INT. SELF-DRIVEN BUS - MORNING
The transport was a silent, aerodynamic pod gliding through the elevated tubes of Moorland. Students found their seats in pairs, the soft hum of the engine and the whisper of the climate control the only sounds. Anna's heart hammered against her ribs as she navigated the aisle, her eyes scanning for Ethan. She found him slumped by a window, staring out at the passing monolithic cityscape, the old phone a hidden weight in his lap.
She slid into the seat next to him. He flinched, pulled from his thoughts.
ANNA (Forcing a bright, protocol-friendly tone) Assigned seating is so arbitrary. I calculated a 97% probability that our conversation would generate higher harmony metrics if we were paired for the journey.
Ethan looked at her, a flicker of confusion and hope in his eyes. The system would approve of her logic.
ETHAN Oh. Yeah. Okay.
A moment of awkward silence hung between them, filled only by the soft whir of the bus. Then Ethan's gaze drifted from her face to her outfit. His eyes lingered on the marble eye pendant, then traveled down to the intricate batik of her sarong and the brushed steel chain at her hip.
ETHAN Your… clothes are different today.
ANNA (Smoothing the sarong, a genuine smile touching her lips) It's a batik sarong. The pattern is from Angla. My grandmother taught me the wax-resist method before… before we left. Each of these dots and lines, it's like a story. This one tells about the monsoon rains watering the valley rice fields.
ETHAN (Leaning slightly closer, genuinely interested) It's… really beautiful. I've never seen anything like it. But the chain… and the pants underneath? That's not very… Bamis.
ANNA (A quiet laugh, a slight rebellion in her eyes) No. It's not. The chain and the leather weaving on the belt, that's me. I like taking the old and making it… mine. Making it survive here. It feels like armor. The system's harmony protocols suggest self-expression through approved cultural channels is beneficial. So, I'm channeling.
ETHAN It's a good channel. It suits you. The words on your shirt, what do they mean?
ANNA (She looked down at the Burmese script, her voice softening) "Fine and Free." It's… complicated. It's an old saying from home.
He nodded, understanding the weight of things left unsaid. The conversation lulled again, but it was a comfortable silence now. As he shifted in his seat, the phone in his lap shifted, and the dim glass screen caught the light.
ANNA (Her eyes sharpening, her mission snapping back into focus) What's that?
Ethan froze, his hand instinctively covering the device.
ETHAN Oh. This? It's… it's just a phone.
ANNA It doesn't look like one. It's so… solid. And it has that glass thing on it. Why doesn't it have a hologram feature? Doesn't the light hurt your eyes?
ETHAN (Relaxing slightly, falling into the familiar role of explaining his relic) It does. That's why I don't use it for long periods of time. It's from before all that. No holograms. Just… glass and code.
ANNA What old features does it have? Does it have… wires? Connected to a satellite?
Ethan blinked, a genuine, uncalculated look of confusion on his face.
ETHAN What's a wire?
ANNA (She opened her mouth to explain copper filaments and insulated tubing, then stopped herself, a small smile playing on her lips) Well… it's… never mind. What does it do, then?
ETHAN It has normal call functions. Video calls—the video is just on the screen, it doesn't float. Photography. Lots of old games. It's basically a normal phone, just different. It was created pre-World War Three. Back in 2035.
ANNA Ooh, so cool. A real artifact. What else? Does it have an AI assistant?
Ethan's guard was down. He was proud of his secret, flattered by her interest. He took the bait.
ETHAN Of course. And it's the best part. It's totally off radar.
The term landed in the air between them like a physical object. Off radar. In the pervasive, interconnected web of Moorland, such a concept was blasphemy. It was a ghost.
All around them, the environment subtly shifted. The gentle music piping through the bus's speakers flickered, almost imperceptibly. The watches on the wrists of every student within earshot—including Anna's—emitted a sub-audible data-pulse frequency, a flag to the system that a Priority 1 phrase had been uttered. The bus's internal sensors, designed to monitor everything from carbon dioxide to heart rates, subtly re-calibrated, focusing their directional microphones on Seat 14B. The system was now a silent, invisible third participant in their conversation.
Anna's mouth felt dry. Her directive was clear. Dig deeper.
ANNA (Speaking a little too quickly, her eyes fixed on him) Off radar… that sounds… efficient. What's… what's its name? The AI?
INT. SELF-DRIVEN BUS - CONTINUOUS
Ethan leaned in, a conspiratorial whisper forming on his lips. "Its a cute name, its called—"
"Students!" Teacher Shira's voice, amplified by the bus's PA, cut through the air like a blade. Ethan jerked back as if shocked. "If you look to your left, you will see the cobalt fields. On your right, the lithium plots. They are farmed in the desert to prevent chain-reaction explosions. Notice the workers? Their cobalt-blue fingertips are a temporary side effect of the harvest. The system is, of course, very cautious about contamination. It wears off within a solar cycle."
