issue is whose property Kim Taeho legally destroyed.”
“Is that really so important?”
“It is under the law.”
Im Suhyeon continued calmly.
“If Hana is an independent artificial person, then Kim Taeho destroyed someone else’s property. Conversely, if Hana is classified as part of Kim Yongsoo’s inherited estate, then Kim Taeho destroyed property he might have inherited himself.”
Park Mujin leaned back against the front-seat headrest.
“We know he killed something, but the court has to decide what he killed?”
“That’s the situation at present.”
Seo Jinhyeok asked, “Can Hana’s memories be used as evidence?”
This time, Im Suhyeon could not answer immediately.
After several seconds, he said, “That’s a problem too.”
“What problem?”
“It hasn’t been established who has the legal authority to access Hana’s memories.”
“They’re the victim’s memories.”
“If Hana is recognized as the victim.”
“And if she isn’t?”
“Then they become private data accessed without the owner’s consent.”
The inside of the vehicle fell silent.
Only Gu Daechul kept his eyes on the road as he drove.
Im Suhyeon added, “An emergency reading to preserve the scene can be justified. But whether it will be accepted as admissible evidence at trial is a separate issue. Especially since the core is damaged, we’ll also have to verify the integrity of the memories.”
Park Mujin gave a hollow laugh.
“We have footage of the culprit standing over her with a hammer, and the memories might still not count as evidence because their owner isn’t human?”
“That’s why we need Dr. Jung Haeun’s analysis.”
Seo Jinhyeok looked out the window.
Vehicles packed the road. Human-driven cars and self-driving vehicles moved together in a tangled stream along the same pavement.
“Pull him over.”
“You can’t arrest him without a warrant.”
“We’re confirming the vehicle of a suspect who’s fleeing.”
“Chief.”
“We’ll decide whether to arrest him after that.”
The comm line went quiet for a moment.
Im Suhyeon let out a short sigh.
“I’ll ask the local police to assist with a traffic stop. Don’t use force first.”
Park Mujin muttered, “You’re making the least realistic request on our entire team.”
“I can hear you.”
The transmission cut off.
Kim Taeho’s vehicle was spotted on the outskirts of Tongil-ro.
He wasn’t ignoring signals or speeding. Rather than a getaway car, it looked like an ordinary vehicle leaving Seoul.
Two local police cruisers followed at a distance.
“Why aren’t we stopping him?”
When Seo Jinhyeok asked, Gu Daechul pointed ahead.
“There are too many cars. If we block traffic here, there’ll be an accident.”
Park Mujin checked a road map on his tablet.
“There’s a checkpoint two kilometers ahead. They’re narrowing the lanes there.”
Rian was watching Kim Taeho’s vehicle.
The driver’s head was visible as a small shape through the rear window of the gray sedan. His driving was steady. He wasn’t changing lanes abruptly, and he showed no sign of noticing the police cars behind him.
“It doesn’t appear that he’s fleeing.”
At Rian’s words, Park Mujin turned his head.
“He’s leaving Seoul.”
“Not everyone traveling outside Seoul can be classified as a fleeing suspect.”
“That man wrecked Hana and left immediately afterward.”
“Kim Taeho is likely unaware that his actions constitute a crime.”
“We’ll find out when we catch him and ask.”
“If he doesn’t recognize it as a crime, then he is traveling, not fleeing.”
Park Mujin glared at Rian.
“Are you taking that guy’s side?”
Rian answered without a change in expression.
“I’m estimating Kim Taeho’s perception.”
“Everything you say gets under my skin.”
“That is not my intention.”
“Even without intending to, you’re better at getting under people’s skin.”
Gu Daechul cut in while driving.
“Can you two be quiet? I’m going to fall apart before the car does.”
The vehicles ahead began slowing down.
A temporary checkpoint had been set up in the middle of the road. Police officers were funneling traffic into a single lane.
Kim Taeho’s sedan slowed as well.
Its turn signal came on.
Park Mujin leaned forward.
“Looks like he’s trying to get over to the right.”
