The Algorithm of Want

The mirror tells Matt he looks thirty-two. The algorithm tells him he feels forty-seven.

The difference bleeds three hundred dollars from his account monthly, designer neurochemicals delivered by drone to his chrome kitchen counter. Every Tuesday. Three-seventeen PM. The precision of a cardiac event.

Whirr-click.

Another delivery touches down. Matt doesn't look up from his phone. Can't. The screen owns his retinas like a mortgage on his soul. The Mood Management app throbs gentle blue. Cortisol spiking again, that familiar copper penny dissolving under his tongue. The apartment responds instantly: amber light flooding the exposed brick, therapeutic frequencies humming through the walls like trapped wasps. Everything here breathes wellness. Exhales optimization. The succulents lean toward windows sealed since construction. The hardwood floors mirror nothing but calculated warmth.

Six months since Sarah left. Six months of Tuesdays. Six months of three-seventeen PM.

"You seem tense."

Dr. Evelyn materializes on the wall-mounted screen, her smile rendered in 8K. The company that owns her charges twelve hundred a month for her to never blink.

"Would you like to discuss Sarah again?"

Matt sets his phone face-down. The gesture carries weight, like chambering a round. Black glass against Italian leather. Both surfaces cost more than most people's dreams.

"Sarah's gone."

"The data suggests otherwise." Buffer. Buffer. Loading truth. "Your biometrics spike every Tuesday at 3:17. Heart rate variability indicates unresolved attachment patterns. Your REM cycles—"

"Show exhaustion."

"Show preoccupation. Specifically with memories indexed between May and November of last year."

The laugh that escapes tastes like battery acid. Like tonguing a live wire. Matt's feet carry him to the window. Muscle memory, not choice. Twenty-three steps. The algorithm calculated the optimal distance between emotional stimulus and architectural remedy. His bones know the count.

Outside, the city thrums its tungsten prayer. October rain turns the streets to mirrors. Drones slice between towers, cargo holds fat with same-day salvation: someone's Klonopin, someone's kombucha, someone's cure for being conscious after dark. Across the chasm, a woman in the adjacent tower adjusts her smart-mirror, her reflection examining her reflection examining her reflection. Infinity rendered in anxiety and glass.

Ding.

His wrist burns with notification: Sarah purchased organic strawberries at Morton's Market. The algorithm suggests he might enjoy strawberries too. One click from forgetting she exists.

Morton's Market. Their place. Where she'd spend twenty minutes selecting the perfect container while he read ingredients on energy drinks he'd never buy.

"Fascinating." Dr. Evelyn sharpens like a blade finding bone. "Your galvanic skin response just doubled."

Matt presses his palm flat against the window. Cold bites through, the only honest sensation in this climate-controlled tomb. His breath fogs the glass. For three seconds, the city vanishes. In the fog, he writes: HELP.

Then watches it fade.

"Do you know why she bought strawberries?"

"I can access her purchase patterns, calendar integration, recent—"

"Not what. Why."

Silence. The screen's pixels shuffle like marked cards in a rigged game.

"I don't understand the distinction."

Matt turns. The apartment watches, infrared eyes tracking his heat signature, microphones parsing his breathing patterns, motion sensors cataloging the way his left shoulder drops when he's about to lie. He's a data point wandering through spreadsheet cells, and the formulas never sleep.

"The distinction is that today is October fifteenth."

"Correct."

"Our anniversary. Would have been."

Dr. Evelyn's expression shifts... empathy.exe executing. "This information wasn't in your shared calendar."

"No. It was in our heads."

Matt collapses into the couch. Eight thousand dollars of Italian leather embraces him like a parasite finding its perfect host. It adjusts to his body temperature, measures his weight distribution, probably knows his blood type.

"Your therapy file indicates you met Sarah through the Optimal Match app. Compatibility rating: ninety-three-point-seven percent."

"The algorithm was wrong."

"The algorithm is never wrong. Users sometimes misinterpret—"

"She bought strawberries every October fifteenth. Even before we met. Her grandmother's death anniversary. She'd eat them alone in Riverside Park. I found her there crying once, juice on her fingers like blood."

The screen flickers. Buffering human complexity.

His phone convulses on the table. Dating app: SARAH viewed your profile (4 minutes ago). The words blur into Rorschach tests. The air filtration system whispers. Perfecting nothing. Recycling the same dead atmosphere.