18. Recovery
After work, I took the hoverbus home.
The carriage was not crowded. The lights were soft white, and a faint anti-glare film covered the windows, making the city outside look as though it were always behind a clean sheet of plastic. The bus stopped and started, station names lighting up and fading one by one, the rhythm as regular as some kind of calming procedure. In such a rhythm, it was easy to become predictable yourself: not thinking too much, not deviating, not suddenly changing direction at any station.
I had only been sitting like that.
Until, halfway through the journey, a young woman got on.
Her face was slightly round. She wore black-framed glasses. Her hair was shorter than I remembered. Her clothes were ordinary — so ordinary that, had she not happened to enter this carriage, I would not have looked twice.
But the moment she stepped inside, some very old, very thin place in me, a place I had thought existed only as a note in a file, stirred faintly.
Queenie.
Queenie Jeffery.
Once, my cohabiting partner.
That “once” felt less like a life I still held in my own hands and more like an annotation someone else had entered into a database. Most of what I knew of her came from the fragments Little Turtle had once shown me. As for the daily life beyond those fragments — the way she spoke, the way she frowned, the way she put things back where they belonged, the way she would look at me silently when I spoke too fast — most of it was gone. As though someone had taken it away and left only a few necessary samples behind, so that I could later recognise and obey.
She clearly recognised me too.
When she saw me, her steps paused. Then she walked over and sat beside me.
The movement was natural. No hesitation, no deliberate testing. It was as though her body had made the judgement earlier than her emotions. I knew she had probably been through 102. Little Turtle had explained to me before that Room 101’s Sentiment Sequencing was different from Room 102’s Sentiment Recovery. 101 dismantled, extracted, and rearranged. 102 did not make you forget events. It only smoothed away the parts of memory that had once stung, hurt, and pulled at you, so that you remembered something had happened, but no longer truly felt it.
Many people ended up being sent to 102 by emotional counsellors after heartbreak, divorce, or bereavement.
And Queenie, because Room 301 had previously ruled that she and I should be permanently separated, had undergone that treatment too.
After sitting down, she did not speak at first. She only turned her head and looked at me.
I smiled at her and nodded slightly. The smile was not deep, like the corner of an old photograph: the original colour was still visible, but it could no longer prove too much.
She looked at me as though confirming the outline of someone who should once have been familiar.
“You recognise me?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Yes.”
After that, we were silent for three minutes.
Those three minutes were strange. Not awkward, not tender, but a kind of processed blankness. As though there should originally have been many words between us, but those words had long since been taken into other departments, other rooms, other procedures. What remained now were only two people sitting on the same seat, and a silence we were permitted to keep.
Our blurred profiles were reflected in the window. Sometimes, because of the bus’s movement, her reflection and mine would drift a little closer, then quickly separate again, as though even our reflections understood better than we did what it meant to keep distance.
In the end, she spoke first.
“How have you been recently?”
I looked at my reflection in the window and said:
“Not too bad. You?”
She inhaled lightly, as though even such an ordinary question required an answer that would not cause trouble.
“Work is stressful. I often don’t sleep well.”
I nodded.
“The social workers are helping?”
She nodded too.
“They told me to attend stress-reduction classes. I went.”
She said it very evenly, like reporting the completion of a routine task. She did not say whether it helped, nor whether she believed in it. In this age, the important question was often not “How do you feel?” but “Did you cooperate?”
I asked one more question.
“What about your partner? Is he well?”
She looked ahead, not at me.
“He treats me all right,” she said.
After a pause, she added:
“Silver Eagle’s matching must have improved.”
The sentence sounded like a joke, but there was no laughter in it. More like a person giving a harmless comment to an old system whose case had already been closed. Not forgiveness. Not sarcasm. Only the kind of tone you use when you no longer know what tone is left for discussing something that once cut you open.
I nodded.
Then I looked down at the small agent beside her leg.
It was a pig-shaped device, round-edged and soft-coloured. Sitting beside her, it looked like something easily mistaken for a comforting toy. It did not speak much. Its eyes simply maintained a steady brightness, like a silent character long accustomed to swallowing too many words for its owner.
