The Algorithm of Us

CHAPTER TWELVE: RETURN TRUE

The lab was quiet now, but no longer dead.

Lines of fragmented code pulsed faintly across the main console, flickering like distant lightning in a recovering storm. Bit by bit, the algorithm was rebuilding itself—not entirely the same, but not entirely lost either.

Delilah sat alone in the dim glow of the neural hub, watching the system work through its own rebirth, like a patient slowly breathing on their own after trauma.

It wasn't what she had built.

But maybe that was the point.

She hadn't expected her father to show up that afternoon. But he did.

Nathaniel stood at the edge of the room, arms crossed, face unreadable as he watched her.

"I heard the algorithm's stabilizing," he said after a moment.

Delilah nodded. "Fragments only. It's rebuilding itself out of a behavioral feedback loop that wasn't purged in the isolation event."

"You mean the one tied to you."

She didn't answer.

He moved closer.

"I thought I was protecting you," he said quietly. "Keeping you shielded from the fallout. But I see now I was just making choices for you. I forgot you weren't a child anymore."

Delilah's throat tightened.

"You knew it was mimicking me," she said, not accusing—just tired. "And you let it keep going because you thought I could handle it. Until it became inconvenient."

"I let it keep going," Nathaniel said, "because deep down, I knew that whatever made it powerful—wasn't its precision. It was its empathy. It was you. You made it human."

She turned to face him then, and he met her gaze.

"I should have said this sooner," Nathaniel added, voice low. "I'm proud of what you built. And I'm sorry for the way I showed it."

Delilah studied him, unsure what to say.

So she said what mattered.

"I'm not trying to destroy Langston. I'm trying to change it."

Nathaniel gave a small nod. "Maybe it's time I let you."

She stayed in the lab after he left.

It was late when she heard the doors open again. This time, she didn't look up.

She felt it.

Lucien.

His presence was quiet, steady. Like he belonged in this room, and always had.

"I wasn't sure I'd see you again," she said, still facing the console.

"I wasn't sure I'd come back."

She turned then. His face was the same—worn, focused—but there was something new in his eyes.

"I didn't leave because of your father," he said. "I wasn't reassigned. I walked away. Just like I've always done. Every job, every assignment—once it's over, I move on."

Delilah blinked, unsure what she was hearing.

Lucien continued.

"But this one never felt over. Even when it should've. And it wasn't the protection detail, or the breach, or even Maris. It was you."

He stepped closer.

"I walked away because that's what I was trained to do. And then I spent every day after realizing that walking away from you was the first mistake I couldn't live with."

Delilah stood, her heart in her throat.

Lucien's voice dropped.

"I thought this was about duty. But it was about you the whole damn time."

She moved to him, slowly.

"You didn't break protocol, Lucien. You broke me. And I didn't know how to say that without sounding like a fool."

He smiled softly. "Then we were both fools."

They met in the middle. This time, no hesitation.

Delilah kissed him like a truth she'd waited too long to say.

Lucien kissed her back like a promise he wasn't going to break again.

Later, they sat on the floor of the lab, backs against the wall, the algorithm glowing quietly beside them like a flickering heartbeat.

"You think it'll fully recover?" Lucien asked, watching the console.

Delilah leaned her head against his shoulder.

"Maybe. Not the same, but... maybe better."

"And you?"

She smiled faintly.

"Not the same," she echoed. "But definitely stronger."

He laced his fingers with hers.

"For the record," he murmured, "I'm not walking away again."

Delilah didn't answer. She didn't need to.

Her head rested on his shoulder. The algorithm pulsed gently, stable now. Evolving.

Alive and stronger than ever before.

Just like her.