Use Your Judgment. Make It Quick: Jaeho Releases the Safety Restriction While Moru Waits for a Stop Condition | NOV-HUM Ep. 7 Part 1

NOV-HUM · EPISODE 7 OF 25 · PART 1 OF 2

Use Your Judgment. Make It Quick — Part I

“Could you two use your judgment and get this moved quickly?”

Jaeho Yoon put his hands on the cart handle as soon as he heard the instruction. Moru did not.

Three members of the bereaved family stood at the casket-transfer staging line. A man in a black suit was taking what looked like his tenth phone call. Beside him, a woman stood with both hands folded in front of her, watching only the casket cart. Across the corridor, another funeral procession was preparing to move through.

The staff member checked his wrist terminal.

“We’ve got a backup behind us. If we leave this sitting here too long, everything gets tangled again.”

Then he repeated himself.

“Use your judgment. Just be quick.”

Jaeho nodded. “Got it.”

It was the kind of instruction that needed no explanation. Move quickly, but do not run. Do not make a commotion in front of the family. Do not cross paths with another casket transfer. If the corridor narrows, yield first. If the way is blocked, take another route.

Anyone who had spent enough years in the field knew how to handle things like that without being told.

That was what the words meant to Jaeho.

He checked the securing handle beside the cart.

Moru spoke. “Confirming transfer destination.”

Jaeho looked at Moru. The staff member paused too.

“What?”

“Confirming final transfer location.”

The staff member pointed toward the end of the corridor. “The casket-transfer side.”

“Requesting designated position within the casket-transfer area.”

The staff member pointed down the corridor again. “Over there.”

“Requesting coordinates or handoff point.”

Jaeho held back a sigh. The staff member had the look of someone who did not have time for this.

“You’ll know when you get to the elevators.”

Moru continued. “Confirming priority route. Direct corridor or rear service corridor?”

The staff member looked at Jaeho.

Jaeho gave a small shrug. He knew that look.

Why does a machine have to ask things like that?

The staff member said, “Use your judgment on that too.”

“Confirming stop condition.”

This time Jaeho spoke first.

“Moru.”

Moru turned toward him. “Yes.”

“Let’s go.”

“Stop condition has not been entered.”

Jaeho lowered his voice. “The family’s waiting.”

Moru did not answer.

Jaeho tapped the handle. “We’re moving one casket. Do we need a mission name for it too?”

The staff member gave a short laugh. So did Jaeho.

The man in the black suit did not.

He ended the call, looked once toward the casket, then lowered his eyes to the floor.

Jaeho saw his face and stopped smiling.

“Let’s go,” he said. “I’ll watch the front.”

“The priority route has not been confirmed.”

Jaeho tightened his grip on the handle. “I’ll watch where we’re going.”

“The stop condition has also not been confirmed.”

“If something blocks us, we stop.”

“Define ‘blocked.’”

Jaeho turned toward Moru. “If there’s a person, stop. If there’s a wall, avoid it. If we can’t get through, go around.”

“What distance from a person—”

“Enough.”

Jaeho cut him off. Moru stopped speaking.

“I know that much.”

There was more force in Jaeho’s voice than necessary. He knew it. He did not feel like taking it back.

He had survived thirty-three years in the field. He did not need coordinates on a screen to understand that a road was blocked. He could look at someone’s face and know whether the situation was urgent. He could feel through his fingertips which way a box was starting to lean. There had been years when he could almost smell that an alley was going to jam before the truck even entered it.

And now a machine kept asking him.

How far?

Which route?

When do we stop?

To Jaeho, they did not sound like questions.

They sounded like a test.

The staff member checked the time again.

Jaeho said, “I’ll handle it.”

The staff member nodded immediately. “Fine. Just get it there quickly.”

Then he hurried away toward something else.

Moru spoke. “The work instruction is incomplete.”

Jaeho pushed the cart.

“Human work is usually a little incomplete.”

The wheels moved a few centimeters.

Moru did not follow.

“Synchronized movement cannot begin.”

Jaeho stopped. “Now what?”

“Stop condition not provided.”

He looked back at the family.

The woman beside the casket was moving her fingers restlessly against one another. She had not said anything, but she looked like someone who wanted this over quickly.

Or perhaps someone who wanted it to move slowly.

Jaeho did not ask which.

He believed he already knew.

“Moru.”

“Yes.”

“Keeping them standing there forever isn’t good either.”

“Cannot be confirmed.”

“What can’t?”

“It has not been confirmed that the family requested an increase in transfer speed.”

Jaeho looked at him.

The sentence caught for a moment. Then Jaeho waved it away.

“You really have to ask that?”

“It is not included in the current input.”

“That’s why people learn to read the situation.”

“Requesting criteria for ‘reading the situation.’”

Jaeho laughed. “Forget it.”

The laugh was short this time.

“We’d be here all night if I had to explain that.”

He took the cart handle again.

At the entrance to the transfer corridor, the cart stopped once more.

More precisely, Moru stopped it.

The handles on both sides of the cart were synchronized for collaborative casket transfer. If one unit failed to meet a designated safety condition, synchronized powered assist was restricted.

Jaeho pushed.

The cart moved only with heavy resistance.

Text appeared on the display.

COLLABORATIVE SYNC — RESTRICTED
STOP CONDITION — NO INPUT

Jaeho clicked his tongue.

“Seriously.”

Moru said, “Synchronized movement is available after the condition is entered.”

“I told you. We stop if something blocks us.”

“‘Blocked’ has no numerical criterion.”

“If a person comes out in front of us.”

“Requesting approach-distance threshold.”

“A reasonable distance.”

“Cannot convert that to a numerical value.”

