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Chongqing unfolds like a complex chemical equation. A city like any other, full of jackhammers and construction sites and passers-by and one too many cars, and, underneath the industrial zones pulsing with potential energy and its concrete surfaces, networks of production and violence interweaving.
Ratio first realised something was wrong when the latest batch of methamphetamine came in at 99.967% purity instead of the standard 99.997%. A 0.03% deviation that would make most people shrug, but in their world became crucial, obsessive.
Aventurine bursts through the laboratory door like a particularly dramatic weather system. Packages tucked under his arm that might have been chemical precursors or might have been pastries. With Aventurine, one could never be certain.
"We have a problem," he announces, which is Aventurine's standard greeting. Problems for him are just unresolved entertainment.
Ratio adjusts his glasses. "Purity deviation."
"Precisely!" Aventurine beams, as though Ratio has just won some elaborate game they are playing. "And by 'we have a problem', I mean 'you will solve this immediately'."
"I assume our Australian contacts won't appreciate microscopic imperfections," Ratio says flatly.
Aventurine's smile suggests he finds the entire situation delightful. "Microscopic imperfections tend to result in rather macroscopic consequences."
Ratio's hands know this language, the steady and calculating. Understanding that in their world, problems are not obstacles but opportunities for re-calibration — an academic trajectory bent, redirected. Research that suggested too much potential. Attractions that came already polluted, never allowed to be simple amalgams of desire.
The laboratory sits three floors above a nondescript pharmaceutical distribution centre in Chongqing's industrial zone, humming with a sterile electricity. Aventurine watches. Always watching. His attention a form of intimacy more invasive than touch. He drapes himself across a stainless steel workstation, his body language a deliberate performance of casual menace. "Our Australian contacts aren't merely chemists," he said, twirling a glass pipette between elegant fingers. "They're perfectionists with distinctly unpoetic approaches to quality control."
"Unpoetic," Ratio repeated, the word a dry observation. His hands never stopped moving—adjusting microscopic measurements. "A curious descriptor for individuals who would quite literally dismantle us for a 0.03% deviation."
Aventurine's laugh is a razor blade wrapped in silk. "Poetry is about precision, doctor. And what is more precise than the potential consequences of imperfection?"
The way he said "doctor" is neither affectionate nor dismissive — it’s a territorial marker, a claim staked, just, now, with linguistic finesse. Ratio feels something simultaneously tighten and unravel within him.
"I'll need three days," Ratio said, not requesting but informing.
***
Ratio first met Aventurine in a nondescript tea house, nursing a cup of oolong, his fingers drumming nervously against the porcelain when Aventurine slid into the seat across from him.
"You look tense," Aventurine said, his smile wide and disarming. "Bad day at work?"
Ratio didn't respond immediately. His eyes studied the man before him. They'd been exchanging encrypted messages for months, but this was their first face-to-face meeting.
"The recent batch had some impurities," Ratio said finally. "Nothing critical, but it'll reduce yield by at least 7%."
Aventurine leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "That's why you're valuable, doctor. Precision matters more than anything in this business."
Their side of the work was clear: manufacturing high-grade methamphetamine for distribution through complex smuggling routes to Australia. Split evenly, Ratio managed the chemical synthesis, Aventurine handled the logistics — transportation, protection, client relationships.
"How long have you been in this?" Ratio asked.
Aventurine laughed, a sound that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Longer than you think."
As all things, the truth was more complex. Aventurine had clawed his way up through Chongqing's criminal networks, starting as a low-level runner and gradually building connections that stretched across international borders. He was ruthless, but strategic — never violent without purpose.
Weeks passed. Their relationship deepened — part professional partnership, part something more complicated. Ratio knew Aventurine was dangerous. Not just because of his criminal connections, but because of his ability to manipulate — a kind of strength, surely, but it was, also, unpredictable. Thoughtful, but not a variable. Ratio knew the precise moment their professional relationship transformed. Not in the laboratory, not amid complex chemical equations: a routine shipment went catastrophically wrong. Three contact points compromised. Potential network exposure. The kind of situation that typically ended careers — or, well, funnily, lives.
Aventurine arrived at Ratio's modest apartment that evening, two bottles of Ming River Sichuan baijiu tucked under his arm.
Not a gesture of celebration. It, then, becomes a ritual of potential destruction, when Ratio said, "We'll need to reconstruct everything," not looking up from his laptop, followed by Aventurine saying, ironically, "Reconstruction is an art form," and perhaps most deliberately knocking over the — no doubt expensive — bottle. The baijiu pooled between them. Aventurine's fingers — long, elegant, more suited to a concert pianist than a criminal logistics expert — traced the back of Ratio's hand.
***
The encrypted message arrives at 2:37 AM. Not through their usual channels. A hairline fracture in their communication network — something Aventurine would describe as "an interesting problem." Ratio's phone vibrates. Three lines of code that aren't code; a warning embedded in what looked like a logistics manifest for pharmaceutical supplies.
