Swipe Right
Copyright© 2026 by Sci-FiTy1972
Chapter 27: Quiet Things
His youngest nephew beat him again.
Not by much, just enough to make it sting.
“Best two out of three,” the eight-year-old said, already setting the pieces back up, confidence earned and worn without apology.
Darius smiled and let it happen.
The older nephew watched from the edge of the table, pretending not to care while absorbing everything. He always did. The boy had the kind of focus that didn’t announce itself. The kind that waited.
“You know,” Darius said, adjusting a piece deliberately out of position, “you’re rushing the endgame.”
The eight-year-old squinted. “You always say that.”
“And I’m usually right.”
Three moves later, the game tipped. The boy froze, eyes wide.
“That’s not fair.”
Darius leaned back in his chair. “Nothing wrong with fair. Just don’t confuse it with obvious.”
The boy groaned dramatically and flopped back onto the couch.
The older one smiled—just a little.
Outside the view port, Earth hung in the distance, calm in a way that never lasted.
They didn’t ask questions the way adults did.
They asked sideways.
“Why are there more people here now?” the younger one asked, legs dangling.
“Because sometimes people need help,” Darius replied.
“Are they staying?”
“Some of them.”
“Are we?”
Darius paused.
“For now,” he said.
That answer seemed to satisfy him.
Children were good at accepting provisional truths.
The older nephew didn’t speak. He was watching the station traffic patterns on a secondary display—cargo flow, shuttle rotations, the rhythm of movement.
“You could hide a lot in that noise,” he said suddenly.
Darius glanced at him. “Yeah.”
“Is that why it looks messy?”
Darius smiled—not wide, not proud. Just enough.
“Sometimes,” he said, “messy is the point.”
The boy nodded slowly, filing it away.
They passed the learning wing on the way back.
It didn’t look like a school.
No banners. No lines. No raised voices or bells marking time. Just light—soft, diffuse—and a low, almost imperceptible hum that felt more like breathing than machinery.
The younger nephew slowed.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Darius didn’t answer right away.
The sound in the walls tugged at memory—not sharp, not loud. Just present.
The chamber hadn’t looked like a breakthrough when it happened.
No applause. No urgency. Just a semicircle of light and minds unwilling to force a conclusion.
The Royal AI had been the first to speak.
“Time-dilated learning is viable,” it said evenly. “But not universally.”
Semian specialists exchanged glances—tall, still, patient in the way only long-lived minds could afford.
One of them gestured, and the lattice bloomed with data: neural scans, sleep cycles, cognition curves.
“Your species enters REM naturally,” the Semian said. “Frequently. Reliably. Without chemical inducement.”
Another added, more cautiously, “You do not resist nonlinear perception the way others do.”
The Royal AI refined the projection.
“Human neural architecture does not fracture under compressed experiential density,” it said. “It reorganizes.”
The room had gone quiet then.
Not excitement.
Recognition.
Someone—command staff, measured, careful—had asked the question that mattered.
“Risk?”
The Royal AI didn’t hesitate.
“Unknown. Until tested.”
That had been the moment.
Not the theory.
The volunteers.
Pilots. Engineers. Analysts. Marines with rank enough to refuse—and judgment enough not to.
Hours outside.
Days inside.
They came back intact.
Sharper, yes—but not altered. No dissociation. No loss of self. No bleed between roles.
Just understanding.
Context.
Weight.
Safe enough.
Human enough.
The memory released him.
“Education,” Darius said.
“That’s not what school looks like,” the younger one replied.
“Not the kind we’re building,” Renee said gently from behind them.
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