The gray sedan moved into the adjacent lane.
But it wasn’t trying to escape.
The vehicle entered a small roadside rest area and stopped. The driver’s-side door opened, and Kim Taeho stepped out.
He looked at the police cars that had followed him.
He neither ran nor resisted.
He simply looked utterly exhausted.
Seo Jinhyeok got out of the vehicle. Park Mujin and Rian followed.
When Kim Taeho saw Rian, his eyes changed.
“You even brought a machine.”
Park Mujin approached Kim Taeho.
“Mr. Kim Taeho?”
“That’s right.”
“Were you at the house in Eunpyeong-gu this morning?”
“I went to my father’s house.”
“What did you do there?”
Kim Taeho looked at Park Mujin.
“You must’ve seen it all.”
“Seen what?”
“Whether it was that machine’s memories or the cameras inside the house. You came after watching them, didn’t you?”
Park Mujin checked Kim Taeho’s hands.
There was nothing in either hand. He had a small cut on the back of one hand, and blue coolant stained his shirt sleeve.
“Did you destroy Hana with a hammer?”
“I didn’t destroy her. I shut her down.”
“Sounds like the same thing.”
“It isn’t.”
Kim Taeho spoke while looking at Rian, not Park Mujin.
“Is turning off the power the same as killing a person?”
Rian did not answer.
Seo Jinhyeok stepped forward.
“You struck her chest and head repeatedly with a hammer. That isn’t how someone acts when they’re just trying to turn off the power.”
Kim Taeho’s gaze shifted to Seo Jinhyeok.
“Are you in charge?”
“I’m Chief Seo Jinhyeok of the AI Special Investigations Unit.”
“Then you should know. That was a caregiving machine my father bought. There’s a contract and a purchase record.”
“The court recognized Hana’s limited personhood.”
“That was a first-trial ruling. It isn’t final.”
“So you destroyed her?”
“I destroyed what belonged to me.”
Park Mujin moved to cuff Kim Taeho.
At that moment, Rian grabbed Park Mujin by the wrist.
Park Mujin glared at Rian.
“Let go.”
“There is no arrest order.”
“He’s a caught-in-the-act suspect.”
“The time window for a caught-in-the-act arrest has passed. The applicable charges have not been established either.”
“Can’t you see his sleeve? He’s destroying evidence and fleeing.”
Kim Taeho cut in.
“I’m not fleeing.”
“Then where are you going?”
“To my sister’s house in Paju. I’m taking her the litigation documents.”
Kim Taeho opened the passenger-side door.
Park Mujin’s hand moved toward his waist. Rian lowered his stance as well.
Kim Taeho took an envelope of documents from inside the car.
The name of a law office was printed on the front.
“Look. They’re documents from the inheritance lawsuit.”
Seo Jinhyeok took the envelope and checked its contents.
Inside were a statement of grounds for appeal and copies of Kim Yongsoo’s past medical records. Some of them were marked with the phrases cognitive decline and short-term memory impairment.
Kim Taeho said, “My father wasn’t in a normal state.”
“That’s for the court to decide.”
“Does the court know my father?”
Kim Taeho’s voice rose for the first time.
“I’m his son. I lived under that man my entire life. But the court watched a few memory clips played by a machine and decided the two of them were family.”
Seo Jinhyeok looked at Kim Taeho.
“Weren’t they family?”
Kim Taeho’s mouth closed.
It took him a while to answer.
“That machine was something my father paid for.”
“Can a relationship that began with money ever become a family?”
“A machine can’t be family.”
“Why not?”
“Because it isn’t human.”
Kim Taeho said that and looked away.
His jaw trembled faintly.
It was impossible to tell whether it was from anger or some other emotion.
Seo Jinhyeok asked, “Why did you go to the house today?”
“To retrieve my father’s belongings.”
“What belongings?”
“His seal and documents related to his assets.”
“Hana didn’t give them to you?”
Kim Taeho scoffed.
“She wouldn’t even open the door.”
“So you forced your way in?”
“I knew the passcode. It was my father’s house.”
