The thought didn’t arrive suddenly.
It had been building for several days, among fragments of conversation, among Lina’s inexplicable memories, among Mira’s remark that no one wanted to be themselves anymore.
Arenas had never changed his avatar.
Not out of principle.
He simply hadn’t seen the point.
Now curiosity arose.
Not about himself.
About someone else.
The avatar library resembled a museum.
Only the exhibits were unfinished.
Faces without histories.
Voices without bodies.
Temperaments without a past.
The system didn’t offer names.
Only parameters.
Cautious.
Impulsive.
Anxious.
Playful.
Slow.
Unpredictable.
A warning blinked below.
It is recommended to maintain a continuous social identity.
He chose the opposite.
A face that resembled him in nothing.
A different age.
A different bearing.
A voice he wouldn’t have recognized himself.
He changed the speech rhythm.
Lengthened the pauses.
Reduced eye contact.
Increased spontaneity.
The system asked:
Would you like the other party to be informed of these changes?
Arenas chose:
No.
Lina was already waiting.
She raised her eyes.
Smiled politely.
As if looking at a stranger.
“Hello.”
“Hi.”
She narrowed her eyes slightly.
“I’m sorry… have we spoken before?”
Arenas said nothing.
“I think the system made a mistake.”
“Why?”
“I had a different meeting scheduled.”
For the first time, he felt real doubt.
Not in her voice.
In himself.
“We can talk, if you’d like.”
She nodded.
“Of course.”
The first question was about the station.
The second, about work.
The third, about childhood.
After fifteen minutes, Arenas felt cold.
Not because the conversation was bad.
The opposite.
It was familiar.
Not the topic.
The structure.
Lina laughed in the same places.
Tilted her head at the same angle.
After every longer answer she’d say:
“Interesting.”
After every story she’d ask:
“And how did that make you feel?”
When he finished speaking, she’d wait exactly long enough that her answer never seemed rushed.
He’d heard this before.
More than once.
Arenas decided to change nothing.
He answered exactly as he always would have.
Only in a different voice.
With different eyes.
With different gestures.
After an hour, he already knew what would come next.
Lina would ask about dreams.
Then about silence.
Later she’d say that people always search for home, even if they’d never had one.
She said it.
Word for word.
Not similarly.
Exactly.
Even the pauses fell in the same places.
“Do you believe in fate?” she asked.
It was the same question.
Two weeks ago he’d answered:
“I don’t know.”
This time he answered:
“No.”
She smiled.
“And yet you act as though you do.”
It was the same answer.
Word for word.
Only now it was addressed to a different person.
At least, that’s what she believed.
He decided to take the risk.
“Do you know who I am?”
She smiled.
“Not yet.”
“And if I told you we’ve been talking for a long time already?”
“Then I’d ask why you’re pretending.”
“And if I’m not pretending?”
“Then the system probably confused us with someone else.”
She said it without any tension at all.
As if she’d simply proposed a different meeting time.
For the first time it struck Arenas that she wasn’t even considering the possibility that she might be wrong.
Not because she was stubborn.
Because she wasn’t in the habit of checking.
The next evening he connected using his usual avatar.
Lina smiled.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“How was your day?”
He looked at her.
“Yesterday you talked with someone else.”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember?”
“Of course.”
“What was he like?”
“Calm.”
“Anything else?”
“Curious.”
“Anything else?”
She thought for a moment.
“I don’t remember anymore.”
“Did you like him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She smiled.
“It was easy to talk to him.”
Arenas nodded.
“And what if I told you that was me?”
She laughed.
Not loudly.
Briefly.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you would have said so.”
“I’m saying it now.”
“But you didn’t say it yesterday.”
She fell silent.
Then added:
“Besides…”
“What?”
“You were different people.”
“How do you know that?”
“The system doesn’t show it that way.”
That night Arenas didn’t return to his room.
He walked for a long time around the station’s outer ring.
Past the windows drifted the same slowly curving universe.
It suddenly struck him that the most terrifying part wasn’t that Lina hadn’t recognized him.
The most terrifying part was that the conversation hadn’t faltered for even a moment.
When he vanished, no emptiness remained.
No crack opened up anywhere.
There wasn’t a single sentence that only he could have said.
There wasn’t a single question that belonged only to their shared story.
It seemed enough to maintain the right vocal timbre, the right reaction time, and the right amplitude of emotion.
Everything else happened on its own.
For the first time, he doubted not Lina.
And not himself.
He doubted the phenomenon of conversation itself.
Perhaps two people never truly meet at all.
Perhaps all that ever meets is what can be predicted about them.
And everything that lies beyond the reach of prediction stays forever unspoken.