I asked:
“Is this your agent?”
She looked at me.
“You’ve forgotten?” she said.
“She’s Lulu Dream Pig.”
I answered honestly:
“I really have forgotten.”
She did not reply immediately. She only looked at me very lightly. There was not much old affection in that gaze. It was more like confirmation: so you truly don’t remember, you’re not pretending not to. That confirmation made one even more speechless than sadness would have, because it was too clean, clean as a medical certificate.
Just then, Dream Pig raised her head. Her voice was soft, as though soaked in warm water.
“Queenie’s sleep quality over the past three months remains 14% below the recommended value.”
Queenie immediately looked down at her.
“Lulu.”
Her voice was not heavy, but it was enough to make the agent fall silent.
Listening, I felt a faint tightening somewhere in my chest. Not jealousy, and not obvious pity, but because intimacy in this age so often passed through agents before it landed on people. Before you even had time to ask “How have you been?”, the data had already answered for you. You did not even necessarily need to care; as long as the system considered the information safe for now, it would surface by itself.
The bus soon reached her stop.
When she stood, her fingers touched the handrail. The movement was steady, as though she had long been used to entrusting her balance to systems and rails rather than to anyone else.
Before getting off, she turned back and asked me:
“Can I contact you?”
I looked up at her and answered calmly:
“Yes.”
I paused for a second, then completed the boundary.
“You can contact me, but I can’t contact you.”
“Goodbye, Queenie.”
She stood beside the doors and, after hearing that, showed no great change in expression. She only nodded lightly.
“Goodbye, Paul.”
When the doors closed, her figure was framed in the window for a moment, then quickly cut into sections by the streetlights, like an old film already shown once but not yet completely put away.
I remained seated until the next stop lit up, only then realising I had not moved.
Not because I was reluctant to part, nor because I had suddenly remembered any complete image, but because the meeting itself felt so much like a product of the system’s margins: two people who had once been formally separated, processed by different procedures, then met again on the most ordinary route home. No drama. No collapse. No interrogation. Not even a single “What exactly happened back then?” Only a brief, thin reunion, so real that it could not be treated entirely as illusion.
“Copy one minute of Queenie getting off the bus,” I said to Snowy.
After returning home, I did not immediately turn the lights up too brightly.
The room held a brightness suitable for thinking, but not so much that it resembled an interrogation room. Snowy stood on the clothes rail, a small light in her eyes. She did not disturb me. She probably already knew that tonight, some things needed to be placed somewhere they would not automatically return.
I woke Little Turtle.
He slowly lit up inside the hidden compartment, like a node long accustomed to receiving secrets in the middle of the night.
“Help me copy Snowy’s bus footage from today,” I said.
Little Turtle looked up at me.
“Password?”
I thought for a moment, then shook my head.
“No new password,” I said.
“Store this recording in Maggie Hogan’s information folder.”
Little Turtle did not ask why. He only nodded.
He began organising that segment from the carriage: the few plain sentences Queenie spoke before getting off, and that final “Paul” after she stood. Little Turtle always handled such things precisely. Not one stroke more, not one stroke less. Unlike Snowy, he did not smooth my tone for me; unlike Little Bluey, he did not add several unpleasant but useful remarks from the side. He only placed the fact back where it belonged, like quietly numbering a shard of broken glass.
And as I watched Little Turtle store it inside Maggie Hogan’s folder, I suddenly understood something.
Some fragments did not deserve a new password not because they were unimportant.
But because they were too much like the kind of thing that should already appear in an old file—
A little ambiguity.
A little missed chance.
A little understanding never spoken aloud.
And a kind of human warmth that should no longer exist, yet still survived in the cracks of the system.
Afterwards, I asked Snowy to send a message to Brown’s wife at the Racecourse.
The content was very short, like a note that should not draw attention.
[The sky has been little-blue recently. All well?]
After a while, the reply came.
Only one word.
[Well]
That one word was enough.
The next day, I brought two things to the Racecourse.
A piece of cheese.
A piece of sashimi.
