A Human with a Charging Port: Jaeho Builds a Humanoid Disguise Around S-62B’s Core | NOV-HUM Ep. 3 Part 1
A Human with a Charging Port — Part I
It turned out attaching the core to his body did not require anything expensive. It took Jaeho Yoon two hours to figure that out.
One work vest.
One service-port housing from a used humanoid-parts shop.
A thin aluminum guard plate from a hardware store.
Skin-tone repair patches.
Black electrical tape.
Two joint guards.
And adhesive nonslip pads from a neighborhood household-goods store.
Jaeho spread everything across the bed and stared at it for a while.
“We’d be in trouble if building a humanoid were this cheap.”
He laughed to himself. Strictly speaking, he was not building a humanoid. He was making himself look like one.
Thinking about the difference took some of the humor out of it.
A number had remained on his terminal since the day before.
TRANSFER GRACE PERIOD: D-29
One day gone.
S-62B’s damaged original body was still in the storage area of the bankrupt warehouse. What Jaeho had received was the core, the registration-transfer authorization, and proof of transfer for the body.
If he put the core back into its original body, there would be no problem.
The problem was that the body could not work.
Jaeho picked up the black core. It felt less strange than it had the day before. One day was apparently enough for a person to get used to almost anything.
He slipped the core into an inside pocket of the work vest. It had not originally been a pocket. He had doubled the fabric and hand-stitched both sides.
When his wife was alive, she used to laugh whenever he asked her to thread a needle for him.
How can you tie delivery boxes that well and still not find the eye of a needle?
Jaeho stopped with the needle between his fingers. Only for a moment. Then he pulled the thread through again.
“You’d have a lot to say if you saw this.”
He did not bother deciding whom he was talking to.
When the stitching was finished, he put the core inside. It sagged lower than he expected. When he walked, it knocked against his chest.
“No good.”
He tore the stitching out and started over. He raised the position slightly and added padding.
This time the core sat snugly beneath his ribs. He lifted his arms. Sat down. Bent at the waist.
When he walked, there was a slight stiffness against his body, but nothing visible from the outside.
Jaeho stood in front of the mirror.
At the back of his neck, he attached the used service-port housing. The parts dealer had told him that on S-62-series models, it covered the connection point for diagnostic lines.
The port itself did nothing. A thin cable simply ran down from the back of his neck and into the vest, where it connected to the core.
He strapped joint guards over his elbows and knees. Then he applied pieces of synthetic-skin patch over them. The color was not perfect. It was just slightly grayer than his own skin.
Jaeho looked from his neck to his arms in the mirror and tilted his head.
“Can’t look too new either, I suppose.”
He deliberately roughed up the edges of the synthetic skin.
Legacy model.
Heavy use.
Partial exterior replacement.
Plausible phrases began arranging themselves in his head.
Jaeho straightened in front of the mirror. Then he turned his head very slowly.
Left.
Center.
Right.
Center again.
Even to him, it looked strange.
“Hello.”
His normal voice.
He tried again. A little lower. A little more even.
“Hello.”
Worse.
This time he shortened the sentences.
“Confirmed.”
A pause.
“I will carry out the task.”
Jaeho closed his mouth. The man in the mirror looked so serious that he finally burst out laughing.
“Listen to me. ‘Carry out the task.’”
He laughed alone for a while. Then he looked into the mirror again.
Wrinkles around his eyes.
A neck beginning to sag.
Shoulders that did not rotate as quickly as they once had.
Before, those had simply been signs that he was getting old. Now they could be explained differently.
Legacy joint response.
Exterior degradation.
Voice-module latency.
Thinking about himself that way was strangely comforting.
He was not old.
He was a legacy model.
His hearing had declined a little? Reduced sensitivity in an older acoustic pickup.
He could not turn his head as quickly? Legacy joint configuration.
Things he had wanted to hide as a person became specifications once he pretended to be a machine.
Jaeho stopped smiling. He disliked how naturally the thought had come to him.
As a person, his body had been evaluated as a collection of liabilities. As a machine, he could sell the same things as specifications.
He looked away from the mirror.
“First I have to get in.”
That was enough.
Jaeho zipped the vest all the way up. The core sat firmly beneath his chest.
