Conveyor Silence

The room hums without admitting it. Outside the glass, empty conveyors loop in patient spirals, their rails catching a pale industrial glow that never quite warms. A hand crushes a brittle snack, crumbs stalling mid-fall as translucent equations flare to life, hovering, correcting themselves, then settling into a red warning triangle that refuses to resolve. The headset keeps the breath contained, listening for patterns beneath the machinery’s hush. On the window, someone has traced the question by fingertip, where the condensation thins: Where Vojta? This moment arrives after the night the belts jammed and everything stopped at once; the memory still presses like a held note. The soundscape now is tight and controlled—soft clicks from the interface, distant rollers cycling, the faint rasp of packaging torn open and forgotten. Trust lives here, unspoken, between calculations shared and glances angled toward the same missing point. Time freezes, dust and crumbs suspended, understanding almost clicking. The search persists in the margins of every formula, and Vojta remains unaccounted for.