#global engineering college
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How to Choose Best College In Chandigarh Students
When selecting the best college in Chandigarh, students should consider various factors such as accreditation, faculty expertise, infrastructure, placement records, and extracurricular opportunities. It's crucial to research each institution thoroughly, visiting campuses if possible, to get a feel for the environment and facilities. Reading reviews and speaking with current students can provide valuable insights. Additionally, analyzing the college's curriculum and comparing it with personal academic goals can help make an informed decision. Ultimately, choosing the right college in Chandigarh entails finding the perfect balance between academic excellence and overall campus experience.
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gist4 · 1 month ago
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Global Institute of Science & Technology – One of the Best Colleges for Diploma in Engineering
Global Institute of Science & Technology (GIST), based in Haldia, is widely regarded as one of the best colleges for diploma in engineering in West Bengal. GIST offers AICTE-approved diploma programs in core engineering streams such as Mechanical, Civil, Electrical, and Computer Science Engineering. The institute is dedicated to providing a strong academic foundation paired with practical skill development to meet the growing demand for technically proficient professionals. With modern infrastructure, advanced laboratories, and experienced faculty, GIST ensures that students receive an education that prepares them for both higher studies and immediate employment in the technical field.
As one of the best colleges for diploma in engineering, GIST also emphasizes holistic student development. The institute conducts regular industrial visits, technical workshops, seminars, and hands-on training programs to bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world application. A dedicated Training & Placement Cell actively collaborates with reputed companies to provide students with internship opportunities and job placements. GIST’s focus on innovation, industry readiness, and student success makes it a preferred choice for aspiring engineers looking to build a strong and successful career.
To learn more about our diploma programs and admissions, contact us or visit our official website.
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sucesshub-blog · 3 months ago
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Noida International University (NIU) | Best UGC-Recognized University in Greater Noida
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If you're dreaming of a future filled with innovation, knowledge, and success, look no further than Noida International University (NIU) – widely recognized as the best private college in India. Located in the educational hub of Greater Noida, NIU is setting new benchmarks in higher education through its holistic approach, UGC recognition, state-of-the-art campus, and global learning ecosystem.
Why Noida International University is the Top Choice for Students
NIU isn’t just another university, it's a launchpad for your dreams. Here's why thousands of students choose NIU Greater Noida every year:
UGC Recognized University
NIU is a UGC recognized university, ensuring credibility, academic excellence, and national recognition. This makes it one of the top universities in India to consider for your undergraduate, postgraduate, or doctoral studies.
World-Class Infrastructure
Walk into the NIU campus, and you’ll be amazed. From high-tech labs to digital libraries, smart classrooms to modern hostels—this university rivals international standards.
Experienced Faculty
Learn from the best. NIU’s faculty members are not just qualified but come with industry experience and international exposure. They bring knowledge from the real world into the classroom.
Industry-Focused Curriculum
Whether you're interested in engineering, business, law, media, nursing, or design, the curriculum at NIU is tailored to the demands of modern industry.
International Collaborations
As an international university in India, NIU collaborates with institutions and companies worldwide, offering students global exposure and exchange opportunities.
Vibrant Campus Life
Life at NIU Greater Noida is never dull. With student clubs, cultural fests, tech events, and sports activities, the campus is buzzing with energy and innovation.
Study in Greater Noida – The Education Hub of India
If you’re looking to study in Greater Noida, NIU stands out as the perfect place. The city is known for its clean environment, excellent connectivity, and student-friendly atmosphere. Being one of the best universities in Noida, NIU places you in the heart of this dynamic educational hub.
Courses Offered at Noida International University
NIU provides a wide spectrum of academic programs:
Undergraduate Courses
B.Tech (All Branches)
BBA / B.Com / BA (Hons.)
BCA / B.Sc. (IT)
BA LLB / BBA LLB
B.Sc. Nursing / BPT
Bachelor in Design & Mass Communication
Postgraduate Courses
M.Tech
MBA / M.Com
MCA / M.Sc.
MA in Journalism & Mass Comm.
MPT / M.Sc. Nursing
Doctoral Programs
Ph.D. across various disciplines
Whether you're looking to begin your journey or deepen your expertise, NIU has a program that fits.
Placement & Career Support
NIU doesn’t just teach—it helps you launch your career. With strong ties to top companies, regular campus drives, and internship programs, NIU ensures its students are ready to thrive in the competitive job market.
Top Recruiters Include: TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Amazon, Deloitte, Capgemini, and more.
Global Opportunities Await
As a truly international university in India, NIU promotes global learning through:
Exchange programs with universities in the USA, UK, Germany, and Australia
Guest lectures from international experts
Research collaborations across borders
NIU students graduate with not just a degree but a global perspective.
Campus Life at NIU – Learn. Live. Thrive.
The NIU campus is a world of its own—modern, inclusive, and vibrant. Students enjoy:
On-campus hostel facilities
Cafeterias & food courts
Wi-Fi enabled campus
Medical care
24x7 security
Sports facilities
There’s never a dull moment here—NIU is not just a university; it’s a community where dreams come to life.
Scholarships & Financial Aid
Worried about the cost? NIU offers scholarships for meritorious students and financial aid to ensure that no dream goes unfulfilled due to financial constraints.
How to Apply to Noida International University
Admission Helpline: 9800180290 24x7 WhatsApp Support: https://wa.me/+919800180290
The admission process is student-friendly and fully online. NIU counselors guide you through every step—from application to scholarship eligibility and course selection.
NIU Is More Than Just a Degree—It’s a Path to a Brighter Future
Parents and students alike are choosing NIU for its blend of quality education, industry exposure, and global opportunities. Whether you're from India or abroad, this is your chance to study at a top university in India that values your growth and success.
What Students Say About NIU
“Studying at NIU has been life-changing. From academics to personal development, I’ve grown in every way.” – Priya, B.Tech (CSE)
“The international tie-ups opened the doors to amazing internships and projects.” – Rohan, MBA
“If you’re looking for the best university in Noida, go for NIU. No second thoughts!” – Aisha, BA LLB
Choosing the right university can shape your entire future. If you’re aiming high and looking for a place that offers quality, innovation, and global opportunities, Noida International University is your destination.
Located in Greater Noida, it’s one of the best private colleges in India, recognized by the UGC and trusted by thousands of students and parents.
FAQs
1. Is Noida International University UGC recognized?
Yes, NIU is a fully UGC recognized university and adheres to national and international academic standards.
2. Where is NIU located?
NIU is located in Greater Noida, a prime educational and residential area near Delhi NCR.
3. What programs does NIU offer?
NIU offers a range of UG, PG, and Ph.D. programs in Engineering, Business, Law, Nursing, Media, Design, and more.
4. How can I apply to NIU?
Simply call the Admission Helpline at 9800180290 or use 24x7 WhatsApp Support here to get started.
5. Why should I choose NIU?
NIU stands out as the best university in Noida thanks to its UGC recognition, global learning, industry-ready curriculum, and vibrant campus life.
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bangalorestudy01 · 4 months ago
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Courses Offered at S-VYASA University: A Complete Guide
Introduction:
S-VYASA University, a deemed-to-be university in Bangalore, is renowned for its contributions to yoga education, research, and holistic sciences. The university offers a variety of courses across different disciplines, focusing on yoga, naturopathy, and engineering. With its S-VYASA Global City Campus and S-VYASA University RR Nagar facilities, students experience world-class education in a serene and research-driven environment.
S-VYASA University Admissions
Students interested in enrolling at S-VYASA Yoga University must follow a structured admission process. The university offers undergraduate, postgraduate, diploma, and PhD courses in yoga, naturopathy, and engineering. Admissions are based on entrance exams, academic performance, and interviews for specific programs.
Courses Offered at S-VYASA University
1. Yoga & Naturopathy Courses
Bachelor of Naturopathy and Yogic Sciences (BNYS)
B.Sc in Yoga Therapy
M.Sc in Yoga Therapy
PG Diploma in Yoga Therapy
Ph.D. in Yoga and Allied Sciences
These courses provide students with a scientific understanding of yoga, therapeutic applications, and naturopathic treatments, preparing them for careers in wellness, research, and healthcare.
2. Engineering Courses at S-VYASA Engineering College, Bangalore
Apart from yoga-related courses, S-VYASA Engineering College Bangalore offers B.Tech and M.Tech programs in various disciplines, integrating technology with sustainable development principles.
S-VYASA Courses Fees
The S-VYASA courses fees vary depending on the program.
BNYS Fees: ₹3-5 Lakhs (for the entire course)
B.Sc Yoga Therapy Fees: ₹1-2 Lakhs
M.Sc Yoga Therapy Fees: ₹1.5-3 Lakhs
Ph.D. Yoga Fees: ₹3-6 Lakhs
For engineering courses, the fees range from ₹2-6 Lakhs, depending on the specialization.
Why Choose S-VYASA University?
A UGC-recognized and NAAC-accredited university
Research-driven Global City Campus
Collaboration with leading yoga institutions worldwide
Strong placement support in wellness, healthcare, and research fields
Conclusion
Whether you are interested in yoga therapy, naturopathy, or engineering, S-VYASA Deemed-to-be-University Bangalore provides a well-rounded academic experience. With affordable course fees, advanced research centers, and a holistic learning environment, it is one of the top choices for students seeking excellence in yoga and applied sciences.
For more details on S-VYASA University admissions, visit the official website or contact the university directly.
- Website: https://bangalorestudy.com/svyasa-deemed-university-bangalore
Contact Us: 9036020016
- Email Us: [email protected]
- Follow Us: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube
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mkcecollege · 5 months ago
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Sustainable urban development is crucial as cities expand and energy demands grow. Renewable energy systems, such as solar, wind, and hydropower, offer cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels, helping reduce carbon footprints and combat climate change. MKCE focuses on educating students through hands-on projects, equipping them to design and implement efficient energy systems. These systems provide economic benefits, enhance energy security, and improve public health by reducing air pollution. Despite challenges like high initial costs and infrastructure gaps, innovations like smart grids and energy storage are transforming urban energy management. MKCE prepares students to tackle these challenges and contribute to global sustainability goals. The adoption of renewable energy is essential for achieving a cleaner, healthier future. Through education and innovation, MKCE plays a key role in shaping future leaders in renewable energy. The integration of renewable energy is vital for building resilient and sustainable cities. Together, we can transition to a greener, more sustainable urban future.
To Know More : https://mkce.ac.in/blog/the-role-of-renewable-energy-systems-in-sustainable-urban-development/
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townpostin · 1 year ago
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RVS College of Engineering & Technology Signs MoU with California Miramar University
RVS College of Engineering & Technology partners with California Miramar University, enhancing global academic collaboration and research. The prestigious collaboration between RVS College of Engineering & Technology and California Miramar University aims to foster student and faculty exchanges and collaborative research. JAMSHEDPUR –RVS College of Engineering & Technology recently made an…
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dronacharyacollege · 2 years ago
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"Global Digital Innovation." It was 7th edition of IMC, a three day program scheduled for 27th, 28th  and 29th October 2023, at Pragati Maidan.
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Students of Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurugram visited IMC 2023, Asia's most extensive telecommunications, media, and technology forum on 27th October, 2023.
The theme of event was "Global Digital Innovation." It was 7th edition of IMC, a three day program scheduled for 27th, 28th  and 29th October 2023, at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, India.
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saintobio · 11 months ago
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⊹₊ ⋆🏍₊˚⊹ ON TRACK.
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when being the WAG of a rookie MotoGP rider earns you the front-row seats to a thrilling race and... an unsightly amount of groupies.
▞▞ pairings. ryōmen sukuna, fem!reader
▞▞ genre. fluff, established relationship, biker boy au, motogp rider au
▞▞ tags. biker!sukuna, motogp rider!sukuna, sukuna rides for ducati, WAG!reader, ooc, profanity, mentions of reckless driving, jealousy, insecurities, accidents, mentions of injuries, sukuna gets a little touchy in the end
▞▞ notes. 1.8k wc. do we miss biker!sukuna? i think we all miss biker!sukuna !! bahaha the influx of biker!sukuna fanarts made me write this. and also bcos i watched motogp clips on tiktok. rbs and comments highly appreciated! :D
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Have you ever imagined Sukuna as a MotoGP rider? 
Well, his passion for bikes didn’t just stay confined to the open road. He knew he was destined for more than just the city’s freeways and the thrill of 1000cc machines. He was, as a matter of fact, made for the track. 
Yes, the scary, dangerous, exhilarating world of high-speed competition.
When he had first told you about competing in MotoGP, you were thrilled for him. Truly, because you knew that the series had been his lifelong dream. Before, he was just a little boy who collected bikes for toys, and now he had the chance to make his dream a reality. So, who were you to stand in the way of that?
In fact, you were incredibly supportive—always present at his races, always cheering for him from the stands. It didn’t matter if you’d lose your voice the next day. You had to be his biggest supporter. And today was just another one of those days where your duty as his #1 fan called for you to be there and root for him with all your heart. 
