Chapter Text
i. the eighth hypothesis
On the third day of Kaveh not coming home, Alhaitham opens his front door to find Cyno sitting in his living room, examining Kaveh’s latest blueprint. He hadn’t put it away, and, as the primary culprit of leaving research materials and documents around the house when in the midst of a project, Alhaitham had been unbothered by it until this very moment. “I believe that is a work in progress, and he’s touchy about who gets to see it before it’s done,” Alhaitham says. Cyno obligingly pulls the cover sheet back over and levels his one-eyed stare at him.
“Are you aware that Kaveh has been missing for forty-eight hours?”
“Is Kaveh aware that you know that he lives here?” Alhaitham asks.
“It’s in your interests not to answer my questions with questions.”
“Right,” says Alhaitham, and drops his work bag by the door and turns on the lights. “If Kaveh has gone missing, that makes me the prime suspect.”
“It looks bad, Alhaitham.”
“Kaveh living here secretly, paying me rent under the table without a formal lease, refusing to let anyone know about his finances and why he might need a roommate…” Alhaitham pulls off his shoes and suppresses a yawn.
“Long day at work?”
“Yes, very long day of doing nothing. You know how the desk jockey life goes.”
“Here’s something for you to do, then.”
“I was looking forward to doing types of nothing of my own choosing.”
“When did you last see him?” says Cyno.
“Three days ago.”
Cyno closes his eye. “And you didn’t report this because…?”
Alhaitham shrugs. “Perhaps that looks bad to the matra, but I’m not his keeper. We are not family, colleagues, research partners, or even formally landlord and tenant. I am not legally responsible or even tied to him in any way, and he lives his own life, you know. He travels to see clients. He spends days at his project sites. Every now and then, he crashes with another friend, or travels to the desert or forest for inspiration, or disappears into the library and realizes it’s two in the morning and falls asleep there. He’s an Akademiya scholar like anyone else, and he is prone to his fits of… enlightenment. Or madness, depending.” Alhaitham crosses to the kitchen and pulls out a glass. “I didn’t even take his keys.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No.” Alhaitham thinks about this. “I believe you’re wasting your time here, General Mahamatra.”
“I will be the judge of that. Do you have any idea where he could be?”
Fine. It’s Cyno’s time, not his. “Letting his emotions lead him into trouble, no doubt,” says Alhaitham.
“You seem unbothered by Kaveh’s disappearance.”
“His extreme pathos gets him into trouble quite frequently. Him experiencing the consequences of his lack of self-preservation is a very typical Tuesday for me."
“And if those consequences are dire?”
Alhaitham pours water into his glass and takes a drink. Cyno watches him do this from the living room.
“I would offer you tea, but you’re not my houseguest,” says Alhaitham. “And I’ve already told you that you’re wasting your time.”
“I am not your houseguest,” Cyno agrees. “I am investigating a missing persons case, and specifically investigating suspicious persons who may be responsible for the missing person.”
Alhaitham drinks more water while watching Cyno watching him drink water.
“I’m investigating you,” Cyno says.
“I got that the first time,” says Alhaitham, and sits down in the living room across from Cyno and pulls out a notebook. “But thank you for your low estimate of my intelligence. I hope your investigation goes well.”
“This doesn’t help your case.”
Cyno’s expression is grave. This would have worried Alhaitham once, especially when he was still in school and wary of the punishment (and inconvenience) that comes with academic integrity breaches, but their recent expedition to rescue the Dendro Archon together has done wonders for Alhaitham’s unrepentant attitude towards the law. Also, Tighnari would kill Cyno. “If you would do your job as General Mahamatra, you will discover the sincerity of my words,” says Alhaitham. “As I am in your no-doubt capable hands, I am sure that all truths will be revealed in the end. But I am in the middle of an experiment, and my leisure time away from my hours as a professional pencil pusher are quite precious.”
“And the experiment that is more critical than your roommate is…?”
Alhaitham looks up at Cyno.
In the most simplistic terms, there is something wrong with Alhaitham’s house now that Kaveh is not in it.
But that is simplicity to the point of reduction.
