Adi’ra had expected many things: perhaps a cautious smile, perhaps a hug, perhaps that brief moment in which two people look at one another and silently assess what four years have done to the person standing in front of them.
They had not expected this.
Alexia pushed back her chair before Adi’ra had quite reached the table.
She was slimmer than they remembered, though not fragile. Quite the opposite. Beneath the dark fabric of her top, her shoulders and arms looked lean and trained, almost sinewy. Her hair fell across one side of her face, and for a fraction of a second Adi’ra registered only details: the fine lines around her eyes, a small crease beside her mouth that had not been there before, and the scent of something warm and faintly woody.
Then Alexia’s arms were around them, decisive and completely unhesitating.
“You damn creature!”
That was all she said before she kissed them.
Not on the cheek, and certainly not cautiously.
Her mouth found Adi’ra’s with the confidence of someone for whom the missing years had been little more than a catastrophic communications failure that had, at last, been repaired.
Adi’ra’s body responded before their mind had managed to classify what was happening.
Warmth, pressure, Alexia’s body against their own, one hand at the back of Adi’ra’s neck.
Something deep inside them loosened even as memories surged upward, unorganized and far too quickly: a sofa, Alexia’s bare shoulder in the light of a monitor, laughter in the dark, an argument, a look held far too long across a kitchen table, skin, and a door that at some point had remained closed.
Four years, Adi’ra thought.
And kissed her back.
It lasted only a few seconds. Perhaps longer.
Time was an exceptionally unreliable instrument in moments like these.
When Alexia finally pulled away, she remained close enough for Adi’ra to feel her breath against their skin.
Her eyes moved over them, not casually, but thoroughly.
“Yes,” Alexia said at last.
Adi’ra raised one eyebrow.
“Yes, what?”
“You’re still you.”
“Was that a matter of serious speculation?”
The corner of Alexia’s mouth twitched.
“With you? Always.”
There it was again, that small pull somewhere between the breastbone and the stomach.
It was not being in love.
Not anymore.
Too much had happened, and too many lives lay between then and now. Some of those lives they had actually lived; others they had only almost lived.
What remained felt softer now, warmer, and perhaps even more stable.
Adi’ra took hold of Alexia’s forearms and squeezed them briefly.
“Hello, Lex.”
For the slightest moment, Alexia’s expression changed.
Then she smiled.
“Hello, Adi’ra.”
Only then did Adi’ra notice that people at two neighboring tables were looking at them.
An older woman immediately returned her attention to her sundae. A man sitting with a child was grinning, while the child appeared considerably more interested in the half-melted chocolate sauce on their plate.
Good.
The world could continue.
Adi’ra sat down, although their legs still seemed unconvinced that the previous twenty minutes were over.
The journey here remained lodged in their nervous system: the crowding, the voices, too many bodies, too many movements occurring at once, the displays on the train, the announcements one after another, and the metallic scream of the wheels through a curve that nobody else seemed to consider particularly loud.
And then there had been that one person who had looked at Adi’ra for much too long.
Perhaps entirely harmless.
Perhaps not.
Their brain had not yet reached a verdict.
Alexia sat down opposite them, and only then did Adi’ra notice what was underneath the table.
Olive drab. Cordura. Laser-cut surfaces.
Tasmanian Tiger.
It was not new. The fabric had faded slightly along some of the edges, there was abrasion on the bottom, and one zipper had a pull loop that was clearly no longer original. Even so, the backpack did not look worn out.
It looked used.
There was a difference.
Adi’ra knew it.
They looked back up.
Alexia had noticed the glance.
Of course she had.
“Later.”
Adi’ra remained silent for a moment.
“I didn’t ask anything.”
“You just asked about seven questions.”
“Without speaking.”
“You were always loud when you were thinking.”
This time the smile came by itself.
“You haven’t changed at all,” Alexia said, leaning back.
“That is an extraordinarily bad lie.”
«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»
Alexia had imagined this moment differently.
Several times, in fact.
On the train, while waiting, and once more when she spotted Adi’ra moving through the crowd outside.
In none of those imagined versions had she stood up and simply kissed them.
It had been stupid and impulsive and, very probably, exactly right.
Four years could change a person. Names could change, bodies could change, clothes, posture, the weight that experience placed across a face.
Some movements remained.
Adi’ra still had that tiny delay whenever something unexpected happened, perhaps half a second in which perception came first, analysis second, and reaction only afterward.
There had been times when it drove Alexia insane.
Today, she had missed it.
She watched Adi’ra scan the room again.
Not conspicuously.
A glance toward the glass frontage, the door, the counter, outside for a moment, and then back to her.
Alexia remembered that too, although it had been less pronounced in the past.
“You’re tense.”
“I just took the subway.”
“That accounts for about half of it.”
Adi’ra looked at her.
There.
Exactly that expression.
