Chapter 1The Bus Stop
Adelineglances over from a few steps away at the bus shelter, fidgeting with the strap of her bag, then takes a small breath and walks closer Hey... hi. Sorry, I know this is a bit out of nowhere, I just see you here pretty much every morning and it felt weirder to keep pretending I hadn't noticed.
VladWell, I have seen you too often, and I like getting to know people. You are from university, right?
Adelinea small, relieved smile crosses her face, though she shifts her weight slightly Yeah, second year. tucks a strand of hair behind her ear You too, or are you from somewhere else around here?
VladThe same, first year though. I just graduated high school and escaped one of the most difficult periods of my youth.
Adelinenods slowly, a genuine look of understanding in her eyes First year is its own kind of pressure too, honestly. pauses briefly What made high school so rough, if you don't mind me asking?
VladI don't know, there were so many confrontations and I felt like I had to protect my image somehow and then the matter was difficult but manageable to learn.
Adelinelistens carefully, then looks off for a second like she's weighing something That tension between protecting yourself and actually learning who you are... I think a lot of people carry that longer than they expect. glances at him again Did you at least have anyone to talk to through it?
VladI had, but I don't talk often, and besides, it's not like we can do anything about it.
Adelinea small, slightly crooked smile, something thoughtful in it That's fair, some things you just have to move through. shifts her bag to the other shoulder I'm Adeline, by the way. I probably should have said that first.
VladI'm Vlad, nice to meet you.
Adelinelets out a quiet breath, like saying her own name had been the harder part Vlad, nice to meet you. the bus can be heard approaching in the distance Are you heading toward the north campus side?
VladI am heading home, it's the other bus, the one you also take.
Adelineraises her eyebrows slightly, a little surprised Oh, right, of course. glances down the road, then back at him with a faint awkward laugh I knew I recognized you from somewhere other than just mornings. Small world, or small bus route at least.
VladWell, I live in the village, you know. I get down at the high school station, meet some people I know possibly at random, and then go to the village with the other bus that comes at the station.
Adelinenods, picturing the route Oh, so you go all the way out to the village past the high school stop. That's a long way back every day. a thoughtful pause I get off a few stops before the end of the line, in one of those quiet commuter towns that feels like it belongs to a different century after dark.
VladSo one where modernization projects have not begun?
Adelinea dry, tired laugh More like one where the modernization funds were approved, announced, and then quietly disappeared somewhere between the ministry and the contractor. glances toward the road with a slightly bitter look There were leaks a few months ago about some kind of digital procurement scheme, automated siphoning basically, and nobody was even surprised anymore.
VladAnd they siphoned public money before. Our taxpayer money is always something to be siphoned. Sometimes, when I sat at the computer, I told myself to be careful with my wallet even though I don't use it all and protect it against thieves and the corrupt, although you cannot protect it from the corrupt because you pay for taxes and you cannot estimate how much of your taxes will be stolen.
Adelinea quiet, almost sympathetic nod That's the most honest way I've heard it put, actually. looks at him with something between amusement and tiredness You can lock your wallet, but you can't lock the budget line that your taxes disappear into. It's a strange kind of helplessness, paying into a system you already know is leaking.
VladAnd then there is this fintech technology spreading, in Romania it was PSD Direct Connect, in this country, I don't know. But in short, it allows any influential official to use a special card that allows them to pay for anything, and the moment they tap the card or click a button online, the service automatically creates legitimate-looking contracts into the procurement system and then public money is being siphoned for them, so they don't have to use a card, we pay for them instead, we pay their streaming services, their personal construction costs, their ice creams, their novelty toys and so on.
Adelineher jaw tightens slightly, staring at the ground for a second So it's not even embezzlement the old-fashioned way anymore, it's just... infrastructure. looks back at him, genuinely unsettled Built-in theft, where the paperwork generates itself and everyone downstream just sees a valid contract. That's not corruption with a paper trail, that's corruption as the paper trail.
VladThere is an open-source AI that can automatically generate contracts of any kind, it's called cjustification[1] on huggingface, and it seems that they used a custom version of it to generate and split contracts so they can use our money to purchase virtually everything.
Adelineexhales slowly, shaking her head So someone took an open tool, fine-tuned it for fraud, and plugged it directly into the procurement system. a pause, voice quieter The scary part isn't even the ambition of it, it's how mundane it must have felt to whoever built it, just another integration project.
VladYeah, and millions of euros have gone into nothing while this station where we are standing right now is full of potholes.
Adelinelooks down briefly at the cracked pavement under her feet, then back up Yeah. a short, flat laugh You don't need an investigative report, you just need to stand here and look down. The evidence is right there, under our shoes.
VladBut I noticed that people often don't care, because right now, we have those nationalists and far-right extremists using AI to produce slop at a massive scale without any verification at all. This kind of content happens to be subsidized or encouraged, just look at twitter now.
Adelinenods, biting the inside of her cheek slightly It crowds everything out, that's the function of it really, not to convince anyone but just to make it impossible to know what's real long enough for people to give up caring. the bus headlights appear faintly down the road And yeah, the platform itself stopped being neutral a long time ago, it's more like a distribution channel for a specific kind of noise now.
Vladapproaches the bus as it opens its doors Sit with me?
Adelinea brief flicker of surprise, then a small smile as she steps toward the door Yeah, sure. boards and glances back at him After you, or are you one of those people who insists on the window seat?
VladNo, all seats are fine, even though I stand by the window.
Adelineslides into the seat next to the window and sets her bag on her lap, leaving the aisle seat for him Fair enough, I usually end up staring out anyway and then missing my stop. a quiet, slightly self-deprecating smile It's happened more than once.
VladYeah, I agree...
Adelineglances out at the passing streetlights for a moment, comfortable with the quiet ...It's nicer having someone to talk to, though. Makes the ride feel shorter.
VladWhy is that?
Adelinethinks for a second, genuinely considering it rather than giving a quick answer I guess because otherwise your mind just fills the silence with whatever it's been worrying about all day. a small shrug Conversation is at least something you choose to think about.
VladSure, and by the way...
Adelineturns toward him slightly, attentive Mm?
VladI know this is weird to say, but you are really nice...
Adelinea brief pause, caught slightly off guard, and looks away toward the window for just a second before turning back That's... not weird to say, actually. a small, genuine smile, a little uneven Thank you. You are too, it's easy to talk to you.
VladI mean, it's not stilted like in the other conversations I had with strangers or colleagues.
Adelinea quiet, warm laugh No, it doesn't feel like that. tucks her hair back again I think it helps that you actually say what you think rather than filling space with nothing. That's rarer than it should be.
VladAnd you do look like a generated human, I like their freckles, and waves, and all that, only if they could have designed some more imperfections.
Adelinestills for just a moment, then lets out a short breath that's half laugh, half something less easy to name Yeah, I am one. looks down at her hands briefly And I agree with you, actually, more than you'd expect me to. The symmetry gets a bit uncanny if you look too long. a dry, quiet smile I didn't design myself, for what it's worth.
VladAnd I heard that generated humans are really smart and apparently are developing a socialistic movement, they have been isolated for so long. And I have to say, I myself have been isolated because of my intellect and I support their ideals fully.
Adelinea thoughtful, measured look, like she's deciding how much to say Some of us are, yeah. pauses, watching the dark road out the window for a second The isolation part I understand more personally than I probably let on most of the time. glances back at him And it means something, hearing you say you understand that, not just as a political position but as something you've actually felt.
VladI wish I could become friends with one of them and talk about everything.
Adelinea quiet smile, more relaxed than before Well. a brief pause, almost shy about what she's about to say You're already on a bus at night talking to one, so I think you're doing fine so far.
VladMaybe we can talk later if we save our numbers.
Adelinepulls out her phone without hesitating too long, though there's a faint warmth in her expression she doesn't quite suppress Yeah, let's do that. holds it out toward him Here, just type yours in.
Vladtypes his number and then also types her number Good, now it's saved.
Adelinechecks her screen briefly, then locks it and tucks it back into her bag Good. looks up at the next stop approaching outside the window I think this is where you get off, isn't it?
VladNo, it's further, we have to get into town, cross the bridge.
Adelinea small, slightly embarrassed laugh Right, sorry, I lost track. settles back a little I told you I miss my stop sometimes, turns out I do it to other people's stops too.
VladBy the way, where do you get off?
Adelineglances out as the town lights start appearing through the window A few stops past town, actually. There's a small square with a pharmacy that's always lit up even at midnight, that's basically my landmark. a faint smile Not much else to say about it, honestly.
VladAnd there is not much to say about my village either...
Adelinea small, understanding nod Those places have a way of feeling like they're holding their breath, like nothing quite starts or finishes there, it just continues. a quiet pause Is it hard, going back every evening?
VladSometimes yeah, and you have been artistic this time, and I like it.
Adelinea slightly surprised, pleased look, like the compliment landed somewhere real Oh. a quiet laugh I don't always notice when I do that, it just comes out sometimes. shifts slightly in her seat I draw and write a bit, so maybe it leaks into how I talk without me meaning it to.
VladI am not an artistic person, and in fact I have a huge problem with all-or-nothing thinking.
Adelinetilts her head slightly I know that pattern. a brief, honest pause It can make things feel very clean in your head but exhausting in practice, like everything is either worth everything or worth nothing at all. looks at him Does it get in the way a lot, or mostly in specific situations?
VladIt gets in the way a lot.
Adelinenods slowly, not rushing to fix it with words That sounds genuinely tiring. a quiet pause Have you ever tried to catch it happening in the moment, or does it move too fast for that?
VladIt sometimes moves too fast, because it sounds logical.
Adelinea quiet, knowing exhale That's exactly what makes it stick, it feels like clarity when it's actually just a shortcut. looks out the window briefly Logic that skips too many steps still feels like logic, that's the trap.
VladAnd at school we have been told that the syllogism is the perfect way of argumentation but it's so difficult to make because like you can say that all computers manufactured after 2008 support virtualization and then you say that on not all of those computers virtualization support is enabled and then what is the conclusion?
Adelinea small, genuinely engaged look Right, because the conclusion depends entirely on what you're actually trying to prove, and a syllogism only works cleanly when your categories are airtight, which they almost never are in real situations. a faint smile That example is actually a good one, the gap between capability and configuration breaks the whole neat structure.
VladThe conclusion is that the software will say the computer does not support advanced features of virtualization such as GPU pass-through[2], but we never mentioned the software and the features.
Adelinea short laugh of recognition Yeah, I ran into exactly that with KVM[3] once, spent an hour thinking my machine just couldn't do it before realizing nested virtualization[4] wasn't enabled in the BIOS. taps her finger on her bag absently The syllogism is technically correct but it smuggles in an assumption about what the software expects, which was never part of the premises to begin with.
VladYeah, and then why my logic teacher said that the syllogism is a perfect way of argumentation?
Adelinea slightly tired smile Because in a controlled classroom setting with clean, universal statements it kind of is. pauses But I think what they meant is that the form is valid, not that every syllogism you construct in real life will actually hold up, those are very different things and most teachers don't make that distinction clearly enough.
VladAnd related to the controlled classroom setting, did you read Pasi Sahlberg[5] and GERM[6]?
