It was a dinner meeting. The reservation was made at one of Moscow's more luxurious restaurants, which prided itself on tradition, employing only human staff who were trained to perfection.

"Professor Artyomov?" Julius leaned forward as he approached the table where a neatly dressed man sat alone.

Konstantin Lev Artyomov raised his head.

"Dimitri Ilya Mikhailov," Konstantin said, acknowledging him with a single nod. "You are punctual. Sit."

Julius took the seat across from him. A server approached, set down menus, poured water, and left without a sound.

"I have reviewed your portfolio," Konstantin began, clasping his hands. "Your analytical reports. Your simulation models. Your submissions over the past three months. Your work is very efficient."

"Thank you, sir."

"So, I have to digress," he said. "Where did a man like you come from?"

"Sir?"

Konstantin regarded him in a way that felt far closer to an autopsy than a conversation, with a level of scrutiny that made it obvious he had already considered multiple answers and eliminated half of them.

"You appear," Konstantin said, "with a perfectly clean academic record from Kazakhstan. Flawless submissions, master-level work that outperforms senior researchers, and no acclimation periods.

"I have always tried to be competent, sir."

"Competent?" Konstantin frowned, as if the word offended him. "No. Competence fluctuates. It reflects experience gained over time. But you… you arrived like a fully formed machine."

If anyone were to call Julius a genius, he would deny it vehemently. None of his accomplishments in the USSR would have existed without SIBYL in his neurons.

Because of SIBYL's instantaneous scans, he could adapt accordingly and accurately. Because of SIBYL's search function, he could propose solutions that seemed revolutionary in 2149.

With SIBYL, all he had to do was play his role accordingly.

"Then is competence a sin, sir?" Julius asked. "Is it wrong for a man with no other choice but to be competent to survive? I have lived my entire life in struggle. Behind every flawless result you see, there is always a story. And I believe, sir, that you are already aware of that."

Konstantin's gaze narrowed with acknowledgement that Julius had answered him without stuttering, without offering anything unnecessary.

"My daughter," he said, "believes you are genuine. That you simply work harder than others. That you possess unusual discipline."

He tapped a finger once against the table.

"But I am not my daughter."

"If you believe my records are questionable, you may verify them however you wish."

"I already have," Konstantin replied. "I would not have extended this offer otherwise."

"...."

"Work under me directly in Zima-12. You will be held to standards that break most men. And if you fall short, even once, I will dismiss you within minutes."

Julius met his gaze evenly. "I will do what is expected of me."

Konstantin accepted the answer with a curt nod. "Good. You will receive your formal transfer papers by tomorrow morning. If you complete them immediately, you may be cleared for deployment as early as next month."

"Yes, sir."

"Good." Konstantin closed the folder and set it aside. "Now, shall we enjoy the meal? Work aside, my daughter has told me a great deal about you."

"...."

For some reason, the air suddenly ran colder than anything Julius had felt during their formal talk.

Somehow, this felt like the real test.

* * *

Yuliya paced around her apartment in restless loops, unable to sit still. Every few steps, she put a hand toward her mouth, nibbling anxiously at her nails before catching herself and pulling her fingers away with an irritated sigh.

She hated that habit, but tonight her nerves were too unsettled to stop it completely.

"God… if Father doesn't like him…" she murmured, pressing her palms to her cheeks before resuming her pacing.

But the thought didn't hold for long. When she forced herself to slow down, she remembered something more important.

Her father was a brilliant man, a respected scientist, and a terrifying figure at times, but he was also divorced and barely present at home. His judgment on relationships was hardly a gold standard.

Whether he approved or not… it shouldn't dictate her life.

"If Father disapproves, I'll just deal with it," she told herself. "He doesn't get the final say."

Still, the flutter in her stomach refused to settle. She knew exactly why she felt uneasy. The other night had changed something. Everything that happened with Dimitri that night made her believe, even if only a little, that the feeling might not be one-sided.

Even if it was too soon to be certain, at the very least, she knew Dimitri did not dislike her. And that small assurance was enough to make her heart beat faster as she tried to calm her breathing.

Tonight, her father would meet the man she liked.

If one were to ask how Yuliya, a brilliant, sharp-tongued, and notoriously difficult to impress researcher, ended up falling for a colleague technically placed under her, she wouldn't be able to give a definitive answer since there was no single moment she could point to.

But if she had to choose a starting point… it was probably that day.

A day so chaotic the entire research wing nearly went up in flames figuratively, though Yuliya had been enraged enough that literal combustion didn't seem impossible.

"What is this?!" she shouted, slamming a stack of misaligned reports onto a console.

Her team flinched collectively.

"This entire simulation model is corrupted," she continued, eyes blazing. "Corrupted! Do you people understand what that means? Six months of progress, gone! Because someone mislabeled the whole index!"