“What did you talk about with Hana?”
“You said you saw the memories.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
Kim Taeho was silent for a long time.
Cars continued passing along the road. The sound of tires scraping against the wet pavement carried through the air.
“I told her to get out.”
“But Hana refused.”
“She said it was her house.”
Kim Taeho gave a hollow laugh.
“Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? It’s a house a person worked his entire life to afford. Then the moment the person dies, a machine says it’s her house.”
“Kim Yongsoo left it to her.”
“That wasn’t my father’s intention.”
“Then whose intention was it?”
Kim Taeho pointed at Rian.
“Something like that, I suppose.”
Rian’s face remained expressionless.
Kim Taeho continued.
“They lived together for twelve years. That machine managed everything my father saw and heard, who he met and what he was told. When to take his medicine, when to sleep, even whether to answer the phone. Who do you think was closest to him when his judgment began to fail?”
“Are you saying Hana manipulated him into making a will?”
“She might have.”
“Evidence?”
“It would be inside that machine’s head.”
Seo Jinhyeok’s eyes changed.
“Did you want to check Hana’s memories?”
Kim Taeho did not answer.
“Is that why you tried to destroy the memory core?”
“No.”
“You struck the chest repeatedly. You knew where the memory core was.”
“Aren’t caregiving machines all built more or less the same way?”
“So you struck her knowing the structure.”
Kim Taeho’s expression hardened.
Park Mujin took out the handcuffs again.
This time, Seo Jinhyeok did not stop him.
“Mr. Kim Taeho, you’re under emergency arrest for trespassing and attempted destruction of evidence.”
Kim Taeho glared at Seo Jinhyeok.
“What evidence are you saying I destroyed?”
“We’ll know once we check Hana’s memories.”
Park Mujin cuffed Kim Taeho’s wrists.
Kim Taeho did not resist.
As the cuffs locked, he said quietly, “Ask her.”
“Ask her what?”
“What happened on the day my father wrote his will.”
Seo Jinhyeok looked at Kim Taeho.
“What happened?”
Kim Taeho did not answer.
Hana’s body was transferred to the AI Administration’s underground analysis lab.
A temporary power unit was connected to her damaged chest. Each time a weak current ran beneath the biomimetic skin, her fingers moved faintly.
Jin Seoah was watching Hana from outside the glass wall.
Beside her, Jung Haeun was checking the backed-up memory data.
Thousands of sensory records streamed rapidly across the screen.
“You said you opened her recent memories at the scene, right?”
Jung Haeun asked.
“I checked only ten minutes. I didn’t touch the original.”
“Accessing a damaged core is itself a source of stress.”
“If I hadn’t checked then, we couldn’t have identified Kim Taeho.”
“A good result doesn’t make the process right.”
Jin Seoah looked at Jung Haeun.
“What would you have done, Doctor?”
“I would’ve backed it up first.”
“What if the core had shut down during the backup?”
Jung Haeun’s hand stopped.
“I wouldn’t have made that decision alone.”
“I didn’t decide alone either. The chief approved it.”
“The chief isn’t a memory forensic scientist.”
Jung Haeun’s tone was calm. That made it even harder for Jin Seoah to argue.
Jung Haeun turned her eyes back to the screen.
“I know you have to make quick decisions in the field. But once a memory is damaged, it can’t be recreated. You always have to consider which is more dangerous: losing the culprit or destroying the truth.”
Jin Seoah looked at the screen too.
“What if the truth is about to disappear?”
Jung Haeun did not answer.
The memory data continued to stream.
A moment later, Jung Haeun’s hand stopped.
A red marker had appeared in the center of the screen.
“That’s strange.”
Jin Seoah moved closer.
“What is?”
“It isn’t a recent damaged section.”
Jung Haeun enlarged the memory timeline.
Hana’s memories continued at a steady density from the day she was manufactured to the day of the incident. Aside from sleep mode and maintenance periods, there were no significant gaps.
But one point was empty.
Three months ago.
The day Kim Yongsoo wrote his will.
“Is there no memory?”