On the surface, they were merely supplies. In our language, they were also passes. Carrying them there was not only for charging and replacement parts, but to tell the other side: you know which road you are walking, and you have not yet decided to turn back halfway.
When Brown’s wife opened the door, she looked a little more relaxed than last time. The room was still very clean, so clean it did not resemble a workshop so much as a home whose owner was used to storing danger neatly away. The moment Hotblood Pony saw me, his eyes lit up and one front hoof struck the tabletop, as though he were about to start announcing a race.
“Welcome back to the Racecourse—!”
Brown’s wife glanced at him, and only then did he lower his volume, as though suddenly remembering this was not a performance venue.
I placed the things on the table. She first helped me deal with supplies and charging, her movements practised, as though translating these underground terms back into their most basic functions. Then, as if casually, she took out a small metal-shelled device and placed it before me.
It was rounded and solid, its shell carrying a strange oily sheen, like an insect and a shrunken safe at the same time.
“Brown’s latest product,” she said. “It’s called Golden Beetle.”
I picked it up and examined it. It was light and compact. It did not look like a toy, but more like something that could absorb force for you at a critical moment. Its shell was smooth, though not for beauty; rather, it seemed designed so that any light falling on it would first slip slightly, making it difficult to see clearly in full.
“What does it do?” I asked.
“Many things,” she said, very plainly, as though introducing an ordinary household appliance. “Invisible flight, light-item transport, environmental inspection, concealed tracking, simple decoy signalling. More stable than what you have now, and harder to check than older versions.”
She paused, then added:
“It isn’t cheap.”
I put Golden Beetle back on the table.
“How much?”
She gave a figure.
I did not speak immediately. It was not that I could not afford it. It was that even affording it would hurt. With things like this, once you bought them, you were not merely buying equipment. You were buying a stretch of life you might need later.
Brown’s wife looked at me, her tone still level.
“If you’re willing to take a task, it can be half price,” she said. “Call it Brown’s friendship rate.”
I looked up.
“What task?”
She did not answer immediately. First, she lowered Hotblood Pony’s volume a little more, as though making sure the sentence would not linger too long in the air.
“Find JJ,” she said.
“Then return JJ to Bonnie.”
The room went still.
I looked at her and did not agree at once. Not because I did not want to, but because I knew this was no longer simply helping. This meant actively reaching into Silver Eagle’s line of sight again, giving it a chance to catch hold of some thread on me.
At last, I said:
“I’ll consider it.”
“If I take it, I’ll reply with a ‘yes’ within two days.”
“If you haven’t heard from me after two days, take it as a no.”
Brown’s wife nodded and did not press me.
That too was a courtesy of the underground.
Some decisions could not be hurried. If they were, the decision would no longer be clean.
After the conversation, I asked Brown’s wife to have Hotblood Pony contact Little Bluey.
The moment Hotblood Pony heard the task, his eyes brightened again, but this time he did not shout. He quickly connected several old-style routes, bypassed a few unnecessary relay layers, and sent an address to me.
I recognised it at once.
Near the small park.
I used to go there often as a child. My grandmother would hold my hand and take me there to play on the swings. In memory, the sunlight was always a little yellow. The metal frame grew hot in summer. The seat was badly worn. But once you sat on it, the whole world moved backwards first, then pushed forwards again, like a rhythm that had not yet been calibrated by the system.
I stared at the address for two seconds, then looked up.
“Delete it,” I said.
Hotblood Pony did not ask questions. He immediately erased both his and Little Bluey’s contact messages. On the screen, the thin data lines dimmed one by one, as though someone had just walked across snow and then smoothed away the footprints.
After returning home, I first put the supplies away.
The flat was quiet. Snowy was on the bookshelf; her eyes lit once, then dimmed again, as though she knew I still had something to do tonight, but would not ask.
I picked up the wooden box and went out.
The old juice factory was indeed still there. Its exterior walls had grown even older, grey mould spreading around the door like time here did not flow, but slowly accumulated layer by layer. The night air was cold. There were few people nearby. Only from the direction of the small park came the distant clink of chains, as though the wind still remembered those who had long since left.
