The Algorithm of You

Chapter 1 - Off the Grid (Adam's POV)

It’s strange, how quickly invisibility becomes a habit. You stop looking up when you walk down the street. You learn to pick the quiet tables in a café, to keep your voice low, to pass through the world without leaving ripples. People stop asking questions when you give them nothing to notice. And for the most part, I preferred it that way.
Most mornings in this town unfolded like clockwork. By the time the sunlight was slanting in across the narrow street outside my apartment, I already had my first cup of coffee—black, always black—warming my hands. There was comfort in that predictability. Coffee, a steady walk through Main Street, the rhythm of shoes on pavement and the soft background noise of a town too small to ever rush.
Main Street wasn’t much, just a scattering of storefronts doing their best to appear busier than they really were. A hardware shop that never seemed to change its display. A laundromat with the hum of dryers leaking into the street. A bookstore that smelled like paper and dust no matter how often the windows were propped open. The kind of place you could memorize in a single pass, then keep revisiting anyway because the details never stopped shifting with the light.
And then, always, the tech hub.
It wasn’t glamorous, but it didn’t need to be. The space was small but carefully maintained, each workstation clean, each chair pushed in as if waiting for its next occupant. The computers weren’t cutting-edge, but they ran smoothly, fast enough that the kids didn’t grow restless waiting for a program to load. Printers worked when they were supposed to. Wires stayed tucked out of sight. A couple of faded motivational posters clung to the walls—remnants from when the owner had first set up shop—but the rest of the place had been shaped by use: sticky notes taped near screens, scratch paper piled beside keyboards, robot kits half-assembled on the tables.
The kids didn’t notice the limits. To them, this was magic: a space where they could make things appear on screens, where typing commands created movement, where lines of code transformed into flashing lights or a robot that shuffled forward with stubborn determination. I watched them with a quiet pride that I never admitted aloud. Maybe because it was safer that way.
Usually, I stayed tucked inside once I’d arrived, managing the flow of questions and keeping the hum of the place steady. But that morning, halfway through organizing worksheets, I realized the kids might get hungry before lunch. I pictured them growing restless, bouncing in their seats while their projects lost momentum. Snacks always fixed that. So I grabbed my jacket and slipped out the door, telling one of the older boys I’d be back soon.
The café was just across the street, its chalkboard sign darkened by a recent drizzle. I didn’t even bother with an umbrella anymore—habit made me ignore the weather, at least until I caught myself tugging at the collar of my jacket. The rain had peppered my shoulders, tiny droplets clinging to the fabric. I brushed them off absently as I pushed through the door, the warm scent of roasted beans rising to meet me.
I had already started rehearsing the order in my head—granola bars, fruit cups, something chocolate for motivation—when I saw her.
She was at the counter, leaning on one elbow, head tilted toward the chalkboard menu like it contained secrets only she might decode. Raindrops clung to her hair, darkening the strands at the ends, twisting them into loose curls where they brushed her jacket. She didn’t fidget or hurry; she simply existed, wholly present in a way that pulled the air toward her.
And I noticed.
That unsettled me—not her, not her presence, but my noticing. I had gotten good at letting people blur into the background. Safer that way. But she was… impossible to ignore.
The barista asked what she wanted. She hesitated, lips pressed together in mock concentration, then spoke like she was confessing a sin. “Does a caramel latte count as breakfast, or is that just wishful thinking?”
The words slipped out of me before I could stop them. “Depends on the size of the latte.”
She turned, eyebrows lifting as her gaze landed on me. Not annoyed. Not dismissive. Sharp, amused, curious. “Oh? And you’re the authority on nutrition now?”
“Not nutrition,” I said, my tone deliberately flat but edged with humor. “Survival. I’ve had enough arguments with coffee to know it always wins.”
Her lips curved upward, just slightly. A smile she hadn’t planned, quick as sunlight breaking between clouds.
The barista set her cup on the counter. She grabbed it, then looked back at me with mock seriousness. “So, verdict? Latte: respectable breakfast or outright fraud?”
I shrugged. “Depends if you add a muffin. Otherwise, it’s just a liquid alibi.”
She laughed, and it caught me off guard how bright the sound was in the small café. A couple of heads turned. She ducked her chin, but her smile stayed.
Instead of leaving, she lingered. Took a sip. Met my gaze over the rim of her cup with playful suspicion. “So what is an acceptable breakfast, according to the survival expert? Don’t tell me you’re one of those eggs-and-kale purists.”
“Eggs, yes. Kale, never,” I said without hesitation. “If the world depended on kale, humanity would’ve gone extinct centuries ago.”
“Blasphemy.” She raised her cup like a toast. “Kale smoothies keep half this town alive.”
“Barely. That’s not living. That’s punishment with a straw.”
Her laugh came again, more unguarded this time. She almost choked on her sip, pressing a hand against her mouth, and I realized I was grinning without meaning to.
