The Algorithm of Spring

67

"Where do you keep the coffee filters?" Jun-ho asked, opening yet another wrong cabinet. After a week of staying over, Maya's kitchen still held mysteries.

Maya looked up from her laptop, half-smiling. "Left of the sink. No, your other left."

While Jun-ho wrestled with her pour-over setup, Min-seo's message appeared on Maya's screen. Her amusement vanished as she read: Found something. Someone wants to talk. Important. A thin, cold seam opened in her chest — the unmistakable feeling of the ground tilting beneath her.

A second message followed: Meeting must be face-to-face.

Jun-ho must have caught her expression change. He set the kettle down, peering at her screen. "Min-seo?"

Maya nodded. "She's found us a contact." She angled the laptop so he could read. The easy comfort of their morning shifted into something else entirely.

Jun-ho abandoned the coffee, reading the message twice. "Could be a trap."

He corrected himself immediately. "It's a trap."

"Or someone who knows something." Maya typed a quick reply: Who?

The response came immediately: Ex-government. Data analysis. Alan Richards connection.

Maya felt something drop inside her — not fear exactly, but recognition. His name always meant the circle was shrinking. The same name that had appeared in Dr. Park's files, the same artist whose work she'd visited in Beijing. The connections kept tightening around her, but she sensed something larger emerging that she wasn't ready to face.

"So it is connected," Jun-ho murmured. "The gallery, Dr. Park's files... it all keeps leading back to him."

Maya's shoulders tensed. "He's more than just an artist."

Jun-ho returned to the abandoned coffee. "If this person really handled government data and knew Richards..." He exhaled slowly. "Then they've seen the machinery from the inside. Not scraps. The architecture."

Maya studied Min-seo's message again. Data analysis. Important players. The government had been fixated on the birth-rate crisis for years—statistics splashed across headlines, politicians treating solutions like campaign slogans.

"How do we meet?" she typed. 

For a moment the typing cursor blinked like an eye deciding whether to let the truth through.

National Museum of Korea. 10 AM. Pagoda garden. Wear something ordinary.

"Something ordinary," Jun-ho read over her shoulder. "As opposed to what?"

Maya closed her laptop. "If this is real, we're finally getting closer."

"And if it isn't?" Jun-ho handed her a cup of coffee, their fingers brushing. These small touches still felt new, tentative.

"Then we'll know they're watching us." Maya took a sip, grateful for the warmth. "Min-seo's smart, she thinks it's legit."

Jun-ho checked his watch. "Two hours. Enough time to plan an exit strategy if we need to run." His fingers tapped against the counter. "If this goes wrong..."

"It won't." Maya rose, moving to stand beside him. "We've been careful. But we need answers." And for the first time that morning, Maya wondered whether wanting answers and surviving them were the same thing.

Jun-ho's hand found hers, grounding her. "I'll call Dae-hyun. He'll be able to monitor the museum's security feeds live, tell us if anything looks off." Even that felt fragile—as if safety itself were becoming an illusion they were choosing to believe in.

The morning stretched before them, each minute moving toward something neither could fully anticipate. Maya finished her coffee in silence, watching Jun-ho make the call, his voice lowering as he spoke with Dae-hyun.

This wasn't how she'd imagined their quiet morning unfolding. But then, nothing about their lives had been normal since HarmoniQ had threaded itself into every corner of their existence.