Makoto's users had passed two hundred, and the pile of operations work had grown higher too. Pre-placement screening, processing reports, adjusting thresholds. The machine handled ninety percent, but the remaining ten percent that required judgment always fell onto Mio's desk in the end.
And Mio hadn't left the coworking space since the night before. Yesterday's twenty-some entries wouldn't leave her head. That cluster that was harmless one at a time, yet where a rule rose up as a flock. Before she knew it, the sky outside the window was turning white. Sleep and sugar were variables in the same series to her; half her head had merely tallied that her fuel was below the threshold. When it got low enough, she'd top it up. That was all.
In a corner of the room, Aya, in early, was sunk in a mockup behind a pair of big headphones. She didn't look up at Mio's overnight stay or at Mikoshiba's arrival. Erasing her presence was her morning routine.
When Mikoshiba came in, his hands stopped grinding the coffee. Empty cans lined up on the desk, left from the night before; screens still glaring bright. Etched into the profile facing the keyboard, at odds with her usual sharpness, was a fatigue like a shadow. There was none of the salesman's ease in Mikoshiba's steps as he walked over.
"Himuro. You haven't gone home since yesterday."
"I've made progress," Mio answered, still looking at the screen, meaning it as a report. She set her laptop on Mikoshiba's desk and opened the table where she had color-coded yesterday's twenty-some entries. No preamble, no phrasing that asked for permission.
"I'll chase down that sense of something off. Collect the points and look at how they connect. If Makoto's logs aren't enough, I'll dig into the ad placement payment data too."
Mikoshiba put down his pen.
"Himuro. Listen to me calmly."
"I am calm. My heart rate is stable."
"You didn't sleep a wink last night."
Mio fell silent. Her heart rate wasn't a rebuttal to that.
Mikoshiba lightly squared the edges of a bundle of papers against the desk. It was a gesture to make a pause.
"Let's wrap up the investigation for now."
"Why?"
"There are two reasons. One. It's what you said yourself yesterday. That with a social network of two hundred people, there aren't enough points and they won't connect. If you dig into the payment data now, you'll just mass-produce false positives. As Makoto grows, their 'rule' will thicken on its own. Running now, on thin data, is a losing bet."
Mikoshiba broke off there once.
"The second is—"
His mouth, which usually went on without a hitch, caught for half a beat beyond that point.
"...I don't like standing by and watching you fall apart in front of me. It's not about efficiency, or data. I just—don't want that."
Once he'd said it, he seemed to notice his own deviation. The words that he would usually fold back into a business frame didn't follow. He started to open his mouth, then stopped. The reasoning that came next, today of all days, he seemed unable to assemble.
"...Pretend you didn't hear the second one."
Mio didn't respond to the second one. She had no numbers on hand to respond with.
"I'll grant you the first," Mio answered immediately. Mikoshiba's eyes widened slightly. At how readily she'd conceded half. "Digging through all the payment data is a wasted shot right now. So I won't. I'll measure this cluster's 'way of connecting' only within Makoto's logs. No false positives. Cost, nearly zero."
"Himuro."
"What you want to guard against is an increase in false positives, isn't it. Then I'll only investigate, and won't touch anything. This is a negotiation."
Mikoshiba's expression wavered for just an instant. Not the salesman's smile, not the CEO's calm, but something else. But Mio had no model for reading it.
"...Even if I forbid it, you'll just do it in secret."
"I will. Freedom over data isn't the kind of thing someone hands out and takes back. You didn't give me a lab. I brought it in. The board has been mine from the start."
Mikoshiba said nothing. Mio went back to her own island. She felt his gaze on her back but didn't turn around.
Night. Most people had cleared out of the coworking space; only Aya's island in the corner still had monitor light on. A designer staying late before a deadline was a sight no one paid any mind to. Aya had already stopped working, but she didn't tell anyone.
While Mio was still facing her screen, Mikoshiba came back carrying a convenience store bag. He was looking only at Mio.
"You're still here?"
"So are you."
"I forgot something." Mikoshiba didn't go to his own desk; he sat down in the chair next to Mio. He took a pudding out of the bag and set it by her hand. "Your brain doesn't run well without sugar. About this morning—I won't stop you from doing it your way."
Mio looked up. During the day, she had begun connecting points within the logs. Whether Mikoshiba stopped her or not, she had already decided to chase it. The pudding was worth accepting as fuel for that.
"But I'm going to set some conditions of my own." Mikoshiba was looking not at Mio's face but at the dark window. "If you're going to run, I'll keep the accounts beside you. Don't cut your sleep. Don't skip meals. Sinking into the zone is fine. But when I set an alarm, surface once. Just don't break your body. That's an absolute condition."
