Haruka shifted her gaze toward Mike, her eyes searching his for a silent consensus.
"Now?" she asked, her voice barely a murmur, as if the suggestion of leaving the warmth of the table were a delicate proposition.
"Stanley and Ren are going to be here long after we get back," Ellie reassured them, gesturing vaguely toward the far end of the table where the intellectual friction was generating its own heat. "They've found a common frequency."
"They won't even notice the air has shifted."
As if on command, the universe provided the proof.
"...but the issue remains that 'designed spontaneity' is still, at its core, a design!" Ren's voice cut through the air, sharp and insistent. "Can you actually engineer a moment of chance, or are you just building a stage for it?"
"Yes, but!" Stanley's voice surged in to overlap, his tone rising in a defensive yet excited cadence. "The design intention and the lived experience can diverge so violently that the original plan becomes irrelevant!"