Nothing is overtly wrong with Alhaitham’s house, of course—otherwise Cyno would have noticed it when he came to scour the insides of Alhaitham’s living spaces without a warrant or anyone’s permissions. (Now that Alhaitham thinks about it, he thinks that he’ll pursue legal action on the matter, just to annoy Cyno. Cyno will be too much of a rule-abider to throw out a case against himself, but also smart enough to know that it’ll inevitably end with a slap on the wrist, a lot of paperwork, and a huge waste of time for the matra.) Indeed, judging by the stack of papers on Alhaitham’s desk that have been moved only just slightly to the left, the thin coat of dust on Kaveh’s tools that has been carefully tested with a single finger, and the glass cups in the kitchen that Alhaitham did not miss had been rummaged through, Alhaitham can guess around where Cyno’s investigation must be.
If Cyno is resorting to pressuring Alhaitham to give testimony, there is no sign of struggle anywhere in any public space, leaving only private locations—Alhaitham’s house—and there is no sign of struggle here, either. Kaveh’s travel ID is still in Kaveh’s desk (very lightly moved when it was replaced, as the ever-meticulous Cyno was not quite able to replicate Kaveh’s carelessness with his possessions). Granted, travel IDs being left at home is not an unusual phenomenon, considering that most everyone relied on the Akasha to serve that role up until a few months ago, but the guards still would have seen and noted the famous Kshahrewar prodigy coming and going. (Or rather, going and not coming back.) So Kaveh must either:
- still be in the city,
- have been smuggled out by a third party, or
- snuck out on his own free will.
All three of these scenarios are minorly complicated by three other potential statuses:
- alive but incapacitated,
- alive and in hiding, or
- dead.
So for rest of the thought experiment, Kaveh must be assumed to both alive and dead in all potential scenarios, which is easy to account for, since whether he is alive or dead has very little causal function on any other factors.
There is no newspaper articles or announcements about missing persons, which tells Alhaitham nothing considering how easily the press is monitored and edited. There are a multitude of reasons why such an incident might be suppressed—for one, public panic over how difficult it is to locate individuals now that the Akasha system is down is a very notable concern among the Akademiya. This has actually been a huge cause of concern as of late; Sumeru City used to be idyllic (and dystopian) in its surveillance, and the recent phenomenon of not being able to instantly locate any person through the Akasha has taken more than one nervous parent by surprise.
But if Kaveh were still in the city, Alhaitham is almost certain that Cyno would have found him by now. This is because Cyno and Tighnari are highly predictable people, making them both very easy variables to calculate for in pattern-seeking algorithms or pattern-seeking thought experiments. Just so: Very predictably, the General Mahamatra has no real business undertaking a missing persons case when he has more important fish to fry—other than the fact that he himself considers Kaveh a personal friend, and if he doesn’t, then Tighnari does, and Cyno is possibly incapable of ignoring Tighnari’s opinion. The day that Tighnari violates the law—perhaps, for example, keeping an artificial mechanical life form for experimentation purposes despite the fact that artificial life was outlawed as a research topic—Alhaitham has no way of knowing if Cyno will choose legal procedure or Tighnari himself. A professional of Cyno’s track record with Tighnari’s opinion motivating him would not have left a stone unturned in Sumeru City.
So Kaveh must have been taken outside of Sumeru City, either of his own volition or after having been incapacitated.
Alhaitham already knows it is the latter because, ever since Kaveh learned that Alhaitham would, one way or another, foot the bill for most of Kaveh's travel expenses, Kaveh has virtually ceased traveling alone. (This does not prevent him from unsubtly hinting that Alhaitham should take him on Alhaitham's trips, as if this is somehow a loophole to avoid asking for favors while simultaneously allowing Kaveh to still make financial decisions based on whimsy and emotional investment. Alhaitham refuses these requests purely on the principle that, if Kaveh wants to the funds to travel so badly, he is welcome to ask and he is welcome to take Alhaitham’s money, but Kaveh’s pride prevents him from accepting monetary favors.) Cyno is here examining the premises and he has only examined the area for a sign of struggle, so Cyno must have come to the same conclusion for some other reason. And that is why Cyno is here, looking for evidence that Alhaitham does not have.
Therefore, as Alhaitham told him several minutes ago: The General Mahamatra is wasting his time.
Not that anyone listens to Alhaitham around here.
