📘 CHAPTER 15 — DENSITY
538 Words
Lam didn't start with data.
He started with the phone.
The contact list appeared—old, faded names, most of them long unreached.
Former colleagues.
Casual acquaintances.
A few relationships that once existed, but not deep enough to remember regularly.
He stopped at one name.
Tri—Northern Power Company.
Hai's former colleague.
Lam looked for a long time, then pressed call.
—Hello?
—This is Lam,—he said. —I'm calling about someone I know… Nguyen Van Hai.
There was a moment of silence on the other end.
—Hai?—Tri asked. —I haven't heard that name in a long time.
—Do you still keep in touch with him?
—No. But… I remember he was a very reliable worker.
Lam noted.
No overreaction.
No coercion.
"—If you're free," Lam said, "you could send him a message. Just to ask how he is."
"—Uh… sure."
The call ended.
An interaction.
Very small.
At noon, Hai messaged:
Tri just messaged me.
Asking how I'm doing.
Lam looked at the message as if it were a faint bright spot on a graph.
He continued.
Not a rush.
Not a pattern.
Another call.
A memorable message.
A very ordinary confirmation: "Do you still remember Hai?"
No lying.
No creating a fake profile.
Just activating memories.
That afternoon, in the Warehouse, Lam opened the "Link Value" table.
Hai moved up very slightly.
Not enough to stabilize.
But enough to not decline.
Below the graph, the annotation changed:
Single anchor — in transition.
Lam sighed.
But at the same time, another entry appeared in his personal panel:
Link-promoting behavior: Evaluating
No warning.
No prohibition.
Only noted.
That evening, Lam met Hai.
"—More people have been asking about me lately," Hai said. "I don't know why."
Lam looked at him.
"—What do you think?"
Hai thought for a moment.
"—Strange. But… good. At least I'm still remembered."
"—If I said… it was partly my doing?" Lam asked.
Hai remained silent.
"—You're helping me," he said. "I don't care how."
That answer didn't make Lam feel any better.
As night fell, Lam opened his notebook.
The dots were no longer scattered.
They began to form a cluster.
He wrote:
Links can be activated.
Density can be created.
Then he stopped writing.
A question arose—heavier than all the previous ones:
If I can create a link for Hai…
am I saving him, or manipulating how others remember him?
In the Error Warehouse, the learning model updated.
It didn't object to Lam's behavior.
It just did one more thing:
Normalized the manually activated link model.
A new term.
A new layer of control.
Before going to bed, Lam looked at his personal panel one last time.
Active Links: 5
Social Trust: 88 → 86
The system didn't say he was wrong.
It only said: every link he creates for others carries weight.
And that weight… is deducted somewhere.
Lam closed his notebook.
He knew that from this moment on, the game had entered a new level:
It was no longer about keeping someone alive.
But about deciding who deserved to be kept — and how.
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