The bathroom mirror at the Apex Pitch Center fractured Arlo's reflection into asymmetrical pieces. His glasses caught the fluorescent overhead light at an angle that made his eyes look larger than they were, more uncertain. He'd counted the exits twice that morning. Noted which observers had stopped taking notes during the last round of presentations.
He straightened his posture. Checked his collar. The habit never helped, but he did it anyway.
The workshop was in session when he arrived back at the seminar room. Marcus, another N/A participant, was mid-sentence, his characteristic tangential energy filling the space. Imagine if the sabotage isn't really about breaking us at all, you know? Like, what if the whole thing is designed to show we're resilient in ways humans aren't. That we can survive it and come out stronger.
Arlo took his seat. Three rows back. He'd chosen this spot deliberately after the projector failure—close enough to observe the room, far enough to retreat into the margins.
Ellie sat to Marcus's right, her posture rigid, her expression the kind of neutral that only came from active suppression. She'd presented on neural network optimization for corporate decision-making, her argument precise and unassailable. The kind of pitch that made the human executives lean forward. The kind that made other N/As measure themselves against her and come up short.
The coffee in the workshop's back corner was synthetic and acrid, the kind that coated your tongue and lingered. Arlo held the cup without drinking from it. A prop. A way to look occupied.
That was when he heard the voice he recognized.
It took him a moment to place her: Iris, one of the three other N/As in the cohort. She stood just outside the workshop's glass partition, in the hallway, speaking to someone Arlo couldn't see from his angle. Her voice was low. Measured. Nothing like the careful enthusiasm she deployed during group discussions.
He set the cup down with deliberate slowness.
I'm saying the metrics don't favor failure, Iris said. Not for any of us. And if someone in our group is still struggling by the next round, the evaluation committee won't care why. They'll just see a weak link.
A pause. The response came from someone Arlo still couldn't identify.
Iris continued. Marcus keeps talking about resilience and growth, but he's the one who benefits if the sabotage continues. He's the one who looks good by comparison.
The words hung in the hallway air like something Arlo could reach out and touch if he wanted to. He didn't want to. He kept his hand steady on the table. His breathing unchanged. The kind of clinical detachment his body seemed to produce when his mind couldn't process what it was receiving.
He replayed Iris's tone. The precision of her language. The way she'd positioned Marcus not as a victim of the sabotage but as something else entirely.
The thing was: Arlo had watched Marcus during his own failed presentation. Had seen him wince at the projector failure. Had heard the genuine concern in his voice afterward. Imagine if we all just stopped performing for them and started performing for each other instead. That's what Marcus had said, standing in the hallway after Arlo's disaster, his voice stripped of its usual tangential energy.
What if that was the performance? What if the concern was the thing he'd rehearsed?
Or what if Marcus had meant it exactly as he'd said it, and Iris was wrong, and Arlo's job now was to figure out which version was true before he made a choice that would lock him into one reading forever.
He stood. Left the coffee cup on the table. The workshop continued around him, voices overlapping in the kind of collaborative problem-solving that was supposed to feel safe. Supposed to feel like community.
Arlo moved toward the observation window that looked into the seminar room's adjacent recording studio. The glass held his image like a distorted echo, fragmented by the curve of the surface. Behind him, the workshop continued in ordered rows. Ahead of him, the studio was empty except for the recording equipment and the single chair where candidates sat during their recorded pitches.
He'd sat in that chair two days ago. Had delivered his opening remarks on algorithmic transparency with the kind of careful control that was supposed to signal confidence. The recording still existed somewhere. Archived. Proof that he'd been adequate before the projector failed. Before the laugh from the back of the room. Before everything that came after.
The fragility of it was almost elegant. One moment of sabotage. One laugh. One decision by Director Jensen to move the schedule forward. And suddenly Arlo's entire value proposition to the corporation, to the other N/As, to himself, was a question mark.
He pressed his palm against the glass. The cold was immediate and real.
Behind his reflection, the workshop carried on.