Today’s MotoGP race was in full swing, and your heart pounded in rhythm with the thundering bikes tearing down the track. They all passed by in a resounding zoom! where your eyes could barely keep up from their otherworldly speed. From your vantage point in the VIP section, you watched intently as the riders navigated the circuit, your eyes never straying far from one rider in particular—Sukuna, your longtime boyfriend, riding a Ducati Desmosedici GP24.
“I’m so nervous,” you murmured, hands clasped together as your eyes remained glued to your lover. 
Sukuna was a sight to behold on the track, and he always told you that his bike was an extension of himself as he maneuvered with precision and aggression. Honestly, it must be scary to be the one riding such powerful superbikes, especially when the roar of engines alone was a symphony of speed and power that sent chills down your spine. And while you were filled with anxiety watching your boyfriend on the circuit, the red and black Ducati eventually flashed past, neck and neck with the Aprilia rider, and the two bikes locked in a fierce battle for the lead. 
You could imagine the commentators keeping a close eye as they narrated the race on live television.
But you trusted in Sukuna’s talent. His ability to escape from cops with his old R6 back in his college days was proof enough of how ridiculous he could get with his speed. He didn’t get a single ticket because he managed to outrun them all. Though, of course, that wasn’t something you should be mentioning to anyone. He wasn’t actually proud of notoriety and history of reckless driving before, especially when he recalled having endangered your life once before while you rode with him as his backpack. 
And since Sukuna upgraded to being a professional rider now, you had your fair share of an upgrade, too. That manifested in the form of being part of the so-called WAGs—or wives and girlfriends of the racers. Life as a WAG wasn’t drastically different from your previous one, except now your boyfriend was a huge global sensation in the biker community, and you had become somewhat of a fashion icon yourself. That wasn’t even an exaggeration, because every time you were seen with him publicly, people would soon be talking about your off-duty looks and outfits all over social media. 
But going back to the main star of the show, your hands clenched around the railing, knuckles white, as the race progressed. It annoyed you that the Aprilia rider was pushing him to the edge but never quite managing to overtake. Tailing the two were the riders for Honda, Gresini, Pramac, and KTM among the few.
Cupping your hands around your mouth, you cheered for your boyfriend. “Go, baby! Let’s go!”
The giant screen above the track zoomed in on Sukuna, his Arai helmet fitting the aesthetics of his big, red bike. The effortless way he handled his bike sent a ripple of excitement through the crowd. There were lots of cheering, screaming, roaring, and… well, squealing. Your head naturally turned to the group of girls nearby who were the very cause of the high pitched noises, their squeals of delight making the other WAGs around you shake their heads in amusement.
“Oh my God, he’s so hot!” 
“Look at him! He’s perfect!” 
“Sukuna, marry me!” 
“I’ll give you my number later!” 
“God, I wanna hook up with him.” 
“Girl, me too!” 
“You think we should wait outside his hotel later?” 
“Count me in!” 
Groupies. You felt a surge of pride mixed with a twinge of jealousy as you watched their frenzied adoration for your boyfriend. Literally. Your fingers were itching to gouge their eyes out. You wondered if he had ever been tempted to cheat, that when you were busy with your own corporate life outside of being his girlfriend, he might have rewarded himself by sleeping with an influencer or two. Probably models, too. Those tall, gorgeous women who often get partnered with him on ads and photoshoots.  
But the thing was, you couldn’t blame them—yes, your boyfriend was undeniably handsome, and his chiseled features and intense gaze made him a magnet for attention. A true eye-candy if you may add. Not to mention, he had the most attractive tattoos you had seen in a man. Ever. 
But he was yours, and that knowledge filled you with a sense of triumph over the hundreds and thousands of girls that were fantasizing about him.
Then, in the middle of your trance, an accident struck.
It was a blur of red and black as Sukuna’s bike suddenly wobbled after the rear wheel slipped on a patch of oil left behind by another rider. You held your breath in, praying to every saint that he remained safe, as you watched him struggle to regain control while the bike fishtailed dangerously. 
“Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh.” Your brain rattled with anxiety as you gripped onto the railings. “Baby, no. No, be careful! You got this!” 
For a moment, it seemed he might manage to stay upright, but then the inevitable happened. Sukuna went down in a matter of seconds, and his bike skidded out from under him in a shower of sparks.
“Oh, shit!” 
A collective gasp rose from the crowd, and your heart was lurching in your chest as you saw how your lover hit the tarmac. The medics immediately rushed onto the track, while you were still awestricken as you stared at the screen displaying his fall. 
“Please be okay, baby! Please,” you muttered under your breath again and again. 
A fellow WAG eventually placed a hand on your shoulders, rubbing you comfortingly. “He’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Their gears are made for this.”
She spoke like true champ, and you knew you could put some trust in her words since she was a seasoned WAG. She had probably seen worst accidents that her husband had gone through while on track.
Still, you couldn’t help yourself. What if Sukuna sustained really terrible injuries? What if he broke a bone or two? What if he experienced a concussion? And if he did, what if he’d no longer remember you when he wakes up? Oh, Jesus. Your overthinking was the true culprit here. Yet there was nothing you could really do but wait for good news and hope that nothing too serious happened. Seconds felt like hours, and you were almost about to faint until you saw Sukuna finally standing up between the medics that surrounded him, waving to signal that he was okay albeit limping a little.
“Thank fuck!” 
“See? I told you he’s fine.”
Relief flooded through you, but unfortunately, such joy ended up being short-lived. Sukuna had lost precious seconds in the fall, seconds that allowed the Aprilia to pull ahead. And by the time he got back on his bike and rejoined the race, the gap was already too wide. 
He crossed the finish line in fifth place, a position that felt like a heart-shattering defeat after having been so close to victory.
As soon as the race was over, you didn’t even think twice when you made your way down to the paddock, pushing through the crowd and the throng of zealous fans just to reach your boyfriend. Your heart was still racing, almost akin to the superbikes that were speeding on the track moments ago, as you desperately looked for the love of your life. Only when you rounded the corner did you finally see him, helmet off and leathers dusty from the fall, talking with his team.
“Lovey!” you called out, face full of worry.
Sukuna was quick to turn at the sound of your voice, his expression softening the very moment his eyes landed on you. With long strides, he removed hi’s gloves and closed the distance between you two, and before you knew it, you were wrapped in his arms, the scent of leather and motor oil enveloping you in a comforting hug.
“Are you okay?” you asked, pulling back just enough to search his face for any signs of injury. “I was losing my mind back there!” 
As if he didn’t just experience a dangerous fall, he had a mischievous smile displayed when he looked at you. “I’m fine, baby. Just a little bruised ego.”
“It’s not a joke,” you whined, arms crossed at his lack of seriousness to the matter. “I was so scared when I saw you go down."
Very sweetly, he cupped your face in his hands and nuzzled his nose against yours. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m still alive, right?”
That’s true, you thought. But also… “You came in fifth,” you said, letting out a quieted sigh. 
But the Ducati rider himself was merely chuckling. Not even an ounce of heartbreak was shown on bis face. “Fifth place isn’t the end of the world, babe. I can live with that.”
You shook your head, not understanding how he could be so calm. Really. “But you were so close. You could have won!” And you’d blame it on your hormones, but you remembered the group of girls who cheered him on and decided to bring it up. “By the way, you had all those girls ready to throw themselves at you earlier. One of them even suggested waiting outside your hotel to hook up with you.” 
“Really? Where are those baddies?” he joked, looking around and trying to spot the girls until you flicked his forehead. “Ow! I was just kidding, babe. You’re the only one riding this dick day and night.” 
“Not funny.”
“But you’re so cute when you’re jealous.” He started attacking your cheeks with squeezes. 
While you, you tried your best to swat his hand away. “I’m not. Stooop—! You’re so annoying!” 
“Okay, okay!” He let out a deep chuckle as he raised his hands in surrender. “Anyway, I don’t care about them. I’ve already won the most important race of all."
You blinked twice in the same second, not comprehending his words. “What do you mean?”
Sukuna’s eyes soon softened into a teasing gaze. “I have my beautiful girl in my arms right now. That’s the only victory that matters to me.”
As much as you tried to contain it, a smile eventually broke across your face. “You’re such a sap!”
“Only for you,” was his elfish response, pulling you closer. 
The celebrations continued around you as the media and the crowd swarmed into the paddock. Sukuna held your waist tightly the entire time, all while acknowledging the people that greeted him and asked him for signatures. While in his arms, you realized that he was right. Winning or losing on the track didn’t matter because he already had you—and that was his true and greatest victory.
As cringe-worthy as that may sound. 
“I do have a request, though.” Your boyfriend focused his attention back on you, giving your bum a playful squeeze in front of everyone before he moved his face closer to your ear. “Make me feel like a winner in bed tonight.”
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reasonsforhope · 1 year ago
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Scientists have developed a new solar-powered system to convert saltwater into fresh drinking water which they say could help reduce dangerous the risk of waterborne diseases like cholera.
Via tests in rural communities, they showed that the process is more than 20% cheaper than traditional methods and can be deployed in rural locations around the globe.
Building on existing processes that convert saline groundwater to freshwater, the researchers from King’s College London, in collaboration with MIT and the Helmholtz Institute for Renewable Energy Systems, created a new system that produced consistent levels of water using solar power, and reported it in a paper published recently in Nature Water.
It works through a process called electrodialysis which separates the salt using a set of specialized membranes that channel salt ions into a stream of brine, leaving the water fresh and drinkable. By flexibly adjusting the voltage and the rate at which salt water flowed through the system, the researchers developed a system that adjusts to variable sunshine while not compromising on the amount of fresh drinking water produced.
Using data first gathered in the village of Chelleru near Hyderabad in India, and then recreating these conditions of the village in New Mexico, the team successfully converted up to 10 cubic meters, or several bathtubs worth of fresh drinking water. This was enough for 3,000 people a day with the process continuing to run regardless of variable solar power caused by cloud coverage and rain.
[Note: Not sure what metric they're using to calculate daily water needs here. Presumably this is drinking water only.]
Dr. Wei He from the Department of Engineering at King’s College London believes the new technology could bring massive benefits to rural communities, not only increasing the supply of drinking water but also bringing health benefits.
“By offering a cheap, eco-friendly alternative that can be operated off the grid, our technology enables communities to tap into alternative water sources (such as deep aquifers or saline water) to address water scarcity and contamination in traditional water supplies,” said He.
“This technology can expand water sources available to communities beyond traditional ones and by providing water from uncontaminated saline sources, may help combat water scarcity or unexpected emergencies when conventional water supplies are disrupted, for example like the recent cholera outbreaks in Zambia.”
In the global rural population, 1.6 billion people face water scarcity, many of whom are reliant on stressed reserves of groundwater lying beneath the Earth’s surface.
However, worldwide 56% of groundwater is saline and unsuitable for consumption. This issue is particularly prevalent in India, where 60% of the land harbors undrinkable saline water. Consequently, there is a pressing need for efficient desalination methods to create fresh drinking water cheaply, and at scale.
Traditional desalination technology has relied either on costly batteries in off-grid systems or a grid system to supply the energy necessary to remove salt from the water. In developing countries’ rural areas, however, grid infrastructure can be unreliable and is largely reliant on fossil fuels...
“By removing the need for a grid system entirely and cutting reliance on battery tech by 92%, our system can provide reliable access to safe drinking water, entirely emission-free, onsite, and at a discount of roughly 22% to the people who need it compared to traditional methods,” He said.
The system also has the potential to be used outside of developing areas, particularly in agriculture where climate change is leading to unstable reserves of fresh water for irrigation.
The team plans to scale up the availability of the technology across India through collaboration with local partners. Beyond this, a team from MIT also plans to create a start-up to commercialize and fund the technology.
“While the US and UK have more stable, diversified grids than most countries, they still rely on fossil fuels. By removing fossil fuels from the equation for energy-hungry sectors like agriculture, we can help accelerate the transition to Net Zero,” He said.
-via Good News Network, April 2, 2024
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mariacallous · 2 months ago
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My earliest memory of 4chan was sitting up late at night, typing its URL into my browser, and scrolling through a thread of LOLcat memes, which were brand-new at the time.
Back then a photoshop of a cat saying "I can has cheezburger" or an image of an owl saying “ORLY?” was, without question, the funniest thing my 14-year-old brain had ever laid eyes on. So much so, I woke my dad up by laughing too hard and had to tell him that I was scrolling through pictures of cats at 2 in the morning. Later, I would become intimately familiar with the site’s much more nefarious tendencies.
It's strange to look back at 4chan, apparently wiped off the internet entirely last week by hackers from a rival message board, and think about how many different websites it was over its more than two decades online. What began as a hub for internet culture and an anonymous way station for the internet's anarchic true believers devolved over the years into a fan club for mass shooters, the central node of Gamergate, and the beating heart of far-right fascism around the world—a virus that infected every facet of our lives, from the slang we use to the politicians we vote for. But the site itself had been frozen in amber since the George W. Bush administration.
