The Algorithm of Spring

36

The walk from Hannam-dong took them along the river, sunset painting the Han in iron-coloured haze. She could feel Jun-ho's frustration in the way he kept readjusting his bag strap—how they'd left things at the music library. After she'd pitched her theory, Min-seo and the others had clearly written her off—too focused on design, not enough on solid data.

"They think I'm missing the point," she said as they reached Banpodaegyo Bridge. "But your sister—she wasn't just a coder, was she?"

"No." Jun-ho stopped at the railing. "Samsung paid off her student loans, fast-tracked her career. But she always said work was just a way to fund her real interests. She was—is—a creative at heart."

"And HarmoniQ figured that out. And used it."

The bridge's first water cannon test sent a white arc against the darkening sky. Couples were already gathering for the main show, devices raised and ready.

"What are you thinking?" Jun-ho asked.

"That maybe we're all looking at different pieces of the same puzzle. Min-seo and the others see code. I see design. But maybe that's the point. HarmoniQ speaks to everyone differently—whatever gets under your skin—but it's always pushing in the same direction."

"What direction?" he asked, though his voice said he already knew.

Below them, the water cannons began their proper show, lights washing the spray in blue, red, then gold. Maya watched couples taking selfies, adjusting angles, rehearsing expressions.

"Your sister's arc—you say she went from single, dragging you to arthouse films, with a big circle of friends... to browsing wedding venues and drinking the corporate Kool-Aid. All in record time. For the sake of argument, let's assume that's true."

"It's like watching someone fold origami," Maya said, turning to him. "You see all the unique creases and folds, you think it could become anything. But the maker knows. From the very first fold, they know it's going to be a crane. HarmoniQ is the artist."

"Because of the birth rate?" he asked.

"Partly, sure. But open your eyes. You saw the billboard outside the Music Library. It's always women of childbearing age in the crosshairs. These ads have been here for years, but now they're constant. HarmoniQ is just the algorithmic version. Less obvious. More effective."

A notification lit up her device. She ignored it, but not before Jun-ho caught the flicker of anxiety in her face.

"What did it say?"

"Nothing important." The water turned purple, casting strange shadows across their faces. "The point is, HarmoniQ isn't just one thing. It's not just a dating app gone rogue. It's social pressure, corporate data, and machine learning—all braided tight together."

"And the map? The design stuff—how does that fit?"

"It was just my way in. The aesthetic got my attention. But it goes deeper than preferences or hobbies. The app doesn't just know what you like—it's trying to uncover what drives you. Your sister probably never really cared about indie films or poetry. Maybe what she really wanted was recognition. Status. Respect. So HarmoniQ gave her a cleaner path to that. Be the woman everyone envies, and you'll feel complete. Oh, and by the way—maybe have a kid, while you're at it."

"Subtly steering her toward marriage and children," Jun-ho said quietly.

"Exactly. Different bait for different people—but they all end up swimming in the same direction."

The water show reached its crescendo, light cascading across spray and surface in rhythmic bursts. Maya's device stayed quiet in her pocket, but they both knew there were some patterns she wasn't ready to speak aloud. Not yet.

                                                                                    ***

By evening, the motorcycle café had shed its daytime identity. The staff had pushed back the work tables, replacing them with oil-drum stools stacked with mismatched cushions, clustered around small industrial tables. The after-work crowd perched on them, nursing craft beers.

Through the window, Maya spotted Min-seo and the others, now settled at a different table, their laptops still half open—nudged aside for bottles of Cass.

"Back already?" Jin-woo asked, the Cass softening his voice, shifting his chair to make space as they approached. The coding team had loosened up since the afternoon, tension discarded, screens casting a different kind of glow in the dimmer light.

Maya caught Jun-ho's eye before answering. In the hours since their first meeting, something had shifted. She wasn't just humouring his theories anymore.

"We've been looking at this wrong," she said, settling onto one of the stools. "It's not about tracking data, coding tricks, or visuals. It's about values."

The others exchanged glances—some skeptical, some curious. Min-seo's fingers drummed on the tabletop.

"Go on," Jun-ho said, gesturing to the bartender for beers.

"HarmoniQ collects data, sure—but what it's really doing is testing for what drives you, probing for buttons to push. What you truly want, maybe without even realising it." Maya leaned in. "Take Yeon-joo. You knew her interests, the person she showed to the world. But what if the app saw through that? What if it figured out what she actually wanted—status, say—and showed her the fastest path to get there?"

"While subtly steering her toward marriage... and eventually children," Jun-ho said.

Min-seo's expression shifted. "That could explain why the code's so hard to pin down. Instead of software architecture..."

"It's personality architecture." Maya finished. "Different bait for different people."

"But that's not scalable," Jin-woo said, frowning. "You can't design custom pathways for millions of users."

"You don't have to," Maya said. "There are only so many core human drives—recognition, security, belonging. Look at the interface—it adapts to each user. It tailors its language, its suggestions."

"Your sister told you herself—her interface looked completely different on her boyfriend's device. We're being shown what we want to see."

The others leaned in. Their skepticism wavered as Maya swiped through examples. Even the café seemed to quiet around them, the background chatter fading.

"It's like a mirror," Min-seo said slowly. "Showing you what you want to see..."

"While nudging you toward what it wants you to become," Jun-ho added.

Maya closed the app quickly as another notification flashed—but not before she saw it. Something about Florence.

Min-seo pulled up the behaviour patterns she'd been tracking. "Your theory fits the data, sort of," she admitted, turning the screen. Graphs showed countless individual data points flowing in the same general direction. "Like water running downhill."

"Except the landscape's been shaped to guide it," Maya said.

Jun-ho was watching her closely. He'd noticed her reaction to the notification but said nothing. "But we still don't know who shaped it," he said, bringing the conversation back to their central problem. "Or what their ultimate goal is. We're just seeing the effects."

Maya looked around the table at their faces—people who had apparently already watched someone they cared about disappear.

"Then we need to find out," she said. "We need to find someone on the inside. Someone who can tell us who built the mirror."