Chapter One: Control_Input = 42
In the Faculty of Souls, where the air hums with half-formed thoughts and the scent of burnt coffee lingers like a stubborn ghost, they sit—M, B, K, T, and Mel. Y lingers somewhere beyond, a presence felt but not seen, like the edge of a storm that hasn’t quite arrived. Each of them a world orbiting their own gravity, pulled into this space by forces they don’t bother naming anymore.
Someone, probably K, leans in, tapping a finger against the table like he’s testing for cracks beneath the surface. “Control,” he says, a smirk curling at the edge of his mouth, “is an illusion.”
B doesn’t look up, just exhales, slow and steady. “Control is an input,” she corrects, eyes fixed on something beyond the room. “And the constant is 42.”
A pause. T shifts uncomfortably, like the weight of the words is settling in his chest, too heavy to hold but impossible to drop. Mel, ever the observer, sips her drink and watches it unfold like a cat watching a bird trapped in a room.
M, standing apart but never too far, chuckles under his breath. “Forty-fucking-two.” The words are sharp, deliberate, cutting through the stale air like a blade. “The answer to everything, yeah?”
Silence stretches, the kind that knows more than it should.
Mel tilts her head, finally speaking. “I mean… if 42 is the answer, what’s the question?”
K grins, because of course he does. “Why are we still here?”
T doesn’t answer, just picks at the edge of a napkin, unraveling it thread by thread. Some people unravel thoughts that way. Others just unravel.
B leans back, arms crossed, eyes narrowed in that way that means she’s already run the simulation in her head ten times over. “Because some things can’t be left unsolved.”
M watches her, watches all of them, like a conductor watching an orchestra that insists on playing different tunes. “Control’s a funny thing,” he muses. “People think it’s about holding on. It’s not. It’s about knowing when to let go.”
Mel hums in agreement, staring at her phone, probably scrolling through cats or wedding ideas she’ll never admit she’s saving. “Maybe it’s about both,” she says softly.
Y is still out there, orbiting the edges. B feels it, knows it, but doesn’t say it. They never say it. They just dance around it, careful not to look too closely, because once you see something for what it is, you can’t unsee it.
K, of course, doesn’t believe in that kind of caution. “So what’s the plan then? You keep running these numbers, or you finally gonna make a move?”
B doesn’t answer right away. She lets the weight of it settle. The numbers have always been there. The logic. The probability. The inevitability. But control? Control is a different beast.
M smirks, leaning in just enough. “You waiting for him to input, or are you taking the shot?”
B smiles, slow and knowing. “Why would I waste a shot when I already know the outcome?”
T, quiet and thoughtful, watches her like he’s trying to understand a language he never quite learned to speak. “So what if you’re wrong?”
M answers before she can. “Then she recalculates.”
And just like that, the moment passes. Mel talks about cats again. K runs his mouth. T stares at his coffee like it holds secrets.
And the constant remains.
42.
_______
Chapter Two: The Lost Ones
B sits at the table, fingers tapping against the worn wood in a rhythm only she understands. Numbers dance in her mind, cascading like an endless waterfall, each one a thread she can pull, a variable waiting to be tamed. Control, after all, is just pattern recognition dressed up as certainty. She sharpens her focus, eyes flicking over the data on her screen, looking for the invisible.
K watches with a kind of quiet reverence, his usual bravado dulled to something softer, more attuned. He doesn’t interrupt—he knows better than that now. B in this mode is a force of nature, calculating trajectories, probabilities, the quiet chaos beneath it all. She doesn’t speak, not yet, and K knows enough to let the numbers fill the silence. He just leans back, arms folded, waiting for the inevitable conclusion she’s already arrived at but hasn’t bothered to say aloud.
Mel, meanwhile, is lost. Not in thought, not in data, but in the digital maze of cat videos and half-baked wedding inspiration boards. She’s scrolling mindlessly, eyes flicking over fluff and fur, her mind elsewhere, anywhere but here. “Do you think cats know they’re in control?” she murmurs, half to herself, half to the universe.
