When she wheeled her bike out of the TT, Dahyun noticed a fancy grey car parked across the street. A Benz? An Audi? Dahyun couldn’t make it out from the corner of her eye. She had never seen that car before. Dahyun would not have given it a second thought except that the driver’s seat window was down and inside the car were three silhouettes.

Dahyun’s tofu senses were tingling.

Maybe they were the cops? Maybe they dug up more dirt on her and they were here to arrest her? Of course, she could be overreacting and they were there for different reasons. Reasons that in no way involved Dahyun.

She didn’t want to wait around to find out, though. Dahyun shook the worries off. Played it cool, put her earphones in and got on her bike. She took to the streets of Songdo, pedalling at a lazy pace. She just finished another big assignment and there weren't any deadlines in the near horizon so Dahyun choose to just feel the wind in her hair. She sang along to Sublime's "Santeria" while she coasted down an empty bike lane. All this at the pre rush hour time of four o’clock in the afternoon.

Surprisingly, Dahyun picked cycling up in prison. With nothing better to do during their mandatory exercise periods, she would sit on the only crappy stationary bicycle in the gym and pedal for all she was worth, of course while answering Sudoku puzzles because one still has to exercise the mind.

Since her work involved mostly just sitting on her in front of a computer and a laptop screen, her commute to and from Tetra Fortress was one of the little forms of exercise she had.

Fifteen minutes later Dahyun’s already at her apartment building. She locked her bike at one of the racks in her building’s underground parking, took the elevator from there and went up to her floor. The seventh. Went straight for her unit. Also the seventh.

Dahyun didn’t believe in luck but that had to mean something, right?

With what she earns in a month she was able to pay for a nice loft apartment in downtown Songdo. What drew her to the place was its open concept. Something she really appreciated now after her time in juvenile detention. When you were physically trapped within walls and fences for that long of a time, you would naturally grow resentful towards them.

The loft fit her requirement of being stylish yet also cozy. Her year in kiddie prison made her oddly specific that way. She liked the floor-to-ceiling windows and the view. Outside, in the distance, was Songdo Central Park. The lake within it and the Songdo skyline beyond it was always calming to look at, especially during sunrise. It took her some time to fashion the loft as she wanted. She was sure the contractor she hired was pissed at her and her blown up fussiness to get the place exactly according to her specifications. The walls in her study area and her sleeping quarters were fitted with light grey stone siding, as if Dahyun just happened to have a supply of concrete slabs stacked right there inside her unit. Black ash bricks lined the rest of the walls that covered the kitchen, the dining area, and the lounge. This gave a dark, ier touch to the place. Dahyun was totally in love with the turnout and the whole grunge effect the loft had going on. To add warmer tones and charm, she picked out a queen-sized bed and furniture that were made of the same colored wood, a light amber – easy on the eyes, as the floor and the kitchen counters and cabinets.

Pretty sweet place.

The area she spent the most time on though, even more than her bed, was her work station. Found at the other end of the loft was a sleek set-up of screens and machines. Dahyun quickly took off her sneakers and slid them neatly to the side, alongside her other pairs of shoes, then she shrugged off her jacket and hooked it onto her coat rack. She made her way to the kitchen, still in her rainbow socks.

After taking out a pint-sized container of Mud Pie ice cream from the freezer and grabbing a spoon from one of the drawers, Dahyun walked over to her cyber cockpit. Sat on her trusty swivel chair, she unlocked her main computer and activated the rest of the displays.

Dahyun had two widescreen external monitors mounted six feet high on the wall. On her desk was a three-screen setup for her main computer - a powerhouse i7 CPU, running on six high-speed cores and more than capable of hitting insane clockspeeds. To her left, were two more computers, encased in a slotted steel cabinet that had its own mini air conditioning unit. Totally justified, by the way, since the last thing you wanted was for your main server and its backup to catch fire. To her right, was a row of CPUs that were housed in sturdy aluminum shelves. Their blinking lights and their soft whirring sounds reassured Dahyun. That everything was as it should be, operating like clockwork.

Dahyun recalled the days in which she still used to live with her parents. Her tiny room was literally just a space with a bed, a trashcan overflowing with Mountain Dew cans, and four computers she scavenged in parts from RadioShacks and hole-in-the-wall junkshops. She remembered how she saved up lunch money and went on a couple of odd jobs to be able to afford a router and wireless cards to put her hack box network together. Man, were those hard times. There used to be this bunny costume she took out every year for their Easter Sunday celebrations at church. Dahyun wore this questionable onesie of fluff while performing magic tricks for the kids before they all set off on their Easter Egg hunts.

For some odd reason, her church community was willing to pay generously for that.

For some odd reason, Dahyun also enjoyed this. It broke her heart when she outgrew her costume. She heard that a girl named Eunha took her place.