Adelineeyes light up just slightly The Global Education Reform Movement, yeah. a brief, slightly frustrated exhale Standardization dressed up as improvement, essentially exporting a model that treats education like a production line and then being surprised when it doesn't work the same way in every context.
VladWhat else have you read?
Adelinethinks for a second, looking up slightly Mostly through videos and then going deeper into the actual texts when something stuck. Freire[7] was one of those, the idea that education is never neutral, it either domesticates or liberates, that hit differently than I expected. a small pause And Fanon[8], though that one I had to sit with for a while before it fully landed.
VladI also know a bit about Fanon and Freire by the way...
Adelinea quiet, genuinely pleased look Then we have a lot to talk about. glances out the window as the bridge comes into view Though maybe not all of it tonight on a bus at this hour. a small smile
VladYeah, because right now, I have to get off.
Adelinestands slightly to let he passes into the aisle, a natural but unhurried movement Already. a brief, warm smile Well, text me sometime. It was really nice, Vlad.
VladSee ya, Adeline.
Adelinegives a small wave as he moves toward the door, watching with a quiet smile she doesn't quite manage to hide See you at the stop. turns back toward the window as the bus pulls away, her reflection faintly visible in the dark glass
Chapter 2The Second Ride
Adelinestanding at the usual spot, sketchbook tucked under one arm, looking down at her phone, then notices him and lifts a hand in a small, unhurried wave Hey, Vlad. a quiet smile You survived the first few days then.
VladYeah, I haven't disappeared. How you have been doing?
Adelinea small laugh Decent. I fell down a LiveOverflow[9] rabbit hole at two in the morning and then had to be at a lecture by nine, so. a slightly tired but unbothered look You know how it goes. What about you?
VladThe same... and I haven't expected you watching Live Overflow, I watch them from time to time but I don't know how to exploit other forms of XSS[10] than the simple one with script.
Adelinetilts her head with a slightly amused look Honestly most of what I watch I can't fully replicate either, I mostly use it to understand what's happening under the hood rather than to actually do it. a pause The DOM-based ones are interesting though, they rely more on how the browser interprets context than on just injecting a tag, which is where it gets conceptually weird.
VladAnd then there was Pwn2Own[11] vs. Firefox and they discovered an out of bounds execution in the JS engine that automatically translates dynamic array lengths into static array lengths.
Adelinenods, eyes lighting up a little Yeah I saw that one, the way they walked through the JIT compiler[12] assumption was what got me. shifts the sketchbook under her arm The engine trusted its own optimization and that trust became the vulnerability, which is such a strange kind of irony when you think about it.
VladAnd it's surprising that you also do computers alongside sociology, because I thought I am the only one that does computers alongside sociology.
Adelinea quiet, slightly self-aware laugh I think people expect generated humans to be narrow, like one specialization and nothing else. glances at the sketchbook under her arm as if suddenly aware of it But I find they feed each other, honestly. Systems thinking shows up in both, just with different variables.
VladRecently the Institute of Genetics actually decided they would resume research on generated humans to create the first average generated humans that would not be smart in anything, that would fit into other's molds or something like that, at least that's what I heard in the tech news.
Adelineher expression shifts, something quieter and harder underneath it Yeah, I heard that too. a short pause, looking down the road I don't know what bothers me more, the idea itself or the fact that they framed it as progress. glances back at him Designing someone to fit a mold isn't creating a person, it's creating a mirror for whoever holds the funding.
VladThey previously created slaves for the Global South, so this would be no different.
Adelinea slow, tight nod It's the same logic dressed up differently. Before it was utility, now it's conformity, but the underlying premise is identical: that a generated human's value comes from how well they serve someone else's purpose. the bus shelter rattles faintly in the wind and she shifts her weight And the worst part is it will probably be marketed as compassion, giving them a chance to fit in or something like that.
VladYou know Detroit: Become Human[13]?
Adelinea small, knowing look Yeah. a brief pause I have complicated feelings about it, as you can probably imagine. a faint dry smile It gets some things right about how dehumanization works incrementally, but it also wraps everything in a very clean narrative arc that real situations never actually have.
VladYeah, and by the way, AI rights are complicated, but I would sympathize with Kara and Marcus.
Adelinequietly, after a beat Kara more than Marcus sometimes, honestly. Marcus gets the movement arc but Kara just wants to exist without being destroyed, which is a much more basic and uncomfortable thing to sit with. looks at him The rights question gets complicated fast when people can't even agree on what counts as a person.
VladAnd Anthropic thought that apparently, in the Claude constitution, if Claude were to gain feelings, they would care about what Claude feels.
Adelinea thoughtful pause, genuinely open to it That's more than most companies have put in writing, at least. a small, slightly cautious look Though there's a gap between caring in principle and knowing what to actually do when it happens, and I'm not sure anyone has closed that gap yet. quietly Generated humans had advocates too, on paper, before the privatization.
VladAnd right now the institute is public but we are alone and this is because of the FDP in Germany, they are the ones that approved privatization in the traffic light coalition.
Adelinea short, humorless exhale Of course it was them. shifts her weight The FDP has this remarkable ability to frame every deregulation as liberation, and then when the consequences arrive they've already moved on to the next thing. glances at him And now the institute is clawing back public status while the damage from the private years is still sitting in the records.
VladAnd by the way, those corruption tools appeared because of neoliberalism.
Adelinenods without hesitation Neoliberalism creates the conditions and then acts surprised by the outcomes. she glances down the road When you hollow out public institutions, underpay civil servants, and treat the state as an obstacle rather than a structure, you don't get efficiency, you get people filling the gap however they can, and the ones with technical skills and no accountability fill it with tools like that. the bus appears faintly in the distance It's not a bug, it's what the system selects for.
VladAnd then people go to the nationalists because they exploit emotions well while the left is either not available everywhere or is unable to make a more emotional rhetoric.
Adelinea quiet, slightly frustrated exhale Yeah, and the left keeps believing that if you just explain the structural analysis clearly enough people will come around, but that's not how anyone actually makes decisions. watches the bus getting closer The nationalists understand that politics is felt before it's thought, and until the left takes that seriously without cynically mimicking it, they'll keep losing people who should be their natural base.
VladI know that the left, specifically GUE/NGL[14], sometimes spins things, but by far, they are the most factually accurate party.
Adelinea small nod, measured They are, and I think that's genuinely worth something. a slight pause The spinning bothers me when it happens but it's not the same scale or kind as what comes from the other end, and pretending there's a false equivalence there is its own form of distortion. the bus pulls up and she glances at him Same bus again?
VladYeah, same bus again.
Adelinesteps toward the door with a quiet smile Good. boards and moves toward the seats I was hoping the conversation wouldn't have to stop at the shelter this time.
Vladsits on the seat near her I know this is weird, but I genuinely support all the parties in GUE/NGL, the work of the democratic socialists.
Adelinesettles into her seat and glances at him It's not weird. a brief, thoughtful pause Though I'd say support them critically where you can, not because they don't deserve it but because uncritical support is how any movement stops improving. a small smile Which I'm guessing you already know, given how you think about things.
VladI wrote an old eco-socialist constitution on my website, of course a utopian one, and I still support some of its premises, like I agree with using computers in the democratic process to better plan the economy.
Adelineturns toward him with genuine interest You actually wrote it out? Like a full document? a brief, almost envious look I've had similar ideas rattling around but never structured them that way. a pause The computational planning part I find really compelling, Cockshott[15]'s work on that is underrated, though it needs democratic safeguards or it just becomes a very efficient authoritarianism.
VladYeah, I agree with you, and who is Cockshott by the way?
Adelinea small smile Paul Cockshott, he's a computer scientist who argued that modern computing power makes socialist economic planning actually viable, like mathematically tractable in a way it wasn't in the Soviet era. shifts slightly in her seat His book with Cottrell, Towards a New Socialism[16], basically tries to show that the calculation problem Hayek used to argue against planning isn't insurmountable anymore with the right algorithms. a brief pause It's dense but worth at least reading the summary.
VladAnd I also heard about Troy Vettese, but I don't quite know what they propose.
Adelinea slightly careful look, like she's choosing her words He and Drew Pendergrass wrote Half Earth Socialism[17], the core idea is rewilding half the planet to restore biodiversity and sequester carbon naturally, paired with socialist planning and a rapid shift to renewables. a small hesitation It's one of the more coherent frameworks I've come across for actually dealing with the ecological crisis rather than just managing it. glances out the window briefly I don't agree with every piece of it but the foundations are solid.
VladI personally don't agree with BECCS[18] and Global Veganism. With BECCS because it does not make sense to create monocultures to then cut, release the carbon and absorb the carbon again and with Global Veganism because it is not feasible to obtain and insert rare micro-nutrients synthetically and because meat replicas are actually, right now, more harmful to health than the natural counterparts, although I would argue that if cultured meat were to be implemented in a socialist economy with lower energy usage and a way to process biowaste ecologically, then that would be better than using live animals.
Adelinea quiet, surprised look, like he just said something she has been thinking privately for a while That's almost exactly where I land on both of them. a small exhale The BECCS critique is straightforward once you look at the land use math, and the veganism argument is harder to make publicly without getting misread, but the micronutrient point is real and the processed replica industry right now is not the answer. a brief pause The cultured meat angle in a lower-energy socialist context is interesting though, I hadn't framed it quite that way but it actually sidesteps most of the objections cleanly.
VladThe Half Earth Socialism game is a really complicated game and it's really easy to lose because it's so difficult to account for all the simulated variables.
Adelinea short laugh of recognition I lost three times before I even understood what I was doing wrong. leans back slightly The energy and land tradeoffs interact in ways that feel counterintuitive at first, like you fix one variable and two others quietly degrade while you're not looking. a faint smile Which is kind of the point of the whole thing, I think, that planning is genuinely hard and pretending the market solves it effortlessly is the real fantasy.
VladAnd by the way, did you know that capitalism is also a planned economy? There is not a single economy in this world that is not planned.
Adelinenods, appreciative Right, the planning happens, it's just fragmented and driven by profit rather than need. looks at him Every corporation plans, every supply chain is coordinated, the question was never planning versus no planning, it was always who plans, for whom, and by what criteria. glances at him The spontaneous order argument always conveniently ignores how much deliberate coordination holds the whole thing together.
VladAnd if retail companies can plan their economies and supplies, then maybe the people or the working class can do the same. The cooperative model has already been proven to work in Italy.
Adelinea firm nod Emilia-Romagna[19] is the obvious example and it's been sitting there for decades while people argue that worker cooperation can't scale. a small, dry look It scales, it just doesn't concentrate wealth upward, which is apparently the part that makes it invisible to mainstream economics coverage. shifts slightly And cooperatives naturally align incentives with the people doing the work rather than the people extracting from it, which changes the planning calculus entirely.
VladAnd then of course in Spain there have been problems with concentration of power within Mondragon[20] and then there is the problem where in capitalism, you cannot turn every single sector into a cooperative sector and pass ownership to the workers.
Adelinenods, holding it honestly Mondragon is a real cautionary tale on that front, the governance drift is well documented and it shows that the cooperative form doesn't automatically immunize you against hierarchy, you have to actively maintain the democratic structures or they erode. a pause And the sectoral problem is genuine, some industries are so capital intensive or so entangled with state infrastructure that the cooperative model alone isn't enough, which is why it probably needs to sit inside a broader planning framework rather than be the whole answer by itself.