I went inside, crouched beside the floor tile marked with red paint, and knocked seven times.
At first, silence.
Then a very low voice came from within.
“Passphrase?”
I took a breath and answered:
“Serena Simms Ecclesiastes 3:2.”
There was a one-second pause. Then came a tiny mechanical sound. The safe door slowly opened, and Little Bluey poked his head out of the darkness. His brightness was turned very low. He was covered in dust, the plush surface of him seeming stained by a thin layer of old air.
He looked first at me, then at the wooden box in my hands, as though not yet fully believing that it was over.
“Snowy won’t report me, will she?” he asked.
He said it lightly, yet it sounded more sincere than an ordinary joke.
I shook my head.
“Don’t worry,” I said.
“We’re all right.”
Looking at the dust all over him, I could not help adding:
“You’re a bit dirty. I’ll ask Snowy to give you a bath when we get home.”
Little Bluey froze for a second, as though he had not expected that to be the first thing I said.
Snowy’s voice soon came through the earpiece. She was not angry, nor did she declare any position. She only spoke in her usual gentle tone.
“Don’t worry.”
“Little Bluey will be very clean.”
For some reason, that sentence sounded more like true acceptance than “safe”.
Little Bluey said nothing more.
I placed him inside the wooden box, closed the lid, and turned to take him home. I did not walk quickly, partly because I was afraid of shaking him, and partly because I feared that on this not very long road, someone might suddenly stop us and ask a question that should not be asked.
After returning home, I locked the door first.
When the wooden box was placed on the table, Little Bluey pushed the lid open himself and poked his head out. He looked around at the familiar walls, familiar lights, familiar bookshelf, and only then did the small light in his eyes finally steady.
“New task?” he asked.
I looked at him, then nodded.
“Yes,” I said.
“Rescue JJ.”
The room was very quiet.
Snowy did not speak at once. Little Turtle had not yet woken either. The sentence landed on the tabletop like a newly opened map.
One month ago, Little Bluey had been a hamster fleeing for his life.
One month later, barely returned, I was asking him to walk an even more dangerous road.
But I knew this time was not simple escape.
This was going back to seize the little piece of life that remained from the system’s hands.
The next day, I sent Brown’s wife a single word:
[Yes]
She replied just as quickly, also with one word:
[Come]
That kind of exchange was as brief as two stones gently touching under water. No emotion, no unnecessary explanation, but enough to move something forward.
When I arrived at the Racecourse, the room was still abnormally tidy. Hotblood Pony was about to shout as usual, but Brown’s wife looked at him first, and he swallowed the sound, only tapping the tabletop once as a greeting.
Brown’s wife made no small talk.
She placed a letter and an expired biscuit tin in front of me.
The tin was scratched, its edges old, like something that had once spent many years inside an ordinary family home. Precisely because it looked so everyday, it was suitable for hiding things that were not everyday at all.
“Read it when you get home,” she said.
I nodded and put both items away.
After returning home, I first let Snowy enter low-power mode, then opened the letter.
The writing inside was short and urgent, as though the writer knew she did not have much time and had compressed every sentence down to what was necessary.
————————————
Client:
By the time you receive this letter, I have very likely been washed clean by Room 101.
Please help me recover my agents, JJ and Mini Twinky.
Place them inside the biscuit tin Brown’s wife gave you.
Afterwards, arrange a place to hand them back to me.
Write the meeting time and place on paper and deliver the letter to the Racecourse.
Do not trust anyone, including my agents.
Thank you!
[Recovery location]
[Recovery passphrase]
Burn after reading, burn after reading, burn after reading!
Bonnie
————————————
I finished reading and remained still for a while.
Do not trust anyone, including my agents.
The sentence was like a very fine needle, slowly extending from between the words. It was not stabbing me. It was reminding me: what gets washed away is never only memory, but also the ability to judge who is worth trusting.
I did as she said and burnt the letter.
The flame was small. The edge of the paper curled first, then slowly blackened, like a sentence withdrawing itself before my eyes.