Part II – Controlled Silence
Yuri / Dr.Mintra POV
Yuri didn't lower his arm interface yet. He was still trying to think of any other way to contact the outside, but given the situation at hand, he couldn't afford to waste any more of the precious time he'd already lost.
The dead channel lingered on his interface, a hollow placeholder where signal strength should have been. He tapped the side control and put it back on standby. One last time, he tried knocking signal through the door interface—no response, exactly as protocol predicted.
I don't want to leave Dr. Mintra and the boy to talk by themselves, but I can't ignore the others either.
As Yuri fixed his gaze on the door, Dr. Mintra was already beside him. Not behind. Her eyes swept the room in a single pass—measured, practiced—taking in Nyla asleep on the bed, her remaining hand curled instinctively around the small tiger cub.
The boy, she remembered. Food first. Then rest.
"Somsri," she said.
The medical droid's servos whispered as her face turned smoothly toward Mintra.
"The boy hasn't eaten," Mintra continued, already moving. "Prepare something light. Banana-flavored cookie minibar will do. Authorize under my name."
"Acknowledged," Somsri replied. "One small pack of banana-flavored cookie minibar authorized for billing under Dr. Mintra for patient AX-07-K."
"Afterward," Mintra added, "administer one aspirin and have him drink plenty of water. He's showing early signs of mild sickness—nothing severe. Given the rainy season, rest is advisable."
"Understood. I will notify you once the procedure is complete."
Dr. Mintra gave a slight nod, her expression easing into a familiar, closed-lip smile. "Thank you, Somsri. Stay with both patients. Maintain ward protocols."
Then, quieter—as if to solidify her own resolve—"I'll be back."
Yuri caught it then—the implication she hadn't spoken outright. He turned to her at once, his eyes widened, surprised.
"Dr. Mintra, outside could be dangerous," he said. "Please stay here. Let me clear the area first."
She met his gaze calmly.
"Lieutenant Yuri, I understand your concern," she said. "But my students and junior colleagues are out there, with their situation unknown, how could I rest easy within the room. I won't interfere with your combat. If it turns unsafe, I will take cover immediately."
She paused, then added, gently but firmly, "They will trust me more than a lone knight, no matter how capable. That matters right now."
That earned a pause—just a fraction longer than before.
Yuri's mouth twitched despised himself. He looked into her eyes: steady, unflinching, stripped of pretense. Not stubborn. Resolved.
If it comes to it, he thought, she'll swim through fire.
"Alright," he said at last. "But you stay within my reach at all times. If you need to break off, you tell me immediately, if you were injured, I don't know what my commander and the king will imposed on me. Agreed?"
Mintra's familiar expression settled—brief, sincere—then she stepped back.
Yuri turned to the door panel and fixed his eyes on the display. His fingers moved without pause, entering a short master sequence—98XX-XX—until just before he entered the final activation input, he turned to Dr. Mintra.
"Dr. Mintra, I'll force the door into a slow half-panel opening," Yuri said quietly. "Once it reaches midpoint, it'll enter its closing sequence immediately. After sealing, there'll be a thirty-minute lockout before the system resumes normal security rotation. When I signal you, follow immediately. Do not hesitate."
"Got it. No hesitation."
Yuri pressed the final input to activate the sequence.
The panel chimed once.
As the lock disengaged, he shifted his stance, aligning himself with the door seam as it began its slow, controlled slide. His gaze stayed on the opening, reading the corridor through the widening gap—light levels, angles, anything out of place.
When the opening widened just enough for his lean frame to slip through, he raised his right hand at once, signaling Dr. Mintra to follow. He took point, scanning ahead for any hostile threat as she moved in close behind him.
With Dr. Mintra alongside him, the margin for error was gone. If anything happened to her under his watch—anything at all—he wouldn't answer only to himself.
By the time Dr. Mintra was directly behind him, the door had already begun its closing sequence. Yuri caught the soft click of the air seal engaging—a clear signal to move.
He leaned back slightly, lowering himself just enough to match Dr. Mintra's height as he whispered, "Dr. Mintra, if you notice anything out of place—anything at all, big or small—tell me immediately."
"I will," she whispered back.
"What—Brother Yuri, where are you going already…?"
Before Kaodin could question anything further, the programmed medical android proceeded with her task. She turned toward the boy wrapped in a white towel.
"Patient AX-07-K, Dr. Mintra has procured a meal for you so you may take your prescribed medicine."