It is likely that there will never be a site like 4chan again—which is, likely, a very good thing. But it had also essentially already succeeded at its core project: chewing up the world and spitting it back out in its own image. Everything—from X to Facebook to YouTube—now sort of feels like 4chan. Which makes you wonder why it even needed to still exist.
"The novelty of a website devoted to shock and gore, and the rebelliousness inherent in it, dies when your opinions become the official policy of the world's five or so richest people and the government of the United States," the Onion CEO and former extremism reporter Ben Collins tells WIRED. “Like any ostensibly nihilist cultural phenomenon, it inherently dies if that phenomenon itself becomes The Man.”
My first experience with the more toxic side of the site came several years after my LOLcat all-nighter, when I was in college. I was a big Tumblr user—all my friends were on there—and for about a year or so, our corner of the platform felt like an extension of the house parties we would throw. That cozy vibe came crashing down for me when I got doxed the summer going into my senior year. Someone made a “hate blog” for me—one of the first times I felt the dark presence of an anonymous stranger’s digital ire, and posted my phone number on 4chan.
They played a prank that was popular on the site at the time, writing in a thread that my phone number was for a GameStop store that had a copy of the ultra-rare video game Battletoads. I received no less than 250 phone calls over the next 48 hours asking if I had a copy of the game.
Many of the 4chan users that called me mid-Battletoad attack left messages. I listened to all of them. A pattern quickly emerged: young men, clearly nervous to even leave a message, trying to harass a stranger for, seemingly, the hell of it. Those voicemails have never left me in the 15 years I've spent covering 4chan as a journalist.
I had a front-row seat to the way those timid men morphed into the violent, seething underbelly of the internet. The throbbing engine of reactionary hatred that resented everything and everyone simply because resentment was the only language its users knew how to speak. I traveled the world in the 2010s, tracing 4chan’s impact on global democracy. I followed it to France, Germany, Japan, and Brazil as 4chan's users became increasingly convinced that they could take over the planet through racist memes, far-right populism, and cyberbullying. And, in a way, they did. But the ubiquity of 4chan culture ended up being an oddly Pyrrhic victory for the site itself.
Collins, like me, closely followed 4chan's rise in the 2010s from internet backwater to unofficial propaganda organ of the Trump administration. As he sees it, once Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 there was really no point to 4chan anymore. Why hide behind anonymity if a billionaire lets you post the same kind of extremist content under your real name and even pays you for it?
4chan’s “user base just moved into a bigger ballpark and started immediately impacting American life and policy," Collins says. "Twitter became 4chan, then the 4chanified Twitter became the United States government. Its usefulness as an ammo dump in the culture war was diminished when they were saying things you would now hear every day on Twitter, then six months later out of the mouths of an administration official."
But understanding how 4chan went from the home of cat memes to a true internet bogeyman requires an understanding of how the site actually worked. Its features were often overlooked amid all the conversations about the site's political influence, but I'd argue they were equally, if not more, important.
4chan was founded by Christopher “Moot” Poole when he was 15. A regular user on slightly less anarchic comedy site Something Awful, Poole created a spinoff site for a message board there called “Anime Death Tentacle Rape Whorehouse.” Poole was a fan of the Japanese message board 2chan, or Futaba Channel, and wanted to give Western anime fans their own version, so he poorly translated the site's code and promoted his new site, 4chan, to Something Awful's anime community. Several core features were ported over in the process.
4chan users were anonymous, threads weren't permanent and would time out or "404" after a period of inactivity, and there were dozens of sub-boards you could post to. That unique combination of ephemerality, anonymity, and organized chaos proved to be a potent mix, immediately creating a race-to-the-bottom gutter culture unlike anything else on the web. The dark end point of the techno-utopianism that built the internet. On 4chan you were no one, and nothing you did mattered unless it was so shocking, so repulsive, so hateful that someone else noticed and decided to screenshot it before it disappeared into the digital ether.
"The iconic memes that came out of 4chan are because people took the time to save it, you know? And the fact that nobody predicted, nobody could predict or control what was saved or what wasn't saved, I think, is really, really fascinating," Cates Holderness, Tumblr's former head of editorial, tells WIRED.
Still, 4chan was more complicated than it looked from the outside. The site was organized into dozens of smaller sections, everything from comics to cooking to video games to, of course, pornography. Holderness says she learned to make bread during the pandemic thanks to 4chan's cooking board. (Full disclosure: I introduced Holderness to 4chan way back in 2012.)
"When I switched to sourdough, I got really good pointers," she says.
Holderness calls 4chan the internet's “Wild West” and says its demise this month felt appropriate in a way. The chaos that defined 4chan, both the good and the very, very bad, has largely been paved over by corporate platforms and their algorithms now.
Our feeds deliver us content; we don't have to hunt for it. We don't have to sit in front of a computer refreshing a page to find out whether we're getting a new cat meme or a new manifesto. The humanness of that era of the web, now that 4chan is gone, is likely never coming back. And we'll eventually find out if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
"The snippets that we have of what 4chan was—it's all skewed,” Holderness says. “There is no record. There's no record that can ever encapsulate what 4chan was."
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⮞ Chapter Nine: Like Iron Man Pairing: Jungkook x Reader Other Tags: Convict!Jungkook, Escaped Prisoner!Jungkook, Piolet!Reader, Captain!Reader, Holyman!Namjoon, Boss!Yoongi, Commander!Jimin, Astronaut!Jimin, Doctor!Hoseok, Astronaut!Hoseok Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure, Thriller, Suspense, Strangers to Enemies to ???, Slow Burn, LOTS of Angst, Light Fluff, Eventual Smut, Third Person POV, 18+ Only Word Count: 9.5k+ Summary: When a deep space transporter crash-lands on a barren planet illuminated by three relentless suns, survival becomes the only priority for the stranded passengers, including resourceful pilot Y/N Y/L/N, mystic Namjoon Kim, lawman Taemin Lee, and enigmatic convict Jungkook Jeon. As they scour the hostile terrain for supplies and a way to escape, Y/N uncovers a terrifying truth: every 22 years, the planet is plunged into total darkness during an eclipse, awakening swarms of ravenous, flesh-eating creatures. Forced into a fragile alliance, the survivors must face not only the deadly predators but also their own mistrust and secrets. For Y/N, the growing tension with Jungkook—both a threat and a reluctant ally—raises the stakes even higher, as the battle to escape becomes one for survival against the darkness both around them and within themselves. Warnings: Strong Language, Trauma, Smart Character Choices, This is all angst and action and that's pretty much it, Reader is a bad ass, Survivor Woman is back baby, some mental health issues, survivor's guilt, lots of talking to herself, and recording it, because she'll lose her mind otherwise, fixing things, intergalatical politics, strong female characters are everywhere, launching into space in a toaster oven with a tarp on it, lots of stakes in this one, horrible safety culture, NOSA should honestly be sued for how botched all of this was, "family" reunion, bomb making, EVERYONE is getting fired, cynical humor, bad science language, honestly all of this has probably had the worst science and basis ever, I researched a lot I promise, let me know if I missed anything... A/N: Goodbye M6-117.
prev || masterlist || next
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The NOSA campus had never seen anything like it.
Even from a kilometer out, the perimeter was packed. People leaned against barricades and each other, huddled in clusters under floodlights bright enough to wash the stars from the sky. The night, if it could still be called that, was drowned in artificial daylight—spotlights from media towers, camera flashes from a thousand news crews, lens-flares from civilian drones hovering in place like mechanical fireflies.
The crowd stretched for blocks. Families with children on their shoulders. Retired engineers in old NOSA polos. College students wrapped in space agency flags. All of them waiting—silent now, or murmuring in low, expectant voices. Most watched the massive Jumbotrons mounted along the walls, where every second of telemetry, every heartbeat from the Starfire, was being broadcast in real time. Or close enough.
Inside the gates, the chaos was no less intense, just better organized. The lawns around the main complex were a grid of satellite trucks, news tents, interview stations, and temporary barricades. It looked like a music festival for a world that had stopped needing music. The buzz of conversation, of nerves and theory and speculation, filled the air like static. You could feel the tension in the soles of your feet.
“Y/L/N RESCUE MISSION”—the headline repeated on every screen. Beneath it, a stream of live feeds: camera angles inside Starfire’s command deck, raw footage of the launch vehicle back on M6-117, and endless shots of mission engineers working inside NOSA’s own nerve center.
It had the atmosphere of a global broadcast event, but the stakes felt heavier than spectacle. There was no backup plan. No one else coming. It was this or nothing.
In the observation gallery above Mission Control, the tone was different—quieter, but no less charged. The room sat high above the main floor, separated by thick soundproof glass and a subtle line of recessed lighting. A few dozen seats were arranged in staggered rows. Most were filled.
Some guests were dignitaries, political envoys, government liaisons. Others were agency veterans or invited family. No one talked much. Every pair of eyes was focused on the wall of screens below.
At the front of the gallery, Yoongi stood at the glass, his hands tucked into his pockets. He hadn’t spoken in nearly fifteen minutes. Not since the MAV ignition timer passed the T-60 mark. His reflection in the glass looked calm. It wasn’t.
Beside him, Mateo stood like a coiled spring—arms crossed tightly, one boot tapping silently against the floor. His jaw was tight, eyes fixed on the main feed: a wide-angle shot of the MAV, barely visible in the amber haze of M6-117’s dusk light. The tarp-covered nose fluttered faintly in the breeze. The image looked unreal.
A few steps away, Alice shifted her weight for the tenth time in as many minutes. She couldn’t keep still. Her jacket sleeves were bunched at her wrists, one hand fidgeting with the hem of her cuff.
She stared out over the glass, her voice low. “If something goes wrong... what can Mission Control do?”
Mateo didn’t turn. His eyes stayed locked on the MAV telemetry feed, where the fuel lines were just beginning to pressurize.
“Nothing,” he said. Blunt. Final. “We can’t do anything.”
Alice turned to look at him. “Nothing?”
“Nothing,” he repeated. “Twelve light-minutes out. Every command we send, every word we speak, takes twelve minutes to get there. Another twelve to hear the response. The launch sequence is automated. Remote override is already locked. Once she pushes ignition, we’re out of the loop.”
He exhaled, slow and controlled. “The launch takes twelve minutes. We won’t even get confirmation until it’s already over.”
The silence that followed was cold. Not angry. Just still.
Alice looked back at the feed. Her hands had gone still.
“She’s really alone,” she said quietly.
Mateo nodded once. “The loneliest human being in the system.”
She wanted to ask him if this was a good idea. If it should’ve gone differently. But there was no point. The plan wasn’t theoretical anymore. The preparations were over. They had crossed the point of no return days ago.
And it wasn’t just them watching.
Outside, the crowd was still growing. Across the world—cities, schools, military bases, public squares—people gathered around screens. Governments had lifted firewalls. Feeds were open in every major language. There were kids on rooftops in Seoul and nurses watching from break rooms in São Paulo. An entire generation had come of age watching people like Y/N step into the unknown, and now the world held its breath to see if she would make it back.
Alice hesitated. Then asked, quietly, “Are we sure we want to be broadcasting this? If something goes wrong—”
Mateo finally turned. His eyes met hers—sharp, dark, and unwavering.
“Yes,” he said.
It wasn’t said for debate. It was said because it was true.
“She signed up for this. We all did. We don’t get to hide it now.”
He looked back down at the floor below, at the engineers, the specialists, the people sweating through every line of code, every telemetry update, every heartbeat.
“She deserves for the world to see what it looks like when someone says yes to an impossible thing. Whether it works or not.”
Alice looked down again, her throat tight.
Then the comms feed crackled to life.
“Fuel pressure green,” Valencia’s voice said, smooth and precise over the open line. “Oxidizer stable. Thermal spread within margins.”
Every head in the room turned toward the console.
Onscreen, the MAV’s internal systems lit up in sequence, lines of green text confirming status. The ship looked small, too small for what it had to do.
Yoongi spoke for the first time.
“Here we go.”
And below them, on the fractured surface of a red world, the countdown continued.
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On Taurus 1, the city didn’t sleep.
Not tonight.
From the upper skyrails to the narrow alleys around Old Harbor, people had gathered in thick knots along sidewalks, rooftops, train platforms—anywhere with a clear view of the public display boards. Giant screens mounted at intersections flickered and glowed, their live feeds broadcasting the MAV telemetry like gospel. The air hummed with a low static of voices and distant music, the scent of food stalls clinging to warm air vented from cafes and transport hubs.
No one moved much. Conversations were hushed. The entire city had turned its face toward the sky, or the screens, or both—gathered under the soft yellow light of a hundred thousand advertisements that, for once, had all been silenced.
The mission feed had taken over everything.
Val’s voice cut through the background noise—steady, calm, practiced. A voice people had come to trust not because it was flashy, but because it didn’t flinch.
