Epilogue
Early morning light splintered through stained glass and fell across Yan’s glasses.
He squinted and shifted from the antiquated podium for the fourth time since he began the lecture.
The suit jacket pinched at his shoulders, and his shoes cramped his little toes, and he was uncomfortable in every other conceivable way, unsettled, and itching to push the corpse of this lesson over its finish line.
Since his return to Sychi, lecturing had become a nearly unbearable task.
His attention remained scattered, stretching thin between the events of the Nicaea and the seven-hundred strong class in front of him.
“And so, early AI formation remains a largely unexplored area of enquiry that would benefit from new, rigorous, and mixed-methods approaches,” he concluded and dismissed his class.
For the first four months after his return, Yan threw himself into every effort to locate Iris.
It was simple enough to fabricate a research study about AI/human surveillance on gate-adjacent stations and easier still to request access to the surveillance data from said station AIs.
It took him a day to write the code that searched through the video data for anyone who resembled Iris.
He had limited visuals from when Iris had transited through Doshua the first time.
After four months of searching, he still had nothing.
When the last of his students had shuffled out of the auditorium, Yan permitted himself a moment’s reprieve and slumped against the podium.
For the first four months, he had been convinced Iris left because Yan was unable to deliver him the hot and sour soup he had promised, that Iris had somehow known this fact and left before the disappointment ever arrived.
Those days, Yan slept with his apartment door unlocked, hoping that Iris would somehow find his way to him, silently praying for what he knew to be impossible.
Then the seasons turned and Yan, at last, succumbed to the reality that Iris simply had not wished to remain, and no amount of soup would have made him stay.
In the months that followed, Yan locked the front door before settling in for another restless night and paused his religious study of the surveillance footage.
Now, spent both physically and emotionally, still resting on the podium, he was sufficiently distracted to miss the closing door skirt the edge of a white robe, to miss a pair of bare feet as they silently pattered down the steps of the auditorium.
Someone cleared their throat—loudly.
Yan’s head shot up from the podium, eyes resting on the robe-clad figure that stared at him from the depths of the auditorium. “Iris?”
A crystalline laugh was his answer. “I’m afraid not,” the woman before him spoke as she took several deliberately slow steps down the last of the steps. “But now I see what has kept my brother from returning home. Professor Fukui, I presume?”
Yan nodded. The robes, the cleanly shaven head, the nearly glowing white mala around the woman’s wrist all gave away her vocation as a Vessel.
The intensity with which she glared at Yan made him brace in return.
It was strange enough for a Vessel to find him at the institute, stranger still that she would take this tone with him.
“What do you want?”
The woman smiled, pearly teeth glistening. “What I want is some sweets and some meats, and maybe a month to sleep. The more accurate question would be what is it I need.”
She was nearly at the podium now. They matched in height, yet somehow, the Vessel was far more imposing. Yan’s thoughts involuntarily went to Iris as he had seen him last: injured, distraught, but ever stubborn. It must have been a professional trait. “What is it that you need, Vessel?”
At once, a crisp envelope rested on the podium. “I need you to deliver this to Vessel Iris promptly.”
“I’m not your errand boy,” Yan managed to spit out. “Deliver it yourself.”
“I’d better not,” the woman said and gave him a little wink.
“Anyway, I think you need the reunion much more than I.” She nudged the envelope towards Yan with the tip of her finger.
“If you agree, I will tell you where you may find my brother. As far as I’m aware, your search has so far been fruitless. ”
“What’s in the envelope?”
“Family matters.”
A thousand questions rushed through Yan’s mind.
If the Vessel could truly tell him where Iris was, what would he say when he got there?
Would Iris even want to see him? But any answer would be better than silence.
And it was all silence without Iris there.
It was silence in his home, now empty, hollow, cold.
It was silence when Yan woke up every morning and silence as he tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
It was this silence in his thoughts that he was acutely aware of now that everything in his life had splintered in two: before and after the Nicaea.
What a difference even brief company had made.
Real company. The company of a stranger who felt more familiar than anyone Yan had ever known.
The mere idea of spending the rest of his life lecturing, conducting research, supervising students, as if none of it had happened, made Yan want to scream.
“Where’s Iris?” he asked softly.
The Vessel cocked her head to the side and ran her eyes across Yan’s frame. “You will take this to him then?”
Yan gave her a curt nod.
The Vessel gave him a deep bow, a chilling grin stretching along her lips, her eyes never leaving Yan’s.
She turned on her heels and floated towards the exit.
Only when she was halfway up the stairs did Yan recollect himself enough to call after her.
“I agreed to run your errand. Now tell me where Iris is.”
A small shudder crossed her broad shoulders.
Then, the shaking spread from her back to her whole frame until a loud laugh erupted, and she threw her head back with its every sound.
“Oh, Professor Fukui, you silly man. Iris never left Doshua Station. He’s been there for six months cooking noodles and soup and all sorts of greasy snacks, and you never bothered to check.
In your ignorance, you thought Iris would be like yourself and choose to run.
Never did you entertain the idea that he might stay put where you’d left him.
Now get going, Professor Fukui. This is an urgent message, and I expect you to hurry appropriately.
” The Vessel wasn’t laughing anymore. Her eyes pierced Yan from atop the stairs.
Where Iris carried his strength gently, this Vessel let it speak before she spoke.
Where Iris was patient, this Vessel was brash.
She had called Iris brother, yet Iris never spoke of her in their brief time together.
Still, this was a chance, one he would not be wasting.
“What should I tell him when I give him this?” Yan waved the envelope over his head.
“Tell him Vessel Bacai sent you,” she said. “And tell him he’s in monumental trouble.”
The noodle shop’s faux-teak counter blurred in and out of focus as swarms of passengers scurried across the station floor.
Through the gaps between their bodies, Yan watched a familiar silhouette serve patrons, collect empty dishes, and bring out new, full ones.
He had crossed millions of miles to stand at this very spot.
All there was to do now was take the final step.
“Hello, Iris,” was all he’d manage.