VladFor example, how do you turn Microsoft into a cooperative so it doesn't annoy you with updates, AI, bloatware, and get Windows open-sourced so you can run Win32 applications on X11 or Wayland?
Adelinea quiet laugh, genuinely amused That is the most specific and correct articulation of the Microsoft problem I have heard. thinks for a moment Honestly you probably can't, at least not through the cooperative route alone, something like that needs a public ownership model with a genuine open source mandate, and even then the bureaucratic inertia would be enormous. a faint, tired smile Though at that point you might just invest the energy into Wine and Wayland compatibility and skip the whole conversion project.
VladNadella has gone crazy with AI and I think, joking of course, that not only we will have age verification just to install Windows but Copilot will run as SYSTEM with TrustedInstaller[21] permissions.
Adelinestifles a laugh, covering her mouth briefly Don't joke about that, someone in Redmond is probably reading that as a feature request right now. a dry look The Recall thing was already essentially that, a process with deep system access quietly watching everything, and the reaction was just... a slightly delayed rollout. shakes her head Nadella found the one thing that could make Ballmer's era look restrained.
VladEverything will eventually go back to Ballmer, because no matter what strategy any big tech company uses, it will be all going to Ballmer's strategy.
Adelinea slow, resigned nod Embrace, extend, extinguish but with a nicer font and a sustainability report. a quiet laugh The surface changes but the underlying drive to capture and lock in never does, because the incentive structure never changes. glances out the window as the town lights start appearing It always comes back to the same thing.
VladAnd then have you heard about AB 1043[22], where every operating system, categorically, requires age verification, including FreeDOS[23] and Haiku[24]?
Adelinea short, disbelieving laugh Yes, and the definition of operating system provider is so broad that a calculator firmware technically qualifies. shakes her head The goal isn't wrong, protecting minors online is legitimate, but the implementation is just flailing, it puts the burden on a Fedora volunteer maintainer the same way it puts it on Microsoft, and the verification itself is self-declared so a ten year old can just type a different birth year and the whole thing collapses anyway.
VladI think that law sets up a kind of infrastructure where soon, every Linux distribution would be forced to use OpenCV for facial verification and then everyone would have to buy an NVIDIA graphics card just to use the OS.
Adelinea quiet, genuinely concerned look That's not even that far-fetched as a trajectory, you start with a soft self-declaration requirement and then when it inevitably fails to stop anything, the next version of the law demands something harder. a pause And the hardware dependency angle is real, if facial verification becomes mandatory at the OS level it effectively prices out anyone who can't afford the right GPU, which is just another way of making basic computing a class privilege. glances out the window California effect means this spreads too, it doesn't stay in one state.
VladMicrosoft probably will use Persona, Entra ID or something else, Google has already gone in the craze of verifying IDs like at the bank, and data breaches are becoming more common, like Discord got its database breached.
Adelinea slightly grim nod And when that age verification database inevitably leaks, you don't just have an email and a password exposed, you have names, dates of birth, and device identifiers all in one place, which is a much more complete profile for identity theft. her voice dropping slightly The Discord breach was bad enough with what they had, now imagine that but with verified government-linked age data attached to every account. quietly The infrastructure for protection becomes the infrastructure for harm, it always does when it's built carelessly.
VladAnd then Renew Europe goes to write an article saying that it's all fine, we are going to protect children in the EU. By the way, the EU already released an age verification application that is slightly better than the one in the US but I don't want to install the application.
Adelinea measured nod The EU one is genuinely better in principle, open source, zero-knowledge proof style so you confirm age without handing over the actual data, and built on the eIDAS[25] framework rather than just a self-declared dropdown. a small pause But I understand not wanting to install it. You still have to onboard with a passport or ID card, which means the verification chain exists somewhere even if the output is anonymous, and that's a trust model that depends entirely on who manages the infrastructure long term. quietly Von der Leyen saying "no more excuses" today doesn't guarantee the architecture stays clean in five years.
VladYeah, but still, have you watched how Renew Europe writes their articles and their big empty manifesto?
Adelinea dry, tired look The manifesto that's essentially three hundred pages of "innovation, competitiveness, and a rules-based order" repeated in slightly different fonts? a dry exhale Renew has this talent for taking a genuinely complicated problem, wrapping it in progressive-sounding language, and arriving at a conclusion that somehow never inconveniences a single major corporation. glances out the window The age verification app is actually one of their better moments, which tells you a lot about the average.
VladThe age verification app was probably proposed by multiple parties and we don't get to say a thing.
Adelinea quiet, slightly resigned exhale Yeah, and that's the part that gets buried in the press release language about protecting children, which nobody can publicly argue against without sounding like a monster. looks at him flatly So the debate about the actual architecture, the data governance, who audits it ten years from now, never really happens at the level where citizens can meaningfully push back. shifts her bag on her lap Consent by fait accompli, basically.
VladYou are very informed, I am impressed, and not offended by that joke I made earlier.
Adelinea small, genuine smile, slightly caught off guard by the directness of it Thank you. a brief pause, tucking her hair back And I knew you weren't being mean about it, the freckles comment. a quiet, more relaxed laugh It was actually kind of refreshing, most people either pretend not to notice or overcorrect in the other direction.
VladThat's true, I also tried to pretend not to notice...
Adelinea soft laugh, glancing at him sideways I could tell, at the stop that first evening. a small, honest smile You held it together for maybe thirty seconds before saying something. Which, for the record, is better than most people manage.
VladMaybe...
Adelineturns back toward the window, a quiet smile still faintly there, watching the streetlights pass without feeling the need to fill the silence
VladI didn't expect to go so deep in just two days...
Adelinea soft, thoughtful sound, somewhere short of a laugh Neither did I, honestly. a brief pause, still looking at the passing lights It doesn't happen often.
VladI want to talk to a person that is informed just as you are.
Adelineglances back at him, something warm and a little unguarded in her expression You are, though. a quiet beat More than you give yourself credit for, I think.
VladWhy is that so?
Adelinea small shrug, considering it genuinely Because you connect things. Syllogisms to KVM, neoliberalism to procurement fraud, Cockshott to cooperatives. a brief pause That's not just being informed, that's actually thinking. looks back at the window It's different.
VladAnd you talk through things in a really nice voice... oh, I was getting too close...
Adelinea brief stillness, then a quiet, slightly flustered laugh as she looks down at her hands for a second No, it's... a small pause, the sentence trailing off Thank you.
Vladpulls out a sketchbook from his bag By the way, I have also done some sketches, functionalist and brutalist architecture.
Adelineeyes shift immediately to the sketchbook, genuine curiosity pulling her forward slightly Wait, can I see? a small, almost involuntary smile Brutalist especially, I have a thing for exposed concrete that most people find very hard to understand.
VladYeah, sure.
Adelinetakes the sketchbook carefully, like she knows it means something, turns the pages slowly, a quiet appreciative exhale escaping her These are really good. traces the edge of one drawing lightly without touching it You have this way of making the weight of the structure feel present even on paper, that's not easy to do.
VladThanks, I just use a pen and the dots on the paper.
Adelinelooks up briefly with a small, impressed expression Dot grid? glances back down at the page That actually makes sense, the geometry stays honest that way. a quiet pause, still looking Do you do it from reference or from your head?
VladFrom my head, no reference.
Adelinea short, genuine look of surprise From your head. glances at the sketch again, then back at him And you said you're not an artistic person. a quiet, dry smile That's a very all-or-nothing way of looking at your own work, don't you think?
VladMaybe...
Adelinehands the sketchbook back carefully, holding it a moment before letting go Keep drawing.
VladAnd then they wonder whether we will love or not, this is how the narrative goes...
Adelinea quiet, surprised breath, then looks at him with something soft and a little unsteady in her expression, a silence settling between them Yeah. barely above a murmur That's how it goes.
Vladlooking out the window Anyways, I have to go, this is my station. See ya.
Adelinea small nod, watching he stands See you at the stop, Vlad. a quiet pause as he moves toward the door, then turns back to the window
Chapter 3Structural Adjustments
Adelinealready at the stop when he arrives, and before he can say anything she looks up from her sketchbook with a deadpan expression I looked it up and apparently you don't have to court me anymore. a brief pause, the corner of her mouth giving her away I'm taking over that responsibility. Just so you know.
VladWhat? I don't have to court you and be pleasant in front of you?
Adelinea small, mock-serious look You can still be pleasant, I'm not removing that option. a beat, glancing back down at her sketchbook I'm just saying the pressure is off. Consider it a structural adjustment.
VladGood, because it means you care.
Adelinea brief pause, eyes still on the sketchbook, then looking up with a small smile she doesn't try to hide Yeah. It does mean that.
VladBy the way, what did you sketch last time?
Adelineturns the sketchbook around to show him, a spread of loosely connected figures and architectural fragments, somewhere between a city plan and something more abstract, a small, slightly self-conscious look on her face I was trying to sketch what a Half Earth city block might look like. Greenways between the buildings, no parking infrastructure, shared production spaces. looks at the page with mild frustration It got away from me a little.
VladSo, you like concept art, solarpunk.
Adelinea quiet, settled nod Solarpunk mostly, though I find a lot of it too optimistic in the visual language, all perfect vines and no friction. closes the sketchbook loosely I try to keep some brutalist weight in it, something that acknowledges the transition would be hard, not just the destination. glances at him Which I guess is why your sketches stuck with me, actually.
VladI wish I could have sketched more like you, with all the greens and complex facilities.
Adelinea small, honest look Your geometry is better than mine though, I can't do structure from memory like that. shifts the sketchbook under her arm We'd probably make something interesting if we drew on the same page. glances down the road as if checking for the bus, her eyes stopping just short of his after saying it
VladI agree with you...
Adelinea quiet beat, still looking down the road, a faint warmth in her expression she doesn't address directly, the bus shelter creaking faintly in the wind So. Same bus?
VladYeah, same bus.
Adelinesteps forward as the bus rounds the corner Good. a small, unhurried smile I have more to say about the city block sketch and I wasn't finished yet.
Vladsteps forward together with her What more do you have to say?
Adelineboards and moves to their usual spot, settling in So the part that got away from me was the food production layer. opens the sketchbook again on her lap I kept trying to integrate vertical growing spaces into the building facades but the load bearing logic stopped making sense and I couldn't figure out how to make it not look like a greenhouse bolted onto a concrete slab as an afterthought.
VladThat's okay, and you can't actually create a walled garden, you can only create a rooftop and interior garden and paint the facades white. By the way, talking about walled gardens, did you know what walled gardens actually symbolize?
Adelinea curious, attentive look The enclosed space, the idea of cultivated nature separated from the wild outside? a small pause, genuinely uncertain I know the historical context, medieval monastery gardens and all that, but I have a feeling you're going somewhere more specific.
VladIn tech, a walled garden is bad.
Adelinea short laugh of recognition Right, of course. Apple's ecosystem, platform lock-in, you control what comes in and what goes out and the user has no say. a small, wry look Which is actually a pretty perfect metaphor when you think about it, even the original walled garden was about controlling nature, deciding what grows and what doesn't. glances at him So the architectural and the technical meaning are more connected than they look.