"So you're conceding, with conditions," Mio said, putting a finger to the pudding lid. "In exchange for me chasing it, you manage my utilization rate. As a trade."
"Yes." It was an answer a little too quick.
Rational, said half her head. I solve the problem, he maintains my physical condition. A division of roles. But the other half was recalling the morning's residual. Every one of the conditions put its weight toward not letting go of her. Securing. Locking in. A monopoly, to avoid handing an asset over to a competitor—read it that way, and that one word disappeared.
But she only set that candidate provisionally on the on-hold shelf. The grounds were thin, the points too few. Reading people wasn't her specialty. What she picked up instead was an explanation closer at hand. Right now she was an irreplaceable asset, and he didn't want it to break. Plain health management. A single coefficient was enough.
"In short," Mio said, peeling the pudding lid all the way back. "If the CTO collapses, delivery dates and hiring decisions all stop. The company would be in trouble in various ways, that's what you mean."
Mikoshiba didn't answer right away. Still facing the window, one beat, as if it took that long a pause to agree.
"...That's what I mean."
"Fine. I'll accept those conditions," Mio nodded. "But whether I chase it is my decision. And I've already decided. This is about whether you're getting on board."
A little of the tension went out of Mikoshiba's shoulders. He hid it, still facing the window.
"I forgot to factor in that you're not the type to leave things alone. Forbid it, and you'll do it anyway, in secret, without sleeping. Rather than that, better to have you somewhere I can see, make sure you eat properly, and watch from beside you. I just adjusted the priorities, that's all."
As he said it, he smiled faintly. This time, it wasn't a salesman's smile.
"—Mio."
Mio stopped her spoon. It was the first time Mikoshiba had called her by her name. Until now it had always been "Himuro." But Mio didn't dwell on what it meant. It was nothing more than one variable label being rewritten. Mikoshiba seemed to realize half a beat late what he'd just said, but he neither took it back nor rephrased it; he returned his gaze to the papers at hand and squared their edges again.
When Mio finished the pudding, she turned back to the screen.
"I've decided." She opened the table again, the twenty-some entries color-coded. "I need to update the prior that this cluster is harmless."
Beside her, Mikoshiba laughed faintly.
"There it is. Mio's 'update.'"
"...Is that funny?"
"It's funny. It's the signal that you're seriously going after something." Mikoshiba stood up. "You're the one running. I'm just running beside you so you don't collapse."
"The running starts tomorrow," Mio said, closing her laptop. "The points won't increase any more tonight. My processing speed is below the threshold right now, too. Sticking it out here would be a wasted shot. Besides—"
She slung her bag over her shoulder.
"You manage an asset by keeping up its utilization rate, don't you. You said so yourself just now. Then resting tonight is the rational thing. I'm just doing you the favor of following your terms."
Mikoshiba looked thoroughly disarmed. He apparently hadn't factored in that the condition he himself had set, to protect the asset, would be beaten to the punch and used as a reason to go home.
"...All right."
That was all Mikoshiba said.
Mio walked straight toward the exit. There were no words to stop her, and no reason to look back, anywhere inside her. Mikoshiba watched her retreating back as if he wanted to say something, and in the end said nothing.
"—I heard all of it."
A voice came from the island in the corner. Aya had swiveled her chair around to face him. Mikoshiba's shoulders gave a slight jump. It was the face of someone who had dropped from his accounts, until this very moment, the fact that someone was there.
"I've been here the whole time since this morning, you know," Aya said, propping her chin listlessly on her hand. "Boss. This morning you choked on your words like that and let it all hang out with 'I don't want that.' No matter how you hear it, that's not a business decision, is it."
"It's a business decision." Mikoshiba had recovered his expression. "A collapsed CTO can't write a single line. It falls within risk management."
"Yes, yes, 'rational' again today," Aya brushed it off in a monotone, and jerked her chin toward the exit Mio had disappeared through.
—Master Mikoshiba. Once again today, I have most surely witnessed a wholehearted spinning of wheels. All that ardor, and the reply was the single phrase "a company asset." If I may be so bold, this obliviousness, by my reckoning, is one for a lifetime.
—Do please keep your wits about you.
Mikoshiba said nothing, squaring the edges of his papers again.
That night, in a corner of Mio's notebook, one candidate, "asset / utilization rate," had been added in a faint line, and stopped there at low confidence. But one step further out—the line that perhaps the way he looked after her wasn't even economic logic—Mio didn't so much as lay a hand on. The prior for romance had never been in the calculation to begin with. It stayed at zero, unmoving. What she could see was always only the side of data and code.