The Algorithm of Want
The mirror tells Matt he looks thirty-two. The algorithm tells him he feels forty-seven. The difference costs him three hundred dollars a month in targeted antidepressants, delivered by drone to his chrome kitchen counter every Tuesday at 3:17 PM.
Whirr-click.
Another delivery. Matt doesn't look up from his phone. The Mood Management app pulses gentle blue—his cortisol levels are spiking again. The apartment's ambient lighting shifts to compensate, bathing the exposed brick walls in therapeutic amber. Everything here breathes wellness. The succulents lean toward windows that never open. The hardwood floors reflect nothing but calculated warmth.
"You seem tense," says the voice from the wall-mounted screen. Dr. Evelyn's smile never changes, pixels arranged in perpetual concern. "Would you like to talk about Sarah again?"
Matt sets his phone face-down. The gesture feels heavy, like setting down a loaded gun. "Sarah's gone."
"The data suggests otherwise." The screen flickers, loading. "Your biometrics spike every Tuesday at 3:17. Heart rate variability indicates unresolved attachment patterns. Your REM sleep shows—"
"My REM sleep shows I'm tired."
"Of missing her?"
The laugh that escapes him tastes like copper. Matt walks to the window, though walking implies choice. His feet carry him there because the algorithm has calculated the optimal distance between emotional stimulus and architectural remedy. Twenty-three steps. Always twenty-three.
Outside, the city hums its electric song. Drones weave between glass towers like insects around flowers, their cargo holds fat with desire—someone's lunch, someone's loneliness, someone's cure for being human. A woman in the building across adjusts her smart-mirror, tilting it to catch light that doesn't exist. Her reflection examines her reflection examining her reflection.
Ding.
Another notification. Matt glances at his wrist. The smart-watch informs him that his ex-girlfriend has just purchased organic strawberries from the grocery store they used to visit together. The algorithm suggests he might enjoy strawberries too. Delivered fresh. Delivered now. One click away.
"Fascinating," Dr. Evelyn observes. "Your galvanic skin response just doubled."
Matt touches the window glass. Cold bites his fingertip, the only real temperature in this climate-controlled tomb. "Do you know what she bought strawberries for?"
"I can access her purchase history, her calendar integration, her—"
"That wasn't the question."
Silence. The screen's pixels reorganize themselves into something resembling thought. "What was the question?"
Matt turns from the window. The apartment watches him move—motion sensors tracking his gait, infrared cameras reading his body heat, microphones calibrated to detect the subtlest change in vocal stress. He is data walking through a data farm, and the harvest never ends.