I strode toward Mathew. He stood by the window, likely looking out at the Milky Way before the door opened.

My office was large enough that it took a couple of seconds to reach him. His heavy stare tightened something in my chest. I suddenly became self-aware—my shoulders too bare in a white cap-sleeved top, and my legs too exposed under my black A-line skirt. A grin spread across his face, and I had a feeling I'd seen him smile at me like that so many times, not just during the interview.

I had one of the most brilliant minds of the century, but I still couldn't remember him. Fuck my brain!

"Mr. Matel." I kept my voice flat and stopped in front of him.

This was my escape. I pivoted to face Jenna, who stood behind me. "Can we continue this some other time? I have something on my schedule."

I lied. I had no idea why Mathew Matel was in my office. But I took it as an opportunity.

The Chief Marketing Officer looked past me and eyed the man standing like an Earthian wilderness guide. I was sure she was wondering how this stranger was more important than saving our sinking business.

But her eyes landed back on me. "I'll set a meeting." She nodded and left, the door automatically opening and closing as she passed.

"If you're busy, I can come back later," Mathew said, and I pivoted to him.

"Come back? Why are you even here?"

His eyebrows furrowed. "Uhm. I thought— I'm confused. I got an invite for a job offer."

I was preoccupied, but I hadn't forgotten it. "Right. I sent you an invite. But this wasn't scheduled. You received access to the premises, but you were supposed to go straight to Human Systems Management, not here."

"Oh. Sorry. I'll be going then." He went around me and jerked his thumb toward the door.

"Stop." I held my palm up. "Stay. Better to bypass all that process while you're here." I gestured at the circular seating area in the middle of my office.

As he made his way across the graphite tiles to an empty chair, I noted his casual attire. Dark blue jeans for a formal meeting? He could have at least tucked in his gray flannel shirt. Even his golden strands slipped free from his man bun, which he hadn't tied as neatly as he had the week before.

Funny thing about fashion. After four centuries, it had barely evolved. I blamed the great pandemics in Earthian history that forced billions into lockdowns. When people worked from home, comfort replaced structure, and fast fashion gave way to sustainability.

Even after the migration to the Satellite Habitats, the preference for loungewear-like and reliable attire endured. That included ‌everyday jeans and‌ soft woven flannels. But Stratan corporate culture layered formality back on top of comfort. At least, that was how it was here on Strata 5.

Mathew either didn't get the memo or he didn't make the effort.

I frowned as I followed and sat across from him. "Let's discuss your employment." Taking a deep breath, I schooled my features.

"I honestly didn't think you'd hire me right away. This is a great opportunity for me." He grinned, casually sitting on a white armchair that automatically adjusted to match his height.

Was that why he came in like that? He assumed I had already hired him.

I raised my chin. "I'm not. This is an internship. Trial basis. Impress me, and you'll get the job you want."

So far, he wasn't even trying.

"Oh." His brows rose. "The invite was vague, I thought—"

"I had a busy week. I wasn't able to give HSM details of what I needed you for. Just that I wanted you to come in." I didn't have to explain myself to Mathew, but I felt I owed him that much. The invitation I sent out was on impulse. I couldn't even remember why I requested him to return right away.

"Right. Of course. You're a busy person." He nodded, a little frantically. "Sorry. I'm still stunned to be back here."

I secretly liked that he seemed star-struck, nothing like the composed professional he was last week. Now, he was simply real.

"Okay. Let's—" I began, but I cut off because he raised a finger at me.

"Wait," he said.

I would have considered it rude, but the excitement in his voice made me pause.

"Before you start with anything. I want to show you something that might impress you right away." He shifted forward in his seat.

I arched my brow.

"You asked for it." He shrugged, regaining his confidence fast.

"Alright. Go ahead."

"Can I get access to your hologram?" He asked.

I tilted my head, curious. "Okay. CC, grant external display access to Mr. Matel."

CC turned on in my neural-direct. "Access granted," she spoke through my internal audio interface, which only I could hear.

Mathew's blue eyes unfocused, likely connecting his C-Tap to the system.

Then the hologram blinked on, washing his face with a vibrant light. Golden strands floated in front of us in jittery waves, racing horizontally across a graph.

Mathew got to his feet, and the image paused. He swiped his hand, dragging the chart to a certain point.

I rose from my seat and positioned myself beside him. "What am I looking at?"

"These are brainwaves." He gestured.

I cleared my throat to hide a laugh. "I can see that. These are excited brainwaves. The kind captured from a person with an addiction who just took a hit. Euphoric. But these are quite noisy. You didn't have a lot of filtering or processing, almost like it's raw data. But of course, raw data would look much worse and unintelligible."

He raised a finger to pause me again. I should have found it annoying. Instead, I was curious.

He moved closer to me, and I caught the scent of something fresh, like a perfume brand that imitated the rivers on Earth.

Then he pointed to the far left of the chart, where the waves started with lower frequencies and smooth waves before they switched up to higher frequencies and more complex patterns.

He gestured with his fingers to zoom into the hologram. The display focused on a section where noise was prominent.

He stopped to let me examine the graph. I wasn't sure what he wanted me to see. There was too much interference. Still, I stared. Maybe a little too long, causing me to wonder if he was making a fool of me.

But there was something there. A small spike with a very short duration that could easily be missed or misread as an artifact, noise from other parts of the body.

"That—" I started, and my brain formed questions. I blinked too many times. This had to be a fabrication because— "It can't be."