K doesn’t even look up. “They don’t need to know. They just are.”
B exhales sharply through her nose, half a laugh, half a sigh. “Control isn’t knowing,” she mutters, not looking away from her screen. “It’s action. Execution. Adjustments.”
T, sitting on the edge of it all, swirls the remnants of his coffee, lost in his own calculations. Not of numbers, but of emotions, of the winding paths he keeps walking down and the dead ends he pretends not to see. He’s always been like that, hesitant, tentative, trying to control the uncontrollable. He’s been quiet too long, and when he finally speaks, his voice is careful, measured. “And what if control is just… pretending?”
B doesn’t look up, doesn’t break her focus. “It’s all pretending, T. We pretend to control. We pretend to move forward. We pretend it’s not all spiraling.” She gestures vaguely at the screen, the charts, the neat little lines that never quite tell the full story. “We build models so we don’t have to admit how lost we are.”
T shifts, his jaw tightening. “So, what then? Just… let it all go?”
K snorts. “Nah, mate. You just learn to steer while pretending you’re driving.”
B finally looks up, locking eyes with T. “It’s about knowing when to stop fighting the current and when to push back.”
T nods, slowly, like he wants to believe it. Like he needs to. Because deep down, he knows he’s one of the lost ones. Just like the rest of them. Just like B, buried in her numbers. Just like K, pretending he’s always one step ahead. Just like Mel, hiding in a world of cats and curated dreams.
They’re all lost, but here, in the Faculty of Souls, they can pretend they aren’t.
For now.
______________
Chapter Three: The Science of Letting Go
The Faculty Lab smelled like burnt wires and desperation, the kind of place where theories go to die and caffeine keeps the lost ones afloat. B stood at the center of it all, arms crossed, eyes locked on the screen like it was going to hand her the meaning of life in neatly packaged data points. K was leaning over her shoulder, too close, too curious, because K never met a problem he didn’t think he could solve with sheer audacity.
T sat on the other side, chewing the inside of his cheek like it owed him rent, eyes darting between B and the half-finished spreadsheet in front of him. “So, uh,” he started, hesitant as always, “this is just… emotional regulation, right?”
B didn’t even look up. “This is control.”
K smirked, nudging the coffee mug closer to her. “You mean the illusion of it.”
She shot him a glare sharp enough to cut glass. “No. I mean input. Control isn’t a myth, K, it’s a function. A model. It’s not about how you feel, it’s about how you respond.” She gestured to the screen. “See this? Skin conductance. EDA. Every spike tells a story.”
T frowned, stirring his coffee like it might provide answers. “So, what, you’re tracking how people sweat their emotions now?”
B smirked, and it wasn’t a kind one. “People think they’re unpredictable. They’re not. Give me enough data, and I’ll show you exactly when they’ll break.”
Mel, sitting off to the side, was half-listening, half-scrolling through her phone, lost in some cat meme vortex. “So basically,” she chimed in without looking up, “this whole thing is just attachment styles with more math?”
K chuckled. “Yeah, B’s just slapping equations on people’s daddy issues and calling it science.”
B sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You’re both insufferable.” She jabbed a finger at the screen. “Attachment styles are just childhood algorithms. Avoidant, anxious, secure—it’s all coded in early. You regulate based on input. No one’s as free as they think.”
T shifted in his chair, like B’s words hit too close to home. “So, hypothetically…” he trailed off, staring into his cup, “if someone wanted to, I don’t know, change, could they?”
B didn’t hesitate. “No. They just learn how to fake it better.”
Mel snorted. “Well, that’s fucking depressing.”
M, standing by the window, watching the rain smear the outside world into something unrecognizable, finally spoke. “She’s not wrong.” My voice cut through the hum of the lab, grounding them in the way they all secretly needed. “People don’t change. They just adjust their coping mechanisms until they make sense to them.”
K grinned. “So, what’s yours, M? What’s your coping mechanism?”
I leaned against the table, letting the weight of the question settle. “Observation. Distance.” I nodded towards B. “Her coping mechanism is control. Yours is pretending you already know the answer.”