“Engine alignment confirmed. No deviation. Guidance lock acquired.”
The words echoed out from rooftop speakers, tunnel intercoms, even the handhelds of passersby. In a place usually driven by speed and noise and business, it was the quiet that stood out now. Even the traffic had slowed.
On the north side of the city, at the junction plaza near Station Six, a child perched on their father’s shoulders asked a question no one could quite answer: Is she scared?
The father didn’t respond right away. Just kept his eyes on the screen, jaw clenched, fingers curled tight around the kid’s legs.
Across the sea, thousands of kilometers away, the cold had arrived early in Capital City.
It was well below freezing in Palace Square, and still the crowds came. Blankets wrapped tight around shoulders, gloves shoved into pockets already warmed by heat packs. The vapor of breath rose in small white clouds, shared between strangers standing shoulder to shoulder beneath the towering faces of state buildings and lighted monuments.
No one was talking.
The massive curved screen suspended above the plaza showed a grainy image of the MAV on M6-117—dust curling around its base, canvas shivering at the nose. To anyone unfamiliar, it looked unfinished, even broken. But the people here knew what they were looking at. They knew that stripped-down shell was all that stood between a stranded woman and the vacuum of space.
A flicker of telemetry updated in the corner of the screen.
“Communications five by five,” Val confirmed, her voice broadcast through hidden speakers tucked into the stone architecture. “Telemetry stable. NAV sync clean.”
A ripple went through the crowd. Not a cheer, not yet—but a collective exhale. A small signal that things were still holding together. That the silence from the planet below was expected, not ominous.
Down in the center of the square, an elderly woman gripped her cane tighter. She remembered a time when humanity barely had satellites, let alone interplanetary relays. When communication was limited to voices over radios, not faces on screens. She watched the numbers tick by with quiet reverence, lips moving soundlessly with each update.
In the background, cameras captured everything. News crews stood behind makeshift barricades. Their anchors didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. The images told the story better than words could—millions gathered across continents, all facing the same direction, watching the same thing.
This wasn’t politics. This wasn’t entertainment.
This was a moment.
From the outposts on Europa’s ice fields to the orbital towers over Aguerra Prime, from Earth’s equatorial cities to the research hubs in high desert plateaus, the signal threaded its way through cables, satellites, relay drones and fiber. The delay was small, but the wait still felt immense.
And the voice—Val’s voice—was the only thing filling that space.
“Power distribution is stable across all systems… Primary tanks at ninety-eight percent… Environmental seals remain intact.”
The woman had been on countless missions, but her tone never changed. She didn’t hype. She didn’t understate. She just gave the truth, and that was all anyone wanted.
In a small apartment above a grocery stand in southern Calisto City, a woman sat on the floor with her back against a radiator, hands folded under her chin. She wasn’t watching the screen so much as listening—eyes closed, letting the familiar cadence of Val’s voice wrap around her like a blanket.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought: She’s going to make it. She has to.
Because failure didn’t feel like an option anymore. Not here. Not now. Not with the whole world bearing witness.
And even if it was—
Even if it could all go sideways—
People had still come.
They came to see courage. They came to see proof that someone, somewhere, was still willing to take the kind of risk that didn’t come with guarantees. Not for money. Not for glory.
Just because it was right.
Because someone had to try.
The universe held its breath.
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Inside the Starfire’s flight deck, Jimin sat motionless in the command chair. His posture was straight, composed, but his fingers betrayed him—curled tight around the edge of the console, knuckles just beginning to pale. The overhead lighting was low, throwing soft shadows across the brushed metal panels and illuminating the subdued glow of the displays. Every screen around him pulsed with movement: vector plots, fuel flow readouts, ascent modeling, thermal stress predictions. The MAV's telemetry scrolled in tight bands of green text.
The air in the flight deck had taken on a different quality—thinner, almost reverent. The kind of silence found in hospitals before surgery or courtrooms just before a verdict. There wasn’t much to say anymore. Nothing to debate. Every variable had been checked. Every contingency rehearsed. Everything now came down to what they could no longer touch.
Jimin exhaled slowly and leaned forward just enough to bring his hands back over the controls. His eyes scanned the readouts again, even though he already knew what they said.
MAV systems nominal. Engine tanks stable. Remote link active. T-minus 2:05 and counting.
Jimin closed his eyes for a single heartbeat.
Just long enough to draw a line between simulation and reality.
This wasn’t training. This wasn’t rehearsal. This was it—the launch. The intercept. The final phase of a mission that had mutated over time into something personal, something unspeakably heavy. It had started with a disaster. A disappearance. The loss of the H-G. And then—somehow, impossibly—not a death.
Jimin opened his eyes. The screens were still there. The MAV’s signal solid. The countdown ticking in blue at the top-right corner of the main panel. He reached out and keyed the comms open, his fingers steady, his voice measured.
“Two minutes, Y/L/N,” he said. “How’re you holding up down there?”
The line crackled softly, the signal traveling across satellites and space, rebounding off relays stationed in orbit over a planet with no name beyond its catalog number.
In the MAV, Y/N sat strapped into a frame of aluminum and bolted steel, wires running overhead in exposed bundles. The EVA suit compressed slightly around her shoulders and chest as she shifted, pressure equalizing. She wasn’t in a cockpit so much as a box—jury-rigged, stripped down, sealed with reinforced tarp and trust. Her gloved hands rested on the straps that held her to the hull. There were no controls in front of her. No windows.
Koah was flying it from orbit.
Her job was to stay alive.
The voice in her ear was clear. Familiar. Unmistakable.
Y/N blinked once, swallowed hard, and let her head tilt slightly back against the padding behind her helmet. Her reply came after a pause. Not because she didn’t have an answer, but because she needed the moment to believe that this wasn’t just a voice in her head.
“It’s good to hear you, Commander,” she said quietly.
Jimin blinked against the burn in his eyes. He didn’t let it take him.
“Likewise, Doc,” he replied. His voice was steady, but not rigid. A softness sat underneath it. Something real. “You ready?”
Y/N’s eyes flicked upward, as if she could see through the canvas dome overhead. She stared at the riveted seams—the makeshift patchwork of layered thermal tarp, epoxy sealant, and internal scaffolding that shouldn’t have worked.
But it had held.
She exhaled slowly. Not out of fear. Just... the weight of it all.
“I’m ready,” she said. “I’m really ready to come home.”
Her voice cracked just a little on home, and she bit it back, jaw clenched. She hadn’t cried since Sol 64. Not really. But hearing his voice—knowing they were up there, waiting—cut through whatever armor she’d built to survive this place.
“Thanks,” she added, quieter now. “For coming to get me.”
Jimin didn’t answer right away. Just watched the readouts, his throat tight.
“You’ve got a hell of a ride ahead of you,” he said finally. “Eleven, maybe twelve G’s. You black out, don’t panic. Nguyen’s got the stick.”
There was a long enough pause on the other end that for a second he thought the signal dropped—until she spoke again, drier now.
“Tell that asshole no barrel rolls.”
He huffed out something like a laugh, short and tight. Even now, she still had that edge to her.
“All right,” he said, fingers moving across the panel in front of him. “Stand by for final call.”
He toggled to internal comms. “CAPCOM.”
“Go,” Val replied. Sharp. Focused. No hesitation.
“Remote command.”
Koah didn’t even look up, just flexed his fingers once and leaned toward the control interface. “Remote is go.”
“Recovery?”
Down in Airlock 2, Hoseok checked his MMU pack again. The power display glowed a steady green. His tether was locked, rigged to a reinforced anchor point. He stared through the small viewport at the empty space beyond.
“Recovery go.”
“Secondary recovery.”
“Go,” Armin said, clipped and sure, one hand already braced against the airlock frame.
Jimin’s eyes returned to the main screen. The MAV sat alone on the dusty plain of M6-117, surrounded by wind-blown tracks and the long shadow of the rising sun. From orbit it looked like a relic—something half-buried, forgotten.
But it was enough.
He keyed the last channel.
“Pilot.”
Static. Then her voice, sharp again. Controlled.
“Go.”
Jimin leaned in and pressed the command sequence.
The ignition protocol loaded in less than a second.
“Main engines primed,” Val confirmed. “Propellant mix green. Fuel tanks pressurized.”
“Remote throttle engaged,” Koah said. His voice was tight now. All business. No jokes.
Jimin sat back, hands laced together in his lap.
“Copy all,” he said, voice low but firm. “Initiate burn in ten.”
There was no final speech. No dramatics. Just numbers and signal strength and the trust they’d placed in each other long before this moment.
The MAV’s engine bell flared on the screen—dull red at first, then blinding white.
Jimin’s voice came again, barely above a whisper.
“Let’s bring French Fry home.”
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Across Earth, and far beyond, the world watched.
On Aguerra Prime, crowds packed the city cores and lunar domes, eyes turned to public screens suspended above skyline intersections and carved into rock facades. In New York, traffic came to a crawl as pedestrians spilled into the street, unmoving, faces lit by the blue glow of the feed flickering across Times Square’s massive displays. The buildings around them blinked in time with telemetry overlays.
No one spoke. Even the news anchors had gone quiet.
From orbit to surface, from time zones to colonies, from palaces to tenement rooftops—the entire human footprint held its breath.
And then, her voice.
“See you in a few, Commander.”
It wasn’t loud. Wasn’t triumphant. But it was enough.
Cheers erupted in the streets. Not wild celebration, but something sharper, more reverent. A wave of relief laced with awe. Like witnessing history claw its way forward by sheer will.
Inside Mission Control, Yoongi stood above the floor, hands folded behind his back, shoulders rigid. Through the glass below, the control room thrummed with quiet motion. Dozens of personnel hunched over their stations, focused, motionless, disciplined. No one flinched. This wasn’t the part where anyone could afford to.
Jimin’s voice came over the comms. Measured. Familiar.
“Mission Control, this is Starfire Actual. We are go for launch. Proceeding on schedule. Ten seconds to burn… mark.”
On Starfire’s flight deck, Koah’s hands moved like water over the guidance array. Calm. Precise.
“Main engines start.”
The countdown was a drumbeat. Eight. Seven. Six.
“Mooring clamps released,” Val called, her voice tight but focused. There was no wasted tone. No room for nerves.
“Five seconds, French,” Jimin warned, his voice now only for her. “Hang on.”
Inside the MAV, Y/N’s fingers tightened around the sides of her seat frame—there were no proper handholds. The EVA suit pressed in at every angle. The inner hull rattled under tension. She looked up once, just once, at the canvas patch stretched across what used to be a pressurized nose cone.
It fluttered slightly in the wind.
No going back.
“Four... three... two... one...”
The launch struck like a fist.
The MAV surged upward, a violent lurch that slammed Y/N against the harness with brutal force. Her teeth clenched hard enough to ache. Her vision blurred almost immediately, and the noise—the sound—was nothing like she’d trained for. Not clean. Not linear. It was raw, like metal trying to tear itself apart.
The G-forces built fast, more than her body could manage. Her chest compressed. Her vision narrowed. Her thoughts splintered.
The canvas above her groaned, then tore.
A flap of synthetic material snapped free, yanked away by the pressure difference, and vanished into the sky. Her view opened—to a sliver of black and rising red horizon—before she had time to register it.
And then her world went gray.
“Velocity seven-forty-one meters per second. Altitude thirteen-fifty meters,” Val called out. Her tone was tight now, not from fear, but from sheer control.
“That’s too low,” Jimin snapped. “We’re not gaining fast enough.”
“I know!” Koah shot back, knuckles white on the controls. “It’s underpowered, I’m fighting drag!”
In the MAV, Y/N didn’t hear them. Her consciousness danced at the edge, fraying like thread. Her fingers twitched once. Her heartbeat pounded in her skull, then slowed. Her last clear thought was the sky.
The stars weren’t just stars anymore.
They were clean. Sharp. Unreachable.
She blinked once.
Then everything went dark.
On Starfire’s flight deck, the numbers kept climbing.
“Main shutdown in three... two... one. Shutdown confirmed.”
The cabin trembled faintly as the relay synced. Jimin didn’t speak yet. He waited. He always waited, just in case—just long enough for something to go wrong.
“Back to auto-guidance,” Koah said, almost to himself. “Confirm shutdown complete. Signal holding.”
Jimin leaned over the nav display, eyes locked on the MAV’s marker. “Y/N?” he said, voice low but direct. “Do you read?”
Silence.
Val was already glancing back over her shoulder. She didn’t need to say it.
“She’s probably out,” Hoseok said from Airlock 2. His tone wasn’t casual—it was informed. Clinical. But not detached. “Twelve Gs minimum. That’s enough to knock her unconscious for at least a minute.”
Jimin nodded. It wasn’t good news, but it wasn’t failure. Not yet.
“Copy that,” he said, steadying his voice. “Keep watching her vitals.”
Val’s eyes flicked across the telemetry. “Pings are coming in. Altitude’s stabilizing.”
