The Love Algorithm - Vol. III

【75】Going Off Script

"It's alright, my love. We shouldn't have watched this together. You're too empathetic for this. I should have realized sooner." I didn't blame him for it. It was my own responsibility to judge what I could endure or not.

His familiar heat communicated through my back, and the coldness I'd felt slowly dissipated. None of us spoke, which made sense in a way. What could we say at this very moment? We'd witnessed something we never should have, and it was now our duty to handle it.

"We can't do what we planned anymore," I said.

"I know. This is way too big. It goes beyond you and me; beyond anything we expected."

I could tell he'd thought about it already. But yes, it was too massive for us. If we leaked it, exposed Beckers and his clique, they would have time to disappear before the authorities took care of them. They must have had some sort of contingency plan, as they knew just how much trouble they could be in. If they were quicker to react than the law, they'd vanish into thin air and would never pay for what they'd done.

"We need to do some sort of inventory, to know exactly who is involved – who are Becker's guests."

"I'm not watching more of those videos," I quickly replied, already sensing my stomach twist at the mere thought of it.

His hold on me tightened. "I know. I'll... do it on my own."

"Lex... I'm not letting you do this either. It will traumatize you. It's too fucked up, too graphic..."

"We don't really have a choice. We need to see just how deep this goes. It's the only way we'll know what will be the appropriate response."

As right as he might be, I loathed the idea of him going through hours of footage like the one we'd just watched. That ought to scar his soul for the rest of his life.

"How about we make an AI do it?" I suggested after a while had passed.

"What do you mean?"

"We could build a pretty basic AI that would look for faces, you know? And then we feed it all the videos and pictures, and it looks for everyone who's in there. We can even make it recognize individuals, so it's not too redundant. It could even organize them by dates, names, how many times they participated... Really, it could do the whole thing, and take screenshots of every single person in all the videos. Then, we'd work with those, to find out who's who, and establish what must be done with it."

"That could work, yes. It doesn't have to be overly complex, so we should be able to build it in under two days."

"Exactly. Let's start now," I declared, trying to pry myself out of his arms.

"No, we're done working for today. You need to eat, and then we need to rest."

"I'm not hungry. After seeing what happened to Magdalena, I don't think I'll ever be hungry again."

"Knowing you, I doubt it. Come on, a few spoonfuls of soup. And some bread. Please, do it for me." He was quite adamant to get some food in me, and knowing it only came from a place of concern and love, I eventually capitulated with a nod.

A lot more than a few spoonfuls went down, as he made me eat more than half of the bowl. The cheese was good, the bread crispy, but while the flavors felt good on my tongue, I couldn't enjoy any of it.

Once I was done, he got out of bed to get rid of the tray. I slipped out too, ready to follow him outside of the room, when he stopped me. "No, stay here."

"But... I want to start on the AI," I protested.

"We'll do that first thing tomorrow. For now, we rest. Too many things have happened to you today. You need it."