Jaeho closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them.

The family was still waiting behind them. Across the corridor, another staff member was folding chairs against the wall. If they moved now, they could get through. If they waited much longer, another casket-transfer team might enter the corridor.

Jaeho looked down the direct passage.

It was not especially wide, but it was much faster. The rear service corridor was safer, but it would take longer.

“Straight ahead,” Jaeho said.

“Register the direct corridor as the priority route?”

“Yes.”

“Stop condition.”

“If something comes up.”

“‘Something’ cannot be registered as a condition.”

Jaeho glared at him.

“If a person comes out, stop.”

“Approach distance.”

“Moru.”

“Yes.”

“You work like this and people are going to die of frustration.”

Moru paused.

“Are you requesting a correlation between work speed and biological death?”

Jaeho let out a disbelieving laugh. “No.”

From behind them, the man in the black suit asked quietly, “Is there a problem?”

Jaeho turned immediately. “No.”

The answer came too quickly.

“Legacy model. A lot of confirmations.”

The man in the black suit nodded.

“Take your time.”

Jaeho said nothing for a moment.

Until seconds ago, he had been telling himself that they could not keep the family waiting.

The family themselves had just told him there was no need to hurry.

Jaeho adjusted his grip on the handle.

“We’ll be there in a minute.”

He was not sure who the promise was for.

Moru spoke. “The stop condition remains unentered.”

Jaeho opened the manual menu below the handle. He had used the function a few times before.

COLLABORATIVE SYNC RESTRICTION

Below it:

ON-SITE RESPONSIBILITY ACKNOWLEDGMENT
MANUAL RELEASE

Jaeho’s finger stopped.

Manual release would not remove Moru from the operation entirely. It simply allowed a human or work unit to move the cart using on-site judgment before every condition had been fully entered.

Jaeho understood it as a function for handling small exceptions that were not worth stopping an entire job over.

It seemed designed for exactly this kind of situation.

“This releases it, right?”

Moru answered. “Manual release before safety conditions are confirmed is not recommended.”

“But it can be done.”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s enough.”

“Possible and recommended are not equivalent determinations.”

Jaeho smiled.

“Sometimes you have to do what’s possible.”

He touched the screen.

MANUAL RELEASE

A warning appeared.

STOP CONDITION INCOMPLETE
RESPONSIBILITY FOR ON-SITE JUDGMENT WILL BE LOGGED DURING MANUAL MOVEMENT

Jaeho read it.

Not nearly as long as he had stared at the manual-normal entry the day before.

He pressed CONFIRM.

A small vibration traveled through the handle. The resistance in the cart released.

Moru said, “Collaborative sync restriction released.”

“I know.”

“Manual movement mode.”

“I know.”

“Route changes require reconfirmation.”

Jaeho began pushing the cart.

“We’ll deal with that when we get there.”

The cart rolled forward smoothly. Moru took the handle on the opposite side, but he was no longer matching speed automatically. His movement followed Jaeho’s input instead.

For the first few meters, nothing happened.

Jaeho relaxed a little.

“See?”

Moru asked, “What am I to observe?”

“It’s moving fine.”

“No contact has occurred to this point.”

“That’s what moving fine means.”

“The task is not complete.”

“You’re not easy to get a compliment out of.”

Moru did not answer.

Jaeho increased the speed slightly. The cart wheels made a low sound across the corridor floor.

He looked ahead.

No one was there.

A flower-stand base protruded slightly into the corridor. Half a step to the left would clear it.

Jaeho angled the cart in advance.

“Route change detected,” Moru said.

“Avoiding something.”

“Reconfirmation—”

“I saw it.”

Jaeho spoke before Moru could finish.

“Just follow me.”

The cart passed the flower stand.

Nothing touched.

The corner of Jaeho’s mouth lifted.

“That’s what I mean by reading the situation.”

Moru said, “Recording as route obstacle avoidance.”

“You don’t have to make it sound that complicated.”

“It is a work record.”

Jaeho shook his head.

“People just say they went around it.”

“I do not use a human record system.”

Jaeho went quiet for a moment. He looked at Moru, then back ahead.

“Right.”

His voice was low.

“You wouldn’t.”

A fork appeared ahead.

The right-hand passage led directly toward the elevators but was narrow. The left-hand route was wider, but it went around.

Jaeho chose the right.

“Passage width decreasing,” Moru said immediately.

“We’ll fit.”

“Forward corner has restricted visibility.”

“We use this corridor all the time.”

“My existing route records and the current load width do not indicate sufficient clearance.”

Jaeho looked at both sides of the cart.

It looked sufficient to him.

“It’ll go.”

“Speed reduction recommended.”

Jaeho slowed a little.

He did not stop.

Behind them came the sound of the family’s dress shoes. Jaeho heard it and thought that turning around now and taking the wider route would look even more ridiculous.

He had just told them it would only take a minute.

He tightened his grip.

“I’ve got the front.”

Moru spoke.

“Requesting stop condition again.”

Jaeho’s forehead tightened.

“Again?”

“Conditions have changed due to restricted visibility.”

“I told you. I’m watching.”

“Observation is limited to one side.”

Jaeho did not answer.

He did not think Moru was wrong.

He simply did not want to stop.

He had moved things this way hundreds of times with other people. One person watched the front. One watched the back. Someone said, “Good,” and they went. Someone said, “Hold,” and they stopped.

They did not define the rules first every single time.

And they got the work done.

Without accidents.

Most of the time.

Jaeho said, “Just come with me.”

Moru asked, “Continue manual movement?”

“Continue.”

“Confirmed.”

They entered the narrow corridor.

Savor Balance · English Archive · Yohan Choi