The Halting Soul

[3] The Algorithm of Blame

"Yes," Elian murmurs. But inside, something is breaking loose.

Because this is exactly what he used to do.

Debug systems. Trace blame.

Find the malfunction, isolate the faulty variable, issue a patch.

That's what they're doing to him now.

He is the bug.

Torres folds her hands. "We're not accusing you of wrongdoing, Dr. Reyes. We just need to ensure the program runs smoothly."

The program.

He almost laughs. The entire university is a machine — deterministic, self-correcting, obsessed with optimization. It doesn't care who bleeds, only that the code compiles.

He stares at the diagram again.

"Input: Sin. Process: Repentance. Output: Grace."

He once thought he could teach salvation like syntax.

When he leaves the office, the hallway feels too bright.

The fluorescent lights buzz like digital tinnitus.

Students pass by, faces pixelated by grief and gossip.

He catches his reflection in the glass wall — tired eyes, unshaven, a ghost in a gray blazer. Behind him, he spots something pinned to a bulletin board:

An alumni newsletter.

Smiling faces of past graduates.

And there — Marco Aguilar, holding a trophy at some tech expo.

The caption reads:

"Founder, Computadora Systems Inc."

For a second, the word stings like a lash.

Computadora.

He almost hears the laughter again, the mocking tone from childhood.

He was supposed to have escaped that name.

The name freezes him. The fluorescent hallway dissolves, the smell of laminate and coffee replaced by the scent of floor wax, pencil shavings, and the faint, sweet odor of a banana from someone's lunchbox.

He's seven years old. It's the first week of Grade 2. He isn't a "prodigy" yet. He's just... Elian. He's sitting on the floor, away from the other kids, who are loud and chaotic. His sanctuary is with him. His backpack, a bright purple one with Dora and Boots on it, is open beside him. His prized possession is on his lap: a bright pink toy laptop, the kind with simple logic games and a pixelated screen. In his notebook, also Dora-themed, he's not just doodling. He's drawing math.

He's making a "map" for his multiplication tables. Two steps to the 7, jump over the 'x' sign, and... ¡Vámonos! You're at 14. To him, it is an adventure. A fun, predictable, solvable quest.

A shadow falls over him. Marco Aguilar, already bigger, already the center of his own gravitational pull, stands over him. He's surrounded by two other boys, his lieutenants. Marco points.

"Look at that," Marco snorts, not to Elian, but to his audience. "What is that? A girl's purse?"

He's pointing at the pink laptop. Elian shrinks. "It's a... it's a computer. It teaches logic."

"Logic?" Marco laughs. He kicks the corner of Elian's Dora backpack. "You gonna ask the Map how to find your cojones? You're a boy, dummy. You're not supposed to like Dora. That's for babies. And girls."

The other boys laugh. Marco's eyes scan the scene, his mind working, synthesizing the data. The pink laptop. The 'girly' backpack. The weird math drawings. The soft, quiet way Elian looks up at him, not with defiance, but with confusion.

Marco's face lights up, the look of a programmer who just found the perfect, cruel variable name.

"A computer... and Dora." He grins. "I know! Hey everyone, look! It's Computadora!"

The name hits Elian like a stone. It's perfect, and he hates it. Computer for the Vtech. Dora for the backpack. And in that one word, Marco has branded him: Lady Boy Nerd. A bug in the system of boyhood.

Elian wants to explain. He wants to say that Dora's world is the only one that makes sense. That her map is a comfort, a clear, three-step algorithm in a life that feels like chaos.

He wants to say that at home, there is no logic. There is only his father's heavy hand and the unpredictable, uncomputable rules of his rage. A spilled glass of milk wasn't an accident; it was "disrespect." A 98 on a test wasn't success; it was "laziness" for missing two points. His father's love was a terrifying, recursive loop of conditional clauses he could never solve.

But Dora's world? Dora's world always halted. It always had a clear, happy ending.

He says none of this. He just clutches his pink laptop, and the name "Computadora" sticks to him like glue.

The smell of floor wax fades. Elian is back in the university hallway, his breath fogging the glass. He stares at the newsletter.

Marco Aguilar. Founder. Computadora Systems Inc.

The bully hadn't just created the name; he had stolen it. He had taken the word that was meant to be Elian's shame, polished it, and built an empire on it. While Elian was trying to build systems to save souls, Marco was building systems to make money.

And in the end, Marco's system was the one that worked.

But maybe the system never forgets its original variable.

As he walks toward the exit, the automated doors hiss open like a mouth whispering judgment.

"Can you find the bug?"

The echo returns, faint and cruel.

This time, he knows the answer.

"It's me," he says softly. "I'm the bug."