Read Chapter 18: Distance

Montreal was colder than Eleanor expected and louder in different places.

Theo met her at arrivals wearing a coat she had never seen and a scarf that made him look as if he belonged to another life.

For one strange second, she understood what distance had done. It had allowed him to become unfamiliar again.

Then he smiled.

“You made it seven days.”

“Six and a half.”

“Your flight home leaves Sunday night.”

“Correct.”

“That is seven calendar days.”

“Not in elapsed time.”

He took her suitcase.

“I have missed arguing with you in person.”

They stayed in a temporary flat near the canal in Griffintown. Theo’s project occupied an enormous construction site where the city was rebuilding an interchange beneath a district of offices, apartments and winter gardens.

On her second day, he took her underground.

“This is the hard part,” he said, handing her a safety helmet. “Everyone thinks acoustics is about making places quieter. It’s about making information legible.”

He led her through a concrete chamber where test announcements sounded from invisible speakers.

One message seemed to arrive from the left.

Another from ahead.

A third followed the curve of the corridor.

“We can steer attention with delay and frequency,” Theo said. “Not control. Guidance.”

Eleanor gave him a look.

“What?”

“You enjoy saying that in front of me.”

“A little.”

At the far end, engineers activated an emergency simulation. Lights dimmed. A directional tone pulsed through the tunnel.

Without thinking, Eleanor followed it.

Theo watched her emerge at the marked exit.

“That’s the system Anna changed,” he said.

Eleanor looked back into the tunnel.

“Your system.”

“Yes.”

She finally understood something about him she had previously reduced to contradiction. Theo did not hate prediction. He hated prediction that concealed its power.

His work predicted panic, movement and confusion.

But it did so in order to make exits clearer, not choices narrower.

That evening, they walked through snow along Rue Notre-Dame. Eleanor’s Lattice messages accumulated unanswered.

Theo asked, “Are you going to check?”

“No.”

“You looked at your glasses.”

“I saw the count.”

“Seventy-three.”

“Seventy-eight now.”

He laughed.

“Do you miss London?”

“Yes.”

“Work?”

“Yes.”

“Me?”

“You’re here.”

“Answer the hypothetical.”

“I dislike hypotheticals.”

“That is literally your industry.”

They reached a small restaurant with fogged windows.

Inside, over wine, Theo told her the Montreal authority had asked whether he would extend the commission to three years.

Eleanor put down her glass.

“Do you want to?”

“I don’t know.”

Her first impulse was immediate: timelines, travel frequency, visa rules, project milestones, decision trees.

She recognised the impulse.

Then did something harder.

“How does the work feel?”

Theo looked surprised.

“Good.”

“Important?”

“Yes.”

“Then don’t decide around me before we talk.”

“That sounds healthy.”

“I hate the tone.”

He reached across the table.

“I’m learning.”

“So am I.”

Later, in bed, Theo was asleep when Eleanor’s work glasses lit silently on the bedside table.

URGENT BOARD MESSAGE. REGULATORY ACTION — UK / EU JOINT NOTICE.

She got up.

The notice was worse than expected.

Regulators had not merely requested documentation about the Continuity Study.

They had ordered Lattice to suspend all predictive relationship interventions derived from undeclared legacy models pending review.

That included the premium retention system.

Projected revenue impact: twenty-nine percent.

At 02:16, Celia called.

“Are you in Montreal?”

“Yes.”

“Can you join in ten minutes?”

Eleanor looked at Theo asleep in the other room.

“I can join in the morning.”

Silence.

Celia said, “Nathan wants emergency options tonight.”

“Then Nathan can generate them.”

“Eleanor.”

“I am on leave.”

Another silence.

This one felt historic.

“All right,” Celia said.

The call ended.

Eleanor returned to bed.

Theo opened one eye.

“Company on fire?”

“Medium fire.”

“You going back?”

“Not tonight.”

He pulled the blanket aside for her.

The decision did not solve Lattice.

It changed Eleanor.