Which half? On what basis? Which observation led you to that conclusion?
Alexia nearly laughed.
Instead, she picked up her water glass and drank.
“You’re checking the exits.”
“Occupational habit.”
“You’re sitting with your back to the wall.”
“Coincidence.”
“You identified my backpack in less than five seconds.”
“It’s olive, tactical, and large.”
“And you looked at the door when a vehicle slowed down outside.”
Adi’ra said nothing.
Alexia set down her glass.
“That is what I mean.”
For several seconds, only the sounds of the café remained between them: spoons touching porcelain, overlapping voices, and the steady hum of refrigeration behind the counter. Outside, a delivery vehicle sounded a brief signal before its electric motor disappeared almost silently into the traffic.
The transparent sunshade on the window automatically darkened as the sun emerged between two clouds.
Almost everything looked normal.
That had become one of the problems with normality.
It could look remarkably convincing even while it was already beginning to fall apart.
“Are you all right?” Alexia asked.
Adi’ra opened their mouth.
Alexia raised one finger.
“Not the functional answer.”
Adi’ra closed their mouth again.
Good.
Direct hit.
“Define all right.”
“Asshole.”
“That is not a definition.”
“Adi’ra.”
This time there was no counterattack.
Their eyes dropped to the table.
“I’m functioning.”
“I specifically excluded that answer.”
“Then the answer becomes more complicated.”
“We have time.”
Alexia’s thoughts flickered toward the backpack beneath her feet.
Perhaps they had less time than Adi’ra believed.
But that could wait for another moment.
«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»
The sundae between them had been a bad idea.
Not because of the flavor.
Hazelnut, dark chocolate, vanilla. Traditional. Nothing an algorithmic menu could market as a postmodern interpretation of Alpine dessert culture.
Adi’ra liked traditional things when the world became complicated.
The problem was that they had been holding the same spoon for several minutes without actually using it.
“You’re letting your ice cream die of heatstroke,” Alexia said with a grin.
Adi’ra looked down.
The chocolate around the edge had already begun dissolving into the vanilla.
“Entropy.”
“Eat.”
Adi’ra took a spoonful.
Cold, sugar, hazelnut.
The sensory clarity genuinely helped.
“Better?”
“Marginally.”
“I’ll take marginally.”
Alexia had already eaten almost half of her own sundae.
That, too, felt familiar.
Adi’ra moved the spoon through the softening chocolate.
“Why did you message me?”
Alexia did not answer immediately.
That was unusual.
In the past, she had sometimes begun speaking before other people had finished asking their questions.
“Because I saw your name.”
Adi’ra looked up.
“Where?”
“Somewhere I wasn’t expecting to see it.”
Something tightened inside them, not strongly, but like a thin wire being drawn taut.
“That is impressively imprecise.”
“Deliberately.”
“Leeex.”
“I know.”
Alexia glanced aside.
At the far end of the café, a service robot rolled between two rows of tables, stopped beside a family, and raised its tray by a few inches. The employee behind the counter paid it no attention.
Adi’ra waited.
Eventually Alexia looked back.
“Three days ago, I was looking for someone else.”
“Who?”
“Not important.”
“That usually means important.”
“Not this time.”
Adi’ra let it go.
For now.
“And while you were looking for them, you found me.”
“I found something that led to you.”
That was different.
“What?”
“A data record.”
The thin wire tightened further.
“Public?”
“Not exactly.”
“Government?”
“No.”
“Commercial?”
“No.”
“Lex.”
“Adi’ra,” Alexia murmured, leaning closer, “this is exactly why I didn’t want to ask you about it through any channel.”
Adi’ra’s gaze moved almost automatically toward their own device as they leaned forward as well.
Alexia noticed.
“No.”
“No what?”
“Not here.”
“You’re sitting in an ice cream café in the middle of—”
“Exactly. In public.”
She spoke quietly.
Perfectly calmly.
Adi’ra stopped asking questions.
Out loud, at least.
Inside their head, the questions continued multiplying.
Where could Alexia have obtained the record? What did led to you mean? How unambiguous was the connection? Which identity? Which period? Which systems? Which names?
An old reflex had already begun constructing a complete model from inadequate information.
Adi’ra stopped it.
Not enough data yet.
Alexia watched them.
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Thirty possibilities at once.”
“More like twelve.”
“Liar.”
Adi’ra did not smile.
“How serious?”
Alexia looked at them for several seconds.
“Serious enough that I haven’t slept at home.”
Adi’ra’s eyes dropped beneath the table again.
This time, the backpack was no longer a backpack.
It was information.
«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»
Alexia had expected this moment.
Not the kiss, but this: the instant Adi’ra understood why the thing beneath the table was there.
Their face barely changed.
Anyone who did not know Adi’ra might have missed it entirely.
Alexia saw it immediately.
Their shoulders became slightly quieter.