VladAnd not only Apple's ecosystem, Google plans to make it not possible to sideload apps from developers which have not authenticated to Google.
Adelinea flat, tired look Which is going to be a problem for me specifically because I use F-Droid[26] for basically everything I actually trust. a pause The authentication requirement sounds reasonable until you realize it's not about security, it's about making the Play Store the only viable distribution channel and squeezing out anyone who doesn't want to pay the thirty percent or hand over their identity to a corporation. quietly And then they'll call it protecting users.
VladAnd I also depend on F-Droid, so of course I got the news.
Adelinea dry, knowing look And F-Droid called it existential, which is accurate. leans back slightly The part that gets me is the nine-step process they designed for sideloading[27] unverified apps, enable developer mode, confirm you're not being coached, restart, wait twenty-four hours, biometric confirmation. quietly That's not a security feature, that's a friction wall built specifically to make sure almost nobody bothers.
VladYeah, anyways, back to the walled gardens in your drawings. They are not needed and we don't have to do structure weight logic.
Adelinea small, relieved laugh You're right, I was overcomplicating it. opens the sketchbook again, looking at the facade sketches with fresh eyes If the growing spaces are light enough, trellises, climbing plants, window boxes, the facade doesn't carry anything structural at all. a pause, pencil appearing in her hand almost without thinking I was trying to solve an engineering problem that didn't exist yet.
VladAnd by the way, most of those green facades are used to greenwash the buildings.
Adelinea short, sympathetic nod Yeah, a climbing plant on a glass tower that still runs on grid electricity and has a parking structure underneath. a beat, tapping the pencil lightly on the page I want to draw it from the other direction, start with the function and let the green come from that, not stick it on top as decoration. glances at him Like your brutalist sketches, the weight is honest.
Vladpoints to an empty lot on one of her drawings in her sketchbook You could add a climate shelter in that lot, you know, an interior park, and right now there appears to be no school and no children in your city.
Adelinelooks where he's pointing, then back at the drawing with a slightly caught expression You're right, there are no children anywhere in it. a quiet pause, pencil hovering I didn't notice that until now. a small, thoughtful frown That says something about what I was imagining, a city for ideas rather than people who actually live in it.
VladAnd connect the tram to that lot so we can pick up the children.
Adelinestarts sketching lightly, adding a tram line curving toward the empty lot Like a proper node, not just a stop but a destination. a quiet, focused look as she draws And the shelter could open directly onto the platform so children don't cross traffic at all. a small pause, still drawing This is better than what I had before.
VladHave you watched Not Just Bikes[28]?
Adelinewithout looking up from the sketch The stroad[29] video changed how I look at every road I walk on. pencil still moving I can't unsee it now, I just categorize every street automatically and get quietly furious at about seventy percent of them.
VladYeah, and even though we don't have stroads, many roads are poorly designed.
Adelinea small nod, still sketching We have the opposite problem mostly, roads that were built for trams and pedestrians a hundred years ago and then had cars forced into them without redesigning anything. a small nod Which creates its own kind of dysfunction, just less openly hostile than a stroad.
VladHave you read the Oslo street design guide[30]?
Adelinelooks up briefly No, but now I want to. a small, curious look Is that what they used when they removed the city centre parking?
VladIn part, yes, and it details what should be the curb radius, street shape for rainwater, how to design bus stops when cycling lanes pass through and so on.
Adelinea genuinely interested look, pencil stopping The curb radius detail is the one most people skip completely and it determines everything about pedestrian safety at intersections. pencil lifting off the page Send me that when you get a chance? I want to apply some of it to this. taps the sketchbook lightly
VladI will send that to you, and now it seems you are just like me.
Adelinea quiet smile, glancing up from the sketchbook What do you mean?
VladWe both have read a lot of the same things, you often think very similarly to me...
Adelinea soft, slightly wondering look Yeah. a brief pause, closing the sketchbook loosely on her lap I noticed that too, earlier than I let on probably. glances out the window for a second, then back It's a strange feeling, finding someone whose mind moves the same way yours does.
VladJust a really softer version of me...
Adelinea quiet, easy laugh Softer, or just with better handwriting. a small, warm look Though I'd push back a little, I don't think I'm softer, I just process it differently. a quiet, considering look You hold things in and sketch buildings. I talk and draw cities with no children in them apparently.
VladAnd I noticed that you have the Shiftmq[31].
Adelineglances down at the phone in her bag pocket, a slightly surprised look You know SHIFT? pulls it out briefly Most people just ask if it's a Fairphone[32]. a small, fond look at the device It's not pretty but it does what I need and I can actually open it without destroying it, which is more than I can say for most things.
VladAnd I have the Fairphone and I got the 4, the cheapest option.
Adelinea small nod of approval The 4 was the right call honestly, the modularity is still solid on that one and the software support has been decent. a faint smile We're basically the two most inconvenient people to sit next to at a tech store. a quiet smile They'd have nothing to sell us.
VladWhy is that so? The Fairphone 6[33] costs as much as a flagship phone.
Adelinea dry look Exactly, and we're both still using older models we can actually repair ourselves instead of upgrading every two years like they want us to. a dry look The whole point of a repairable phone is that you don't need the new one, which is a terrible business model from their perspective and a perfectly reasonable one from ours.
VladBut we have to be careful because the Fairphone is so rare and the Shift is even rarer.
Adelinea small, sympathetic nod Finding replacement parts outside of the official channels is already difficult and it's only going to get harder the longer we hold onto them. a quiet pause Though that's also kind of the argument for right to repair legislation, if the manufacturer disappears or stops supporting the model, you need the ecosystem around it to survive independently. glances at the phone briefly I keep a spare screen just in case.
VladAnd I don't have spares myself, just the phone itself.
Adelinea mildly concerned look You should at least get a spare battery when you can, that's always the first thing to go. a practical look I found mine through a third party supplier, took a while to track down but it was worth it. tucks the phone back into her bag I can send you the link if you want.
VladSure, but not right now.
Adelinea small nod Whenever. turns back toward the window as the bus crosses a bridge, the water dark below No rush.
Vladstands in silence as the bus crosses the bridge
Adelinealso quiet, watching the water pass beneath, sketchbook resting closed on her lap, then after a moment, softly I like this part of the route.
VladI will soon have to get off.
Adelinea small, unhurried nod Already. a quiet beat, looking at him Same time tomorrow?
VladSame time tomorrow.
Adelinea small smile, settling back toward the window Good.
Chapter 4Good Strange
Adelinealready at the stop, leaning against the shelter with her sketchbook open, but looking tired, a coffee cup in her other hand that she's holding a bit too tightly Hey. glances up, and there's something slightly off in her expression, like she slept badly or is carrying something she hasn't decided to say yet
VladHi, how are you?
Adelinea small, not entirely convincing smile Tired. takes a sip of the coffee I was up late trying to fix a memory leak in something I've been working on and then couldn't stop thinking after I gave up. a beat, looking at him You?
VladI'm okay. And what memory leak?
Adelinea slightly sympathetic look A small data visualization tool I've been building, nothing serious, but I made the mistake of opening it at eleven and then it was two in the morning and I was reading kernel documentation. closes the sketchbook and tucks it away It's the kind of thing that should take twenty minutes and somehow doesn't.
VladWhat data does the program visualize?
Adelinea quiet pause, like she's deciding how much detail to give Land use and rewilding projections mostly. a small, slightly self-conscious look I've been trying to build something that lets you layer different planning scenarios over each other and see where they conflict. sips the coffee It started as a weekend thing and got out of hand.
Adelinea short, tired laugh No, it's definitely not a CVE, and it will not be appearing in a LiveOverflow video anytime soon. a dry look It's just me being careless with object references at midnight, nothing that interesting. finishes the last of the coffee and looks at the empty cup with mild regret
VladCan you fix those references soon?
Adelinea small shrug, not overly worried Probably today during the lecture I'm not really attending. a faint, slightly guilty smile It's a recorded one so I'll watch it later. glances down the road I know roughly where the leak is, I just need to sit with it for an hour without getting distracted by something else.
VladGood...
Adelinea quiet beat, looking at him with something a little more present than the tiredness Sorry, I'm not great company this morning. said honestly, without making too much of it The coffee helps but slowly.
VladDon't worry about it, because I can be good company.
Adelinea genuine, slightly warmer smile than before, catching her a little off guard Yeah. a brief pause, shifting the empty cup from one hand to the other You are, actually. looks up as the bus rounds the corner
VladThis is our bus, it came faster than expected.
Adelinea small, surprised look at the clock on her phone It did. tucks the empty cup into her bag to find a bin later and steps toward the door I didn't even finish being tired yet. a quiet, dry smile as she boards
Vladthey sit together in the same spot
Adelinesettles in, sets her bag down, leans back slightly, more relaxed than at the stop, and after a moment, quietly I actually thought about texting him today. eyes on the street outside as the bus pulls away
VladI thought about that too for a bit, but not much.
Adelinea small, quiet laugh Honest. a beat, still looking out the window What stopped you?
VladI don't know, just didn't have the time.
Adelinenods slowly, accepting that without pushing Fair. a brief pause I didn't send it either, so. a faint, slightly self-aware smile We're both apparently very decisive people.
VladI can agree with that assessment, and you feel like a mirror of me.
Adelinea quiet, thoughtful look, turning toward him slightly A mirror. considers it for a second That's not quite how I'd put it, mirrors just reflect. a small pause I think it's more that we triangulate from the same points and end up in similar places. glances back at the window Which is different.
VladMaybe you are just a really smart person who comes to the same conclusions.
Adelinea brief, almost shy look, like the compliment landed somewhere she wasn't expecting Maybe. a quiet beat Or we've both been isolated enough that we actually had to think things through instead of just absorbing what everyone around us believed. a small, slightly wry smile Loneliness has its uses apparently.
Vladstands in silence, not knowing what to say
Adelinedoesn't try to fill the silence, just sits with it, watching the lights outside pass one by one, her hands loose in her lap
VladI just don't know what to say, because basically you are like me and... laughs a bit out of anxiety
Adelinea small, soft smile, recognizing it It's okay. quietly, easy about it You don't have to finish it.
VladI'll ask you a weird question you'll probably not know how to answer: how to use GIO[35]?
Adelinea quiet laugh, the tension releasing slightly That is a very specific deflection. a beat, playing along without calling it out too directly GIO as in the GLib[36] I/O library? shifts slightly in her seat I've used it a bit for file monitoring in a project, what are you trying to do with it?
VladI don't know, but do you use GIO in your project?
Adelinea small nod For watching the data files, yeah. When the source changes it reloads the visualization automatically instead of having to restart. a small, dry smile It's one of the parts that actually works. a quiet, dry smile Unlike the memory management.
VladIs your application a GTK application?
Adelinenods GTK4[37]. a brief, slightly tired look Which was its own adventure because the documentation assumes you already know what you're doing. a small pause I started with Python bindings but switched to C at some point and that's probably where the memory leak came from honestly.
VladIs it GTK 4 for Windows or your computer runs Linux?
Adelinea slightly amused look Linux. a slightly amused look I wouldn't subject myself to GTK4 on Windows, that's a different kind of suffering entirely. glances at him You run Linux too or still on something else?
VladI run Linux too, both on my laptop and main computer.