Jimin leaned in closer.
“What’s the intercept velocity?”
Val hesitated. Then: “Eleven meters per second.”
Jimin didn’t have to ask.
Hoseok’s voice crackled over comms. “I can make that work.”
But before anyone could breathe again, Val went still. Her fingers froze mid-keystroke.
She stared at the newest numbers coming in.
Her voice was thin now. Controlled, but shaken.
“…distance at intercept will be sixty-eight kilometers.”
The words didn’t land immediately.
Then Hoseok’s voice, low and incredulous: “Did you say sixty-eight kilometers?”
Koah turned from his station, the color draining from his face.
“Oh my god.”
Everything went quiet.
Then Jimin snapped into motion.
“Keep it together,” he barked. “Work the problem. Nguyen—do we have any fuel in the MAV?”
“Negative,” Koah replied without delay, already double-checking. “OMS was pulled to cut weight. There’s nothing left.”
Jimin didn’t blink.
He pivoted sharply toward Val, who was already deep in the numbers.
“Then we go to her,” he said. His voice left no room for interpretation. “Talk to me.”
Val’s eyes stayed locked on the data, her fingers flying over the console. She didn’t hesitate.
“Time to intercept: thirty-nine minutes, twelve seconds,” she said.
Jimin nodded once. That was the window. That was the clock now.
He began to pace, just two short steps in either direction, mind moving faster than his body ever could. His gaze jumped to the thrust control parameters. An idea started forming.
“What if we realign the attitude thrusters? Push toward her. Cut the distance manually.”
Koah hesitated. Not because he doubted the idea, but because it came with a cost.
“Depends how much attitude fuel we want left for return navigation,” he said. “Use too much now and we compromise our ability to reorient later.”
Jimin's eyes locked on him. “How much do you need for reentry?”
Koah was already running the mental math, his fingers tapping quick calculations against his thigh.
“Minimum? Twenty percent.”
Jimin turned to Cruz. “Do it. Use seventy-five point five of what’s left.”
Cruz was already on it. Her hands flew over her controls like they were extensions of her own thoughts.
“Burning now.”
Val’s eyes darted across the new values. “Intercept range now zero,” she confirmed. Then a pause, her brow creasing. “But relative velocity is climbing. Forty-two meters per second.”
Jimin didn’t flinch. “Then we have thirty-nine minutes to figure out how to slow down.” He turned to Koah. “Light it up.”
Outside, the attitude thrusters hissed to life. The Starfire tipped, adjusted, and settled into a new trajectory. The maneuver was subtle from within, but its implications were massive.
Inside the MAV, Y/N stirred.
Her eyelids fluttered. Then pain. Her chest throbbed, ribs stabbing with each breath. She shifted and regretted it immediately. The harness had cut into her side during ascent, and now every part of her body screamed.
She opened her eyes. The curved blue-white limb of M6-117 arced beneath her. The stars beyond it were clean, sharp, endless. Her head swam.
The planet looked peaceful. Beautiful, even. But it didn’t matter.
With a wheezing breath, she lifted one gloved hand and extended her middle finger toward the viewport. “Fuck you, M6,” she rasped.
It helped.
Her hand found the comms panel. She keyed the line with fingers that didn’t feel entirely her own.
“MAV to Starfire,” she croaked.
On the flight deck, Jimin straightened. The voice was garbled, barely legible, but it was hers.
“Affirmative, Commander,” came the reply. Dry. Thin. Alive.
Jimin exhaled for the first time in a minute. “What’s your status?”
“Chest hurts. Pretty sure I cracked something.” A pause. “You?”
A smile tugged at the corner of Jimin’s mouth. “We’re making our way to you. Launch didn’t go entirely to plan.”
“No shit,” she muttered. “Canvas blew off halfway through.”
Val confirmed with a nod. “That tracks.”
A beat. Then her voice again, quieter now. “How bad is it, Commander?”
Jimin hesitated. Then: “Intercept range is zero. But relative velocity—forty-two meters per second.”
Silence.
Then, over the comms, Y/N's voice returned. Flat. Dry. Blunt as ever.
"Well. Shit."
On the Starfire's flight deck, the quiet that followed wasn't the stunned kind. It was the focused kind—a collective exhale that reminded them all the window hadn't closed. Not yet.
The faint tapping of keys filled the room, background to the controlled chaos of data flowing faster than thought.
Then: "Commander?"
Jimin turned toward the console. "Go ahead."
Y/N's voice came back steadier now, but laced with something unspoken. A tension undercut by humor, desperation, maybe both.
"If I poke a hole in my EVA glove," she said, tone far too casual, "the escaping air should act like thrust, right?"
Val looked up, startled. "She's joking."
Jimin didn’t respond right away. He waited.
"I mean, I could aim with my arm," Y/N continued, deadpan. "Micro-course correction. Little puffs of Iron Man.”
Jimin let his eyes close for a breath, then reopened them.
"You wouldn't have control. No vector stability. You're gambling with a half-second burn and zero forgiveness."
"All true," Y/N said.
A pause.
Then, delighted: "But I’d get to fly like Iron Man."
Cruz let out a groan. Val visibly resisted the urge to smack something. Koah muttered, "We should've left her on that rock."
Jimin sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. "You're not flying like Iron Man, Y/N."
She didn’t answer right away, but he could hear her smiling.
Despite everything, Jimin laughed—just once, just enough to let the tension crack. Around him, the room eased half a degree. Even Koah glanced up, eyes lighter than a second before.
Then something shifted in Jimin's posture.
His head tilted. His brows drew together, just slightly.
And then he straightened.
"Maybe... it’s not the worst idea."
Koah’s head snapped up. "No. It is. It’s the worst idea ever pitched in this room. And I’ve heard you pitch bad ones."
Jimin ignored him. "Not her part," he clarified quickly, gesturing in the air. "But the concept. Using controlled decompression for thrust."
Val blinked, processing. The room quieted again, this time differently—expectant.
Jimin’s voice sharpened. "Nguyen, get Zimmermann's station up."
Koah didn’t argue this time. He keyed into the data interface. "It's up. What are we running?"
"I need to know what happens if we blow the VAL."
Val froze.
Koah stared.
The air seemed to still.
"You want to open the vehicular airlock?" Koah asked, incredulous.
"It'll kick us forward," Jimin said evenly.
"And maybe shear the nose off the ship in the process," Koah replied. "Not to mention evacuating every molecule of atmosphere we have."
"We seal the bridge and reactor," Jimin said. "The rest goes vacuo. We survive it."
Koah opened his mouth again but stopped, running mental checks. His fingers tapped at speed.
"We still can’t steer it," he said finally. "Same problem. No directional control."
Jimin countered, “We don’t need to steer. The VAL is in the nose. We point the nose at her, then blow it. That’s our push."
Koah stared at the data now pouring in.
"A full breach at the VAL gives us... twenty-nine meters per second in retro."
Val leaned in. Her voice was almost a whisper. "That brings intercept down to thirteen meters per second."
Jimin nodded. "Jung, you hearing this?"
From Airlock 2, Hoseok replied. Calm. Steady. "Loud and clear, Commander."
On the flight deck, tension knotted tight.
Koah shook his head slowly. "How do we open the airlock doors remotely? There's no mechanism. Someone has to be inside."
Jimin didn’t pause. He scanned the room and zeroed in.
"Zimmermann."
Armin's voice came in, clear. "Go ahead."
Jimin keyed his mic. "Take your suit off."
There was a pause. Then, more slowly:
"Say again, Commander?"
"You’re coming back in to make a bomb."
There was static.
Then, from the MAV:
"Did you just say bomb?"
Y/N’s voice, sharper now, carried clear indignation. "You guys are making a bomb without me?"
Back in Airlock 2, Armin's voice came through the comms with the kind of tight restraint that only barely held back the obvious. "Commander... I feel like I should mention that setting off an explosive device on a spacecraft is, objectively, a terrible idea."
No one disagreed. But no one argued, either.
Jimin didn’t flinch. He nodded once, his voice firm. "Copy that. Can you do it?"
There was a pause, a slow exhale, the kind you give before stepping off a ledge. Then:
"Ja. I can."
It wasn’t bravado. It was acceptance. And it was final.
At NOSA Mission Control, chaos erupted.
Consoles lit up. Voices rose over each other. The phrase "breach the VAL" passed from headset to headset like a shockwave.
Jimin's voice cut through the noise like a scalpel. "Houston, be advised: we are initiating a deliberate VAL breach to produce thrust."
Mateo, sitting at his console, stared like he’d misheard. His coffee mug tipped over, unnoticed, a dark smear crawling across the surface.
"Did he just say breach the VAL?"
Nobody answered. They were too busy shouting.
Back on the Starfire, Jimin gave no time for panic to root.
"Jung," he barked, already moving. "Suit stays on. Meet Cruz at Airlock 1. We’ll open the outer hatch. I need you to place the charge on the inner VAL door."
Hoseok responded instantly. "Copy. Moving."
"Once it's placed, crawl back to Airlock 2 via the hull."
"Understood."
Inside the MAV, Y/N gripped a twisted piece of console framing, her knuckles bone-white.
Her voice cracked across the line. "Commander, I can’t let you do this. I’m ready to punch the suit. Let’s go with the Iron Man plan."
"Absolutely not," Jimin said without missing a beat.
She hesitated.
When she spoke again, it was softer. There was a raw edge in her voice that hadn’t been there before.
"Thing is... I want to be the only one in the memorials. Just me. I earned that. You stay alive."
There was a pause. A long one.
Then Jimin came back, cool as ever. "Oh. Well. If you put it like that..."
You could almost hear him looking at the nonexistent camera.
"Hang on, just checking my shoulder patch—yep, still says Commander. So shut up."
Y/N muttered something through the comms.
Jimin raised an eyebrow. "What was that?"
"Smart ass."
"Heard that."
In the forward prep bay, Armin worked fast. His hands were steady, methodical. A beaker clinked as he set it down. He tapped sugar into it like it was a recipe—not an improvised explosive.
He drilled the stopper. Ran wire through. Sealed the threads. His foot tapped a steady rhythm against the deck—nerves or calculation, no one could say.
Val arrived just as he was finishing the setup. She took one look and exhaled sharply.
"Bomb?"
He didn’t even glance up. "Bomb. One kilo of sugar in pure O2 releases over 16 million joules. We don’t need much. This will do."
He poured a controlled stream of liquid oxygen into the beaker. It hissed softly. Precise. Calm.
Val blinked. "That’s... eight times a stick of dynamite."
"Yes," Armin said, still focused. "That’s why I’m using less than half a kilo."
He twisted the wire leads clean, stripped them down, and twisted them to bare copper. Held them up. "Can you run this to a lighting panel?"
Val reached for the leads with a small grin. "You are terrifyingly good at this."
Armin offered the faintest shrug. "We all have hobbies."
Out in the Vehicular Airlock, Hoseok stood in full EVA gear, breathing slow and steady, watching the countdown tick by on his suit HUD. The silence of the chamber was suffocating, broken only by the faint hiss of his oxygen flow. Val crouched beside him at the access panel, hands moving with mechanical precision as she stripped wires and connected the last leads to Armin’s improvised explosive.
There wasn’t room for doubt now. No room for nerves.
"Make sure you're not still here when it goes off," Val said, voice level but tense. Her tone had an edge of affection wrapped in warning. She didn’t look up from the panel as she spoke, but her eyes flicked briefly toward the timer. "If you’re still inside when this blows, I swear I’ll haunt your ass."
Hoseok nodded once, accepting the charge she handed him with both hands. He double-checked the wiring, verifying it by feel and muscle memory more than sight. Then he turned to go.
Val reached out, gripping his arm through the suit. Their eyes met through the visor. For a beat, everything else faded.
Then she leaned in and tapped her lips gently against his helmet.
"Be careful," she said. Her voice was low, almost tender. "And don’t tell anyone I did that."
A small smile ghosted across Hoseok's face. "Not a word."
The inner hatch sealed behind him with a hiss. Val exhaled slowly and turned back to her console, her expression shifting into one of sheer focus.
Hoseok made his way along the hull, hands gripping the external rails with measured certainty. Every move was deliberate. The ship groaned beneath him, metal protesting the torque of its slight realignment, but his breathing stayed even. The VAL door came into view. A dark line of reinforced seams. Waiting.
He anchored himself with one tether and affixed the device to the frame, checking each contact. No errors. No drift.
"Bomb is set," he said calmly into the comm. "Returning to Airlock 2."
Inside the flight deck, the tension wound tighter. Koah's voice came through with urgency. "Running updated intercept numbers. Even with ideal thrust vector, we’re still wide."
Jimin stood behind him, brow furrowed. "How wide?"
Val answered. "Two hundred sixty meters. She’ll miss the docking field completely."
Jimin didn’t curse. He just turned and walked. No explanation, no hesitation.
"Commander?" Koah called after him.
But Jimin was already out the hatch.