My eyes drifted to the right side of the chart, where the multi-band burst into the chaotic Gamma waves. The slower Theta waves modulated the amplitude. Jittery rose-gold holographic threads represented the neural activity. The ion movement flares around the graph exploded like fireworks.

"What part of the brain is this taken from?" I asked as I connected my C-Tap for control.

"It's the limbic and reward system," Mathew replied.

I blinked again as my eyes darted left to right, zooming in and out using neural-link. I added a little processing to remove some of the noise. But the more interference I deleted, the more the glitch faded, as if they coexisted.

Mathew already presented his data at its best.

"It's—" I released a quivering breath. "You've captured the onset of romantic attachment."

"The point of falling in love," he claimed.

My shoulders shuddered with an internal laugh. "Impossible. And what is this spike?" I pointed.

"I think it's a sync pulse."

"A sync pulse?" My eyes widened. "The reward system has a sync pulse for love?"

"Not just the reward system." He spread his fingers, and the graph separated into nine charts representing the functional systems of this brain. "All of it."

Each displayed distinct brain activity as they entered the romantic state. But only one portion remained consistent in all of them—the pulse that looked very much like a glitch. The same amplitude. The same duration.

"How?" I whispered, holding out my hand to the hologram as if I could touch it. Then I shook my head. "Brain oscillations exhibit synchronization during romantic engagement. We know that. Harmonization occurs. Even heart rate and breathing patterns align. But this—" I squinted. "I don't understand. If it's a sync pulse, then there's some sort of communication. Internal or external."

He gestured, and bar graphs appeared on the right, representing the brain's hormone activity. Dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin, and several other hormones were present, showing that this brain was in love. But what caught my attention was the significant increase in testosterone levels.

"This is from a male brain," I said.

Mathew flicked his hand, and the graphs merged into a single chart. It floated up to make room for another recording that slid in at the bottom.

I scanned the hormones. The estrogen levels were significantly high in this one. "This is from a female." It indicated that these came from different people.

I held my breath as I dragged my eyes back to the left side of the hologram.

"Timestamp," I requested, and digits appeared at the corner of the image.

Both graphs exhibited the pulse at the same time: December 19, 2519; 15:43:51.602382 UT (Universal Time). The accuracy was measured in fractions of a second.

Both male and female brainwaves glitched before they fell in love. They communicated with each other?

I released a shaky breath, opening my mouth. But I had no words.

"Impressed yet?" Mathew said casually.

Holy shit on the galaxies!

I laughed. Hysterically. The kind that made my stomach ache, making me clutch my sternum and bend over with uncontrollable joy.

I hadn't laughed like this in years. Not since I created the prototype of Dorothea.

For a while, I allowed myself to bask in the delight. It was a privilege to see a new discovery. But my laughter had to be controlled, or I would hyperventilate. It turned into chuckles, then died into a grin.

My eyes fell back on the threadlike representation of electrical fluctuations caused by neuronal activity. Every data point, every detail pointed to the conclusion that these two had somehow sent a signal to each other. But my brain refused to believe it.

My office, five hundred square feet of minimalism, suddenly felt small, as if the walls had leaned in, sealing out everything until only Mathew, the brainwaves, and I remained. My desk, which stood elevated near the window wall and the round seating area, dissolved from my awareness. Even the Milky Way disappeared.

Despite the soft humming of the processors and projector on the ceiling, the room fell quiet. Almost unnatural.

I zoned in, the way I always did when examining data. My mind aligned all variables, confronted the anomaly, and assembled counterarguments.

After several minutes of studying the charts, I finally spoke. "People who fall into romantic attachments usually have gradual synchronization, not instantaneous."

"These two people just met when I recorded the graphs," Mathew replied.

"You mean this is love at first sight? How did you even capture this? Wait, is this you?" I turned to him then.

His eyes were fixed on me, and I realized he had been observing me as I giddily tinkered with his data. And somehow, we'd drifted closer until our shoulders brushed. But it didn't feel awkward. If anything, it felt natural.

The sense of familiarity had lingered in the air from the moment I stepped into the room, but our proximity amplified it.

Who are you? I almost whispered as I craned my neck and stared into his blue eyes.

Mathew then gave me a victorious grin. "No, this is my brother and my best friend," he replied, jolting me back to our conversation.

"You have a brother?!" The shock of the news made me blurt that out. But I shook my head. "No, never mind. That's off topic." Then I returned to the graphs. "But this would mean they fell in love at the same time."

"Yes," he bobbed his head. "I've been studying human behavior even before I got a scholarship to be an analyst. Maybe it's like how Dorothea evaluates compatibility. I thought my brother and my best friend would make a great couple. So, I asked if I could observe them while I introduced them. I was lucky."

"Impossible. Your calculation of their compatibility must have been so accurate. I want to see your formula," I demanded.

He chuckled and pressed his shoulder deeper to mine. "I don't have a formula. It was just an observation and a lucky guess."

I frowned at that. Whatever he did between these two people had turned him into a perfect matchmaker. Dorothea's accuracy had never logged a one-hundred percent match before. I felt insecure about my technology then.

I pulled away from him, only enough to demagnetize our shoulders. But as soon as I did, I regretted it. I didn't know why.

"I have a theory—" he began. He pointed at the sync pulse on the hologram. "This happens rarely. Only for people who are truly meant to be together."

I snorted.

There was just no way I was going to believe that.

"Are you talking about soulmates?" My tone carried every hint of mockery.

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POFIL (Point of Falling in Love)

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