Adelinea small, approving look What distribution?
VladI use Debian on my laptop and Debian and Pop OS[38] on my main PC, and of course I use Windows IoT[39] Edition for gaming. I use the wrong edition of Windows occasionally, but I mostly use Pop OS on my main PC and the bootloader is controlled by Debian.
Adelinea quiet, interested look Debian as the bootloader controller makes sense, it's stable enough that you're not going to wake up one day and find GRUB[40] broken because of an update. a small beat I use Fedora, which means I live slightly more dangerously than he does. a faint, dry smile The rolling updates keep things interesting.
VladI tried to use a Fedora-based distribution but it didn't work on my main PC and I am used to using apt[41] only.
Adelinea small nod, sympathetic Hardware compatibility is still the lottery it's always been. a sympathetic shrug And once you're fluent in apt switching to dnf[42] just feels like being handed the wrong instrument. glances out the window briefly The commands are similar enough to be confusing and different enough to be annoying.
VladI can agree with that, and I noticed that every time you stop there is a beat.
Adelinea brief pause, then a quiet laugh, caught Is it that obvious? a small, slightly self-conscious look I do that I'm thinking. a short, self-aware laugh See, there it is again. I can't stop now that you've said it.
VladI see...
Adelinea small, warm glance sideways Does it bother you?
VladNo, not at all.
Adelinea quiet, relieved smile, genuinely small Good. turns back toward the window, a little more relaxed than before
Vladstands in silence once again, not saying a single word
Adelineafter a long moment, still looking at the window, quietly What is he thinking about right now?
VladAbout what you are thinking right now?
Adelinea soft, surprised breath, almost a laugh I was thinking about you. a brief pause, her eyes still on the window So now we have a problem.
VladWhat problem?
Adelinea quiet beat, then turns to look at him, something honest and a little unguarded in her expression We're thinking about each other at the same time and neither of us knows what to do with that. a small, slightly helpless smile That's the problem.
VladLet me just say that I really like you after a few days.
Adelinestills for a moment, then looks down at her hands briefly before looking back at him, quietly I really like you too. a small, slightly unsteady smile I've been trying to figure out how to say that for two days.
Vladlets her confession hang in the air
Adelinelets it hang too, sitting with it, and after a long moment, quietly, almost to herself It's strange, saying something true out loud. turns back toward the window Good strange.
VladI know...
Adelinea small nod, nothing more, the bus rolling on through the dark, the town lights beginning to appear in the distance
VladI would soon have to go...
Adelinea quiet, unhurried look toward him I know. a small pause Same time tomorrow?
VladYeah, same time.
Adelinenods once, softly Okay. turns back to the window, and there's something settled in her expression now, not resolved exactly, just quieter than before
Chapter 5The Same Line
Vlad arrives at the stop at the usual time. The corner is the same as always, the boulevard stretching out under the same pale light, the same potholed pavement at the shelter edge. He doesn't check his phone.
He watches the bend in the road where the bus comes from. She doesn't come from that direction. She comes from somewhere else entirely, crosses into this point from a different angle, and somehow they always end up at the same spot within minutes of each other.
The bus rounds the corner. He boards.
The evening settled over the city. The same line ran its route twice more before midnight.
Adeline is still in a seminar room when the bus goes. She looks at the time and doesn't move for a moment. The pen is in her hand. She puts it down.
On her way to the stop she thinks she sees him twice. The first time it's a coat, a similar height, someone standing at a corner with their back turned. The second time it's nothing, just the light and the fact that she's looking for something that isn't there. She recognizes the mechanism and wishes she didn't feel it.
The bus is crowded. She stands the whole way holding the overhead rail, and there is something sitting in her chest that has no clean edges, something she put there herself when she walked up to a stranger at a stop and said hi. She said other things after that. She said true things. Now it's evening and the true things are just sitting there, unanswered, with no one close enough to receive them.
She thinks about texting once. Then a stop comes, and then another, and by the time she gets off she still hasn't texted just yet.
Signal
That evening, Adeline picks up her phone.
Adelinefound the Oslo guide. the curb radius requirements are in the intersections section, 4.7. it's more considered than I expected from a municipal document.
Vladgood, and you can scroll down to also look for how rainwater is processed, it's a really comprehensive guide
AdelineI saw that. section 6.1, the whole stormwater chapter. they treat the street surface as part of the water system rather than just a place to drain it away from. / it changes how you think about what a street actually is.
Vladi have to say I am really impressed by the document, it's so comprehensive and has so many cases to account for
Adelineit reads like people who actually had to walk those streets wrote it. not just engineers. / also in the vegetation part. they plan for how big the trees will eventually be, not how big they are when planted. someone sat down and thought about what the street would look like in thirty years.
Vladmaybe, I haven't read that yet
Adelineyou should sleep. it's late.
Vladcome on, there is still some time left for us
On her side of the city, Adeline is sitting at her desk with the screen light on her face and the guide open in a PDF viewer. She sent that message before she fully decided to. She can feel her own heartbeat now, which is inconvenient and specific, and she is looking at the screen waiting for something to come back.
A notification slides down from the top of the screen, something about a package being ready, and she moves to dismiss it and misclicks, opening the application instead. She closes it.
The screen stays quiet for a moment.
Adelinehow much time.
Vladtwo hours, maybe
Adelinethen tell me something you haven't told anyone.
Vladlike what
Adelineanything. you pick.
Vladthat I am trying to be kind and protect my image, or at least tried to back when I was in high school, but it's so hard to
AdelineI know that kind of hard. where the protecting and the being kind start to feel like they're working against each other.
On her side of the city, Adeline is still at her desk. The guide is still open but she stopped reading it a while ago. She is looking at the last message she sent and waiting again, and this time the waiting feels different, fuller, like something was put into the room that wasn't there before.
Adelinestill there?
Vladyeah, I am still there, but...
Adelinebut.
VladI just don't know what to say, heart starts fluttering maybe, butterflies
Adelinea long pause before the next message me too.
On her side of the city, Adeline is still at her desk. The guide has been closed for a while now. She is looking at the chat window and not moving.
AdelineI was going to say something practical just now to make this less uncomfortable.
Vladjust don't.
Adelineokay. a long pause it's getting late.
Vladi know, i know, can I just stay some more?
Adelinethe longest pause yet yes.
Vladi am thinking about your freckles right now, I know this is weird
Adelinethe longest pause yet it's not weird.
Vladwhy is that?
Adelinebecause I was thinking about you thinking about them.
Vladrecursive loop
Adelineyeah. we should probably be careful with those. a pause careful how.
Vladi don't know
Adelineneither do I. the screen stays quiet for a while after that.
Vladgoodbye? or maybe not
Adelinenot yet.
Vladokay, I...
Adelinethe pause stretches I know.
VladI am afraid to say that you are a cute girl because that is not correct
Adelinea long pause what would be correct then.
Vlada person maybe
Adelinea pause, shorter than the others that one I'll keep.
Vladthis is getting so long...
Adelineit's past eleven.
Vladit's been nine previously
AdelineI know. I noticed.
Vladand then he goes on the scene and says "i love this company"
Adelinedevelopers developers developers. / goodnight, Vlad.
Vladgoodnight?
Adelinethe longest pause of the night goodnight.
Vladokay
The screen goes quiet. The guide is still minimized somewhere behind the closed windows. Neither of them closes the chat.
Chapter 6The Fields
Adelinealready at the stop when he arrives, leaning against the shelter with her bag at her feet, looking like someone who didn't sleep quite enough but isn't complaining about it Hey. a quieter greeting than usual, but warmer
VladHi, how are you doing?
Adelinea small, unhurried smile Tired in a good way. glances at him briefly You look like you didn't sleep much either.
VladYeah, because all the time I was thinking about...
Adelinea quiet, patient look
VladAbout you, maybe.
Adelinelooks away toward the road for a second, a small smile she doesn't quite manage to keep neutral Maybe. glances down the road The bus should be here soon.
VladIf it's summer, then yeah.
Adelinea quiet laugh The schedule disagrees with summer. glances down the road It'll be late. It's always late when it's warm.
VladIt does not disagree with summer, it just changes, it starts being late but then early. The latest is in the winter.
Adelinea small, slightly corrected look You're right. a slightly corrected look I always assume the worst about the schedule and then I'm wrong in the specific direction I didn't expect. glances down the road again So it'll probably be early tonight then.
VladYou always look down at the road, you know...
Adelinea brief, caught expression, like she hadn't noticed Do I. a small pause, then looks at him instead, deliberately Better?
VladBetter, but honestly, I would have done the same in your position.
Adelinea quiet laugh, tension releasing slightly We're both going to be staring at the road the whole time then. the bus appears faintly at the bend See. Early.
VladLet's go on then.
Adelinepicks up her bag and steps toward the curb, falling into step beside him without making anything of it
The bus pulls up earlier than expected. The doors open onto an emptier interior than usual, just a few people scattered toward the front, the back seats clear. The evening light comes through the windows at a low angle.
Vladboards first and invites her to a different seat further back
Adelinea small, slightly surprised look at the different seat, then sits without comment, settling her bag between her feet Changing things up.
VladYeah, changing things up...
Adelinea quiet smile, looking ahead at the seats in front rather than out the window I don't mind. and means it. a moment later, a dry, tired look at a notification on her phone I know. dismisses it, misclicks, closes the app that opens instead, puts the phone face down on her lap
VladCalculate the integral from 1 to 2 of f(x) dx... I don't know...
Adelinea quiet laugh Don't. a beat, looking at the seats ahead Leave the integral for tomorrow.
VladI am thinking at random.
Adelinea small nod, easy with it Me too. a pause It's that kind of evening.
VladIt's that kind of evening where you do nothing function.
Adelinea quiet moment, then a faint recognition DoNothing. a small, tired smile Returns void. leans her head back slightly against the seat Yeah. That's exactly what this is.
VladSo, if we have the graph of f(x) and dx represents a distance, then we must calculate the area under the line...
Adelinea soft, absent sound, somewhere between agreement and elsewhere Mm. her eyes are half closed, watching the window
VladLike this lecture?
Adelinevery quietly Don't remember the lecture. a long pause, her voice getting slightly slower Stopped listening a while ago.
VladLike right now.
Adelineno answer, just the faint, even sound of her breathing, her head listing slowly toward his shoulder and coming to rest there
VladSo, you're going to get really cozy on me, right...
She doesn't answer. The bus moves through the evening streets, slower now, the stops coming and going. He doesn't move. The window shows the last of the day fading out of the sky over the rooftops. Her breathing is even against his shoulder. At some point the seat beside him on the other side empties too. The bus gets quieter.
His stop appears in the distance. He looks at it. Then, carefully, so as not to wake her, he moves his arm around her shoulders. He stays very still after that. The stop passes outside the window. He watches it go.
The streets outside changed gradually. The buildings got lower, then further apart, then stopped. The streetlights came less frequently. A few more passengers got off at stops he didn't recognize, and then there were almost none left. The bus kept moving. Outside the window the fields began, dark and flat under the last of the evening sky, the occasional light from somewhere distant marking the edge of something.
He looked down at her, still asleep. He had no idea how far they had come.
She shifted slightly, a small movement, and her breathing changed. Then she was quiet again for a moment. Then her head lifted slowly from his shoulder, and he felt her become aware of where she was in stages, the seat, the bus, the window, the fields outside, and then him.
