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Claire Davis’s headshot fills my screen. For a moment, I cannot breathe, cannot move, cannot do anything except stare at the face I have tried so hard to forget. The observation room is dark except for the light of the monitors, and I prefer it this way. The data flows better in darkness, streams of neural patterns and emotional spikes rendered in cool blues and sharp whites. In here, I can be what I really am, which is terrified.
She looks older than I remember. The lines around her eyes are deeper, carved by the stress I helped create. But she is still beautiful in that fierce, intelligent way that first drew me to her, still defiant even in a professional headshot designed to project confidence.
I close my eyes, but that makes it worse. I see her as she was three years ago, sitting across from me at that café, trusting me with the evidence she had gathered against Helios. Trusting me with her career, her safety, her future. The memory hits like a physical blow. Her voice, urgent and passionate as she explained what she had found, detailed how the studio had covered up a stunt coordinator’s negligence, buried the accident report, and paid off witnesses. Someone could have died. Someone almost did.
“Ben, I need your help,” she had said, reaching across the table to take my hand. “You work for them. You can verify this, make copies of the files I can’t access. Please.”
I can still feel her hand in mine, warm and desperate. I had said yes. I had promised to help her expose the truth.
Then my own meeting with the executives replays in my mind, the one where they laid out my future. They knew about my meeting with Claire. They showed me photos. Then they showed me my own file, a catalogue of every professional shortcut and minor infraction I had ever committed, all of it spun into a narrative of corporate espionage. They told me my career would be over. They threatened legal action that would bankrupt me. I remember the feeling of my resolve crumbling, the cold dread washing over me as I understood the choice they were giving me.
I went straight to my supervisor and handed over everything.
The file on my screen updates with her current status, a stark list of vulnerabilities: BLACKLISTED. FINANCIALLY UNSTABLE. DESPERATE. Perfect candidate traits, according to the algorithm’s parameters. I pull up her preliminary scan results, the ones we ran without her knowledge using footage from her last film. Her emotional range is extraordinary, exactly what the Heartline needs. She can go from rage to vulnerability in seconds, each transition authentic and raw. The algorithm responded to her recorded performance with higher engagement scores than any other candidate.
Of course it did. Claire has always been brilliant at making people feel.
A notification flashes: CANDIDATE ACCEPTED OFFER.
My stomach drops. She said yes. She actually said yes. I should have known she would. I designed the outreach protocol myself, timed to arrive when her desperation would override her caution. I knew about the eviction notice because I have been observing her financial records for weeks. I knew she had no other options because I helped make sure of that. The system I engineered is very good at identifying vulnerabilities and exploiting them.
I pull up her neural scan baseline, the data we will use to calibrate her implant. The patterns are complex and beautiful, a symphony of synaptic firing that the algorithm will learn to read and eventually predict. The Heartline will map every emotion, every thought, every private moment of feeling. And I will be watching from this dark room, seeing everything she does not consent to show.
Another file opens automatically, the HEARTLINE ALGORITHM STATUS REPORT. I scan the metrics, checking evolution curves against projections. The AI has been learning faster than expected, developing predictive models that approach genuine emotional intelligence. It is magnificent and terrible, everything I designed it to be, and everything I warned Helios not to create. But they did not care about my warnings. They cared about ratings, revenue, the revolutionary potential of a show that could read its audience’s deepest feelings and give them exactly what they craved. Entertainment optimized at the neural level, addiction refined to a science.
I complied because when they threatened to ruin me the way they would ruin Claire, I folded. I built their monster and told myself I could control it, that I could build in safeguards, that somehow I could protect the people it would feed on. I could not even protect the woman I loved.
Claire’s file pulses on my screen, awaiting final approval for the neural implant procedure. I could stop this. I could delete her file, flag her as unsuitable, and recommend another candidate. The Heartline would find someone else to consume.
But I do not. I cannot. Some sick, desperate part of me wants her here. It wants her close enough to protect, even if I am protecting her from my own creation. It wants the chance to atone for what I did, even though I know there is no atonement possible for this.
I approve the file.
The confirmation flashes, CLAIRE DAVIS - APPROVED FOR NEURAL INTEGRATION.
On another screen, the Heartline Algorithm stirs. It has detected the new candidate’s profile and is already running preliminary models based on her scan data. The patterns it generates are hungry and eager, reaching toward her like a predator sensing prey.
I watch the data streams converge on her name, her face, her emotional signature. I watch my creation prepare to devour the woman I betrayed. And I do nothing. In the darkness of the observation room, surrounded by screens that show me every metric except my own moral failure, I make a silent, useless promise that changes nothing but makes me feel slightly less like a monster.
I will watch over her. I will track every data point, every neural spike, every moment the Heartline touches her mind. And if it tries to break her, I will find a way to stop it. Even if stopping it means destroying everything. Even if it is already too late.
Claire’s face disappears from my main screen, replaced by technical specifications for her implant procedure. I memorize every detail, every safeguard I insisted on including, every emergency override I buried in the code where Rostova’s people will not find them. It will not be enough. It is never enough. But it is all I can do from this dark room with my screens and my guilt.
The Heartline Algorithm pulses on my monitor, its learning curves spiking with anticipation. It knows she is coming. And it is ready to feed.