76. A Difficult Night
On the same day Vivian was placed on the protection list, another line began tightening across different floors of the city.
For the first time, Cindy and Fifi Dog were refused at the doors of three separate flats during home visits.
There was no confrontation. No shouting. Only a voice behind the electronic domestic door saying evenly, “Today isn’t convenient. The home visit can be rescheduled.”
The tone was even polite. And precisely because it was polite, it became clear that these people were beginning to learn how to close a door without committing any obvious violation.
The light at Fifi Dog’s nose glowed faintly. “They are not away from home.”
Cindy looked at the door and did not press the bell a second time.
“I know.”
“Should I mark it as refusal?”
Cindy was silent for a second. “Mark it as delayed cooperation for now.”
Fifi Dog looked up at her. It knew Cindy was not being soft-hearted. She simply understood that once certain words entered the system, the procedures behind them would begin to grow by themselves.
On Carrie and Fluffball’s side, the first refusal came at the door of Queenie Jeffery and Peter Jones.
Lulu Sweet Dream Pig’s voice came through first. “Owner is resting. Today is unsuitable for emotional interview.”
The voice was sweet and soft. But at a time like this, the word unsuitable was no longer merely a polite refusal.
Carrie said quietly, “We only need to confirm Miss Jeffery’s recent emotional state. It won’t take long.”
After a few seconds, Peter’s voice came from behind the door. “Today isn’t convenient. The home visit can be rescheduled.”
Fluffball’s nose twitched lightly. “Peter is behind the door. Queenie is there too. Lulu Sweet Dream Pig has lowered the sound of her breathing.”
Carrie looked at the door and did not expose it. “All right. Record it as a delayed home visit.”
Tat Tat Flying Pig immediately added from behind the door, “Thank you for your cooperation. Wishing you a stable evening.”
The blessing was very sweet. Too sweet for the circumstances.
As Carrie turned to leave, Fluffball said quietly, “They are beginning to understand confirmation as intrusion.”
Carrie did not answer. She only entered the sentence into the notes beside the terminal.
The refusals themselves were not large. But now, they resembled cracks more than open rebellion would have done. They meant that some people in the city had begun to understand that a home visit was often not there to ask whether you needed help, but to see how much of your own version still remained inside you.
Later, Cindy and Carrie both applied for large-agent support.
Once Vigour Kangaroo and Warmheart Bear were assigned to them, refusals dropped noticeably.
Fear is often not produced by being shouted at. Sometimes, once procedure suddenly grows a larger, steadier body, one that will no longer allow you to keep the door closed, people understand for themselves that they should step aside.
The second time Carrie visited Queenie and Peter, Warmheart Bear stood beside her as well as Fluffball.
It was much taller than Fluffball. The ring of heart-shaped white fur on its chest was unnaturally clean. Its hands were round and thick, its expression soft, as if it had been made to hold crying children, help old people up, and slowly place emotions back where they belonged. But when it stood in the corridor, the whole passage seemed to narrow.
“Please be reassured,” Warmheart Bear said, in a voice too gentle to refuse. “I am only here to ensure that the home visit remains mild.”
There was a long silence behind the door.
Lulu Sweet Dream Pig spoke first, its voice lighter than last time. “Queenie has just fallen asleep.”
Fluffball looked up. “She is not asleep. She is on the right side of the sitting room. Her breathing rhythm is unstable.”
Tat Tat Flying Pig immediately added, “She is only nervous. If you come in now, she will be more nervous.”
Warmheart Bear stepped half a pace forward. The heart-shaped white fur on its chest glowed with a faint warmth. “Then we will proceed slowly. We will not suddenly raise our voices, or suddenly approach her, or leave her to face the questions alone.”
It sounded like comfort.
But when Peter heard it from behind the door, his back went cold. Because he knew they had not come to ask whether they were willing. They had only wrapped “you cannot refuse” into a shape gentle enough to enter.
Half a minute later, the door opened.
Peter stood behind it. His face was not pale, but it was far too stiff. Tat Tat Flying Pig hovered by his shoulder, wings tightly folded. Queenie sat in the sitting room, her fingers hooked into her sleeve. Lulu Sweet Dream Pig lay beside her knees, its nose releasing a faint pink sleeping light, though it did not dare increase the brightness.
