The Algorithm of Us

Start form unconscious

He was already on the trail. Somehow, he'd noticed the statistical anomalies – the unusually low accident rates among PredictCore employees, the strange pattern of near-misses and last-minute changes that had saved lives over the past three years. Her interventions hadn't gone unnoticed; they'd attracted the attention of perhaps the one person capable of understanding their true significance.

The office's overhead lights suddenly flickered to full brightness – early shift workers would be arriving soon. Sarah quickly closed her unauthorized access windows but saved Walsh's research to a secure drive. She needed to understand exactly what he knew.

Her phone buzzed: a news alert.
"Breaking: Chemical Spill on I-5 North Creates Major Delays"
The accident that would have killed Marcus Walsh had found another form, but without him in its path.

Sarah gathered her things, suddenly aware of how long she'd been awake. As she stood, her mother's jade pendant caught the morning light, sending green reflections dancing across her screens. She touched it gently, a habit formed over fifteen years.

"The universe doesn't make mistakes," her mother used to say when Sarah complained about chaos in mathematics. "It just operates on algorithms too complex for us to see."

Maybe that's why she'd chosen to save Marcus Walsh. Not just because he was investigating PredictCore, not just because his death would have been ironic given his work. But because in all the chaos of possible interventions, he was the one person who might understand why she'd built her algorithm in the first place – not to play God, but to give chaos a conscience.

As she waited for the elevator, her phone buzzed again. A new email from Marcus Walsh to PredictCore's public relations department:

"Request for Comment: I'm working on a story about predictive analytics and prevented tragedies. I've noticed some interesting patterns in your company's data. Would like to discuss the ethical implications of intervention in predicted disasters. Deadline: End of week."

Sarah stepped into the elevator, her reflection fragmented in its mirrored walls. In saving his life, she might have sealed her fate. But perhaps that had been the algorithm's plan all along.

The doors closed, and she descended into a morning that would mark the beginning of a cascade effect – a butterfly's wings creating a hurricane that would either expose everything she'd built or finally help her answer the question that had haunted her since her mother's death: When you have the power to change destiny, are you obligated to use it?

Sarah's apartment felt wrong the moment she stepped inside. Everything was in its place – shoes aligned at exactly 45-degree angles by the door, mail sorted by size and importance on the entry table, temperature a precise 71.6 degrees Fahrenheit – but something had shifted in her perception of order.

She caught her reflection in the hallway mirror: dark circles under eyes that seemed too bright, hair escaping its usually perfect bun, skin pale enough to show the blue tracery of veins at her temples. Seventy-two hours without proper sleep. Her hands shook slightly as she pulled the elastic from her hair, letting it fall in a black curtain past her shoulders.

"Quantify," she whispered to herself, an old habit from therapy. "Control through measurement."

Heart rate: elevated at 82 beats per minute.
Hours awake: 31
Caffeine intake: 400mg
Probability of cognitive impairment: rising

The apartment's AI assistant activated automatically. "Good morning, Sarah. You have been awake for 31 hours. Would you like me to adjust your schedule to allow for recovery sleep?"

"No." She moved to her home workstation, where six monitors created a curved wall of data. "Pull up everything we have on Marcus Walsh's movements from the past six months."