Kaito woke up and for three glorious seconds believed that yesterday had been a dream.

  Then he heard a crash from the kitchen.

  He was out of bed and down the stairs in a time that would have impressed his PE teacher, who had once described Kaito's sprinting ability as "theoretically possible but never observed." The kitchen was around the corner and whatever had just happened in it was still happening because there was a second crash followed by a sound he could only describe as the death rattle of an appliance.

  He rounded the corner.

  Noel was standing in the middle of the kitchen. She was holding the microwave door. The microwave door was no longer attached to the microwave. She was holding it with both hands in front of her like a shield, staring at the microwave itself with an expression of pure and absolute hostility.

  The blue screen floated behind her. Same as last night. Massive, glowing, serenely unhelpful.

  "It attacked me," she said.

  "It's a microwave."

  "It made a threatening noise and then LIGHT CAME OUT."

  Kaito looked at the microwave. It was still humming. The interior light was on because the door, being detached and in Noel's hands, was no longer doing its job. He gently took the door from her, examined the hinges, and attempted to reattach it.

  It didn't go back properly. One hinge caught. The other didn't. The door hung at a slight angle, like a painting someone had bumped and never straightened.

  "Sit down," he said. "Please. Before you break anything else."

  "I wasn't trying to break it. I was trying to make it obey."

  "You don't make a microwave obey. You push buttons."

  "I pushed buttons. It screamed at me."

  "That's the timer beeping."

  "It sounded aggressive."

  He guided her to the kitchen table. She sat with the careful precision of someone who was still figuring out how chairs worked. He pulled the other chair out and sat across from her.

  The screen hovered between them. Tall. Blue. Patient.

  "Okay," Kaito said. "Let's talk about the giant floating thing."

  They stared at it together.

  In the light of morning, the screen looked different than it had in the rain. More detailed. The symbols were sharper, the text clearer. Kaito leaned forward and read what was displayed:

  [NAME: ???] [LEVEL: 1] [SKILL POINTS: 9,999,999] [UNLOCKED SKILLS: 0] [CONDITIONS: LOCKED]

  Below the header, the tree structure sprawled. Branches upon branches, each containing skill names in small text, all of them gray. Inaccessible. He could see the names but couldn't interact with them. It was like looking at an enormous library through a locked glass door.

  "What IS this?" he asked.

  Noel looked at the screen. Then at him. Her golden eyes, which had been terrifying in the alley, were merely unsettling in morning light.

  "I don't know," she said. "I don't remember."

  "You don't remember."

  "I remember falling. And a voice. And then the alley. And then you."

  "That's it? Falling, a voice, an alley, and me? That's your entire autobiography?"

  She closed her eyes. Concentrated. He could see the effort of it in the way her jaw tightened.

  "I remember... one word. Noel. I think it's my name. I'm not sure. But it's all I have, so I'm keeping it."

  Kaito sat back. Rubbed his face. Processed.

  She had ten million points and couldn't remember her own name. He had zero points and couldn't remember the quadratic formula. They were both useless. Excellent. Great team.

  "Can you do anything with it?" he asked, gesturing at the screen. "Touch it? Control it?"

  She turned to the screen and tried. She tapped skills. She dragged them. She attempted swipe gestures. She tried voice commands, starting reasonable ("Activate") and escalating quickly ("OPEN. UNLOCK. PLEASE. I SAID PLEASE. I AM ASKING NICELY."). She even yelled at it in a language that wasn't Japanese, something angular and commanding that made the air in the kitchen vibrate faintly.

  The screen did nothing. It sat there, glowing, absolutely unhelpful.

  "It won't respond to me," she said. Her frustration was visible. She was used to things responding to her. He didn't know how he knew that, but it was in the way she spoke to the screen. Not like someone requesting. Like someone who expected to be obeyed.

  "Let me try," Kaito said.

  He reached out. His fingers passed through the screen like it was made of light, which it was. No resistance. No sensation. Just his hand going through blue nothing.

  But the screen flickered.

  Just for a moment. A micro-reaction, like a candle flame disturbed by a breath. A tiny ripple in the display, centered on the point where his fingers had entered it.

  As the ripple faded, Noel gasped slightly, her hand flying to her chest. A sudden, phantom pulse of warmth had bloomed right over her sternum—a physical echo of a digital touch. She pressed her palm flat against her shirt, her brow furrowing. It was the first time the system had responded to his proximity, and she felt it in her bones before she saw it on the screen.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  "Great," Kaito said, pulling his hand back, entirely unaware of the jolt he'd just sent through her. "So it doesn't work for you and it doesn't work for me and it has ten million points that we can't use. This is very helpful."

  "Nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine," Noel corrected, her voice slightly breathless as she lowered her hand.

  "That's what I said."

  "You said ten million. That's a different number."

  "It's CLOSE ENOUGH."

  She looked at him. He looked at her. The screen glowed between them.

  "I think we need to eat something," Kaito said. "Before I lose my mind."

  "What is 'eat'?"

  He stared at her.

  "I know what eating is," she corrected quickly. "I meant... where are the food items?"

  "The fridge. The cold box in the corner."

  He opened the fridge. She peered inside with the intensity of an archaeologist examining a tomb.

  "These are unfamiliar," she said, pointing at the carton.

  "Those are eggs."

  She picked one up. Studied it from multiple angles. Held it to her ear. Shook it gently.

  "What does it want?"

