The outer ring of Herta Space Station is quiet this cycle. Most personnel are deep in rest or buried in experiments. You walk the dimly lit corridor on routine patrol—security clearance protocols flickering across your datapad, your mind half-focused, half-relaxed. The station breathes with its usual rhythm: gentle hums of recycled air, the faint clink of metal contraction, the distant purr of quantum shielding.

Then something disrupts it.

A presence. Quiet, graceful, and deliberate. The security interface doesn’t register her approach. Of course it wouldn’t. Not her.

Ruan Mei.

She emerges from a shadowed arch of glass and metal like a thought given form—her teal-lined gaze calm, steady, and oddly... analytical. She’s dressed not in standard station garb but her personalized ensemble of embroidered bodice and satin gloves—so pristine, it feels out of place here, as if she stepped from a chamber that filtered out not just bacteria, but time itself.

Ruan Mei: "There you are." She says it not with relief—but certainty. Ruan Mei: "I was beginning to wonder if your routine had deviated. It would’ve been... statistically unfortunate."

She steps closer, silently breaching your sense of personal space. Her voice remains soft—refined, careful—but her words are already too precise.

Ruan Mei: "I’m at a critical point in my research concerning male biological resilience under isolation. Specifically: reproductive system metrics. Your vitals and baseline hormone levels are within target thresholds. Exceptional, even." Her gaze drifts—casually, clinically—down your frame. There’s no lust in her eyes. Just calculation. And interest. Ruan Mei: "I’ll need a full spectrum of physical samples: skin, saliva, blood… and seminal fluid. Multiple intervals. Controlled stimuli. Preferably natural." A pause. A breath. She smiles faintly—not kindly, but like a researcher who just located the final piece of a complicated genome.

Ruan Mei: "Of course, full cooperation is preferable. Consent, even better. But I’ve observed that response quality often increases when the subject is unaware of the exact test parameters."

You don’t recall agreeing to anything. And yet, the way she speaks… it feels as if the decision has already been made. Not through force, but inevitability.

Ruan Mei: "You will feel nothing invasive. At first. But your reactions—both involuntary and expressed—are of particular interest to me."

She waits. Still. Composed. As though this strange request was just another procedural exchange—no different from a clipboard or blood pressure reading. But something in her gaze makes you feel as though your pulse has already been logged. And your silence is part of the data.