The moment was broken. Anna followed his gaze to the vast, geometric farms where figures in protective suits moved like ants, their gloves stained a vivid, unnatural blue. The mystery of the AI's name hung, unresolved, in the air between them.
EXT. MUSEUM OF NATIONAL RECOVERY - DAY
The museum was a stark, granite monument to Moorland's resilience. Anna stayed close to Ethan, her watch a silent taskmaster on her wrist. A new prompt appeared, discreetly:
TASK: PATIENT PROTOCOL DELTA. ENSURE SUBJECT ENGAGES WITH EXHIBITS. NOTE REACTIONS. QUERY: SUBJECT'S PREFERRED METHOD OF DATA CONSUMPTION?
ANNA (Gently steering him toward a hologram of the Great Depression) Do you prefer reading the plaques, or the holograms? The old tech… did it have stories like this?
ETHAN (Shrugging, eyes distant) The old tech had stories about people. Not events. It felt… smaller. Less heavy.
Before he could elaborate, Teacher Shira materialized. "This hologram depicts the suicide clusters of 2031. Note the algorithmically blurred faces to preserve the dignity of the lost."
They moved on.
TASK: PATIENT PROTOCOL DELTA. QUERY: DOES SUBJECT FIND NOSTALGIA COMFORTING OR PAINFUL?
ANNA (Stopping before a case of melted, pre-war smartphones) Does looking at this… make you miss your phone? Or does it make you glad we have what we have now?
ETHAN (Picking at a thread on his sleeve) It just makes me wonder what they were thinking about. Right before the end. What their last message was.
Teacher Shira's voice echoed from behind them. "A fascinating question, Ethan! The last public net transmission was a recipe for protein-enriched mushroom loaf. A testament to human practicality even in the face of oblivion."
INT. MUSEUM CAFETERIA - LUNCH
The air smelled of recycled nutrients and disinfectant. Ethan stared at the plate in front of him: a perfectly synthesized cheeseburger, its cheese a flawless, uniform yellow.
ANNA (Taking the seat opposite him) I didn't know you liked cheese. After… you know. Your…
Her words trailed off. The word lactose hung unspoken, but it triggered the memory anyway. The stomach cramp. The empty house. The police notification. The guilt.
Ethan's face went pale. He looked at the burger not with hunger, but with a kind of horrified reverence. It was a monument to the single, mundane decision that had irrevocably shattered his life.
ETHAN (His voice barely a whisper) I don't.
He pushed the plate away as if it were poisoned. "I must have selected the wrong option. My mistake." He forced a smile, a brittle, fragile thing. "I'll get the leberkäse."
Anna watched him go, her mission forgotten. She saw the raw pain flash across his face and decided, in that instant, not to log it. It felt like a betrayal to even consider it. The system didn't need to know this.
INT. SELF-DRIVEN BUS - LATER
The return journey was quiet. The adrenaline of the day had drained away, leaving exhaustion in its wake. The low hum of the bus was soporific. Anna, lulled by the rhythm and the emotional toll of her secret defiance, drifted to sleep.
Her head tilted, finding a resting place on Ethan's shoulder.
He froze. His own weariness vanished, replaced by a electric current of awareness. He could feel the soft weight of her, the slight whisper of her breath against his neck. He didn't have a watch to betray his spiking pulse, but the bus's internal environmental sensors registered the localized temperature increase and the subtle change in his breathing pattern. The data was logged, analyzed, and categorized not as a distress signal, but as a positive biomarker: Subject Valesa-Ethan. Exhibiting signs of elevated, non-anxious somatic response to physical proximity. Suggestive of social bonding.
He didn't move a muscle, afraid to break the spell. He just sat there, in the silent, gliding bus, a boy pretending to be a pillar for a sleeping girl, happier than he had been in a very long time.
In a server farm, an algorithm cross-referenced the biometric data from the bus with Anna's logged failure to report Ethan's painful reaction at lunch. The conclusion was not one of suspicion, but of cold, pragmatic logic.
ANALYSIS: SUBJECT VALESA-ETHAN SHOWS SIGNIFICANT POSITIVE RESPONSE TO CITIZEN THANDAR-ANNA. RECOMMENDATION: EXTEND AND DEEPEN SOCIAL INTEGRATION PROTOCOL. DIRECTIVE: ASSIGNMENT OF CITIZEN THANDAR-ANNA IS TO BE EXTENDED FOR A MINIMUM OF TWO (2) ADDITIONAL SOLAR CYCLES. PRIORITY ALPHA.
The system, in its own sterile way, had decided to give him more of the very thing that was beginning to unravel its control.