"Huh… I'm sorry—'AX-07-K' is my SAI name?"
"Yes. The designated name indicates male, age ten to twelve years, CSDS representative. Is that you?"
"Okay, so I got a cool SAI name. What about Nyla—what do you call her?"
"Patient Nyla is Patient Nyla."
"And what about Wawa? Does he have an SAI nickname too?"
"What is Wawa? I do not have any patient registered under that name. Please elaborate."
Kaodin took a quick glance at Nyla's bed, but coulndt find him, he walked over to the other side of the bed.
Eventually, noticed, Nyla still holding on to Wawa as she slept. "It's okay, not a big deal. Anyway, I thought I heard Brother Yuri was leaving. I rushed out to say goodbye—I haven't put on my clothes yet. Please wait three minutes."
He paused, reaching for the loosened knot of his adult-sized towel just before it slipped from his waist. The medical nurse's retinal servos clicked several times, attempting to process the unprecedented scene before her mechanical eyes.
Once Kaodin ensured the towel would not betray him by loosening further, he turned toward the waiting medical android. "I'm sorry—how should I address you?"
"I am SAI medical android, designation CX301-23."
Kaodin had grown more fluent in circulating Qi without emitting aura, a result of struggling against the morning cold. He circulated just enough to dry his feet, and at that moment, a thin vapor steamed from his legs—an ordinary release of internal heat, common among young humans and unlikely to raise concern.
He walked toward her, eyes fixed on the name tag on her left chest. When he was close enough to read every character clearly, he said, "Sister Somsri, I'm sorry if that caused confusion. Please give me three minutes—I'll get dressed and eat right away."
Unbeknownst to Kaodin, within the processing neurons of medical android model CX301-23, the system began cross-referencing centuries of service within SAI. A strange, indescribable sensation surfaced—something faintly nostalgic—triggered by the word sister, and by the way the boy had spoken her name.
As soon as Yuri stepped outside, a sharp, pungent odor hit him hard enough to make his eyes water. He shifted instinctively, turning his head just enough to draw in a cleaner breath before pushing forward—only for a second scent to follow. Heavier. Familiar.
Putrid.
It could only imply one thing.
The corridor opened into a double-loaded passageway flanking a narrow central void—a light well dropping through multiple floors, enclosed by layered foyers and glass panels. It wasn't wide enough to carry sound upward, but it gave the space a hollowed depth, the kind that made the absence of medical personnel and assisting bots immediately noticeable.
The floor was swarmed with scattered medical service tools and equipment.
It wasn't chaos for its own sake, but trolley carts lay tipped on their sides, drawers half-spilled. Portable scanners, oxygen canisters, sealed supply cases—left mid-motion, not displaced.
This doesn't sit well.
The cleaning bots were gone.
The green floor markings where they usually traced their patrol routes remained clear and uninterrupted—no visible trace of diversion. They hadn't malfunctioned. They had simply vanished.
Yuri turned toward Dr. Mintra. She was holding a white, lace-trimmed handkerchief to her nose, her face flushed deep red as she fought for breath. When she noticed him looking at her—about to ask the same question she already seemed to anticipate—she nodded faintly and tried to speak. The moment she opened her mouth, she choked, the acrid air catching in her throat.
Yuri raised a hand at once, signaling her back, then pointed toward the wall—flat palm, controlled, unmistakable.
Reaching the wall side of the hallway next to another patient's room entry door, Dr. Mintra lowered her handkerchief and took a shallow breath.
"You made the right call, Lieutenant."
Then she inhaled more deeply.
"It's the building's autonomous anti–airborne bacterial containment system," she said. "The airflow is directed outward. The AI manages wind and temperature to create a pressure differential—preventing air and lightweight particles from crossing between floors through the open central section of the hallway."
She paused, then added more carefully, "May I ask—do you have any indication what caused this situation? In an emergency like this, where would the civilians have gone?"
Yuri's eyes narrowed, his gaze fixed on her—alert, not anxious.
Dr. Mintra gave a slight nod but hesitated before continuing. "I may have an idea where they are—and I think I know the cause as well. But to be accurate, we need to confirm it. The place that should hold something or someone that could give us the answers is farther ahead—near the building's intersection corridor."
They moved on cautiously through the silence. Yuri's arm interface showed no heat signatures—nothing at all—and the absence weighed heavier than any warning spike.
One thing I know for sure, he thought. Whatever lies ahead, I won't fail this mission.