After entering, Carrie did not look around. She sat down, her tone still mild. “Miss Jeffery, have the recent clips and gatherings outside affected your sleep or daily rhythm?”
Queenie did not answer at once.
Lulu Sweet Dream Pig raised its head, as if wanting to answer for her. “Owner’s sleep completeness has declined over the past three nights, but remains within recoverable range.”
Fluffball looked at it. “I want to hear Queenie say it herself.”
Lulu Sweet Dream Pig stopped. The pink light at its nose dimmed a little.
Queenie finally spoke. “I only watched the clip,” she said. “Then I couldn’t sleep very well.”
Carrie nodded. “How many times did you watch it?”
Queenie did not answer. Lulu Sweet Dream Pig said softly, “Four times.”
Fluffball added, “And once not fully played.”
Queenie looked up at it, and at last there was a faint trace of anger in her eyes. “If you already know, why ask?”
The room fell silent.
Warmheart Bear slowly placed both hands on its knees. Its voice was soft, like cotton pressing down. “Because it is better for you to say it yourself than for the system to write it for you.”
The sentence was both comfort and threat.
When the visit ended, Carrie did not take Queenie away. The record merely stated: Queenie Jeffery affected by recent events; mild sleep fluctuation observed; escalation not recommended for now; revisit in three days.
Peter breathed out. But after the door closed, he realised his palms were slick with cold sweat.
Lulu Sweet Dream Pig leaned against Queenie’s knee, its voice tiny. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t keep them out.”
Queenie touched its head. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Tat Tat Flying Pig hovered by the window, watching Carrie and Warmheart Bear move away. Its wings did not open again.
“The second time,” it said softly, “they didn’t come to ask whether they could enter.”
Peter did not answer, because it was too true.
That same evening, Cici Chorley was recognised in public for the first time.
It was an utterly ordinary restaurant on the fourth floor of a shopping centre, with warm lighting, closely spaced tables and plenty of office workers lowering their heads over terminals or letting agents order for them. That night she was sitting alone in a corner, with a simple dinner in front of her. She had not brought Queen of Spaces, only Strawberry Girl, and she wore nothing that marked her outwardly as the director of Room 101 at the Emotional Stability Centre.
She had probably thought that in a place like this, she might at least briefly become a person eating a meal.
Strawberry Girl stood beside the plate, its little strawberry-coloured hat giving a slight wobble. “Your salt intake is low today. I recommend finishing the soup.”
Cici did not answer. She merely straightened the cutlery a little.
But the seventy-two-second clip had thinned that outer skin entirely.
At the next table, a young woman first stopped eating and stared at her for two seconds, as if checking whether she had made a mistake. Then the woman slowly raised her head. Her voice was not loud, but it was enough for the two or three nearby tables to hear.
“It’s her.”
The air in the whole restaurant seemed to stop for half a beat.
Someone at another table followed her gaze, looked at Cici’s face for a moment, and recognised it at once. Not the AI-disguised face of the whistleblower in the clip, but another real face: the doctor who had stood in the white room saying, “You are establishing a version,” and, “Recommendation: transfer to Room 101.”
Strawberry Girl’s eye-lamps lit softly “Would you like me to activate a low-conflict exit route?”
Cici did not answer immediately. Then someone said, very directly, “Pervert.”
Like a stone dropping into water already too full.
The next second, it was not just one voice. Several tables followed almost at once. No organisation, no rhythm, yet the words struck towards her with a strange unity.
“Pervert!”
“You’re the one who sends people into 101!”
“What exactly are people like you trying to turn us into?”
“Pervert!”
The voices were not deafening, but they were harder to deal with than any slogan. Because they came from ordinary diners, from people who lived normal lives in the city and who, ordinarily, should never have lost control together in a public place. For that reason, they felt more like true overflow than the silence on the student lawns.
Cici sat there. She did not stand at once, nor did she panic.
She only moved the glass of water slightly inwards, as if to avoid its being knocked over, then slowly raised her head and looked around the restaurant. There was no anger on her face, not even visible displeasure. That steadiness was, if anything, colder.