“You know,” she said once she’d recovered, lowering her voice like we were sharing a secret, “I don’t even like caramel lattes. Too sweet. But I panicked and ordered one anyway. Now I’m stuck with it.”
I tilted my head. “Panic ordering coffee. That’s a new one.”
“Don’t judge me. Menus are stressful. Too many choices, not enough time.”
“I’ll try not to hold it against you,” I said. “Though it does make you sound suspicious.”
Her brow arched. “Suspicious?”
“People who panic over coffee usually have bigger secrets.”
Her laugh softened into a smile. “Maybe I do. Or maybe I just don’t trust chalkboard handwriting.”
She glanced at me one last time, a tilt that felt like a question. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Mr. Kale-Hater,” she said, and the nickname landed between us with a grin. For a half-second I considered correcting her—tell her my name, at least—but something merciful in me kept quiet. There was a pleasure in anonymity then, a small shield that let ordinary moments be ordinary.
She ducked into the wet and the gray, the bell over the café door chiming. I lingered at the counter, steam curling from cups, the paper bag warm in my hands. Chocolate muffins smelled like comfort and justification. I told myself the kids needed the sugar more than perfect nutrition. It was a reasonable lie.
On the walk back, Main Street felt slightly altered. Puddles shimmered, neon reflected in the road, umbrellas bobbed. I kept expecting to see her, but the street offered Mr. Patel and a teenager on a skateboard instead. She had been a small disturbance that had already subsided.
I unlocked the hub and stepped inside; the warmth was immediate. The kids yelled a chorus of greetings. I set the bag on the snack table and watched hands reach for muffins like they were treasure.
“Mr. Adam!” Theo called, pencils tucked behind his ears. “The mouse is dead again! It froze when I was about to finish the level.”
I crouched beside him, knees finding the worn carpet. The mouse was stubborn, cords twisted. I pried it free, checked the port, and, out of habit more than sense, blew into the connector. “Try it now,” I said.
The cursor moved. Theo’s face lit. “You’re magic.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” I whispered, and he hustled back to his game.
Nia bounded over with a sheet of paper full of doodled frames. “Look—I made a storyboard!” she said. Her hands were ink-smudged and proud. She wanted the stick-figure hero to have a cape that doubled as a parachute. We argued for five minutes about physics and the romance of improbable gadgets. Practicality won—first make it walk, then decorate.
Jamal’s servo refused to cooperate. It twitched like a nervous thing until I re-seated its power connector and adjusted the calibration. We tested again; the arm lifted, not perfectly smooth but obedient enough to wave. Jamal cheered, arms flailing the way kids do before they realize they’re loud in public places. He high-fived me so hard my wrist complained later.
Small victories accumulated in the room: a printer that finally lined up pages correctly, a 3D print that didn’t collapse into a puddle of filament, a code loop that stopped throwing syntax errors. Each success was a tiny festival, the kind that built confidence brick by small brick.
Still, between those successes, my mind kept slipping back to the café—her laugh, the way she’d read the menu like it was a puzzle. It felt improper to let a stranger lodge in the schedule of the day. There were practical reasons for such caution. Frozen accounts weren’t just paperwork; they rearranged the way you could move through days. One wrong signal and people who wanted a story would make one out of you.
As parents filtered in, the hub quieted like a theater between acts. I ran the checklist: printers queued, 3D printer paused, batteries sorted, cords wrapped and labeled. Routine is a kind of safety; lists reduce the world to tasks you can complete, and finishing them offers the illusion of control.
Packing chairs, the nickname nudged at me again—Mr. Kale-Hater. The teasing was harmless, but it hinted at something else: a judgment softened by humor. It lodged in my chest like a coin that could catch light if you tilted it. I considered the quick, modern trespass of looking someone up—typing a name and peeling away the pleasant mystery—but dismissed it. Better to keep small rituals: lock the hub, secure the snack bin, write tomorrow’s schedule in a neat block on the whiteboard.
On the walk home the rain had tapered to mist. In the apartment I brewed a second cup as a small, private ceremony. The mug steamed between my hands. Outside, the street was a smear of orange lamplight. Inside, the quiet felt roomy enough for thought.
There’s a peculiar discipline to stepping back from a loud life. You become an archivist of ordinary things—lists of bank contacts to avoid, instructions on how to answer questions, notes about accounts that cannot be accessed without negotiation. The work is tedious and prudent, exactly the kind of practice that lets a day start without a sense of being hunted.
Even so, her laugh threaded around other sounds in my head, smoothing edges that had been sharp. I remembered a county fair as a kid—my brother and I trying to win a ring toss—but the memory softened into a small glow rather than nostalgia. It was brightness rather than longing.
