Silas Devereaux's universe was an orderly place, a galaxy of data, patterns, and predictable probabilities. At that moment, his cosmos was contained within the margins of an open case file on his desk in the BAU bullpen. The post-mortem photographs were shadowy variables in an equation he was about to solve. The low hum of the office was cosmic background noise, a constant his brain had learned to filter out, leaving him space to sink into the silence of his mind palace.

But then, a gravitational disturbance altered his orbit.

It wasn't a loud sound, but a subtle shift in the atmosphere, the introduction of an unknown mass into the system. He looked up, his hazel eyes blinking to readjust to the reality beyond the paper. Elias Vance, the unit's chief, had entered the bullpen, and he wasn't alone. At his side walked a figure who, in Silas's mind, didn't fit into any preexisting category in his vast catalog of human profiles.

His brain, a machine that never rested, kicked into action at breakneck speed. He analyzed not features, but the impression she left behind. There was a certainty in the way she occupied her space, an economy of movement that spoke of unwavering discipline and purpose. There was no hesitation in her gait, no superfluous gestures. She was a closed system, perfectly calibrated. Her very presence seemed to absorb the ambient noise, creating a pool of silence around her.

Vance began to speak, introducing the newest addition to the team. The words reached Silas's ears, but they struggled to find a place in his consciousness. He was too busy processing the torrent of conflicting data she provoked. On the one hand, his analytical mind was fascinated. He wanted to decipher the history that had produced such poise, to understand the logic behind that calm. It was an enigma, and he lived to solve them.

But on the other hand, a much more primitive and ancient system in his brain, the amygdala, was setting off all the alarms. The self-sufficiency it radiated was, to his clumsy social system, overwhelming. It was like trying to analyze a neutron star: dense, potent, and with an attractive force that defied its known laws. He felt a sudden heat on his neck, and his fingers, which until a second ago had been still on the file, began to drum against the table, an erratic rhythm that betrayed the calm of his face.

"And this is Dr. Silas Devereaux," said Vance's voice, coming dangerously close to his desk.

Silas's heart skipped a beat that, by his calculations, raised his blood pressure by at least 15%. Suddenly, his brain, the same one that could recite the population of every capital city in the world, was empty. No, worse than empty. It was flooded with useless information. The panther chameleon can move its eyes in two different directions at once. The hexagon at Saturn's north pole is larger than the diameter of Earth. Fear causes blood vessels in the legs to dilate...

He raised his head slowly, aware that the team was watching him. He knew he was expected to say something. A greeting. A welcome. His mouth opened slightly, but the words got stuck somewhere between his larynx and his overloaded brain. All he could do was stare at her, trapped in silence, a genius reduced to a collapsing system by the mere presence of a variable he could never have predicted.