B shot me a look, but there was no fight in it. Just understanding.
Mel leaned back in her chair, tossing her phone onto the table. “So where does love fit into all this?”
T looked up, hopeful in that way only the lost ones are. K raised an eyebrow, waiting for the inevitable takedown.
B didn’t miss a beat. “Love? It’s an anomaly.”
K laughed. “Figures.”
Mel rolled her eyes. “You’re all idiots.”
I smirked. “And yet, here we are.”
The lab fell into that familiar silence again—the kind that comes when you’ve gone too far down the rabbit hole and there’s no turning back. B was staring at her screen, but I knew she wasn’t seeing data anymore. She was running simulations, tracing patterns in the chaos, trying to find something solid to hold onto.
We all were.
___________
Chapter Four: The Last Variable
The lab hummed with the quiet murmur of machines and half-finished thoughts. T sat hunched over his laptop, eyes glassy from too much caffeine and too little sleep. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, but he wasn’t typing. Just… thinking. Or spiraling. With T, it was hard to tell the difference.
B watched him from across the table, the glow of her screen flickering against her face. She didn’t say anything—not yet—but her eyes stayed on him, tracing the invisible lines of last night. The way his voice cracked when he called. The way he tried to stitch himself back together with broken words and too many pauses.
T had been heartbroken before, but this one… this one cut deep.
“You still processing, or just buffering?” B’s voice cut through the silence, crisp but not unkind.
T blinked, snapping out of it, a tired smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “A bit of both, I guess.”
K, never one to miss an opportunity, leaned in with a grin. “Didn’t B already fix you last night? Thought you were back in fighting shape, mate.”
T shrugged, staring down at his coffee. “Yeah, well… some wounds need more than one patch job.”
B sighed, resting her chin on her hand. “You’re not a fucking algorithm, T. You can’t just run a patch and expect everything to work fine. Sometimes, you just have to sit with the bugs.”
Mel, who’d been suspiciously quiet, looked up from her phone. “Or just get a new system entirely.”
T let out a weak laugh. “If only it were that easy.”
M, leaning against the wall, arms crossed like he owned the place, smirked. “Nah, you’d just find another way to crash it.”
The room lapsed into silence again, the kind that settles deep and heavy.
T glanced at B, eyes searching. “You really think I can’t change?”
B tilted her head, studying him. “I think you don’t need to.”
K whistled low. “Damn. That’s almost sweet.”
T shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “I just… I just want to feel in control again.”
B leaned back, eyes soft but steady. “You were never in control, T. None of us are. We just make better guesses.”
Before T could respond, the lab door creaked open. Y stepped inside, his presence like a cold draft that made everyone straighten up just a little.
He didn’t say anything. Just looked. First at B, then at K, then at T—lingering there the longest, like he could see every cracked piece inside him.
No words. Just a stare that dragged across the room, heavy and sharp, before Y turned on his heel and left.
T exhaled, staring down at the table. “He hates me.”
M chuckled. “No, mate. He hates that you still have hope.”
B didn’t say anything. Just gave T a look that said, you’re still here. That’s enough.
And for now, it was.
__________
End: 42
The lab felt heavier after Y left, like he’d sucked the air out on his way through the door. T stared at the table, chewing on thoughts he’d never say out loud.
B broke the silence first, like always. “You know where 42 comes from, right?”
K smirked. “Enlighten us, O Wise One.”
B ignored him. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s the answer to life, the universe, everything.”
T blinked. “That’s… comforting?”
B shrugged. “Not really. They never figured out the question.”
Mel, not looking up from her phone, muttered, “So what’s the point?”
B leaned forward, tapping the screen in front of T. “The point, Tin, is that we’re all running on incomplete data, trying to force an answer into a question we haven’t even asked properly.”
M grinned. “And you’re saying we’re all just hitchhikers?”
B sat back, smirking. “Aren’t we?”
K raised his cup. “To 42, then.”
They all sat there for a beat, the absurdity of it settling in. Then B, with a smirk, muttered, “Just don’t panic.”
And for a moment, it felt like enough.
__________