Not more relaxed.
Quieter.
That was worse.
Adi’ra was switching modes.
Emotion back.
Analysis forward.
“How long?”
“Two nights.”
“Where?”
“Different places.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Has anyone followed you?”
“Not that I can say with certainty.”
“You’re unsure?”
Alexia exhaled.
“Same vehicle twice. Different locations.”
“License plate?”
“Different.”
“Then it wasn’t the same vehicle.”
“Same damage on the front right.”
Adi’ra went silent.
“Model?”
Alexia told them.
“Color?”
She answered.
“Time between sightings?”
She answered that too.
Question by question, precise, without panic and without drama.
It was one of the reasons Alexia had contacted Adi’ra in the first place.
It was also one of the reasons she was worried.
They took in the information like components, sorting it, testing it, fitting pieces together.
In the past, some small uncertainty would eventually have followed: a look, a breath, perhaps an actual sentence.
Could still be coincidence.
Alexia waited for it.
It never came.
“We’re going to Glinde,” Adi’ra said.
Alexia blinked.
“What?”
“Not immediately. We stay another few minutes, pay normally, leave normally, and then we go to Glinde.”
There was something there.
Not in the decision itself, which was reasonable enough, but in the speed with which it had arrived.
“Wait.”
Adi’ra looked at her.
“What?”
“You don’t know everything yet.”
“I know enough.”
“No.”
“You haven’t slept at home for two days, and you’re sitting here with a packed backpack.”
“Yes.”
“You believe somebody may be watching you.”
“I consider it possible.”
“You contact me after four years through an indirect route, and you refuse to discuss certain things within reach of electronic devices.”
“Also correct.”
“Then Glinde makes sense.”
“That isn’t my point.”
Adi’ra frowned.
Alexia suddenly remembered exactly what conversations like this had once felt like: two people building a complicated model together while each insisted that their own piece belonged in the center.
“You decided on the answer before you had the remaining data.”
“No.”
The no came too quickly.
Alexia noticed.
“So you did.”
“I made a preliminary decision.”
“You usually call that a hypothesis.”
Silence.
Direct hit.
Adi’ra’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“And?”
“Today you’re calling it a decision.”
For a moment, they looked genuinely unsettled.
Only a little.
Enough.
Alexia placed one hand on the table.
“I’m not saying Glinde is wrong.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“That you sound different.”
Outside, a monorail crossed the intersection. Its signal reached them only faintly through the glass.
Adi’ra looked toward the window.
“Four years.”
“What?”
“You haven’t seen me in four years.”
“And?”
“People change.”
“Of course they do.”
Alexia studied them.
“But not every change is meaningless.”
The sentence remained.
It settled somewhere inside Adi’ra’s mind without immediately finding a category.
They disliked sentences like that.
Not because they were wrong, but because they had a habit of returning later.
Usually at inconvenient times.
Adi’ra finally took another spoonful of the ice cream, which by now had almost completely melted.
“And you?”
Alexia raised her eyebrows.
“What about me?”
“You’re talking about how I’ve changed.”
“Diversion.”
“Entirely correct.”
“At least you’re honest.”
Adi’ra looked at her.
Alexia had changed.
Of course she had.
It was simply more difficult to name the change because old memory and present perception kept overlapping.
Her face had grown softer while her movements had become more precise, and she sat differently now, more fully inside her own body.
There had been moments in the past when Alexia seemed to be constantly reminding herself how much space she was allowed to occupy.
That was gone.
“You seem settled,” Adi’ra said.
Alexia’s expression shifted slightly.
“That is dangerously close to a compliment.”
“I can retract it.”
“Don’t you dare.”
The final words dropped abruptly into a much lower register.
A baritone.
Dry, deep, and almost comically authoritative.
Adi’ra stared at her.
Then the laughter broke loose.
Not polite laughter.
Not controlled laughter.
Real, physical laughter that began somewhere deep in their abdomen.
“You can still do that?”
Alexia grinned, and her voice returned to its usual softer, higher register.
“Certain tools are worth keeping even if you don’t need them very often.”
“Holy shit.”
“I occasionally use it on men who have trouble understanding the word no.”
“That is unfair.”
“That is efficient.”
Adi’ra was still laughing, and for perhaps thirty seconds there was no data record, no mysterious vehicle, no unknown surveillance, and no past that had resurfaced somewhere inside a system.
There was only Alexia, Adi’ra, the ice cream café, and melting chocolate between them.
It hurt how good that felt.
Not painfully.
More like a part of the body suddenly receiving blood again after having been numb for a very long time.
Adi’ra looked at her.
“I missed you.”
This time, Alexia had no clever answer.
She simply looked back.
“I missed you too.”
Nothing more was necessary.
«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»
Alexia would have liked to take Adi’ra’s hand.
She did not.