He's already moving before the second ping. Boots. Coat. Laptop tucked into a nondescript messenger bag. Outside, the night pulses in its usual rhythms — trucks, distant factory lights, pings of crosswalk lights, gritty dirt travelling through the air when gusts of wind blow by.
His phone chirps. A single word from Aventurine: "Incoming."
Their contact point in Guangzhou had been compromised. Not breached — not yet. But something was moving through their network like a slow poison. Ratio knows Aventurine will already be redirecting. Cutting paths, burning networks faster than anyone could trace, because he knows symptoms and how they elaborate and has learnt how they should be treated, except the cure is cutting it off at the stem.
When the motorcycle pulls up — matte black, no plates — he doesn't hesitate. Climbs on. Aventurine drives like he does everything else, all sharp turns through back streets, never predictable. They weave through the streets, passing warehouse lights constant and hard.
"Talk," he says. Not a request.
Ratio's fingers move across a tablet, parsing encrypted fragments. "Guangzhou node. Someone's running trace algorithms through our secondary communication grid. They're good. Not our usual competitors."
"Military?" Aventurine's voice doesn't change. Just another data point.
"Possible. Methodology suggests state-level infrastructure monitoring. They haven't located the actual network—just sensing its edges."
A hard turn. Motorcycle leaning so precisely it feels more like a mathematical equation than motion. Ratio doesn't shift. Doesn't grab. Their bodies know each other's rhythms.
"So what’s the plan? I say we burn it," Aventurine says, lightly. "All of it." Less lightly.
"No," Ratio's response is immediate. "Selective redaction. If we burn everything, we telegraph awareness. We need surgical intervention."
Aventurine's laugh is brief. Sharp. "Surgical. Always surgical."
They arrive at a nondescript building near the city's edge. Concrete. Steel. Windowless. Aventurine kills the motorcycle's engine. Silence drops like a physical weight.
"How much time?" he asks.
"Seventeen minutes before full network exposure. Less if they activate secondary trace protocols."
Inside, servers hum. Ratio's fingers shift cables, splice connections. A wire from server three to port seven. Another redirect through a ghost IP in Malaysia. A fragment of code rewritten, its origin blurred. Another server offline, its data ghost-walked through three continents. Aventurine watches, not interfering, and not rushing.
"Clear."
The screens show clean data streams. No trace.
Aventurine's hand finds Ratio's shoulder, a brief contact. "Good," he says, and, when he gets confirmation, moves his fingers in small circles.
One stressful experience too many. That night, Ratio decides, not by reckless plunge, that he’s done. Or — they’re done. Because their network was alive, complex, predatory, and extraction would need more than skill; it demands a complete rewrite of their approach. It would demand a complete reimagining of their operational parameters. Breaking free wouldn't be a simple subtraction, but, rather, more like dismantling a living organism, cell by delicate cell, somehow without triggering an immune response that would consume them both. Living and not survival, it is now he realises, has its own chemistry — unpredictable, volatile, needing the right mix of elements — and it is rather hard to get right.
***
The laboratory feels different now. Smaller. More charged. Sunlight cuts through industrial-grade windows, casting sharp geometric shadows across the equipment.
Aventurine leans against a steel workstation. "Tell me," he says, and the words are both invitation and challenge. His fingers trace the edge of a glass pipette. "How long?"
The room smells of alcohol swabs and something metallic—reactive chemicals, electrical heat from servers. Dust motes drift through narrow windows. Ratio's fingers feel stiff, knuckles slightly swollen from hours of typing encrypted routes, potential exits.
"Sixty-three days. Minimum."
Aventurine's laugh is sharp, unexpected. "Precise as always."
"Survival demands exactitude," Ratio says. He turns, meets Aventurine's gaze. Afternoon light cuts harsh angles across steel surfaces. "Our Australian contacts won't simply accept our departure."
"Departure." Aventurine draws the word out, rolls it between his teeth like something bitter. "Is that what we're calling it?"
Servers hum. Machines spinning. Microscopic worlds in constant motion.
"What would you call it?" His fingers drum against cold metal—a rhythm that speaks of something restless, unresolved.
Aventurine moves. Not towards Ratio — around him. A predatory circuit. "Recalibration," he says finally. "A strategic realignment."
Ratio's mouth twitches. Almost a smile. "Precisely."
"Three safe houses," Aventurine continues. "Two alternative financial networks. One extraction point that doesn't exist on any map."
"I've been working on the financial redirect," Ratio says. "It'll look like administrative error. Microscopic discrepancies."
Aventurine stops. Watches. "How microscopic?"
"0.03% variance," Ratio says. A joke. Maybe.
The silence that follows is charged. Potential energy waiting to transform.
"Our Australian contacts," Aventurine says, "won't appreciate microscopic imperfections."
Ratio's hand finds Aventurine's. Not a gesture of comfort — a calculation. A connection.
"No," he agrees. "They won't."