He had bought the portable authentication terminal the day before along with the used parts. It was a cheap device humanoid owners used to verify an asset tag and basic status before field deployment.
It could not perform a full inspection.
For Jaeho, that was important.
He set the terminal upright on the desk, read through the instructions once, and switched it on.
PRESENT ASSET TAG.
Jaeho brought the core inside his vest close to the terminal. A short tone sounded.
Beep.
The screen changed.
S-62B
AUTHENTICATION: VALID
A smile spread across Jaeho’s face.
“See?”
There was no one to show.
“Told you it works.”
He scanned it again.
Beep.
S-62B
AUTHENTICATION: VALID
This time his smile lasted a little longer.
As a person, he had gone through fourteen interviews and failed after presenting his name, his face, and thirty-three years of experience. Now he moved one black core close to a reader and passed immediately.
The thought made him laugh.
Not for long.
The terminal automatically began the next check.
BASIC OPERATIONAL STATUS CHECK
After a few seconds, green entries appeared one by one.
CORE AUTHENTICATION: NORMAL
OPERATIONAL AUTHORIZATION: NORMAL
TRANSFER GRACE PERIOD: VALID
At the fourth line, the tone changed.
Beeep.
A yellow message appeared in the center of the screen.
BODY SENSOR CONNECTION CANNOT BE VERIFIED
Jaeho stopped smiling.
Detailed entries opened underneath.
JOINT LOAD SENSOR: NO INPUT
EXTERIOR TEMPERATURE SENSOR: NO INPUT
POSTURE CONTROL SENSOR: NO INPUT
MAIN BODY POWER STATUS: NO INPUT
Jaeho leaned closer to the screen.
“Of course.”
It was obvious. The core was attached to him, but S-62B’s sensors were still inside the broken body at the warehouse.
He had known that. Seeing the obvious fact displayed as a yellow warning made it feel different.
Another message appeared.
BODY CONNECTION OR MANUAL CONFIRMATION REQUIRED BEFORE FIELD DEPLOYMENT.
Jaeho wet his lips.
The warning tone continued beside the terminal.
Beeep.
Beeep.
Beeep.
“Loud, aren’t you.”
He lowered the volume. The sound became quieter.
The warning did not disappear.
Jaeho opened the menu.
RETRY SENSOR CHECK
REQUEST MAINTENANCE
MANUAL CONFIRMATION
Three choices.
The first was pointless. Pressing the second would end everything.
He stared at the third.
MANUAL CONFIRMATION
His finger did not move.
He remembered the sentence from the authentication booth the day before.
Operation of an authenticated core outside its registered body is prohibited.
Yesterday, he had only checked a box acknowledging the rule. Today, he was actually using the core outside its body.
Jaeho pressed a hand against the vest. He could feel the hard core beneath his palm.
His own body seemed to tell him before his mind did that this was no longer just a disguise.
He opened the help screen.
WITHOUT SENSOR SIGNALS, THE ASSET’S ACTUAL LOAD, TEMPERATURE, AND JOINT CONDITION CANNOT BE AUTOMATICALLY DETERMINED.
Another line followed.
FULL VERIFICATION RECOMMENDED BEFORE HEAVY-LIFTING TASKS OR OPERATION OF COLLABORATIVE EQUIPMENT.
Jaeho read it for a long time.
Casket transfer.
Logistics.
Carts.
Things two people had to lift in coordination.
Work performed alongside machines.
The kind of work he had done his entire life.
He did not need another explanation to understand what it meant to do that work without sensors.
He knew.
He was not someone who failed to understand the risk.
That made it worse.
Jaeho stepped back and sat on the bed.
He could stop. He could retrieve the original body, reinstall the core, get a repair estimate, and resell it.
He would lose a lot of money.
But no accident had happened yet. No one had been hurt.
Then other numbers followed into his head.
The rental deposit pledged as collateral.
The loan principal.
The transfer deposit.
The debt remaining from his wife’s medical treatment.
This month’s living expenses.
And in one corner of the screen:
D-29
Jaeho rubbed his face with both hands.
“It’s not like I didn’t read the warning.”
The words came out on their own.
He looked at the screen again.
“So I know exactly what I’m doing.”
That one did not turn into a joke.
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