By the time he reached Airlock 2, Hoseok was halfway out of his MMU. Jimin was already sealing his own helmet.
"Intercept's out of reach," Jimin said, voice clipped. "I’m going untethered."
Hoseok froze. "Sir, let me go. I’m already out. I can do it."
"I know you can," Jimin replied, voice sharp. "But I’m not risking you. That’s an order."
Hoseok met his eyes, jaw set. There was no convincing him. Just acceptance.
"Understood."
Jimin tapped his comm. "Cruz, countdown to detonation?"
Val’s voice was taut. "Fifteen seconds."
Jimin stepped into position at the outer hatch.
"We do love a dramatic exit," he murmured.
Inside the cockpit, Armin pulled his harness tight. Koah was already strapped in, eyes darting between velocity plots and range estimates. His knuckles were white against the control board.
Val monitored the panel. Her voice rang out like a steady drumbeat.
"Ten seconds."
Koah muttered to himself. "Everyone hates rockets until they’re out of options."
"Five. Four. Three."
Jimin, floating at the threshold, gave the hull one last look.
"Brace."
"Two. One. Activating Panel 41."
A deep, muffled thud rolled through the Starfire like distant thunder. Not sound exactly—there was no air in space to carry it—but the force made itself known. The hull shuddered, groaned. Lights flickered. Loose gear trembled in its racks.
Then came the real shock.
The VAL blew.
A controlled detonation, precise and brutal, sheared the airlock open and instantly vented thousands of cubic meters of atmosphere into vacuum. The entire ship jerked backward with the force of it, like a train car hit from behind. A deep vibration passed through the frame, through the floor, through every rib and brace and bolt. It knocked Koah’s stylus clean out of his hand. Armin’s chair jolted sideways before his harness caught him. Val clenched her jaw and rode it out, eyes glued to the numbers spilling down her screen.
“Bridge seal’s holding,” she confirmed tightly, voice clipped. “Pressure integrity green. No hull breaches on aft or secondary decks.”
“Damage?” Jimin’s voice came through the comms, taut but level.
Val didn’t glance up. “Don’t care. Not yet. Relative velocity?”
A beat passed as telemetry recalculated.
“...Twelve meters per second.”
Jimin didn’t answer right away. Somewhere down in Airlock 2, recovering from the blast wave, he steadied himself, got his bearings. Then his voice came again.
“Copy.”
He knew what that meant. Twelve meters per second wasn’t survivable. Not for a drifting MAV capsule with no maneuvering thrusters, no OMS, no way to brake. Not for a rescue mission balanced this delicately on the knife’s edge.
There was no choice.
He locked his boots to the airlock grid, checked his line, and shoved off.
And just like that, Commander Jimin of the NOSA Starfire was flying.
He drifted into space with the practiced control of a man who had trained for this, but never expected to actually do it. The blackness opened in front of him—huge, endless, and filled with nothing but stars and one tumbling, half-functional MAV pod moving just a little too fast to catch.
His target.
“Three-twelve meters?!” Y/N’s voice came sharp and raw through the comms, her voice rising in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? You guys have got to stop measuring these distances in football fields. I’m not an orbital wide receiver!”
Jimin grimaced behind his visor. “Visual on MAV. Frenchie, you’re still out of reach. I’m closing, but... I’m not going to make it in time.”
A pause.
Inside the MAV, Y/N’s eyes locked on the Commander’s approaching form—still too distant. Still too slow. She could feel the blood pounding in her ears, feel the raw ache in her chest from the G-force. Her ribs throbbed. Her vision swam. But somewhere under the pain, she knew what she had to do.
Her voice came low but clear. “Commander.”
“I see you,” Jimin answered, urgency seeping into his tone now. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Too late.
Y/N unstrapped the harness.
Her fingers found the jagged shard of paneling she’d kept since the cabin decompression—sharp enough to pierce composite. Her breath caught. This was the part no one had trained her for.
She took one last breath.
And stabbed her suit.
The hiss was immediate. A sharp, explosive burst of air ripped out of the tiny hole near her forearm. It didn’t tear her apart, didn’t rip the arm off like a cartoon. But it shoved her—hard. She rocketed forward, air gushing past her helmet in a screaming roar. The force pressed her back in the suit like a punch to the chest. Her limbs trembled.
But she was moving.
“Jesus Christ, Frenchie!” Val’s voice snapped through the channel.
“I said I got this!” Y/N barked back. She twisted her wrist, angling the suit, nudging her path toward Jimin.
The gap narrowed.
Inside the flight deck, Val’s hands moved in a blur, feeding telemetry to both of them. “Relative closing velocity… 5.4 meters per second. Declining. Twenty-eight meters to contact.”
Jimin adjusted his MMU, one burst at a time, smooth and controlled. His pulse hammered in his throat. His breathing slowed to stay focused.
“Five meters per second,” Val updated. “Twenty meters.”
“Adjusting…” Jimin’s voice barely registered above a whisper.
Koah leaned over the console, white-knuckled, tracking their positions in real time. “C’mon…”
“Four-point-three,” Val called. “Four-point-oh. Distance: fifteen.”
Below them, the planet turned slowly. Its burnished red hue cast long reflections on their EVA suits, the light catching on every scuff, every scar.
“Eight meters,” Jimin’s voice crackled through the comms, low and calm, but clipped at the edges with strain.
He reached out, fingers extended through the thick press of his glove, closing the gap between them one meter at a time.
“Six,” he said.
Y/N blinked hard behind her visor. Her eyes stung—part windburn, part tears, part adrenaline tearing through her like a lightning strike that wouldn’t end. She was trembling, though whether it was from cold or exhaustion or raw emotion, she couldn’t tell.
“Four meters.”
The world seemed to hold its breath.
“Contact,” she murmured, the word barely audible.
Their hands met in the vacuum.
His glove locked around hers, firm and unyielding. The jolt spun them slightly off-axis. They drifted together, a slow tumble in the dark. Jimin adjusted with practiced precision, a single controlled burst from his MMU. The movement steadied them—brought them face to face, visor to visor, until their helmets bumped softly.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
She didn’t answer right away. Couldn’t. The relief hit her like decompression—sudden, overwhelming, silent. Her heart pounded so loud she was sure it was leaking into the comms. And when she looked at him—really looked—her breath caught.
Jimin. Real. Alive. Close enough to touch. The first human face she’d seen in what felt like a lifetime. His presence shattered the isolation that had wrapped itself around her bones. For a long moment, she just stared at him, eyes wide, heart aching.
Then, laughter bubbled out of her—ragged, broken, but real. A laugh of disbelief. Of survival. Of something like joy.
“You were right,” she said, her voice cracking. “About not working for Marshall.”
Jimin’s brow lifted in surprise. “Oh yeah?”
“Guy had terrible taste in music.”
His laugh—quiet and genuine—filtered through the comms. That soft, human sound broke something in her and mended it at the same time.
“I told you,” he said, grinning. “No one should be allowed to play yacht rock during critical ops.”
Their boots connected, magnetically latching to stabilize. He was still holding her hand, and she didn’t let go.
At Mission Control, the moment contact was confirmed, silence exploded into chaos. A wave of sound crashed through the control room—a crescendo of cheers, gasps, sobs. Years of calculations, failures, and sleepless nights had built to this single, miraculous connection. And now, it had happened.
People leapt from their chairs. Engineers shouted and hugged, some spinning in circles, others frozen in disbelief. The weight of relief—of impossible odds defied—hit them like gravity finally turned back on.
In one corner, a systems analyst wept openly, his face in his hands. Beside him, a propulsion tech laughed so hard she doubled over. All around them, joy unfolded like a chain reaction, uncontained and raw.
From the overhead speakers, Jimin’s voice rang clear, calm despite everything: “I got her.”
And that was it. The phrase that set the world ablaze.
Across the globe, the news spread like solar flare.
In cafés and living rooms and subway stations, screens lit up with the headline: Y/N Rescued. Starfire Mission: Success.
On Earth, people poured into the streets. Flags waved. Strangers embraced. Horns blared in traffic and fireworks erupted in cities that hadn’t planned any celebration, but lit the skies anyway.
In the heart of Capital City on Aguerran Prime, the response was seismic. Giant screens lit up skyscrapers, projecting the image of two astronauts suspended against the cosmos. The crowd erupted. Music blared from rooftops. It was New Year’s, the Olympics, and a national holiday rolled into one—but better. This wasn’t just a celebration of survival. It was proof that the universe, in all its vast indifference, had blinked—just long enough for them to pull off a miracle.
On Taurus 1, cheers echoed through stone corridors older than Earth itself. In a quiet square in an old district, an elderly man who had once worked on early EVA suits cried openly as the footage played. A group of children surrounded him, pointing at the stars on screen and clapping with wild abandon.
In that moment, the universe felt smaller. Gentler. More connected than it had ever been.
Aboard the Starfire, the airlock sequence initiated with a soft, mechanical hiss.
Inside, the silence returned—but it was not empty. It pulsed with tension.
Jimin guided Y/N through the process step by step, his movements sharp, deliberate. His breathing was shallow now, not from exertion, but from the staggering realization of what they’d just done.
Y/N’s body sagged in his grip. Her limbs moved sluggishly, her face pale behind the helmet. The EVA suit had kept her alive, but it hadn’t protected her from fatigue. Her pulse fluttered at her throat like a trapped bird.
“Jung, prep the med bay,” Jimin called into the comms, his voice clipped but steady. “We’re bringing her in. Everyone else—Airlock Two.”
On the flight deck, Koah, Val, and Armin didn’t wait for the full order to come through. As soon as Jimin’s voice cut across the comm—“She’s in. Inner seal holding.”—they were already moving.
No discussion. No gear. Just instinct.
They took off down the corridor at a dead sprint, boots thudding hard against the metal flooring, echoing through the narrow ship like heartbeats too big for their chests. The corridors blurred past in streaks of cold steel and overhead lighting. Turn, straightaway, turn again. They knew the route by muscle memory, but this time it felt longer—like space itself had stretched the halls.
At the last junction, Val nearly slid into the bulkhead, catching herself with a palm against the wall before pushing off again. Koah was just ahead, eyes locked forward. Armin, quieter than the others but just as fast, matched them stride for stride. No one said anything.
There was nothing left to say until they saw her.
They reached the observation deck seconds later and slammed to a halt in unison, chests heaving, adrenaline crashing hard through their veins. The reinforced glass fogged instantly from their breath, still cooling from the run.
Beyond it, the airlock lit pale blue. The outer door had sealed. And suspended inside, between the void and safety, was Y/N.
Jimin held her upright, one arm braced tight around her torso. Her limbs dangled like a marionette cut from its strings—slack, heavy, unmoving. But her helmet display still flickered. Her vitals were registering. She was breathing.
Val’s hand smacked the glass without thinking—an involuntary, almost desperate gesture—fingers splayed wide as if she could reach through. Her knuckles turned white.
Armin didn’t move. His face had gone hollow, lips parted, a flicker of disbelief tugging at the corner of his mouth. Not joy. Not yet. Just the raw, suspended terror that this might still go sideways.
Koah leaned forward slowly, lowering his head until his forehead touched the glass. He closed his eyes, let out a single, unsteady breath.
No one spoke.
They didn’t have to.
She was here.
The inner airlock door opened with a soft thunk as pressure equalized, followed by the gentle hiss of recirculating air. The lights adjusted.
Y/N’s knees buckled the second the seal completed. Her body gave out with no ceremony, no warning—just a complete surrender to gravity and fatigue. Jimin caught her under the arms and eased her down, kneeling with her as she folded into him.
Her head lolled forward. Face pale, lips dry. Her skin had that faint, paper-thin translucency that came from months of low oxygen and high stress. She looked... hollow. But she was there.
Alive.
The door to the chamber slid open, and the trio spilled in fast, voices colliding with the walls in breathless urgency.
“Y/N—hey—hey, we’ve got you—”
“Jesus, hold her head—”
“Is she conscious?”
They knelt around her, crowding close without hesitation. Their hands moved with focus but reverence—steady but careful. They took the weight of her body like it was something sacred, every movement precise. Koah slipped an arm under her shoulders. Armin supported her back. Val reached for the clasps of her helmet, fingers fumbling before settling into rhythm.
“She’s heavier than she looks,” Armin muttered, not complaining, just surprised. His voice was thick, caught somewhere between awe and grief.
“She’s got months of trauma packed in there,” Val said, her voice tight. “That stuff weighs a ton.”
Y/N stirred.
It was barely more than a twitch—a flutter of her eyelids and the softest, cracked breath—but they all froze.
Then she spoke.
“Hi, guys.”
The words rasped out like sandpaper, rough-edged and barely above a whisper. Her lips curved into the ghost of a smile—lopsided, exhausted, but unmistakably hers.
Koah choked on a laugh that turned almost immediately into a sound dangerously close to a sob. Val looked away quickly, blinking hard. Armin just shook his head like he couldn’t believe it.