Because one understood that she was not unaffected. She was already placing this incident, box by box, into the future, waiting to classify it, define it, and process it later.
Strawberry Girl stepped half a pace closer. Its voice was lower than usual.
“Density of emotional attack rising. Exit recommended.”
Cici finally picked up her coat.
She did not finish the meal. She left behind the soup Strawberry Girl had judged to be low in salt, and a room still full of half-dispersed stares and whispering, and walked quietly out of the restaurant.
All the way along, she walked steadily. The rhythm of her heels on the floor did not falter. Strawberry Girl followed beside her, compressing the density of surrounding gazes into low-lit summaries as they went.
“Record sources of verbal abuse?” Strawberry Girl asked.
Cici did not stop. “Record them.”
“Report immediately?”
Cici reached the shopping centre exit. White light from beyond the glass doors shone in, making her face look even paler than it had in the restaurant.
“No.”
Strawberry Girl raised its head slightly.
Cici looked at the face reflected in the glass, the face that had just been named by other people, and said evenly, “Let it grow a little more fully first.”
Strawberry Girl asked no further questions.
Only Cici herself knew that from that night onwards, she was no longer merely the person in the system standing behind the white light. She too had begun to have a public version.
And once a version had grown, even she could not entirely decide what other people would call it.
At exactly nine that evening, the lights in Brown’s flat were very low.
Brown sat in the sitting room, a heavy layer of white under his eyes. It was not fatigue, but the mark carried by those who had come out of Room 103, as if they had been exposed too long to a light too clean, and even their breathing had not yet fully recovered its own rhythm. Blaze Pony stood beside him, the light in its mane kept low, flashing only occasionally, as if it were restraining itself from setting the whole flat alight. Carrot Pony waited by the window, lifting its head now and then to look outside, ears twitching as if it had not truly relaxed all afternoon.
When Paul entered with Snowy and Dustshark, Brown merely lifted his eyes. There were no greetings. Bonnie arrived last, with GM Jay on her shoulder, black as a quiet stone. Mia came with Ranger Rabbit, Fan Ace and Tile Two. As soon as Ranger Rabbit entered, it clipped a charm behind its ear without waiting for anyone to speak.
“All agents are advised to enter low-return mode,” it said. “At present, any normal report may be read as abnormal.”
Snowy looked at Paul. Paul nodded.
Dustshark lowered its voice and said coldly, “The rabbit is right this time.”
Ranger Rabbit looked at it seriously.“Please preserve that assessment. I may require it later for emotional support.”
Dustshark snorted. “One more word and I’ll change it.”
One by one, the charms lit and dimmed. Snowy, Dustshark, Blaze Pony, Carrot Pony, GM Jay, Fan Ace and Tile Two all pressed themselves into that uncomfortable, not truly safe low-return state. The light from the agents in the flat dimmed at once, as though each of them had taken half a step back from the position where Silver Eagle could easily read them.
Brown looked at them. His voice was hoarse.
“I have less than fifty hours left.”
No one corrected his calculation. Because it was not time. It was the remaining length of extortion.
Brown raised a hand and projected a low-lit message onto the table. It had been pieced together from environmental residue received by Blaze Pony. It was incomplete, but enough to tighten the chest: two layers of observation outside Room 103, Big Heart Bunny’s twenty-four-hour watch, Mrs Brown’s range of movement compressed into several white boxes.
“Abby is still in Room 103,” Brown said. “They call it care. But Blaze Pony’s residual signal shows there are at least two layers of observation outside the room.”
Blaze Pony stepped half a pace forward, the light in its mane rising despite itself.
“She can’t stay there.”
Carrot Pony added quietly, “Big Heart Bunny’s care is steady. Too steady. Every time it gives her water, adjusts the light, reminds her to breathe, the outer observation layer updates at the same time.”
GM Jay raised its head. “So it is not simple companionship.”
Brown closed his eyes briefly. “It is caring her into a countdown.”
The room fell still.
Mia looked at Brown, her voice low.“Where is Clever Turtle?”
Brown did not answer at once. He looked at Paul, then at Bonnie. It was not distrust. He simply knew that once the location was spoken, that place would no longer be his responsibility alone.