Now, Kaveh going missing is not, in itself, overly worrying. Granted, Kaveh's bleeding heart prevents him from most rational decisions, or at least decisions that would be conducive to not dying early in a ditch before the age of thirty. He is permanently handicapped in any physical fight by valuing his enemies' lives over his own. He is doubly handicapped by valuing his pride above all, preventing him from accepting help in this matter, and Kaveh seems to take personal offense to Alhaitham extending any kind of help. Considering that Kaveh possesses a Vision that makes him significantly more capable in a fight than any average citizen, the truth of the matter is that Kaveh is purely his own biggest liability.
Once, Alhaitham thought that this was a blessing. Surely Kaveh, being his largest threat to himself, could not manage to do permanent and significant damage to his own life. Now knowing the state of Kaveh’s finances, Alhaitham knows better.
But Kaveh, being a major threat to himself and his own well-being, is also a map of known quantities that Alhaitham can account for. In some ways, Alhaitham understands Kaveh better than himself: Kaveh will never knowingly harm another individual; will always seek harmony in times of strife; will always seek reconciliation over revenge, will never hold a grudge against another person without internal conflict; will always genuinely hold himself personally accountable for his own feelings even in situations when it is unreasonable to not hold another party accountable for the actions that caused those feelings. Alhaitham tries not to comment too much on these incredibly predictable patterns of behavior. He simply accounts for it, like the weather.
The true issue is that there is something wrong with Alhaitham’s house when there is nothing wrong with his house. The only apparent thing that is wrong with his house is that he comes back after work and Kaveh is not in it.
So for the last two days, he has been attempting to isolate the issue with his house. He has attempted to redecorate. He has also cleaned Kaveh’s work materials out of the way. He has purchased a houseplant and named it Kaveh. But the problem has persisted.
Which has slowly narrowed Alhaitham’s suspicions to eight hypotheses:
- He hasn’t reached his minimum requirement for social interaction to feel well.
- He is catching up on sleep debt, which is affecting his mood.
- He is bothered by Kaveh’s increasingly-large unfinished workload that Kaveh continually procrastinates on, overworks himself for, and receives little pay for in return.
- He is not eating as well since Kaveh no longer insists that he eats vegetables.
- He is annoyed by a change in his routine, which is affecting his cognition.
- He has become dependent on Kaveh for external inspiration.
- He has become dependent on Kaveh for introspective work.
- He is attached to Kaveh purely for sentimental reasons.
The first can only be true if Alhaitham has a need for social interaction with people that he can tolerate. Most social interactions are events that he manages through, and there are few exceptions to this rule. However, he has already spoken with Tighnari within the last twenty-four hours, and this did not change.
The second may be true, but it is unlikely to have produced the feelings of unease. The third is always true even when Kaveh is here, and therefore could not have created a different affect after Kaveh has left. The fourth was already tested when Alhaitham made himself eat a vegetable, which changed nothing. The fifth could be true, but changes in his routine have occurred before, and the effects were not like this. The sixth is unlikely even if Alhaitham put any stock in the concept of “inspiration,” which, in his opinion, is little else but a word for flares in energy and interest.
The seventh is true, but only to an extent. Alhaitham does feel that he is better able to understand himself, his thinking, his work, the world around him, and the nature of genius and curiosity far better when a genius of an entirely different make and caliber is directly in front of him. But firstly, Alhaitham is of the opinion that there was nothing wrong with his ability to introspect before Kaveh, and that the true benefit of Kaveh's presence in the house is the alternative perspective on the world that insticates introspection, not necessarily that Kaveh is required for introspection. (And introspection is not actually that useful of a research tool anyway.) But Alhaitham cannot guarantee that this necessitates the feeling of unease he has in his own house, since, after all, Alhaitham has lived most of his life without Kaveh and believes himself fully capable of introspective work with or without him.
The eighth, of course, is unaccounted for.
Which brings Alhaitham back to Cyno’s original question: And the experiment that is more critical than your roommate is…?
“I’ll let you know the results tomorrow,” Alhaitham tells Cyno, and turns the page in his notebook.
*
On the fourth day, there is still something wrong with Alhaitham’s house, and he must conclude that his hypothesis looks more likely by the hour. He takes two steps into Cyno’s office before Cyno glares at him, pulls out a piece of paper, and says, “You’re not cleared yet.”
In Cyno’s hand is a ransom note specifying a location somewhere to the west of Aaru Village. Alhaitham studies it carefully. He determines it to be legitimate. He hands it back.
“Perfect,” says Alhaitham, and means it.