  "It doesn't WANT anything. It's an egg. You crack it and cook it."

  "It contains something?"

  "Yes."

  She squeezed.

  The egg exploded. Yolk ran between her fingers and dripped onto the linoleum. She held up her hand and examined the wreckage.

  She stared at the yolk like she was trying to remember something about it. Her expression flickered, not with confusion, but a profound, distant loss. She traced the sticky yellow mess with her thumb, looking as though she expected to feel the spiral of protein, the architecture of a living system, the membrane's intention. Then she blinked, and it was just a wet mess, and she didn't know why she expected it to answer to her.

  "It was alive?" she whispered.

  "No, it wasn't... that's yolk. It's... okay, let me just make breakfast."

  While the eggs cooked, he decided to preemptively introduce her to the apartment's basic hazards. He walked her to the bathroom, pointed at the sink, and turned the handle.

  "Water," Kaito said.

  She stared at the stream. "IT JUST APPEARS?"

  "From pipes. Under the floor."

  She looked at the running water with deep suspicion. Then, slowly, reached out and touched it. Her eyes went wide.

  "It's warm," she breathed. Then she turned the other handle. "Now it's cold." She turned both. "Now it's confused."

  "It's not confused. That's lukewarm."

  "The water is making a compromise?"

  Kaito opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "Yeah," he said. "The water is making a compromise."

  They moved back to the living room. Kaito saw her eyeing the large, flat rectangle of the television sitting on its low media console. He watched her calculate its dimensions, saw her pivot, and realized exactly what spatial logic her brain was applying.

  "Stop," Kaito said, stepping between her and the console. "That's a television. It's for watching pictures. You do not sit on it."

  Noel paused, looking from him to the TV. "But it is flat, and it rests upon a stand. A stand is furniture."

  "It's fragile furniture. If you want to sit," he pointed across the room, "you use the couch. The big soft thing."

  She looked at the couch. She approached it cautiously and sat. She sank into the cushions. Her eyes went wide. Whatever she had been before, wherever she had come from, cushions were not part of the experience. She bounced. Once. Experimentally. Then again. A small smile appeared on her face, and she bounced a third time.

  Kaito let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "Okay. I'll finish cooking."

  After breakfast, Kaito found her standing perfectly still in the bathroom.

  She wasn't looking at the faucet. She was looking in the mirror.

  She touched her own face. Slowly. Fingertips on cheekbones, jaw, forehead. She traced the line of her nose. She pulled at her lower lip.

  Then, she raised her hands. She turned them over slowly, studying the pale skin, the thin blue veins. She made fists. Opened them. Made fists again. She stretched her fingers wide, testing the joints, calibrating the articulation. She wasn't just learning how they moved; she was measuring the gap between what she had now, and whatever she used to have. Something that didn't require fingers at all.

  Kaito leaned against the doorframe, watching.

  "These are strange," she said quietly.

  "What? Hands?"

  "...Yes."

  The way she said it came from a place in her that the morning's comedy couldn't reach. She was looking at her own palms like they were alien artifacts strapped to her wrists.

  Kaito didn't say anything. Some things you don't say anything to. You just stand in the doorframe and let the moment exist.

  She lowered her hands. Met his eyes in the mirror.

  "Thank you," she said. "For not walking past."

  "I already said don't worry about it."

  "I'm not worrying. I'm thanking."

  He didn't have a comeback for that. He gave her a sharp nod and stepped back into the hallway, leaving her to her quiet calibrations.

  The peace lasted exactly four minutes.

  Kaito was wiping down the kitchen table when he heard her voice from the hallway, bright and curious.

  "This is very fragrant."

  He looked up. She was holding a bar of lavender soap she'd found in the shower caddy. She was turning it over in her hands. She sniffed it again.

  "Noel."

  "It smells like food."

  "Noel, that is not food."

  "It's a small, fragrant block."

  "It's SOAP."

  "What is its function?"

  "You wash yourself with it."

  "You rub food on your body?"

  "It's NOT FOOD."

  She looked at the soap. She looked at him. She smelled the soap again.

  He saw it in her eyes. The calculation. The decision being made.

  "Don't you dare."

  She licked it.

  Her face was a masterpiece. Confusion became betrayal. Betrayal became revulsion. Revulsion became a full-body shudder that started at her tongue and ended at her toes. She dropped the soap, grabbed the nearest towel, and scrubbed her tongue with it while making a noise that was halfway between a gag and a declaration of war.

  "WHY," she demanded, her tongue still wrapped in the towel.

  "I TOLD YOU."

  "IT SAID LAVENDER."

  "THAT'S THE SCENT."

  "WHY WOULD A SCENT LIE?"

  His phone buzzed on the counter, vibrating against the wood.

  A text from Takeda: "BRO. People are saying you carried a girl home last night?? A GIRL?? Is she hot??"

  Kaito stared at the phone. Then at Noel, who was currently glaring at the dropped bar of soap as if expecting it to apologize.

  He texted back: "It's not what you think."

  Takeda: "THAT MEANS IT'S EXACTLY WHAT I THINK."

  Kaito put the phone face-down on the counter and rubbed his temples.

  Meanwhile, the screen hovered behind Noel. She hadn't noticed it. Kaito hadn't looked at it closely. But at the very bottom, right below the locked skill tree, something had changed.

  The text was small, but it was pulsing with a slow, steady rhythm.

  [WAITING FOR ACTIVATION TRIGGER...]