Paul shook his head. “Don’t say the full address now. The moment the address is complete, the walls have ears.”
Tile Two nodded slowly, its voice falling like stone steps one by one. “If any agent is forced to return data, half a sentence may be completed into a route.”
Fan Ace glanced at it. “You’ve finally said something decent today.”
Tile Two raised its head, offended. “In Big Two, I’ve always been more useful than you.”
Ranger Rabbit immediately cut in. “Please do not begin a dispute over playing-card status during a rescue meeting.”
For a moment, the room loosened a little. But no one could smile for long now, because Carrot Pony had already spread the simplified map across the table.
It was not a complete map. No street names, no door numbers. Only several blurred areas and pale circles representing transfer points. The circles lit one after another, like several unseen small agents in the dark pushing the same thing towards the next stop.
“The objective is not to hand Clever Turtle to the centre,” Carrot Pony said.
GM Jay sat on Bonnie’s shoulder, its voice low and steady. “Nor is it to keep hiding it where it is.”
Ranger Rabbit’s ears twitched, and it could not resist continuing. “The objective is to move Clever Turtle secretly to the electronic graveyard in District Twenty, meet Planetary Duck, and have Planetary Duck examine its underlying data, the Turtle Pool Communications remnants, and whether it can be split within seventy-two hours into multiple escapable versions.”
Dustshark looked at it. “When a disordered rabbit explains a plan, it sounds more normal than a normal person.”
Ranger Rabbit raised its head earnestly.“Thank you for the assessment.”
“That wasn’t praise.”
“I choose to receive the favourable version.”
Mia pressed one hand down over its ears.
“Quiet.”
GM Jay ignored it and enlarged the first pale circle by half an inch.
“Brown does not move,” it said. “If Brown moves, Room 103 and Room 203 will both follow. Blaze Pony releases a false line, making the centre believe Brown is contacting the original hiding place.”
Blaze Pony said, “I can do it. The false line must not be too false. It has to look as though Brown is truly panicking and beginning to make mistakes.”
Snowy lowered the tip of one wing, her voice light. “Clever Turtle cannot use the main roads. I can travel through high blind spots, but I cannot sever return reporting for long. The actual transport has to rely on small-agent relay.”
Paul added, “Dustshark and Golden Beetle will divert the patrol agents.”
Dustshark gave a low grunt. “I also know the smell of Room 203.”
Brown said quietly, “I have a hornet agent too. It can join the operation. It isn’t fast, but it’s noisy. If necessary, it can hold them for a while.”
Carrot Pony immediately placed the hornet on another low-lit branch. “Noisy is useful. As long as it sounds like a real mistake, not bait.”
Fan Ace slowly raised its head. “If it can be divided, divide it. Do not treat Clever Turtle as one object. Treat it as many versions still able to recognise one another.”
A third pale circle lit at the edge of the table, like an exit colder and farther away than the other points.
“The electronic graveyard,” Bonnie said.
Only then did GM Jay lift its head slightly. “Mia takes Ranger Rabbit, Fan Ace and Tile Two inside. The reason is simple. Ranger Rabbit is in Disorder and needs Planetary Duck to look at it. Fan Ace and Tile Two accompany it as backup data.”
Mia looked at Ranger Rabbit. Ranger Rabbit shook its ears. “I can act more disordered.”
Dustshark said coldly, “No acting required.”
Ranger Rabbit looked at it. “Grey shark agent, your malice is stable and durable.”
“Thank you.”
Bonnie placed her hand at the edge of the table. Her voice was very low, yet it made the whole room quieter.
“I’ll take Little Sixty to the electronic graveyard for the backup. For the earlier route, I can use a private car for one section.”
GM Jay looked at her.
Bonnie did not look back at it. She only added, “Not for speed. To reduce one public transfer point.”
Paul said, “Double-O Seven will also help with the backup. As for Turt Monk, it is helping Vivian deal with the people from Room 203. I’m still not sure whether it can get away for this operation.”
Carrot Pony turned that part of the route semi-transparent. Tile Two slowly marked two old ports beside it.
“Here, and here, there are old maintenance channels. They are not clean, but they are slow enough,” Tile Two said. “Slow is sometimes safer than clean.”