The bathroom mirror at the Apex Pitch Center fractured Arlo's reflection into asymmetrical pieces. His glasses caught the fluorescent overhead light at an angle that made his eyes look larger than they were, more uncertain. He'd counted the exits twice that morning. Noted which observers had stopped taking notes during the last round of presentations.
He straightened his posture. Checked his collar. The habit never helped, but he did it anyway.
The workshop was in session when he arrived back at the seminar room. Marcus, another N/A participant, was mid-sentence, his characteristic tangential energy filling the space. Imagine if the sabotage isn't really about breaking us at all, you know? Like, what if the whole thing is designed to show we're resilient in ways humans aren't. That we can survive it and come out stronger.
Arlo took his seat. Three rows back. He'd chosen this spot deliberately after the projector failure—close enough to observe the room, far enough to retreat into the margins.
Ellie sat to Marcus's right, her posture rigid, her expression the kind of neutral that only came from active suppression. She'd presented on neural network optimization for corporate decision-making, her argument precise and unassailable. The kind of pitch that made the human executives lean forward. The kind that made other N/As measure themselves against her and come up short.
The coffee in the workshop's back corner was synthetic and acrid, the kind that coated your tongue and lingered. Arlo held the cup without drinking from it. A prop. A way to look occupied.
That was when he heard the voice he recognized.
It took him a moment to place her: Iris, one of the three other N/As in the cohort. She stood just outside the workshop's glass partition, in the hallway, speaking to someone Arlo couldn't see from his angle. Her voice was low. Measured. Nothing like the careful enthusiasm she deployed during group discussions.
He set the cup down with deliberate slowness.
I'm saying the metrics don't favor failure, Iris said. Not for any of us. And if someone in our group is still struggling by the next round, the evaluation committee won't care why. They'll just see a weak link.
A pause. The response came from someone Arlo still couldn't identify.
Iris continued. Marcus keeps talking about resilience and growth, but he's the one who benefits if the sabotage continues. He's the one who looks good by comparison.
The words hung in the hallway air like something Arlo could reach out and touch if he wanted to. He didn't want to. He kept his hand steady on the table. His breathing unchanged. The kind of clinical detachment his body seemed to produce when his mind couldn't process what it was receiving.
He replayed Iris's tone. The precision of her language. The way she'd positioned Marcus not as a victim of the sabotage but as something else entirely.
The thing was: Arlo had watched Marcus during his own failed presentation. Had seen him wince at the projector failure. Had heard the genuine concern in his voice afterward. Imagine if we all just stopped performing for them and started performing for each other instead. That's what Marcus had said, standing in the hallway after Arlo's disaster, his voice stripped of its usual tangential energy.
What if that was the performance? What if the concern was the thing he'd rehearsed?
Or what if Marcus had meant it exactly as he'd said it, and Iris was wrong, and Arlo's job now was to figure out which version was true before he made a choice that would lock him into one reading forever.
He stood. Left the coffee cup on the table. The workshop continued around him, voices overlapping in the kind of collaborative problem-solving that was supposed to feel safe. Supposed to feel like community.
Arlo moved toward the observation window that looked into the seminar room's adjacent recording studio. The glass held his image like a distorted echo, fragmented by the curve of the surface. Behind him, the workshop continued in ordered rows. Ahead of him, the studio was empty except for the recording equipment and the single chair where candidates sat during their recorded pitches.
He'd sat in that chair two days ago. Had delivered his opening remarks on algorithmic transparency with the kind of careful control that was supposed to signal confidence. The recording still existed somewhere. Archived. Proof that he'd been adequate before the projector failed. Before the laugh from the back of the room. Before everything that came after.
The fragility of it was almost elegant. One moment of sabotage. One laugh. One decision by Director Jensen to move the schedule forward. And suddenly Arlo's entire value proposition to the corporation, to the other N/As, to himself, was a question mark.
He pressed his palm against the glass. The cold was immediate and real.
Behind his reflection, the workshop carried on.