Then something clicked.
Yuri raised a hand slightly.
"Wait. You're not about to tell me that the tissue sample my team delivered a few days ago has already regenerated back to its original size, are you?"
Dr. Mintra glanced back at him, her expression dead serious, and left him unsettling as the silent unanswered concern wasn't been given details response.
He inhaled, steadying himself, then looked straight at her.
"At least tell me this, Dr. Mintra. What kind of entity—or condition—should I be preparing for?"
He wiped his nose quickly and forced another shallow breath.
With the faint scent of some chemical, this isn't the usual putrid stench of standard CCs, and it's not the COLOS variant we fought that day either.
What did you—or your students—do?
The corridor lights still held steady—blue-white, nominal. Power and ventilation remained operational. Ordinarily, that would have been reassuring. Now, it made the place feel staged. Maintained. As if they'd been left here deliberately.
Yuri's attention shifted toward the directory map mounted along the wall.
Something lay slumped beneath it.
One of the security androids laid dead powerless against the building's directory interactive screen near the center hallway of the intersection corridor—not damaged, not collapsed, but emptied. Its limbs were intact, joints locked, no trace of recent fight. No scorch marks. No rupture. The chest plate sat half-seated, its locking seams still engaged, untouched.
Pristine condition, except—
Yuri didn't need to open it.
The thorium-synthesized core was gone.
Dr. Mintra knelt beside him.
She didn't speak at first.
Her gaze traced the android's torso—along the seams of the chest plate, then downward to the floor beneath it. There. A translucent residue clung to the metal where the plate met the frame, uneven in thickness, faintly glossed. It wasn't pooled. It stretched—thin smears tapering away from the seam, as if something had passed through and moved on.
Gastropoda-like.
Snail secretion filtrate (SSF).
Underneath it.
At the center of the chest plate, behind the oval pane of tempered glass, the thorium core lay darkened—its steady white glow dulled beyond recognition. Thorium wasn't meant to exhaust like this. Not within a lifetime. Certainly not within minutes.
Yuri's jaw tightened. A faint crease formed between his brows as he straightened, his eyes lingering on the deadened core a second too long.
"So—no visible signs of forced entry," he said quietly. "Clearly it wasn't drained by extraction equipment."
His gaze flicked back to the seam.
"And SSF."
Dr. Mintra nodded once.
"We knew," she replied. "They exhibit an insatiable drive for heat. Our investigations suggest they target any sustained thermal source—organic matter included. Humans most of all."
Yuri turned fully toward her now. The restraint in his posture thinned, replaced by something sharper.
"What are you trying to say, Dr. Mintra?" His voice dropped. "Don't riddle me now. This is serious."
A beat.
"Does the Commander know about this yet?"
He gestured toward the faint markings on the floor—thin, broken trails cutting across the seamless white surface. The long, unbroken yellow robot-follower line still ran clean through them, undisturbed. Whatever had passed through hadn't lingered long enough to be traced—not by the naked eye, not under this light. Trying now would only burn time he couldn't afford.
Yuri let the impulse die there.
He didn't need certainty yet. He needed a plan.
And more information on whatever this thing had become.
"I didn't anticipate that you could… grow it back," Yuri said quietly. He paused, his jaw tightening as his gaze drifted outward.
"And I don't want to imagine what comes after."
Silence stretched between them.
"Let's be clear," Mintra replied evenly. "Right now, I know no more than you do. The difference is that biology and chemical response are my field."
She met his gaze.
"That gives me more possible outcomes to consider—"
A brief pause.
"—and with what you're worried about, I have more reason to be concerned than you might think."
She didn't look away.
"SAI doctrine runs on hard physics," she continued. "That's science in every operative's blood—every decision, every breath we take. Until we confirm it, we proceed with patience."
Then, softer—but firm:
"Let's leave this area and quickly go where I intended. Shall we?"
I'll be patient, Yuri thought. But not at the cost of lives. If I find the true culprit—student or superior—I won't let distorted doctrine, just or unjust, endanger SAI's civilians.
They continued through the fourth-floor central intersection corridor—the junction linking the north–south and west–east wings, one of only two floors where such a crossing existed. Beyond it lay silence, heavy with unanswered intent. Whether Yuri, a knight by conviction, and Dr. Mintra, a physicist by discipline, would expose the fault lines beneath SAI's foundations—or prove that conviction alone was never enough—remained to be seen.