For a fleeting second, I pictured something foolish—a muffin slid across the counter with a note tucked underneath. A message that would never be written, never be read. The thought dissolved as quickly as it came. She belonged to the blur of passing strangers, here one moment, gone the next. Before sleep I opened a drawer where I kept trivial artifacts—receipts, paper tickets, small keepsakes. I slid the imaginary note into a corner like a pressed flower. It was a minor act of defiance, giving myself permission to feel something small and human.
At some point before dawn I woke briefly, smiling at the silly nickname lodged in my head. It had lodged like a seed, harmless but oddly promising.
I went back to sleep with that small, ridiculous warmth. I woke twice before morning decided to be itself—once to the distant clatter of a delivery truck, once to the sense that something ordinary had shifted just enough to be interesting. There is a particular comfort to waking in a town that does not ask you to justify your decisions; it frames the day like a quiet offering.
Coffee was a necessary ritual. I measured the grounds, watched the bloom, and let the steam pull the kitchen into focus. Rituals stitch scattered hours into something like order, and after years of small adjustments, I have a lot of rituals. The mug warmed my palms while I looked out at Main Street coming alive: the bakery’s window steaming, a dog negotiating puddles, an old man sweeping crumbs. The town was patient and unremarkable, and in that mercy I found room to breathe.
The hub waited with its predictable agenda. I like to think small institutions can be sanctuaries. Ours was one: tidy workstations, labeled boxes of spare parts, a hand-drawn calendar noting birthdays and little victories. Those were the kinds of white lies that let people keep showing up, and I had no objection to them.
Kids arrived in a scattered procession—backpacks slung, mouths still soft from sleep, ideas bubbling like loose change. We began with a warm-up: design a device to solve a trivial problem. The suggestions were earnest: a pencil that never broke, a hat that held an umbrella, a robot that could fetch socks. Their inventiveness was contagious; it spread until I found myself smiling for reasons that had nothing to do with avoiding headlines.
There was practical work, too. A motor needed recalibrating. A student asked whether artificial intelligence could understand jokes. I said jokes are a matter of timing and shared history, and we all laughed because it felt like an answer. I kept explanations short; children deserve the thrill of discovery more than blunt finality.
Between projects my mind wandered back to the café. It was silly, but once a fragment lodges—a laugh, a tilt of head—it tries itself on for size. I’d made a rule: do not look names up online, do not hunt for context, do not turn pleasant coincidence into a case study. Restraint felt like courage in small doses.
Later, Jamal bounded over with an enthusiasm that could power a small city. “Mr. Adam, come see!” His robot followed a line with a wobble and dignity, and the room applauded. That clapping transformed the space into an audience for success, even trivial success. These were the things I wanted to collect—small proofs of progress, however domestic they felt.
Evenings at the hub were for closure: update the sign-up sheet, clear print queues, check power supplies. Creating order out of entropy is a modest joy. Then I locked the door and walked home through drizzle; the world smelled clean, like obligations rinsed away for a few hours at least.
At home, I brewed coffee and sat by the window, letting steam fog the glass while I thought. There are things I accept as daily work—small mercies, small precautions. Frozen accounts mean handling money with the taste of careful salt on the tongue. It means declining invitations that sound too loud. It also means that when something small and encouraging appears—a smile over a muffin, a playful nickname—I notice because notice is a luxury I try to afford.
There is a balance between keeping life simple and denying parts of yourself that want to feel seen. I have been good at shoring up the former. The latter sometimes breaches the defenses in the shape of a laugh or a perfectly timed joke. I did not expect sudden tenderness, yet that week I found myself making room for little possibilities: longer coffee chats, afternoons unbound by necessity, the unreliable comfort of a shared joke.
There is also a small ledger I keep in my head—tiny, practical records that make life navigable: which vendors to trust for parts, who will loan a spare battery without asking questions, which parents have the patience for long explanations and which prefer quick summaries. It sounds tedious, because it is; yet it becomes a sort of map you follow to avoid unnecessary friction. Once, when a supplier tried to charge more than quoted, I spent a morning untangling an invoice and found, in the exchange, the exact place where ordinary small injustices become habits. Fixing it felt like replacing a worn tire before a trip; it wasn’t heroic, but it allowed the hub to function without friction. Those are the quiet victories I keep: a replacement motor that cost less than expected, a parent who volunteers for cleanup, a workshop that fills beyond capacity. They are modest things, but they accumulate into a life I can explain without opening the sealed box of the past.
A week after our first meeting, I still caught myself replaying it in fragments—the quick smile, the way she’d called me Mr. Kale-Hater like it was a title I deserved. It was ridiculous, how something so small could linger. And yet it did, tucked into the rhythm of my days like a secret no one else would notice. I told myself it was nothing, just a passing moment with a stranger I’d never see again. But sometimes the thought pressed in anyway—unexpected, a little wistful—like carrying a stone in your pocket that you couldn’t quite put down.