[At the Wright's estate] (year 1080)
"Man, no matter how many times I come here, I'm always amazed by how cool your house is, Kristen."
Ever since we agreed on our mutual collaboration, Saria and I had become frequent visitors to the Wright estate, situated in one of the city's most prestigious residential districts.
"Considering how rarely you invite guests, it's truly impressive how well-kept and pristine everything is," Saria added, her eyes scanning the minimalist architecture with genuine admiration.
"Unlike someone who needs constant reminders to keep his room tidy every time a friend visits," Saria noted playfully, casting a mockingly sharp glance toward me.
"Oh, come on! My room isn't that bad!" I protested, feeling the heat rise to my face.
"Oh? But I didn't mention any names, Joshua. Are you admitting to something?"
"You…!" I sputtered, realizing I'd walked right into her trap. "I really shouldn't have left you alone with my mom. She's a bad influence on your teasing skills."
Saria's tail gave a satisfied swish, her face lit up with the rare, mischievous delight she only showed when she was winning an argument against me.
Kristen, however, remained a statue of pure focus. She didn't look up from her holographic interface, her glasses reflecting the blue scrolling code of our latest energy simulation. To her, our banter wasn't an expression of friendship—it was just auditory interference.
"Your social synchronization is currently occupying 40% of the time allotted for our diagnostic run," Kristen interrupted, her voice as cool and precise as a scalpel. "The palladium isotopes have reached the required thermal threshold. If we do not initiate the sequence within the next 120 seconds, the window for a stable reaction will close. I suggest you conclude your flirtation and assume your positions."
"Now, now, Kristen, would a little chat really hurt?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood. "It's not like the whole experiment will be jeopardized by a few jokes."
"Inaccuracy," Kristen replied, her gaze finally shifting to me, though her expression remained unreadable. "Chatting leads to a lapse in focus. Carelessness leads to a 0.08% margin of error. In high-output engineering, that margin is the difference between a breakthrough and a localized explosion. So, yes—it would jeopardize it."
"I was being sarcastic," I answered with a frown. Seriously, this girl...
Joshua has been trying to get along with her for a while now, yet every time
Kristen would have declined or outright dismissed it as a waste of time.
Joshua had been trying to drag Kristen out of her "hermit cave" for months, hoping a bit of fresh air would remind her that life existed outside of a chalkboard. But every attempt was met with the same surgical dismissal.
The Movie Outing "A movie, Kristen? It's a classic," I had suggested, holding up the tickets. She hadn't even looked away from her terminal. "A waste of sensory input," she'd replied. "You're asking me to sit in a dark room for two hours to consume a fabricated narrative with predictable emotional beats. If I wanted to witness a tragedy, I'd look at the efficiency loss in our current energy grid. At least that has the benefit of being real."
The Shopping Trip "We're going to the central plaza to pick up some stuff. Come with us?" She'd adjusted her glasses, her eyes scanning a line of code as if I weren't even there. "Unnecessary resource accumulation. Most 'shopping' is simply the pursuit of temporary physical goods to satisfy an aesthetic urge that will fade within a week. I already possess the clothing required for thermal regulation. Anything more is just clutter in my workspace—and my mind."
The Arcade "Saria and I are hitting the arcade. They've got a new flight sim!" That was the only time she'd actually paused, but the look she gave me was almost pitying. "Arcade gaming is a pointless exercise in closed-loop algorithms, Joshua. You are manipulating a plastic lever to satisfy a pre-programmed victory condition within a fake physics engine. Why would I play at flying in a box when I am trying to actually reach the sky?"
Joshua's gaze lingered on the wall. Among the cold, sterile displays of advanced physics and crystalline structures, that single, yellowed clipping felt like a heartbeat in a room of machines.
"The Wright's failed test flight, 1075."
It was a photo of a wreckage, but also of two people standing proudly before a cockpit. They had the same sharp, distant eyes as the girl currently calibrating a laser array across the room.