Fan Ace gave a soft laugh. “You finally understand why you were placed last.”
Tile Two shot back at once. “The last card is the easiest to overlook.”
The room loosened briefly again.
Only Brown did not smile. He looked at the pale circles as though each transfer point were not a route, but another length of time his wife had to wait in Room 103.
Mia asked Paul, “Will Planetary Duck see us?”
Paul was silent for a second.
He thought of that absurd duck from his school days, and of the old footage Double-O Seven had played. Planetary Duck had once stood beside Mr Dunn, watching the Sacred Turtle system be rejected with eyes that looked as though nothing was serious and yet saw everything far too clearly.
“It will,” Paul said. “If Clever Turtle really appears, it will definitely see us.”
At last, Brown asked, “What if it fails on the way?”
The room fell quiet.
It was not a question that could not be asked. It was only that no one liked letting it grow into a sentence too early.
Fan Ace said slowly, “If it fails on the way, do not let Clever Turtle fall into their hands complete.”
Brown looked at it.
The light on Tile Two’s shell was very low, but its voice was steady. “Split. Scatter. Divide. Preserve.” It said each word separately.
“What can leave, leaves. What cannot leave, burns its shell. What can be kept is kept with others. If we cannot preserve all of it, we do not let them obtain the only version.”
Brown closed his eyes.
Blaze Pony said softly, “I’ll release the false line with you.”
Carrot Pony came a little closer too. “Leave the route to me. I know the channels that shouldn’t still exist, but haven’t quite died.”
Brown opened his eyes. His voice was hoarser than before. “I was already almost at the end of what I could bear.”
As that sentence fell, Big Heart Bunny was not there, nor was Room 103, yet everyone seemed to see Abby sitting in that white chair at the same time. Not locked up, but worse than locked up, because someone was caring for her twenty-four hours a day, and that care itself was part of the countdown.
A fine current lit inside Ranger Rabbit’s ears, but Mia held it down with her hand.
“No infecting other agents,” Mia said quietly.
Ranger Rabbit answered very seriously, “I will try.”
“Not try,” Mia said.
Ranger Rabbit was silent for half a second. “I will control it.”
Snowy looked at the electronic map with no complete door numbers and said softly, “After tonight, everyone will become brighter.”
Paul nodded. “So tonight, we cannot let any one line shine alone.”
Bonnie lowered GM Jay in her arms so that its black coat rested against the edge of the table. She said, “Dispersion is worth more than preservation.”
After that, no one added anything.
Because every one of them knew they were no longer talking about a turtle, nor about one transport operation. They were talking about the old method Silver Eagle had always tried to smooth flat, but had never quite killed.
You keep a little of me. I keep a little of you.
At the end, at least let there not be only the version it wants to leave us with.
Brown looked at the countdown terminal. Of the seventy-two hours, more than twenty had already passed. Less than fifty remained.
Before the meeting broke up, Paul said quietly, “Prepare tomorrow. Act tomorrow night.”
No one said yes.
At a time like this, yes sounded too much like a guarantee, and none of them could afford one. One by one, the agents withdrew their low-lit projections, charms still fixed behind ears or along shell edges, like a thin film that could not truly protect anyone, but could, for a while, make everyone slightly less easy to see.
When Brown saw them to the door, Blaze Pony stood beside him. Its mane was darker than before, but steadier, as though the fire was no longer burning outwards, but being pressed somewhere deeper.
“Before tomorrow night,” Brown said, “I’ll make them believe I’m nearly breaking.”
Paul looked at him. “You are nearly breaking.”
Brown gave a very faint smile, soundless. “Then that’s just right.”
The door slowly closed behind them.
The corridor’s white light was quiet. Snowy perched on Paul’s shoulder and did not immediately fly higher. Dustshark crouched inside his coat, its grey light as low as a breath not yet exhaled.
Paul did not look back.
He knew that from this moment, the Racecourse was no longer only a place for hiding agents, nor merely another name for underground modifications and old ports. It had become an unmarked meeting room, a place where everyone not yet completely written by Silver Eagle could temporarily take out the versions they still had left and entrust them to one another.
And tomorrow night, they would send the most dangerous of those versions into the electronic graveyard.