The afternoon lecture ended beneath another grey winter sky.
Students spilled into the courtyard, voices rising all at once as though silence had become unbearable the moment the professor stopped talking. Bags swung over shoulders. Someone laughed too loudly. Someone else sprinted after a friend who had already disappeared into the crowd.
Yè Yī stayed where he was.
The novel rested open across his lap, though he hadn't turned the page for several minutes.
A shadow stopped beside the bench.
He didn't look up.
"...You again."
A familiar crunch answered him.
Violet folded herself onto the bench as if there had always been room for her, a bag of chips balanced carelessly on one knee.
"You make that sound like bad luck."
"I make it sound accurate."
She nodded, accepting the answer with suspicious ease.
"I can live with accurate."
For a while neither of them spoke.
Students drifted past without paying them any attention. The wind nudged a handful of dead leaves across the pavement before carrying them somewhere else.
Violet watched them go.
"You ever notice people hate silence?"
Yè Yī closed his book.
"They hate not knowing what someone else is thinking."
"Mmm, that too."
She crushed another chip between her teeth.
"They hate people they can't file away even more."
He looked at her.
"...Is there a point to this conversation?"
"There usually is."
"And today?"
"I'm still deciding."
That answer should have annoyed him.
Instead, it somehow sounded perfectly reasonable coming from her.
She stood.
"Come on."
"I'm not agreeing until you tell me where."
"You will after we get there."
"...That's not how agreement works."
"It is today."
She started walking.
After several seconds... he followed.
Across the road, an unmarked black van remained parked beneath the shade of an overpass.
The engine had been turned off long ago.
Inside, no one spoke unless necessary.
One monitor tracked the university gates.
Another displayed satellite overlays.
A small green square settled over Yè Yī's face.
A second later...
Another square tried to settle over the girl beside him. It failed.
The software refreshed.
Failed again.
One operator leaned closer.
"...Run it again."
Nothing.
No identification.
No registration.
No history.
The screen simply displayed:
UNKNOWN
The operator frowned.
"...Keep watching."
The van stayed exactly where it was.
"You've been weirdly cooperative today."
"I haven't agreed to anything."
"You walked."
"I was going home."
"In the opposite direction?"
Yè Yī finally noticed. He stopped.
"This isn't my route."
"No."
"...Then whose is it?"
Violet smiled.
"I thought you'd ask sooner."
The communications tower had been abandoned for years.
Rust climbed its steel frame.
Satellite dishes leaned toward the city like broken flowers refusing to fall.
Most people walked past without looking twice.
Violet pushed against a warped side door.
It groaned open.
"You've been here before."
She stepped inside.
"Only on Thursdays."
He looked around.
Dust covered most of the room, but not all of it.
One desk had been wiped clean recently.
A keyboard rested beside three aging monitors.
Extension cables crossed the floor in practiced paths instead of random ones.
Someone worked here... regularly.
Yè Yī noticed it too.
"...This isn't yours."
"No."
"Then whose?"
She rolled one of the old office chairs toward herself and sat down.
"It'll be easier if he tells you."
"...Who?"
She glanced toward the silent doorway.
"Hm."
She checked the cracked wall clock.
"He should've been here by now."
"You planned this?"
"I planned to arrive."
"That's not an answer."
"It wasn't supposed to be."
She spun once in the chair before stopping herself with one foot against the floor.
Then... she frowned.
Just enough for Yè Yī to notice.
"...That's odd."
"What is?"
"He isn't late."
"You just said—"
"I know."
She looked toward the doorway again.
"...Something else is."
Before he could ask what she meant—
Across the city...
The gaming arcade pulsed with noise.
Music crashed into electronic gunfire.
Someone celebrated a lucky win.
Someone else blamed the machine.
Qiū Huà Bǐ heard none of it.
His game occupied only a corner of the monitor.
Everything underneath belonged to him.
Encrypted traffic streamed across the screen.
Whoever built this network understood how curious people thought.
Every trail looked obvious.
Every obvious trail collapsed into another.
He smiled.
"...Cute."
His fingers began moving again.
Windows opened, then closed, then reopened somewhere else.
Each layer peeled away a little faster than the last.
Then... the code stopped changing, not because he had finished, but because someone else had entered.
A quiet voice arrived over his shoulder.
"Did you get it yet?"
Qiū Huà Bǐ froze.
It wasn't because someone had spoken, but because he hadn't heard anyone walk up.
He turned only enough to see her from the corner of his eye.
She was standing much too close.
"Personal space is a thing."
"I prefer efficiency."
He sighed.
"I noticed."
For the third time in years... the noise inside his head disappeared.
There were no passing thoughts, no emotional static, no distant conversations brushing against the edge of his consciousness.
Nothing.
He looked at her properly.
She looked back as though complete silence were the most ordinary thing in the world.
"...Who are you?"
She smiled.
"Wrong first question."
He blinked.
"What should I have asked?"
Her eyes drifted briefly toward the encrypted message still waiting on his monitor.
"You should've asked who sent that."
Qiū Huà Bǐ followed her gaze.
When he looked back— she was already smiling again.
Not because she knew the answer, rather she knew he wasn't going to let the question go.
Far across the city...
Inside the silent van...
One monitor flashed.
EXPECTED CONTACT... FAILED.
Another line appeared beneath it.
UNIDENTIFIED VARIABLE DETECTED.
No alarm sounded and no one panicked.
One operator simply stared at the second line a little longer than the first.
"...Replay the prediction."
The simulation ran.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Each result ended differently.
For the first time since the operation had begun... the future refused to settle.
No one in the van understood why.
The reader doesn't either. (⌐■-■)
Not yet.