"Kristen," Joshua said, his voice dropping the playful tone he used with Saria. "You don't want to go to the arcade because the games are programmed with limits, right? You don't like shopping because it's just buying things that already exist."
Kristen didn't stop her work, but her fingers paused for a fraction of a second. "Analysis is correct. Most activities are merely distractions from the fact that people are content with the ground beneath their feet."
"Then let's talk about the one thing that doesn't have a limit," Joshua said, gesturing to the wall. "Let's talk about the True Sky."
Kristen finally turned around. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, her golden eyes narrowing. For the first time, she looked at Joshua not as a lab partner, but as a person.
"The 'ground' is a cage, Joshua," Kristen said, her voice low and surprisingly hollow. "My parents realized that. They spent their lives trying to find a way out, but Columbia... this 'great nation' of ours... they didn't care about the stars. They cared about how high a plane could fly before it could drop a bomb. They turned a dream of discovery into a budget for the military."
She walked over to the window, looking up at the smog-filled sky of Trimounts.
"The scientific community here is a fraud," she continued, a rare trace of bitterness leaking into her tone. "They chase grants. They chase fame. They are so busy looking at the Originium in the dirt that they've forgotten to look up. My family was called 'unrealistic.' 'Impossible.' 'Madmen.' They died for a vision that this world isn't even ready to understand."
She turned back to them, expecting the usual reaction. She expected Saria to talk about safety and regulations. She expected Joshua to talk about the practical impossibility of breaking the atmosphere.
Instead, silence.
Saria stepped forward, her expression soft. "The weight of the world is heavy, Kristen. But that doesn't mean the sky isn't there. If your parents saw the horizon, then the horizon exists. Someone just has to be strong enough to hold the ladder while you climb."
Joshua nodded, his red and blue eyes reflecting the blue glow of the lab. "I'm a defected. I spent my whole life being told what I can't do because of the 'laws' of this world. If you want to build a way out of the cage, I'm the best person for the job. I've been breaking 'impossible' rules since I was born."
Kristen stared at them. She looked for the lie, the pity, or the hidden agenda. She found none. In Saria, she saw a foundation of unshakable loyalty. In Joshua, she saw a spark of a mind that looked at the world exactly as she did—as something to be solved.
The tension in Kristen's shoulders, a tension she had carried since 1075, visibly relaxed.
"You are both statistically improbable," Kristen whispered. She looked back at her monitors, but her posture had changed. "But... I suppose a sanctuary for outcasts is the most efficient environment for a breakthrough."
She walked toward them as they prepared to leave, stopping just in front of Saria. Joshua was already at the door, trying to fix his messy hair in a hallway mirror.
"Saria," Kristen said quietly.
"Yes?"
Kristen glanced at Joshua, then back to Saria. A tiny, almost imperceptible smirk played on her lips. "Your heartbeat increased by twelve beats per minute when he mentioned his 'messy room' earlier. And your pupils dilated by 0.5 millimeters when he defended his honor."
Saria froze, her face instantly turning a shade of red that matched Joshua's eyes. "I... that's just... physical exertion from carrying the suitcases!"
"Is it?" Kristen tilted her head. "Or is the 'Iron Wall' finally finding its anchor? You should be careful, Saria. If you blush any harder, you'll interfere with the thermal sensors in the room."
For the first time in years, a genuine, light-hearted sound escaped Kristen's throat. It was a small laugh—short and rusty from disuse—but it was there.
Saria stood there, mortified, while Kristen walked back to her desk with a spring in her step.
"See you tomorrow, partners," Kristen called out, her voice warmer than it had ever been.
As they walked out into the cool evening air, Saria was still hiding her face in her scarf.
"What did she say to you?" Joshua asked, curious.
"Nothing!" Saria barked, walking faster. "She said we need to work harder! Move, you messy-room engineer!"
Joshua blinked, watching her go. He didn't know what Kristen had said, but as he looked back at the Wright estate, he saw a single light on in the top floor. For the first time, it didn't look like a lonely lighthouse. It looked like a home.