Algorithm of chance

POV Alex

Every day at 3:14 PM, she stepped out onto the balcony.

Not a second late. As if someone had programmed it into her very being—not an alarm, not an inner clock, but something woven into the fabric of her existence. Like a line of code written into the structure of her life.
And I knew it. Because I watched.

She came out as if responding to a call only she could hear. She would pause, take a barely noticeable breath, as if recharging herself with air—and then tilt her face up to the sky.
Not just looking. Searching.
She looked into the sky as if it were a page from a book written for her alone. As though, through the clouds and blue emptiness, she was trying to glimpse something none of us—not me, not the algorithms, not the Bureau—could ever see.

Every single time, the moment her eyes met the sky, she would freeze.
Completely still.
As if the sky began to sing, and only she could hear the music. Not notes—vibrations. A resonance. A calling.
In that moment, she ceased to be just a subject of observation.
She became a mystery.
And the longer I watched, the more I felt: she wasn't an exception. She was a breach.

And I... I sat in my room. Alone.
Surrounded by screens that turned the world into data.
On one of them—her movement statistics:
“Balcony. 3:14 PM. Average duration: 3 minutes, 48 seconds.”
Emotionless. Precise. Just numbers.
But somewhere inside—beyond logic, beyond protocol—something pulled.
Tugged. Ached.
As if a heart long forgotten had just remembered how to beat.

Normally, it’s different. We don’t get attached.
We’re not allowed to.
I trigger events—deliberately, precisely.
Here, a gust of wind sends a document flying into the street—a man stops and avoids getting hit.
There, a drop of coffee on a white shirt makes him turn back, and he meets the woman he’ll spend the next twenty years with.
Every “coincidence” is our work.
A flawless clockwork.
Without meaning. Without soul.

But her…

At first, I told myself it was professional interest.
Just an unusual pattern. A behavior that didn’t fit the mold. Anomalous data.
But deep down, I knew.
I had been lying to myself.
Since the very first time I saw her lift her face to the sky and bring time to a standstill in my room.

I began looking for reasons to interfere.
Nothing blatant—just the lightest touches.
Almost imperceptible.
As if I wanted to be part of her 3:14, even if she never noticed.
A soft breeze, just enough to make a strand of hair fall across her cheek.
A glint of sunlight slipping through the clouds at just the right moment.
A bird flying past—not the usual one. A subtle deviation.

Each of these “random” events was my touch.
My confession.
My silent: I’m here.
And she didn’t know.
She wasn’t allowed to.
That’s the rule.

The Bureau doesn’t forgive the personal.
We are observers. Unseen.
Architects of the unnoticed. Ghosts among the living.
We are not meant to feel.

But every time the clock struck 3:14—
I forgot who I was.
Forgot my protocols, my clearance levels, my duties.
For those three minutes and forty-eight seconds—
I became human.
Not an operator. Not a cog in the system.

Just a man.
Waiting.

For her.