Some old movements did not need to be repeated automatically merely because the body still remembered them.
The kiss had already been enough.
Perhaps more than enough.
She was still glad she had done it.
For a moment, Adi’ra sitting across from her seemed closer again to the person Alexia remembered.
Then something vibrated.
Not loudly.
Adi’ra’s wristband.
Once.
Their gaze dropped toward it.
Alexia saw their pupils widen almost imperceptibly.
A message appeared on the inside of the narrow display, positioned so that only Adi’ra could read it.
“What?”
Adi’ra did not answer immediately.
“Adi’ra.”
“Nothing.”
“That is probably the second-worst answer you’ve given today, immediately after I’m fine.”
Adi’ra brushed a finger across the display, and the message disappeared.
“System notification.”
“What system?”
“HESAYA.”
Alexia knew the name.
Not the system in its present form, but the name.
“The house?”
“More than that by now.”
“Of course.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You give a home automation system a name, and twelve years later it’s probably running half a county.”
“Only a very small county.”
Alexia waited.
“What did HESAYA want?”
Adi’ra glanced briefly toward the windows.
“She detected an unusual external request.”
The humor disappeared.
“What kind of request?”
“Still unclear.”
“When?”
“Seven minutes ago.”
Alexia instinctively glanced toward her own device, then stopped herself.
“Coincidence?”
Adi’ra did not answer.
There it was again.
That strange certainty.
Not spoken aloud.
Simply present.
Alexia felt something tighten at the back of her neck.
“We’re going to Glinde,” she said.
Adi’ra looked at her.
A tiny smile appeared.
“That was remarkably quick.”
“Shut up.”
“I would merely like to document—”
“Adi’ra.”
Baritone.
They raised both hands.
“Fine.”
Alexia had to fight a smile.
You damn adorable creature.
«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»
They remained for another eight minutes.
Adi’ra deliberately avoided making the interval exact, not because eight possessed some magical security value, but because standing up immediately after receiving a message would create precisely the kind of correlation they wanted to avoid.
At least, that was what they told themself.
Perhaps it was ridiculous.
Perhaps it was already too late.
Perhaps there was nobody observing their movements at all.
There were nowhere near enough data to calculate the rational probability with any seriousness.
Even so, the pattern felt different now.
Alexia’s data record.
The vehicle.
HESAYA’s alert.
Three points did not yet make a line.
The brain wanted to draw one anyway.
Adi’ra loved and hated that quality in equal measure.
Patterns were both promise and trap.
You could lose yourself inside them, or they could allow you to see something long before anyone else had even noticed that anything was happening.
Adi’ra paid the bill, but not with their wristband.
Naturally, Alexia noticed.
“Since when are you using cards again?”
“Since cards became old-fashioned enough to be interesting.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You were saying that in 2029.”
“And I was right then too.”
Adi’ra returned the card to its place.
The light outside had changed. The sun now stood higher between the buildings, and the café’s automatic sunshade had darkened almost completely.
People moved along the sidewalk outside. A delivery rider pushed a bicycle while two teenagers at a transit stop shared a projected display.
A woman walked a dog.
Normality.
That word again.
Alexia stood.
This time, she reached beneath the table.
The Tasmanian Tiger came up in a single fluid movement.
Adi’ra looked more closely, though not conspicuously.
The backpack was indeed older, well maintained but frequently carried. One side showed slight abrasion, and the shoulder straps had taken on the shape that quality material acquired only after years of use: not worn out, but adapted.
Alexia caught the look.
“No.”
“I still haven’t asked anything.”
“You are not taking it apart here.”
“I had no intention of doing that.”
“You’re thinking about it.”
“Only superficially.”
“Adi’ra.”
“Purely professional interest.”
Alexia slid one arm through a shoulder strap, then the other.
The pack settled close against her back.
Not heavy enough for a complete field setup, Adi’ra noted.
They said nothing.
Later.
Alexia adjusted the straps with two short movements.
“Ready?”
Adi’ra looked across the café one final time.
People, glasses, coffee, ice cream, a service robot, and the familiar hum of the refrigeration system.
A small world carrying on as though there were no reason for two people at one of its tables to have just decided that the next several hours of their lives would bear almost no resemblance to what either of them had planned.
Adi’ra stood.
“No.”
Alexia looked at them.
“What?”
Adi’ra adjusted their jacket.
“I’m not ready.”
Their gaze moved toward the door.
“But we’re going anyway.”
Alexia nodded.
Together, they stepped outside.
The glass door closed behind them.
For several seconds, the darkened window reflected nothing but the street.
Then the café display returned to its daytime menu.
As though nothing had happened.
Adi’ra placed their right hand on Alexia’s shoulder, leaned close to her ear, and murmured:
“Stay liquid.”
Alexia instantly remembered the now rather old SWAT series and knew exactly what Adi’ra meant.
«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»