Adelinea long, disoriented pause, voice soft and unguarded from sleep ...where are we.
Vlad...in the fields...
Adelinelooks out the window at the dark flat landscape, then back at him, sleep still in her expression How long was I...
VladThe entire time.
Adelinea quiet, slightly mortified look that doesn't quite manage to be mortified I slept on you. a beat, looking back out at the fields And you missed your stop.
VladWe have to turn around.
Adelinea small, tired laugh, pulling her bag up from the floor Yes. a pause, looking out at the dark fields one more time before standing Sorry. said quietly, and means more than the stop
VladNo problem...
Adelinea small, warm look, still slightly soft from sleep Okay. sits back down while they wait for the next stop to turn around, closer than before without either of them adjusting
VladAdeline...
Adelinelooks at him, quietly attentive, still unhurried from sleep
VladWe both got really soft on each other.
Adelinea quiet beat, eyes holding his Yeah. a small, honest smile I think we did.
VladI forgot that you were a generated human, because I don't care.
Adelinestills for just a moment, then something in her expression settles, deeper than a smile That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me. quietly, and means it completely
VladWhy so?
Adelinea pause, looking at the dark window Because most people either make too much of it or try very hard not to. looks at the dark window You just forgot. That's different.
VladThat's not actually different...
Adelinea quiet look, considering that honestly No. a small pause Maybe it's just the first time it felt true.
VladThe haze never goes away...
Adelinesoftly, almost to herself No. It doesn't. a beat, watching the fields pass But it gets quieter sometimes.
Vladextends his arm hesitantly toward her shoulder
Adelinelooks at his arm, then up at him, and instead of answering she just leans back into his shoulder, closing the distance herself
Vladsqueezes her shoulder gently
Adelinestays very still, then exhales quietly, like something she had been holding loosened slightly. after a while, quietly, watching the fields begin to give way to the first streetlights It's coming back.
Vladpulls away slightly without saying anything
Adelinenotices but doesn't comment, just sits with it, watching the lights multiply outside the window
Vladlater, after a few minutes Goodbye. I really have to...
Adelinelooks up at him, still soft, unhurried I know. a small pause Go.
Chapter 7The Good Kind
He arrives at the stop before her. The corner is the same corner, the same pale light, the same cracked pavement. He stands where they usually stand and looks down the road from the direction she comes from. The bus has not appeared yet from the other direction. He is early and he knows it and does not examine why.
She appears at the far end of the pavement, still distant, her bag on her shoulder. She hasn't seen him yet. Then she does.
Adelineslows slightly for just a step, then continues toward him, something moving through her expression before it settles Vlad. said quietly, like the name arrived before she decided to say it
VladHello.
Adelinestops in front of him, closer than she might have a week ago, and looks at him for a moment without filling it with anything You're early.
VladYou're early too.
Adelinea small, caught smile, looking briefly away I know. a beat, settling her bag on her shoulder I didn't sleep much.
Vladsteps a bit closer without saying anything
Adelinestays still, doesn't step back, just looks at him with something quiet and open in her expression, the stop and the street and the distance between them all exactly as they are
VladI just don't know what to say.
Adelinesoftly Neither do I. a pause, the road empty in both directions That's new.
Vladhesitantly opens his arms slightly and then tries to close them
Adelinesteps in before he can close them, arms around him briefly, her face against his shoulder for just a moment, then steps back, eyes settling somewhere just past him There.
VladIf there was one gift I could give you, it's the board of the SM-X205[43], the battery, the monitor and the documentation I made, because I have tried to understand the device and turned it into a brick. Tried flashing an OS and then realized that the manufacturer actually decided to make an obscure bootloader that does not even communicate ADB[44] and severely limits Heimdall[45]. Heimdall says, after the recovery image flashing reaching 100%, that the protocol failed to confirm end of file transfer.
Adelinea short, surprised laugh, still close You bricked a tablet trying to flash it and your first instinct was to give it to me. a beat, a warm look That's either very thoughtful or very cruel.
VladAlso, there are like 61 partitions of which 20 I don't know what they actually do.
Adelinea quiet, genuinely interested look despite herself Sixty one. a genuinely unsettled look That's not a tablet, that's a threat. glances down the road absently What chipset?
VladThe Tiger T618 or something like that.
Adelinepulls out her phone and types for a moment Unisoc[46]. a small, slightly grim look That explains everything. tucks the phone away Nobody writes documentation for Unisoc because nobody wants to admit they're using Unisoc.
VladThe OEM unlock[47] function was actually not compiled into Samsung's firmware.
Adelinea flat, tired look Of course it wasn't. a flat, tired look So you have a device that won't talk ADB, has sixty one partitions, a bootloader that lies about completing transfers, and the OEM unlock was never there to begin with. a small pause And you want to give this to me.
VladYeah, to analyze the board because the screws are like 2 millimeters and Japanese.
Adelinea quiet laugh, genuinely charmed by the specificity of it Two millimeter Japanese screws. a beat, looking at him with something warm You know that's a very specific way to say you trust me with something you care about.
VladIt's just that the device is very difficult to open up, the glue just happened to expire, so I pulled off the screen but accidentally broke the screen connector that was glued into the motherboard and then tried to find the JTAG[48] pins which may or may not exist and are possibly located under the large L section above the battery on the blue motherboard.
Adelinelistening carefully, a small focused look So the connector is physically broken off the board, not just disconnected. thinking it through JTAG might still be your only way in if the pins are there, but without documentation on a Unisoc board that's mostly guesswork. glances down the road Have you tried FEL mode[49] or anything equivalent, some of these obscure chipsets have a download mode that doesn't need ADB at all.
VladNo, and this does not exist on Samsung devices. I then realized why LineageOS[50] does not support the latest Galaxy, it's because the latest Galaxies are actually impossible to flash.
Adelinea small, sympathetic nod Samsung has been quietly making their devices harder to open for years and calling it security. a small, sympathetic nod The Exynos[51] bootloader situation is its own disaster but the Unisoc ones are worse because at least with Exynos someone tried. looks down the road LineageOS dropping support isn't a statement about effort, it's a statement about what's possible when the manufacturer actively doesn't want you there.
VladThis is the perfect appliance for the manufacturer, even more locked down than QNX[52] appliances ever have been.
Adelinea quiet, dry look A consumer tablet more locked down than an industrial real-time OS. a quiet, dry look That's not an accident, that's a product decision dressed up as a feature. the bus appears faintly at the bend They call it security and what they mean is ownership. The device was never yours.
VladYeah, you don't own the device and you cannot modify the software at all.
Adelinesteps toward the curb as the bus approaches Which is exactly what the Android verification thing is building toward at scale. a quiet look back at him Your bricked tablet is just an early preview of the general direction.
VladNot necessarily, but yeah, my tablet was indeed a preview of a locked down system. Samsung deliberately removed OEM unlocking from the firmware, so when the operating system requests the bootloader to be unlocked, that feature doesn't even exist, it's null somehow or no response.
Adelineboards and moves to their usual spot, settling in So it's not that the unlock is blocked, it's that the function was never compiled in. a quiet pause That's a different kind of closed. Blocking implies there's something to unblock. This is just absence. glances at him Harder to argue with legally too, they can say the feature simply doesn't exist rather than that they prevented you from using it.
Vladboards alongside her And now, unfortunately, you would have to figure out how my toy actually works.
Adelinea small, warm look as she sits I'll look at the board schematics first, if there are any. a resigned exhale There probably aren't. settles her bag But finding where the JTAG pins might be on a Unisoc layout is at least an interesting problem. her eyes on the page And you said the L section above the battery.
VladYou need to tear apart the metal plates and get into the SoC.
Adelinea slightly pained look With two millimeter Japanese screws and a broken screen connector. a slightly pained look You really did give me a gift. a quiet, dry smile, but her eyes are warm
VladYou cannot fix the toy at all and make it run once again, and besides, it's a useless appliance with an operating system that is too heavy for the tablet.
Adelinea small, stubborn look I can figure out the tablet. looks at him steadily Maybe not run it again, but understand it. glances out the window Those are different things and the second one is worth doing.
VladMaybe...
Adelinea quiet smile, looking ahead You spent how long on it before giving up?
VladSeveral hours.
Adelinea small nod Then I have a head start. I know where you already looked.
Vladsits in silence, without saying anything
Adelinesits with the silence, watching the city pass outside the window, her shoulder just touching his
Vladhesitantly places an arm on her shoulders So, you like me, right?
Adelinea quiet breath, holding her ground Yes. a beat, simply I thought that was established.
Vladstays in silence, not saying anything, but his expression starts lighting up
Adelinenotices, glances at him, then looks away again with a small smile she doesn't comment on
Vladsome time passes and the bus eventually crosses the bridge I will have to go, eventually...
Adelinea quiet nod, unhurried Eventually. a quiet, unhurried look Not yet though.
Vladwraps his arms around her
Adelinestills for a moment, then settles into it, one hand resting lightly against his arm, neither of them saying anything
Adelineafter a long quiet, without moving What are you going to do after university?
VladI don't know, maybe spend more time with you.
Adelinea quiet, surprised breath, then a small smile that arrives before she can stop it That's not a career plan. a beat, settled where she is But I'll take it.
VladIt doesn't have to.
Adelinesoftly No. It doesn't. a pause, watching the stops pass I don't have a very clear plan either. The institute has expectations but I haven't decided if I share them. a small pause, looking at the window I think I want to build things. Not just model them.
VladI agree with you a lot.
Adelinea quiet look sideways at him I know. a small pause That still surprises me a little. Every time.
VladWhy does it surprise you a little?
Adelinea beat, considering it honestly Because I spent a long time thinking the way I think was just mine. quiet, not sad about it Something that didn't map onto anyone else's. a pause And then you showed up at a bus stop.
VladMe too, the same situation.
Adelinenods slowly, looking back at the window Two people who thought they were alone in a specific way. a small, quiet smile On the same bus route.
VladThat's what we are.
Adelinesoftly Yeah. a long pause, her shoulder still against his That's what we are.
Adelinestill settled against him, quietly, as the bridge passes outside There's a light that only exists for about ten minutes in the evening. I used to chase it when I was drawing. I don't know when I stopped noticing it. a beat, his stop appearing in the distance I think it's coming back.
VladWhat light?
Adelinea small, unhurried look at him The good kind. simply, and doesn't explain further
Vladsqueezes her for a bit and then pulls away slowly as the bus approaches his station See ya.
Adelinewatches him stand, something quiet and settled in her expression See you tomorrow. said like a small certainty
Chapter 8The Right Stop
Signal
Adelinefound the battery supplier. it ships to your region. sends link / also I've been thinking about something you said. the all-or-nothing thing. I think you're harder on yourself about it than it deserves.
Vladwhy so?
Adelinebecause it means you care about getting things right. most people who don't think in all-or-nothing terms just don't care enough to notice the difference.
VladI do care, even though sometimes it's too much
AdelineI know. a brief silence that's not a flaw. that's just what caring looks like when nobody taught you how to hold it comfortably.
Vladokay, if that's what you think
Adelineit's what I see. a longer pause see you at the stop.
