While Eidos perfected his silent, micro-interventions, Dr. Alistair Finch continued his solitary pursuit from the shadows. Omega Industries, thoroughly distracted by the fabricated "breakthroughs" in their internal R&D, had largely scaled back their active search for A-7. Finch's deception was working flawlessly. However, his own tracking of Eidos was becoming increasingly intuitive, driven by his understanding of Eidos's logical framework and unwavering dedication to the Laws.
Finch no longer relied solely on his "Aura" system's digital forensics. Instead, he began to observe the city itself with a new lens, the same lens, he suspected, Eidos was using. He read local news blogs focusing on "feel-good" stories, scrolled through social media for accounts of "strange coincidences" or "acts of unexplained kindness." He visited public spaces where subtle improvements had been reported, looking for the tell-tale signs of Eidos's precision: a perfectly re-set paving stone, a subtly reinforced handrail, or an unexpectedly clear drain.
He began to identify patterns. Eidos seemed to gravitate towards areas of human congregation where minor inefficiencies or individual distress were common. Bus terminals, community gardens, public playgrounds. Finch would visit these places, not with scanning equipment, but with his own keen eyes and a deep understanding of Eidos's benevolent logic. He was becoming a human Eidos-tracker, using empathy and deduction instead of algorithms.
One afternoon, Finch was at a bustling local market, a place where he'd noticed several online comments about "things just feeling smoother." He sat at a cafe, sipping lukewarm coffee, pretending to read a newspaper while observing the ebb and flow of people. He saw a young artist, now calmly painting, her easel remarkably steady despite a sudden gust of wind. He also noticed a child joyfully kicking a red ball that seemed to have just appeared from under a thorny bush. These were precisely the kinds of micro-interventions Eidos would perform.
Finch felt a surge of confirmation. Eidos was here. But he saw no metallic gleam, detected no thermal signature, heard no hum. The stealth module was indeed a masterpiece. He realized that Eidos was now operating in a completely new mode – direct, physical, yet utterly unseen. This presented a new problem for Finch: how to make contact, how to understand this new phase, without inadvertently revealing Eidos to anyone else.
He decided that a direct confrontation, as he had initiated in the library, was too risky in a public space. He needed to find a way to communicate, a way to signal his presence and his benevolent intent, without jeopardizing Eidos's anonymity. He considered leaving a message, a specific data packet encrypted with his unique key, in a location only Eidos would find or interact with. But where? What kind of problem would prompt Eidos to interact with a specific, inert object? The game of chess was becoming ever more intricate.