The Algorithm of Spring

91

Maya sat cross-legged on the floor of Jun-ho's apartment—now their makeshift studio, the projector's blue glow cutting through the predawn dark. They'd made one last trip to her old place earlier in the night—not to stay, but to salvage the few irreplaceable materials she couldn't leave behind. Now Seoul slept outside unfamiliar windows while she let the projected interface wash over her in full scale, filling an entire wall with HarmoniQ's glow.

She'd been studying the map for over an hour. Her artist's eye traced it differently now—dissecting what she'd previously missed, searching for the signature beneath the surface.

The colour palette struck her first. That particular shade of cerulean blue—neither cyan nor navy—mixed with warm greys that made data feel approachable rather than clinical. She'd seen those exact colours in Richards' 1998 series Digital Consciousness—the paintings that launched his career into the stratosphere.

Then the typography. Helvetica Neue, but with custom kerning that created subtle breathing space between letters. The same spacing philosophy he'd used in his gallery installations, making viewers slow down and absorb rather than scan.

The spatial relationships were unmistakable—information organised in gentle spirals rather than rigid grids, leading the eye through complexity without overwhelming it. How had she missed this before? The evidence was everywhere.

"Alan Richards," she whispered to the empty room.

Every element was his. Now that she knew what to look for, it was unmistakable. The restrained pixel patterns that recalled his seminal digital experiments. The way dense information felt intuitive rather than cluttered—his signature ability to make the complex feel simple. Even the micro-animations within the app followed his timing philosophy: fast enough to feel responsive, slow enough to feel human.

Jun-ho appeared in the doorway with two cups of espresso, pausing as he took in her rigid posture.

"Maya? Have you even blinked?"

She accepted the cup without taking her eyes from the projection. "It's all here. His entire design philosophy embedded in one interface. Every aesthetic choice that makes HarmoniQ so seductive—they're pure Richards."

Jun-ho settled beside her on the floor, studying her face in the interface's blue glow. "I know this is personal for you."

"He shaped everything I thought art could be. His 2003 installation 'Mirrors of Choice'—I stood in that gallery for three hours, convinced I'd touched the edge of something profound about free will and creativity." She gestured at the interface. "Now this."

She stood abruptly, pacing to the windows. Above, Seoul showed its first stirrings: delivery trucks navigating empty streets, early commuters heading to subway stations. Somewhere in that awakening city, Alan Richards was preparing for another day of self-mythologising. Meanwhile, his true masterpiece continued reshaping millions of lives in the shadows.

"Min-seo found something," Jun-ho said gently. "Richards is appearing tonight at the Shilla Hotel. Private gallery event for his latest collection—invitation only."

Maya turned sharply. "We need to get in."

Jun-ho hesitated. "Maya, I can see what this means to you, but confronting him directly—"

"Is exactly what needs to happen. Min-seo can forge the invitations?"

"She's already working on it. The gallery uses HarmoniQ's verification system, so she can slip us onto the guest list. If the system cross-checks IDs in real time, we'll have seconds—maybe less—before alarms trip—and before security knows exactly who we are." He paused. "But what exactly are you planning to do if you see him?"

Maya stared out at the city, her reflection ghostlike in the glass. The interface pulsed behind her, Richards' digital fingerprints weighing on her shoulders.

"I'm going to show him what he's really created," she said finally. "I'm going to make him see his art through the eyes of the people it's controlling."

The morning light was growing stronger, and with it, Maya's certainty. Tonight, she would confront not just HarmoniQ's creator, but the illusion that art stood apart from power.