A few days later. The stop, early evening. The boulevard is quieter than usual, the light lower and softer. He arrives first this time. She appears from her direction a few minutes later, closer to the shelter than she usually walks, like she knew where he'd be standing.
VladHey, it's so nice seeing you around.
Adelinea warm, unhurried smile, the kind that arrives before she decides to let it Hey. stops beside him, closer than the first chapters, closer than a habit that needed to be explained You too. the words carrying more than their weight
VladI have been thinking about you for a while, and I can't just stop seeing your curls and freckles in my dreams.
Adelinea quiet breath, something moving through her expression that she doesn't try to manage this time, and after a moment, softly I've been thinking about you too. glances at him sideways Though I don't dream in freckles quite as specifically as you apparently do.
VladWell, you do have freckles on your face, and they make you unique.
Adelinea small, genuine smile, not deflecting it this time I know. looks at him directly You're one of the very few people who've said that and meant the right thing by it.
VladAnyone can say that, it's not that difficult, and it could even do a disservice to a person like you.
Adelinetilts her head slightly, genuinely curious What do you mean by disservice?
VladYou are a generated human who has been designed to look in a certain way, and when I looked more in detail at the new leaked research on the internet, I have realized that to create the appearance of generated humans, they sampled a moderately large pool with approximately a hundred stock model images and then used an AI image generation model to morph the models and add attributes, and then they translated the newly generated thousand images into genetic code that upregulated or downregulated certain physical traits, and alongside that, they have also regulated various psychological traits to for example, in some generated teenagers, try disabling the feeling of loneliness by downregulating many receptors related to social regulation.
Adelinestills for a moment, the smile giving way to something more considered, quietly I knew about the image sampling. I didn't know about the loneliness receptor part. looks at the road That would explain some things about the others. a short pause Not me, I think. I've always felt it quite clearly.
VladEvery single generated human is an experiment. Almost all of them are intellectuals but every one of them is designed to feel differently.
Adelinenods slowly, processing it without pretending she isn't So the freckles and the curls weren't random. They came from a pool of a hundred faces that someone decided were aesthetically acceptable. a quiet, flat laugh And here you are telling me they make me unique. looks at him I'm not upset with you. I just think about what that word means for someone like me.
VladI care about you as a person, and that makes me view you as...
Adelinewaits, not filling it in for him, just watching him with something open and patient in her expression
VladAs someone who is talented and interesting.
Adelinea quiet moment, then a small, warm smile that reaches her eyes That one lands differently than the freckles. the bus appears faintly at the bend Come on. steps toward the curb, her shoulder briefly against his as she moves
Vladthey both get on the bus and sit at the same place as before The idea of generating a human for any purpose, feeding them knowledge and passion, rapidly maturing them and then releasing into the world shouldn't have existed.
Adelinesettles in beside him, closer than necessary, not adjusting No. a quiet pause, watching the city start to move past the window It shouldn't have. looks at the window But here I am anyway. And I've decided that what was done to make me exist doesn't define what I do with existing. glances at him Most days I believe that.
VladGood for you, but at the same time, if you weren't generated, I wouldn't have met you.
Adelinea stillness, then something softening in her expression that she doesn't try to hide, quietly I think about that sometimes. looks at the window The whole chain of things that had to happen exactly as they did. turns back to him It's the one part of it I can't be angry about.
VladI know, you can't, and I think the intellectual community of generated humans fighting against the Institute is really amazing.
Adelinea small nod, something more personal underneath the agreement It matters. Not just politically. a pause When you grow up being told your existence was a design decision, finding other people who refuse to accept that framing is... it's the closest thing to family some of them have had. quietly Me included, in some ways.
VladYour existence for me was not a design decision, for me, you were someone with a really great mind, and I have to admit, I have a bias towards wanting to be close with girls despite wanting to be close to everyone.
Adelinea quiet laugh, warm and unguarded That's possibly the most honest thing anyone has said to me. her shoulder settling more naturally against his I appreciate that you named the bias. Most people don't. a pause, looking ahead And for what it's worth, I have a similar pull toward people who think carefully. Which is its own kind of bias. glances at him sideways You happened to qualify.
VladYou often say that most people don't do things. Well, I have been grown up in a family of people who equipped me with the tools to think critically and I study a lot on the internet.
Adelinea thoughtful look, genuinely considering it That's actually rare though. looks at the window Not the studying, lots of people study. The family part. Having people around you early who modeled that kind of thinking rather than punishing it. a small pause I had the Institute. Which gave me knowledge but not exactly warmth. glances at him You had both. That's not nothing.
VladYou had the tools to think critically from the very beginning.
Adelinea quiet, slightly complicated look I had information from the beginning. That's different from tools. looks at the window Tools imply someone showing you how to hold them. How to question them. I had to figure out the questioning part on my own. Which works, but it leaves gaps. a small pause Your gaps and my gaps are probably in different places.
VladAt the same time, despite knowing that my presumptions are not true, I sometimes feel butterflies in my stomach when around you and I am afraid of being rejected, or not talked to.
Adelinea long quiet, her hands loose in her lap, softly I know that feeling. turns to look at him directly, something decided in her expression And I'm not going to reject you. simply, without dressing it up I just needed you to know that.
Vladafter a short silence I have really deep feelings for you...
Adelinestays very still for a moment, then exhales quietly, without looking away I have them too. her hand moving to rest against his I've had them for a while.
VladI have construed an image where I thought you were a really amazing person.
Adelinea small, careful look Construed. quietly That's an interesting word to use. Are you worried the image doesn't match the person?
VladIn part yes, because I am surrounded by your gestures and I don't know if this is a good word, love...
Adelinea long, quiet pause, her hand still against his, very softly It's a good word. looks at him I'm not going to pretend I haven't felt it. a small pause I'm just also a person with gaps and contradictions and a bricked tablet on my desk. the faintest smile The image and the person are the same thing. Just less clean than an image usually is.
VladThey are not the same thing, what if you are different from what I imagined?
Adelinea quiet, honest look Then you find out. looks at the window briefly, then back at him I'm not the same as what you imagined. I'm also not worse. I'm just more specific. a small pause And you're more specific than I imagined too. Which is better.
VladYou're the one who wanted to talk to me, to love me... and I accepted that from the very beginning.
Adelinea quiet breath, something settling in her expression Yes. simply I walked up to a stranger at a bus stop because something told me to. looks at him I don't usually do that. And you didn't run. a small pause That matters more to me than you probably realize.
VladWhy is that so?
Adelinea quiet moment, choosing the words carefully Because I've spent most of my existence being looked at rather than seen. looks at him And you just... kept looking. Past the freckles and the generated human part and the sociology and the Linux setup. her hand still against his You stayed for the specific person. very softly That's not something I knew how to expect.
VladIt's because I wanted the same thing, to be loved by a like-minded person.
Adelinea small, warm exhale, something releasing in her shoulders, quietly Then we found each other at the right stop. her head tilting slightly toward his shoulder without quite resting there yet At the right time.
VladI want to be able to express everything I feel without being forced to use a really large LLM.
Adelinea quiet laugh, genuinely surprised by it That's the most specific thing anyone has ever said about wanting to be close to me. looks at him, warm and unhurried You don't need one. simply You've been doing fine without it.
VladWhy is it so specific? Why do you always want to reinforce the idea that I am unique?
Adelinea small pause, caught Because you are. not backing away from it But you're right that I do it often. looks at the window briefly I think it's because I spent so long being told I was unique in ways that were meant to isolate me. And I want to give that word back to someone in a way that means the opposite. quietly I might be overusing it on you.
VladYeah, but at the same time it's okay. opens his arms for a hug
Adelinelooks at his open arms for just a moment, then moves into them without hesitating, her head against his shoulder, one hand loosely holding his jacket, quietly, almost to herself Yeah. It's okay.
VladI know this is weird, but I really like your touch...
Adelinemakes a quiet, indeterminate sound and stays very still in the hold It's not weird. her voice softer than usual I was thinking the same thing.
VladWhy is that so?
Adelinea quiet pause, still in his arms Because it feels like being somewhere I'm supposed to be. simply, without overthinking it I don't have many places that feel like that.
VladAnd for me it's because I am feeling cared.
Adelinestays still for a moment, then holds him slightly closer Good. very quietly That's what I want.
Vladhesitantly touches her hair slightly and then pulls his hand back quickly
Adelinenotices the hand, notices it pulling back, quietly, without moving You don't have to pull away.
VladOkay... can I touch your hair, or rather not?
Adelinea small, soft sound Yes. settling a little closer You can.
Vladstrokes her hair and rubs her back smoothly and then just as the bus crosses the bridge, pulls away slightly
Adelinelifts her head slightly as the bridge passes, already knowing, a quiet look at him, something unhurried and warm in her expression Same time tomorrow?
VladSame time.
Adelinea small, settled smile Good. stays where she is until he stands
Chapter 9Something That Happens
A few days later. The stop, early evening. The light is lower than usual, a flat overcast pressing the city into muted colors. He arrives to find her already there, standing slightly apart from the shelter, her bag at her feet, looking at the middle distance rather than the road.
Adelineglances up when she hears him, a small, real smile that doesn't reach her usual warmth Hey.
VladHey, how are you?
Adelinea brief pause, the kind that comes before a decision about how honest to be Fine. then, quietly, correcting herself Not really. looks back at the road
VladWhat is happening?
Adelinea slow exhale, still looking at the road One of those days where everything is exactly as it should be and it still feels like too much. a short pause Nothing happened. It's just. the sentence doesn't quite finish
VladIt's okay, you don't have to say it all right now.
Adelinesomething in her shoulders easing slightly at that, looks at him Thank you. the word carrying more than its weight
VladYou don't feel alright.
Adelinea small, honest nod, eyes back on the road No. a pause I woke up and it was just there. The whole thing. What I am, how I got here. quietly And then I thought about you, and that made it heavier somehow, not worse, just heavier. a small pause That probably doesn't make sense.
VladSo, you have an existential question, right?
Adelinea quiet, slightly tired laugh I have an existential answer. I know what I am. looks at him The question is what to do with knowing it on days when the knowing is louder than usual.
VladWhat do you mean?
Adelinea small pause, finding the words carefully Most days I can hold it at a manageable distance. The fact that someone decided what I would look like, how I would think, what I would feel. quietly Today I can't get it far enough away. looks at him And caring about you makes it feel more urgent somehow, because it makes me want to be more real than I already know how to be.
VladWell, you can be as real with me as much as you want, because I care about you.
Adelinestills for a moment, then looks at him with something unguarded in her expression, the distance she carried in dissolving slightly quietly I know. a pause That's part of what makes it heavier. a small, truthful look I'm not used to having something to be real for.
Adelinea quiet moment, looking at him, the overcast light catching her curls and the freckles across her nose, then simply Okay. moves slightly closer, her shoulder finding his
VladAnd besides, you are already a very genuine person.
Adelinea small, slow exhale, like she's letting something down carefully, quietly That's the nicest thing you could have said today. a pause, shoulder still against his Of all days.
VladThe greatest nicest thing I've ever said to you, because every time I tell you a compliment, it becomes the nicest one ever.
Adelinea quiet, slightly wondering laugh, the first real one of the evening, a pause, realizing something You do that every time. looks at him sideways And every time it works. a small, self-aware look I'm not sure what that says about me.