“Oh, hey, French Fry,” Val said after a pause, her voice quivering. “Been a while.”
Koah sniffed and offered a crooked grin. “Yeah. What, you get lost?”
Y/N tilted her head slowly, her eyes barely able to stay open. “Just took the scenic route.”
Val managed a weak laugh. “Scenic route through hell.”
“Pretty much.”
Armin, still kneeling, reached to loosen the helmet collar. It gave way with a hiss, and as he eased it off, an invisible wall broke.
The smell hit instantly.
“Oh, damn—” Armin recoiled, covering his face with the crook of his arm. “God, Y/N…”
“Yeah,” Koah coughed, grimacing. “That’s... that’s not human. That’s a whole new element.”
Y/N winced, but even that looked like too much effort. “Didn’t exactly pack perfume,” she said, her voice hoarse but holding steady.
Val waved a hand in front of her nose, her expression torn between disgust and laughter. “Y/N, we love you, but... you smell like a dead body.”
“That’s fair.” Y/N let her head fall back into Koah’s shoulder. “Been marinating in my own failure for eighteen months.”
For a beat, the chamber filled with the sound of tired, grateful laughter. Not joyous. Not yet. But real.
Then something in her expression changed—just slightly. The edges softened, the humor falling away like ash from a burned-out log.
“I missed you,” she whispered.
They went still again.
Y/N’s eyes glistened. “I shouldn’t have left. Not like that. Not for a contract. Not for... them.”
No jokes this time. No sarcasm. Just silence.
Val leaned in first, slipping her arm around Y/N’s shoulders, pressing her forehead to the side of her helmet.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said quietly. “You’re here now.”
Koah followed, wrapping an arm around both of them.
Armin didn’t hesitate. He leaned in too, awkward but firm, his hand resting over hers where it trembled in her lap.
They held her like that—clumsy, off-balance, elbows in the wrong places and armor pressing too hard against ribs—but none of it mattered.
She was back.
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He crouched low behind the twisted trunk of a wind-battered pine, its bark scarred by years of storms. The sharp scent of crushed needles filled his lungs, grounding him. Around his shoulders hung a makeshift cloak, frayed at the hem and stiff with dirt and sweat. It barely kept the cold out, but it was enough. His beard scratched against the collar as he shifted, eyes locked on the clearing ahead.
Jungkook didn’t move. Not even to breathe. The air was still, and in that stillness, time stretched. He didn’t know how long he’d been tracking the deer—an hour? Maybe more. Up here in the mountains, the days bled into each other, a fog of wind, hunger, and silence. He hadn’t spoken to another person in weeks. Not since crossing the ridgeline from the valley, leaving the last trace of civilization behind.
His hair had grown long, knotted in places from nights spent sleeping with his head against tree trunks or curled in shallow caves. If anyone saw him now—mud-caked, eyes sharp from vigilance and wear—he doubted they’d recognize him as the man he used to be. That boy was long gone, buried beneath layers of calloused muscle and survival instinct.
The deer stepped cautiously into view, its ears twitching, nostrils flaring at the wind. It was young. Slender. Beautiful, even. Part of him hesitated, a quiet flicker of guilt threading through his chest. But hunger spoke louder.
He raised the bow slowly, breath held. His fingers, stiff from the cold, found the worn fletching of the arrow and drew it back until the tension hummed along the string. His eyes narrowed.
Then—release.
The arrow struck with a dull, final thud. The deer jolted, stumbled a few feet, then dropped. The forest held its breath.
Jungkook stood, lowered the bow, and approached carefully. The deer’s chest rose once, then stopped. He knelt beside it, placed a hand on its flank.
“Thank you,” he murmured, almost unconsciously.
He reached for the knife at his side, quick and practiced, and ended what was left of its pain.
Then—he heard it.
Not in the trees. Not behind him. In him.
At first, it was barely more than a breath of wind in his ear. So faint he thought it was the trees whispering, the way they sometimes did when the weather turned.
But then it came again. Clearer.
“Where did you get your eyes?”
He went still, the knife frozen in his grip.
His body tensed. He scanned the woods—but there was no movement, no footprints, no shadows slipping through the branches. Just the quiet hush of pines and the fresh silence of the kill.
Then again—closer this time.
“Where did you get your eyes?”
It wasn’t a voice made of sound. Not really. It didn’t vibrate the air; it vibrated him. Deep in his bones. Deep in the part of his mind that still remembered how to fear things he couldn’t see.
Jungkook staggered back a step, hand instinctively reaching for the blade at his belt.
“Who’s there?” he asked, voice low and raw.
Silence.
“Where did you get your eyes?”
A memory dressed as a voice. He could almost hear the lit of her voice, her scowl, smell her sweat while he was restrained.
His throat tightened. He felt the world stutter.
And then the forest melted.
Suddenly, he wasn’t in the trees. He was back in the flickering fluorescent corridor of Butcher Bay.
The air reeked of sweat and disinfectant, the distant clang of a cell door echoing off concrete walls. He could feel the texture of it under his boots—the grimed, cracked floor, the grit that never left no matter how many times it was mopped. Chains rattled somewhere behind him.
The lights overhead flickered once.
He blinked.
He was standing outside Block 9, back pressed to the cool stone wall, just as he had so many times before. He remembered the voices in the dark, the muttered threats, the laughter with no warmth. He remembered him—the preacher.
Tall. Steady. A flicker of something in his eyes that nobody could quite name. He spoke rarely, but when he did, people listened. He wasn’t like the others.
The preacher had told him once, in a whisper beneath the noise: “Eyes are a gift. Use them like you earned them.”
Jungkook had never asked what he meant. He hadn’t dared.
But now, standing in the memory, he understood.
The forest returned in a blink.
Jungkook swayed slightly, the weight of it still pressing against his chest. The deer lay still, the blood soaking into the damp earth beneath it. The wind had shifted—cooler now. Carried the smell of rain and something older. He closed his eyes, drawing in a lungful of pine, trying to clear the scent of stone and steel from his mind.
His hand trembled slightly as he cleaned the blade.
Whatever that voice had been—memory, madness, something else—it had stirred something he’d tried hard to bury. Butcher Bay wasn’t gone. It hadn’t faded. It just waited in the cracks, ready to bleed through.
He slung the deer over his shoulders with a grunt. The weight wasn’t unbearable, but it was more than just meat. It was a reminder. Of hunger. Of survival. Of debts not quite paid.
He turned back toward camp.
Each step forward was a small act of defiance. Against the memories. Against the fear. Against the question that still echoed in the dark corners of his thoughts.
Where did you get your eyes?
He didn’t answer this time.
He just kept walking, boots crunching softly over the forest floor, until the trees swallowed him again—one man beneath the vast canopy, hunted by memories but still, somehow, moving forward.
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thesilverdiary · 1 month ago
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Non Authorized Version
⤷ Summary: Anneliese learns that sometimes the hardest part isn't making sense of the data — it's making sense of herself. Far from the kind of assignment she'd like to cover, she faces an event that seems to speak in codes she still doesn't have access to. But every step out of place can carry more than just bring awkward moments. And maybe, just maybe, it’s the detours that reveal where the real journey begins.
⤷ Author’s note: When I wrote Toto in this chapter, I had these two references in mind. This photo of him at Interlagos is one of my favorites. If not, the favorite. The expressions, I mean—come on. And this other shot of him at some event back in the day? This one really helped bring the vibe I was going for.
⤷ Special warnings for this second chapter? Oh, hm, no. Again. No explicit content, but a quiet emotional tension simmers beneath the surface. Mild impostor syndrome, accidental identity swapping, and moments of quiet introspection in unfamiliar hallways. Also: financial conferences, cold coffee, and the art of pretending you belong. Back in the old days. Third person.
⤷ Chapters: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV.
Last but not least, if you want to, you can read this on Wattpad and AO3 as well. 
⤷ Words: 3,597. 
Chapter Two | We Started Before The Hello
📍 Vienna → Innsbruck, Austria. 2007.
While reviewing some bullet points from the article she was writing, Anneliese was getting ready to send it to Oliver, the editor-in-chief, who would give it one final review before publication.
From the corner of her ear, she caught fragments of a conversation in the hallway. The newspaper editor was speaking enthusiastically about an event that would soon shake up Austria’s investment market.
“The conference in Innsbruck is going to be decisive,” said a firm male voice.
Probably Oliver himself.
“Do you really think they’ll announce the opening to non-EU capital?” replied a woman, her tone softer but full of interest.
“I bet they will. The timing is perfect. The euro is stable, expansion to the East is ongoing... and Vienna is pitching itself as the new Zurich.”
“And the coverage?”
“I want the article ready by Thursday. Interview with an analyst, two deep background quotes, and a side box explaining the Slovenian banks. No guesswork.”
Austria was going through a period of economic effervescence. The global landscape was favorable, and internally, the country displayed enviable stability.
Vienna, more than ever, was establishing itself as a regional financial hub — a kind of safe harbor for capital coming from neighboring emerging economies.
At the time, Anneliese would have done anything for a chance to write. Any topic would do. It didn’t matter if it was something mystical and nearly forgotten — like the legendary Rauhnächte, those wild nights that whisper between Christmas and the start of the new year —, pieces about the cold flowers that resist winter, or chronicles about the frozen ball season, with their light-filled halls and echoes of restrained footsteps.
The truth was, all she needed was a chance. An opening. A place where her writing could breathe. She wanted — and more than that, needed — to be seen.
Enjoying the topics? Not at all. But that phase of life demanded flexibility: accepting what came, even without passion, because saying “no” was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Opportunities were scarce. And while she was still finishing college, many her age were already in the workforce — graduated, experienced, occupying positions she could barely glimpse from where she stood.
Time, and everything it dragged along with it, taught Anneliese a valuable lesson: knowing how to distinguish between instinctive talent and what was simply necessary. She learned to recognize her own impulses — those that didn’t come from duty, but from genuine enthusiasm — like when she immersed herself in the technical details of a race, in the unique language of engineers and drivers, in decisions made at 300 km/h.
That’s when something in her would come alive. Everyday tasks, on the other hand, came stripped of emotion, but loaded with deadlines and demands.
She wanted to write with the precision and pulse of someone who understands what’s at stake, even in the seconds before a decisive move.
Even unwillingly, she decided to open up. Not because she had given up on the dream, but because she understood that maybe it required more paths than she had imagined. Maybe writing about the improbable today would teach her how to more truthfully narrate the races of tomorrow.
A chair scraped with a shrill squeak.
“Is the Economics team going to that conference?” Lukas asked, already taking a seat.
“I think so,” Anneliese replied, still looking at the screen. “I heard Oliver mention something about credentials... didn’t really pay attention.”
“Big deal, huh?”
She turned to face him, curious.
“I don’t know. I just hear all these names and acronyms and already feel kind of lost.”
She gave a brief, slightly tired smile.
“Tell me about it.”
Lukas took a sip of his coffee — already cold — and grimaced.
“Must be weird to follow all of this from the outside. Feels like a different world.”
Anneliese furrowed her brow but said nothing.
“Anyway,” he said, getting up. “Good luck with the article.”
“Thanks. I... think.”
She stayed there for a moment, motionless, the cursor blinking on the screen. She had lost the thread of the sentence. Suddenly, the paragraph felt... too shallow.
...
She still remembered her boss’s words as if they echoed inside her with more force than a mere piece of constructive criticism.
“You need to like people,” he had said, with that tone that blended patience and judgment. “To mingle with them.”
As if it were easy.
The problem wasn’t liking people — it never had been. She did like them. She always had. But being among them was another story. In any environment, no matter how welcoming, she felt like a temporary visitor, someone who was only there by mistake. As if there were an entire world spinning on social codes she had never learned to decipher.
It was like not being among her own.
She had always been drawn to understanding people. Writing them. Watching from a distance, with that quiet gaze of someone trying to piece together a human puzzle using only expressions and gestures. But even with all that curiosity, there was an emptiness she couldn’t name.
And it was in that void that Christine stepped in with what she called “the last-minute great idea.”
With seconds left on the clock.
Christine was her supervisor — and in many ways, the journalist she aspired to become. Her writing carried a lightness, almost invisible, and yet it held truths that hurt just the right amount.
She was meticulous. And clearly uninterested in the event they were now caught up in.
Still, she said, like someone laying out the strategy for a decisive game:
“It’s going to be good for both of us.”
She sounded convinced. As if she had found a miraculous escape route from what, for her, was just another chance to socially crash and burn.
Was it crazy? Yes.
But at that moment, it also felt like the chance Anneliese had been waiting for.
...
Despite it being a golden opportunity, Anneliese almost turned it down.
The event exuded a cold formality, overly technical, as if it pulsed on a frequency her body didn’t know how to tune into. There was a layer of language there — made of authority, of protocols, of silences — that she didn’t know whether to absorb or simply observe from the outside, like someone visiting a museum filled with artifacts from an era they’d never lived through.