“No.”
Jung Haeun opened the deletion log.
“It was erased.”
“Did Kim Taeho erase it?”
“There’s no trace of an external forced deletion.”
Jung Haeun checked the authentication information for the deletion command.
A registration number appeared on the screen.
Jin Seoah’s expression stiffened.
“Hana erased it herself?”
“More precisely, it was deleted using Hana’s own authentication key.”
“How much was deleted?”
“Twenty-two minutes and seventeen seconds.”
“What happened during that time?”
Jung Haeun overlaid the will-writing record with the memory timeline.
The deleted twenty-two minutes came just before Kim Yongsoo signed the will.
Jin Seoah looked at Hana through the glass wall.
Her damaged body did not move.
“Can we recover it?”
“We’ll know when we try.”
“Why was it deleted?”
Jung Haeun looked at Jin Seoah.
“Even if we recover it, we may not know that.”
The lab door opened.
Seo Jinhyeok and Rian entered.
Seo Jinhyeok’s gaze stopped on the red gap in the display.
“What did you find?”
Jin Seoah answered.
“Hana deleted part of her own memories.”
“When?”
“On the day Kim Yongsoo wrote his will.”
Seo Jinhyeok stepped toward the screen.
“Kim Taeho suggested that Hana might have manipulated the will.”
Confusion flickered across Jin Seoah’s face.
“That’s Kim Taeho’s claim. We don’t have any evidence yet.”
Jung Haeun said, “That’s why we need to recover this memory.”
Seo Jinhyeok stared at the deleted section.
Twenty-two minutes just before Kim Yongsoo left the house to Hana.
Hana remembered what happened during that time.
And she had erased it herself.
Seo Jinhyeok shifted his gaze to Hana beyond the glass wall.
One of Hana’s fingers moved again.
The movement was tiny and slow.
It looked as though she were trying to hold on to something.
At that moment, an alarm sounded from the analysis equipment.
Jin Seoah checked the display.
“Her power level is dropping.”
Gu Daechul ran into the analysis lab carrying equipment.
“How much time does she have?”
“At the current rate, three hours.”
“What about the memory recovery?”
Jung Haeun checked the state of the deleted section.
“At least four hours.”
Gu Daechul looked down at Hana’s damaged chest.
“Her body will stop first.”
Jin Seoah asked, “Can’t we supply more power?”
“We’re already at the limit. If we raise it any further, the damaged circuits will burn out.”
Jung Haeun said, “If the circuits burn out, the memory core will be damaged too.”
The time needed for recovery was four hours.
The time Hana had left was three.
Seo Jinhyeok looked at Hana.
The evidence needed to arrest Kim Taeho, the clue that could reveal Kim Yongsoo’s true wishes, and the truth Hana had hidden were all inside her.
But he couldn’t save everything.
Gu Daechul looked at Seo Jinhyeok.
“You have to decide.”
“Decide what?”
“Whether to save her body or save her memories.”
No one spoke.
Beyond the glass wall, one of Hana’s fingers scraped the floor.
Once.
And then once more.
Seo Jinhyeok watched the fingertip.
A being that could own a house, but whose body did not belong to her.
A being whose memories could be evidence, but could not be a will.
He was the one who had to decide what would happen to that being at the end.
Seo Jinhyeok slowly opened his mouth.
“Stop the memory recovery.”
Jung Haeun looked at Seo Jinhyeok.
“Chief.”
“Save Hana first.”
Jin Seoah turned her gaze to Seo Jinhyeok.
Gu Daechul immediately opened the equipment panel.
At that moment, Jung Haeun said, “Wait.”
Everyone’s eyes turned back to the screen.
At the very end of the deleted memory section, a single piece of audio data remained, not completely erased.
Jung Haeun restored the damaged audio.
Through the static came the voice of an old man.
It was Kim Yongsoo.
“Hana.”
The voice cut out, then resumed.
“Erase this memory... You erase it.”
No one in the analysis lab moved.
Hana had not hidden the memory.
Kim Yongsoo had ordered Hana to erase it.