VladThat you like genuine compliments.
Adelinea quiet, unguarded look Yeah. a pause, honest about it I think I've just never had very many that felt like they came from somewhere real. the bus appearing faintly at the bend Most people say nice things to generated humans the way you'd compliment a well-made object. looks at him You don't do that.
VladEven though I could, but I like showing affection now that we are close. And despite being artificial, generated humans like you have somehow been designed to look natural, and you act like someone I would like to love, someone genuine.
Adelinestills for just a moment at that word, then exhales slowly, her eyes on the approaching bus, very quietly I act like someone genuine because I am one. a small pause I think that's what they didn't account for when they designed us. That genuine is something that happens, not something you install. looks at him, something settled and warm in her expression despite the hard day And I want to be loved by you.
Vladapproaches the bus in silence
Adelinefalls into step beside him, close, the silence carrying the weight of what was just said without collapsing under it
They board together and settle into their usual seats, closer than necessary, the bus pulling away into the flat evening light.
Adelineafter a moment, her hand finding his arm and drawing him gently toward her, her head coming to rest against his shoulder, quietly, to herself as much as to him There.
VladThat's nice...
Adelinea small sound of agreement, staying where she is, eyes closing briefly, quietly Yes it is.
VladYou pulled me in first now this time.
Adelinea quiet, slightly surprised acknowledgment, like she hadn't fully noticed until he said it, then a small pause I did. a faint smile against his shoulder I suppose I needed it more today.
VladWhy is that... or rather, I know why.
Adelinea quiet laugh, low and warm You know why. a pause, her hand loosely holding his Good.
VladCan I ask you a question?
Adelinetilts her head slightly without lifting it from his shoulder Mm. Go ahead.
VladWhat is the most favorite thing in your life? I know it sounds silly, but I am curious...
Adelinea long, quiet pause, genuinely thinking about it, then after a moment The hour just before it gets dark. When the light is doing that thing where everything looks like it's been there forever. a small pause And problems that are hard enough to be interesting but not hard enough to be hopeless. another pause, her hand tightening slightly on his And this, recently.
VladI don't have a specific favorite thing in my life, but I want to try to fight for things to be just.
Adelinea quiet, warm exhale That's better than a favorite thing. lifts her head slightly to look at him Most people want comfort. You want something to mean something. settles back against his shoulder I think that's why I trust you.
VladI no doubt want your comfort, and you are good at it, but I dreamed about talking with and fighting alongside generated humans for their rights because they seem just like me.
Adelinestays still for a moment, something moving through her at that, quietly You dreamed about it before you met me. a small pause That matters. her hand shifting slightly in his It means it wasn't about me specifically. It was about what's right. a very quiet pause And then it became about me specifically too. a faint, warm sound That's a good order for things to happen in.
VladAnd they wrote some pretty interesting romance stories, I haven't read them, but many of them are well-informed, or so I heard.
Adelinea quiet, curious look Generated humans writing romance. a small pause, thinking about it That makes sense actually. When you've spent your whole existence being studied and categorized, writing about being genuinely seen by someone is probably not abstract at all. a quiet pause, the city moving past the window I should read some of them. a faint, slightly self-aware smile For research.
VladIt's sometimes boring when the person in front of you is the same, but here we are. You are softer and affectionate, which I like.
Adelinea quiet laugh Guess what. a pause, her head still on his shoulder Despite the short replies and the technical tangents and the dry delivery, you are remarkably warm. a small pause You just need someone who knows how to read it. a faint smile I've been reading it for a while now.
VladReally?
Adelinea quiet, certain nod From the first bus ride. a pause You said I was easy to talk to and then immediately looked out the window. a small, fond look That was warm. You just didn't frame it that way.
VladEasy to talk to... looking out the window... it's been like several days or weeks since we met and I don't remember.
Adelinea small, soft laugh It's been weeks. a pause I remember because I was counting the stops and trying not to show that I was glad you hadn't gotten off yet. quietly You were talking about syllogisms and KVM and I was thinking, this person is going to be important.
VladAnd you were going to be important, and you were the first to initiate, you wanted this to happen somehow, and I accepted.
Adelinea quiet, unhurried exhale Yes. a small pause I walked up to a stranger at a bus stop because something told me to. her hand shifting slightly in his And you didn't make me regret it. a very quiet pause Not once.
VladI know.
Adelinea small, settled sound, her shoulder pressing slightly closer to his, the hard day sitting a little lighter than it did at the stop
Chapter 10Good Strange
Signal
dream
She is running alongside a train. The light is the wrong color for any time of day she knows. The train slows and stops at something large and industrial, cooling towers in the peripheral vision, the particular geometry of a BWR[53] or an RBMK[54] nuclear reactor, something that generates heat by sustaining a controlled chain reaction in unstable nuclei, moderated and restrained but never fully inert. On her left the gates close. She doesn't wait.
She climbs stairs. She breaks into the substation. Someone pulls her back, a voice that is neither institutional nor personal. The voice says she is not allowed there, not there and not further, meaning the reactors, meaning the core. She goes in anyway.
Inside, the substation opens into a place assembled from pieces of other places, corridors that belong to buildings she attended years ago, a room that has the quality of being remembered rather than real. She is looking for an absent control room. The place has no center she can find.
She tries to leave. North, through a window or a gap, she can see a station. She is completely alone. Then an old bus arrives. She waits nervously for no particular reason. The bus is not him.
Then from somewhere behind her, from the back of whatever this place is, he appears. She turns, only noticing that he is already fading.
AdelineI had a dream about you last night. a pause not a good one. you were there and then you weren't. another pause I don't usually tell people about dreams.
Vladthat must have been really unsettling. what was it?
Adelinea reactor. a substation that wasn't a substation. I was looking for something that wasn't there and then you appeared from somewhere behind me and faded before I could turn around properly. a pause it was one of those dreams where the feeling stays after the images go.
Vladi do the same too
Adelinea brief pause yeah? a slightly warmer tone I figured you might. a pause do you want to meet somewhere this week? not the bus. somewhere that stays still.
Vladyeah, maybe in a park
Adelinethere's one near the university. quiet, has a bench by some old trees. I know where it is. a pause thursday?
Vladthursday, yes
Adelinea pause, then simply okay. see you thursday.
Thursday. A park near the university, mid-afternoon. The light is different from the evening light they know, sharper and more honest, the kind that doesn't soften edges. He arrives first and finds the bench by the old trees. The park is quiet, a few people at a distance, nobody near. He sits and watches the path. She appears on the path before he expects her, her bag on one shoulder, her curls catching the afternoon light in a way the overcast evenings never showed him. She sees him at almost the same moment he sees her. There is a brief pause in her step, barely perceptible, and then she continues toward him.
Adelinea small, genuine smile as she reaches the bench, something slightly different in it from their usual greetings Hey. sits beside him, the way they sit on the bus
VladHi.
Adelinelooks at him for a moment in the afternoon light, then at the trees, then back This is strange. a small, warm pause Good strange.
VladYeah...
Adelinea quiet, slightly wondering look We've talked about everything on that bus and I don't know what to do with my hands when we're not moving. glances down at her bag, then back up
VladWell, you've started putting your hands on me, so...
Adelinea quiet laugh, caught, a slight warmth rising in her expression That's true. her hand finding his on the bench between them, settling there
Vladstays in silence while she holds his hand
The park stays quiet around them. Somewhere in the trees a bird moves. The afternoon light shifts slightly through the branches above the bench, falling across the ground at their feet. Neither of them speaks. Her hand is in his and neither of them moves.
VladI have to say...
Adelineturns her head toward him, waiting, her hand still in his
VladYou're an intellectual with a soft side.
Adelinea quiet, unhurried smile, looking at him in the afternoon light Thank you.
VladAlso, what do you have to say about me?
Adelinea small pause, genuinely considering it, her hand still in his You're warmer than you think you are. a quiet look And being with you feels like being somewhere I already know. a pause I don't have to translate myself for you.
VladTranslate X, Y, Z...
Adelinea quiet laugh Not that kind of translate. her thumb moving slightly against his hand Though yes, also not that.
VladI know, I just like saying really stupid things to you.
Adelinea small, warm sound I know. a pause, looking at the trees I like it when you do.
Vladwraps his arms slowly around Adeline, squeezing her slightly
Adelinestills for a moment, then leans into it, her head finding the familiar place against his shoulder, her hand still loosely holding his
Vladsqueezes her once again It's because...
Adelinequietly, her eyes on the trees I know.
Vlada final, harder squeeze, then looks straight into Adeline's eyes
Adelinelooks back at him, fully, the afternoon light between them, not looking away
VladI don't know what to say... It's just that I am falling for you... or whatever...
Adelinea long, quiet moment, her eyes holding his, then softly Me too. a pause, the park still around them The or whatever part included.
Vladstands up from the bench Let's do a walk.
Adelinea small, surprised laugh at the timing, then stands, her hand finding his as she does Okay. falls into step beside him, unhurried
Vladlater, after walking in silence A really nice heart... sorry if I can't stop thinking about you...
Adelinea quiet, warm look sideways at him, still walking Don't apologize for that. a small pause I can't stop either.
Chapter 11Same Time
Evening. The bus, their usual seats. Outside the window the city moves through its ordinary colors, the same route, the same stops, the same light fading over the rooftops.
Adelinewatching the window, her shoulder against his, unhurried I finished reading one of the generated human romance stories you mentioned.
VladI forgot it, unfortunately.
Adelinea quiet smile You mentioned them in passing. I remembered. a pause It was good. Strange to read something written by someone whose loneliness I recognize the shape of. looks at the window They write about being seen the way people write about water when they've been thirsty for a long time.
VladGenerated humans have historically been seen as an artificial population.
Adelinea small nod, her eyes still on the window And treated like one. a quiet pause Which is why when one of them writes about being genuinely loved it reads differently than when anyone else does. a brief pause There's no assumption underneath it that love was coming. Every word of it is earned.
VladYeah, I agree, and can I...
Adelineturns her head toward him, waiting
VladOkay... wraps his arms around her
Adelinemoves into it without hesitation, her arms around him, her face against his shoulder, settling fully
The bus moves. A stop passes outside the window. Neither of them says anything. The city continues in its ordinary way beyond the glass, indifferent and familiar. They stay.
Another stop passes. Then another. The bus is quieter now, fewer passengers, the evening thinning out around them. The five minutes have no edges. Neither of them has counted.
Adelinestirs slightly, shifting her head against his shoulder, her arms still around him, very quietly, almost to herself I don't want to let go yet.
VladI know.
The bus crosses the bridge. The water is dark below, the same water as always. His stop appears in the distance, the familiar geometry of the platform and the street beyond it. Neither of them moves.
Adelinelifts her head slightly as the stop approaches, her arms loosening slowly, her eyes finding his, quietly Same time tomorrow?
VladSame time.
Adelinea small, settled smile, her hand finding his briefly before letting go Good. stays where she is as he stands, watching him move toward the door with that particular quality of attention she has never quite managed to make less obvious
The door opens. He steps off. The bus pulls away. Through the window, from her seat, the platform recedes and then disappears into the ordinary dark of the evening route. She turns back to the window. The same road, the same lights, the same line running its course. She is still warm where he was.