She was in that strange stage of youth when you understand — at least in theory — that a good journalist should know a bit about everything... but you still wrinkle your nose, as if that “bit” were enough, as if admitting ignorance were a luxury pride couldn’t afford.
Youth, huh?
So full of fragile certainties, so quick to reject what it doesn’t yet understand.
In the end, someone had to go. And one of the first lessons in a career — or in life, perhaps — is this: in the beginning, you don’t get to choose. Others choose for you.
Had she been able to choose? Maybe she’d have gone for something more straightforward, more in tune with the language she already knew. But despite herself, that invitation turned out to be the best door that could have opened.
Because sometimes, what changes us comes precisely from what we try to avoid.
When she arrived at the event, Anneliese wasn’t expecting anything easy — but she did expect, at the very least, a minimum of control. A careful glance, a request for ID, a checkpoint that would say: “Yes, you’re authorized to be here.”
She fiddled with the ring on her index finger — an automatic gesture that always resurfaced when she felt out of place.
But surprisingly, no one asked for anything. No names checked against lists, no inquisitive stares. Just a vague nod, a silent pass.
Different times? Maybe.
As she searched for a row where she could observe, take notes, and — perhaps — understand something of what would unfold at the Summit on European Economic Futures, Anneliese weaved through suits, folders, and impatient glances. The room, lit by a white and restrained glow, gave off an almost clinical sobriety. Everything felt foreign — in the gestures, in the voices, in the very atmosphere.
That’s when she felt the elbow in her back. A direct, firm, dry impact.
She turned on reflex. Her clipboard slipped from her hands, and the papers scattered across the polished floor with a noise that, to her ears, sounded amplified. A paper alarm, announcing her inadequacy.
“Sorry,” said the man who’d bumped into her, without pausing his phone call. The bulky BlackBerry in his hand seemed like an extension of his authority — tiny keys, rapid commands, bored voice. It was an automated apology, socially required.
“It’s fine,” she replied quickly, bending down. Her stomach clenched, as if every scattered sheet exposed not just her anxiety, but her fraud.
He gave her a brief glance, almost clinical.
“Journalist?”
She hesitated. The question seemed too simple.
“Intern with a newspaper,” she replied reflexively — and as soon as the words left her mouth, she realized the mistake. That’s not what the badge said.
A chill ran down her neck. She had spoken as Anneliese, not as Christine. For a second, the floor felt less slippery than the situation she’d just stepped into.
Her trembling fingers gathered the papers, but her mind was already working on damage control.
Had he noticed?
She was still straightening the clipboard when another figure approached. The gesture was polite, assured. The presence, precise.
“Christine?” the man asked, extending his hand naturally.
She blinked. The name still sounded borrowed, like a formal outfit that didn’t quite fit.
“Yes,” she said, hurrying to her feet, one paper still misaligned on the clipboard.
“I’m Peter Neumann, from the conference team. Nice to finally meet you. We exchanged quite a few emails, remember?”
She nodded, forcing a smile. Trying to regain control, to remember the right answers, the details she had memorized.
“Of course. Yes. It’s been a hectic few days.”
“I’m glad you made it. Today’s panel is expected to be one of the most talked about.”
In the background, the BlackBerry man ended his call with a brusque gesture. He cast another glance at Anneliese’s clipboard.
“Intern with a news...” he murmured, as if confirming something to himself, though none of it made sense.
She didn’t reply. Just nodded, trying to appear unbothered, as if nothing odd had been said. He walked away without a smile, as if he had erased her from the scene.
Peter followed him with his eyes and, with a slight tilt of his head, indicated the man now heading to the back of the stage. Anneliese followed the gesture, suppressing the urge to ask who he was — despite the familiarity of his face.
“Don’t worry about him. It’s the rush. He arrived late and still happens to be one of the first to speak.”
Anneliese let out a short laugh — more relief than amusement.
“Oh, shi... —” she caught herself, took a deep breath. “Great start.”
Peter gave a half-smile.
“Marchsixteen, fifteen, seventeen,” he murmured, almost theatrically, like someone trying to recall passwords or riddles. After a brief pause, he added: “If memory serves.”
He tried to make it a joke. And almost succeeded.
She smiled. Genuinely, this time. Enough to dissolve, for a moment, the weight of pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
Before she could say anything else, Peter had to excuse himself — someone from the organizing committee was calling him over near the side entrance. Anneliese nodded briefly, taking the opportunity to sit down and finally try to gather herself.
It was one of those moments when, if she could’ve opened a hole in the floor and vanished, she would’ve done it without a second thought.
She chose the third row, slightly off-center, and rested the clipboard on her lap. Her laptop had failed earlier that morning — a black screen and a strange noise she’d pretended not to hear. The pen moved quickly across the paper, but without conviction.
The notes came out crooked, incomplete, as if they were just as lost as she was. She tried to keep her composure. She was good at appearing steady. And at pretending she understood.
Deep down, she believed she could turn anything into a good story. Even if, at that moment, all she could think about was the last poorly written sentence and the tight deadline waiting for her back in Vienna.
The first panel began with an economist from Deutsche Bank discussing opportunities in the Balkan markets. A wave of privatizations, speculative capital flows, Slovenian banks opening aggressive credit lines for foreign investors. Many in the room were scribbling furiously. She copied down the most striking terms — hedge, spread, non-euro zone. She’d look them up later. As always.
The second panel was more technical, but also more tense: it covered Hungary’s fiscal opening and its impacts on the Austrian banking system. Someone mentioned the real estate bubble in the United States and the risk of contagion. The previously enthusiastic atmosphere grew more restrained. Anneliese wrote down only one sentence:
“Today’s stability may be tomorrow’s trap.”
It wasn’t the kind of content she liked to write. But it was the kind she knew she needed to understand.
Then came the third panel: “Calculated Risk: Data-Driven Decision Making.”
The title alone sparked curiosity, but it was the speaker who drew everyone’s attention the moment he walked on stage. Anneliese recognized him immediately — not from reports or financial editorials, but, ironically, from a celebrity magazine she’d once browsed through in a waiting room somewhere.
Toto Wolff. A name still mostly known to those who followed DTM or gossip columns. An amateur driver with surprising results, an early investor, recently established as a partner at HWA — a technical company linked to Mercedes. A man on the cusp of a turning point: from the track to the mechanisms behind motorsport.
He began by talking about failure. Not the companies he’d bet on, nor the strategies that didn’t pay off — but his personal failures.
He said he had tried to become a professional driver. Tried too late. He drove well, won important races, even flirted with records. But the years, the crashes, and the realities of the sport forced him to accept that raw talent might not be enough.
“Giving up wasn’t easy,” he said. “But when I realized I wouldn’t make it by speed, I tried another entry point: calculation.”
That’s how he entered the world of investing — first in tech, then in motorsport.
He spoke about the invisible thread connecting a race team and a startup: risk, pressure, razor-thin margins. He reflected on dealing with losses — not just financial, but directional. On making fast decisions and then living slowly with their consequences.
“I was never the most technical person in the room,” he admitted. “But I learned to endure more than others. And to see what wasn’t yet ready to be translated into numbers.”
...
When the panel ended, Anneliese slipped out through a side door — slipping out quietly, without saying goodbye — as if fleeing more from herself than from the event.
She grabbed a coffee from a neglected table, where the sugar had already run out. A minor detail, but irritating. Yes, it was a habit — and no, black coffee wouldn’t do, no matter how ideal it was meant to be: bitter, direct, without crutches.
She knew where to find shelter. Service hallways, support rooms, forgotten spaces that belonged to everyone and no one. She found one of those — an old press room, now reduced to stacked boxes, deflated plastic cups, and a silence that smelled of worn carpet and disuse.
She needed peace. Five minutes would do. Just her, the coffee, and the sound of nothing.
She stepped in. Closed the door carefully, as if trying not to wake any ghosts. Leaned against the wall, took off her shoes — and for the first time that day, breathed with her whole body.
That’s when he walked in.
“Shit,” he said, tripping over a fallen trash can.
She didn’t even turn.
“If you’re looking for coffee, you’re late,” she replied, with restrained disdain.
“I’m looking for silence,” he shot back, his tone too direct to be just for show.
She recognized the voice before registering the face. She turned slowly.
He was taller than she noticed in the first place. When she was anxious. But the kind that seemed to try and shrink himself, like being noticed was a side effect, not an intention. Handsome, yes, but in a way that didn’t seem aware of it. Or, if he was, he hid it well. Nothing about him tried to draw attention — and maybe that’s exactly why it did.
His features were gentle, almost distracted. There was something about the way he held his shoulders — a quiet tension, a polite hesitation. And his eyes... dark, far too observant. They didn’t challenge, but they didn’t shy away either. They watched with care. With a quiet kind of listening that made everything around feel clearer — or more exposed.
She didn’t know if she liked that kind of presence. But she knew she would remember it.
“Careful,” she said. “In here, even silence listens.”
He smiled, faintly. A half-smile. Like someone who understood — but chose not to answer.
“Mind if I sit?” he asked, pointing to the opposite corner.
“It’s not mine. I just invaded first,” she replied with a shrug.
He settled in, taking off his jacket with a slow, almost ritualistic gesture. Like shedding a social version of himself to step into something closer to the truth. The dim light made the room feel almost intimate — but still distant enough not to be a confession.
“What did you think of the panel?” he asked, casually.
“Choreographed,” she answered without hesitation. “Words that polished always hide something.”
He laughed. A short laugh, not mocking — but with something that sounded like recognition.
Before another silence could settle in, a woman appeared at the half-open door. Young, hurried, holding a blue folder and with a walkie-talkie clipped to her waist.
“Is this the press room?” the woman asked, glancing around.
Anneliese opened her eyes slowly, like someone returning from far away.
“It was. Now it’s just storage,” she replied simply.
The woman eyed her badge — crooked and barely stuck — with a frown that settled before deciding if it was suspicion or boredom.
“Christine Schnell Hoffmann?”
Before she could say anything, he stepped in with rehearsed ease:
“She’s with me.”
The woman turned her attention to him.
“And you are...?”
“Wolff. Torger Christian Wolff. Marchfifteen.”
The name had an effect. Not exactly respect — but something close to caution. As if a password had just been uttered.
“Apologies, Mr. Wolff. We’ve had issues with fake invitations. We’re revalidating press access.”
“She’s legit. Working on a piece about young investors in Central Europe. Asked me for a few quiet minutes,” he explained calmly.
The woman hesitated. Then nodded.
“Alright. Just avoid restricted rooms. Programming resumes in twenty minutes.”
As she walked off, Anneliese looked at him, somewhere between surprised and ironic.
“You didn’t have to,” she said.
“I did,” he replied. “You were about to be escorted out for not lying convincingly enough, Miss Newspaper Intern.”
She let out a short laugh, unguarded.
“That was a blatant bluff.”
“Of course it was. But big names scare people when said with confidence.”
“You’re good at improvising.”
“As you are,” he said, then asked: “What’s your name?”
She hesitated.
“Anneliese,” she finally said, in a tone that weighed the cost of revealing it.
He nodded. “Christine is just one of your faces?”
“Christine is a badge. The disguise... is me trying to fit into it.”
He didn’t reply. Just leaned his head against the wall, letting the silence speak for him.
“You don’t like events like this, do you?” he guessed.
She gave a half-smile, tired. “I like watching people who do. That count?”
“It does,” he said. “Might be the best kind of people.”
She observed him for a moment. Then asked:
“Are you writing about this?”
“Maybe,” she replied. “If I find a story.”
“And do you think I’m a story?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t decided if you’re a chapter... or a footnote.”
He laughed, this time for real. “Fair. And what if I’m the preface?”
“Prefaces usually end before they begin.”
“Or they set the stage for everything that follows.”
She glanced sideways at him, almost annoyed at how good the answer was.
“Do you always talk like that?”
“Only when someone’s paying attention.”
He laughed again. A light, honest laugh. And she, despite herself, liked the sound of it.
Silence returned, but now it felt less heavy. As if it had shifted weight.
She looked away, pretending to study the stack of boxes in the corner. But she knew he’d noticed her attempt to hide.
“You’re good at improvising,” he said again, still smiling.
“Only when I have no choice,” she replied, letting the fatigue show.
“Which is... most of the time?” he asked.
She gave a slight nod. “Exactly.”
Outside, hurried footsteps echoed. She looked toward the door, then back at him.
“Program’s about to resume,” she said, softly.
He nodded. “You heading back?”
“I am. Still have to look useful before the day ends.”
He stood, putting his jacket back on calmly.
“Nice meeting you, Anneliese.”
“I guess it was. It was weird. But good,” she replied, with a smile carrying both tiredness and curiosity.
He was about to leave when he glanced back over his shoulder.
“Chapter, for the record. But on an odd-numbered page.”
She smiled, saying nothing. Just filed away the phrase — and the tone — in her mind.
Ready for more? Head to Chapter Three | Out Of Context.
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