One of the junior researchers whimpered. Another tried to shrink so far into his chair that he nearly merged with it.

"I swear," Yuliya said, "if I find the person responsible—"

"You don't need to look too far."

The room turned. It was a young researcher who was recently hired and placed under her care.

Yuliya blinked. "What? Who are you?"

"Check the metadata," he said calmly, ignoring her question. "There. The error originated from Terminal 14C, workstation B. I submitted adjustments two days ago. Someone overwrote them with outdated formulas."

Yuliya snatched the datapad from his hand, scanned it, and her jaw clenched.

"…You're telling me someone used last year's calibrations?"

"Yes. A full revision is required."

Her eye twitched.

Someone in the back muttered, "We're dead."

Yuliya sucked in a breath and then exploded.

"Last year's calibrations?! Who—who in the name of every damn Soviet protocol uses obsolete data?! Do you want this entire lab shut down?! Because that is exactly how you get this lab shut down!"

The team shrank again.

Yuliya pressed her fingers to her forehead, and tried to salvage what remained of her sanity.

"This," she said through gritted teeth, "is going to take at least another six months. Six months we do not have! I want everyone fixing the model now. Move!"

People scattered like frightened rats.

But he didn't move.

"I have a proposal."

Yuliya turned to him. "Unless your proposal involves reversing time, I highly doubt—"

"You can salvage half of it," he said. "If you rebuild from the baseline version stored in the hidden cache."

"…There's a hidden cache?"

"There is now."

Yuliya opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "Remind me again who you are?"

"Dimitri Ilya Mikhailov," he replied. "I noticed the contradictions a week ago and made the proper adjustments. I tried to report it, but my concerns were dismissed as… unnecessary."

"Unnecessary? By who?"

He tilted his head slightly toward the far corner of the room.

Yuliya followed his gaze and saw Mikhail Vasiliev, the senior analyst with a permanent coffee stain on his lab coat, desperately pretending to blend into the wall.

Yuliya's expression darkened. "Mikhail."

"C-Comrade Yuliya, I—It was a simple misunderstanding—"

"A misunderstanding," she repeated. "You threw out a subordinate's report without reading it?"

"I thought it was… trivial…"

"Trivial? You mean the six-month simulation we now have to rebuild? That trivial?!"

"I—I didn't know—"

"You didn't check!" she snapped. "You let your ego decide for you!"

Yuliya pressed her fingers to her forehead and inhaled deeply, trying to rein in the urge to throw a datapad at him.

"Dimitri," she said without looking away from Mikhail, "how much time can we salvage with your cache?"

"Two weeks," Dimitri answered. "If we act immediately."

"Good." She turned to the senior engineers, one of them was Mikhail. "You're in charge of reconstruction."

Mikhail blinked. "W-Wait, me too?"

"No, you're fired."

"...."

Yuliya finally turned back to Dimitri.

"And you… You're coming with me. If you built that hidden cache, then you're the only one here who actually knows what they're doing."

Dimitri simply nodded.

Because of that one incident, everything changed. A month later, after sleepless nights and a brutal reconstruction schedule, Yuliya and her team were called on stage to receive an institutional award.

After the awarding ceremony, the team crowded around Yuliya, congratulating her. Cameras flashed. Directors shook her hand. Everyone commended her leadership.

But her eyes kept drifting back to one person standing slightly behind the group.

Dimitri.

He wasn't basking in attention, but was just standing there as if he were a footnote in his own success.

Yuliya remembered how he had reconstructed half a year's worth of simulations with the accuracy of a surgeon. How he noticed flaws that the senior analysts overlooked. How he never claimed credit, never demanded acknowledgement, and never once complained about the workload.

Later that evening, when the crowd dispersed, Yuliya walked toward him.

"You should have been the one accepting the award," she said.

"I only did my part."

"But no one else could have done what you did."

"It's all due to Miss Yuliya's leadership."

He became the man she paid attention to without even meaning to.

Yuliya sighed as the memories faded. By the time she refocused, the familiar beep beep beep of the apartment lock chimed through the room.

"F-Father! H-How was it?!"

Konstantin stepped inside, removed his gloves, and took his time closing the door behind him. Yuliya's hands curled at her sides, watching every tiny motion like the world depended on it.

"Well?" she pressed, unable to wait any longer. "How was he?"

Konstantin looked at his daughter for a long moment, so long that she felt her heart climb into her throat.

"…Sit down, Yuliya."

Her stomach dropped. "That bad?! What did he do? Did he say something rude? Oh god, did he insult your work? Did—"

"Yuliya."

She snapped her mouth shut and sat.

"Yes?"

"What are your thoughts on marriage?"

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