Gareth spun the new notebook and focused on his account balance while the investor sheathed his old machine in sweaty leather. His pulse registered the number in a blood-deafened moment of uncontrolled arousal. Tomorrow’s FDA memo fluttered to the keyboard, the investor’s outstretched hand probing beyond fantasy to deliver the stark, contrived truth.

Names of study participants had already been leaked. The stolen machine would never be recovered. There would be no Phase III. The morning news would devastate, but his colleagues had no reason to fear investigation. They could take their innocent, fragmented collaborations and find other sponsors.

Gareth had once dreamed of finding the cure for cancer, providing wealth for his wife and child, and giving back to his community. The investors preyed on that dream. They only wanted data; the study rejects. He would still perform the work, extend lives, find the cure, and provide for his splintered family.

The benevolent vultures swooped and bought out the policies of those with no chance of survival. AML devastated financially and killed rapidly. Families appreciated early access to their money, even at a reduced payout. The investors called him a hero, and his ex stopped calling him. Charlie’s tuition was paid and funds were available for medical school.

The island awaited and he closed the lid, figures dancing in conscious conscience. Fifty-four percent OR was unheard of, and now would never be reported. The drug had extended the lives of almost eighty people. It wasn’t a cure, but a treatment that made a difference. He wrestled the figures through ethics, a social construct.

The investor had vanished and Gareth patted his pockets, assured everything was ready. They never told him they would end the study. He begged them to let him continue, just a few more months. He helped them hedge with deadlier diseases, younger patients, flawed research. But he had come too close to success, and they had no choice.

His phone chimed Für Elise and he waited for the measures to repeat. He breathed a loose greeting before she spoke in her professional, bedside manner, “I’m sorry, Sir. She’s gone.” Gareth rose from the café table and pitched the phone in the trash along with his empty paper cup. He reached the airport locker and fumbled for the key as his flight was announced.

The fast food bag contained the last of the pilfered vials, along with a cylinder of paper bills. He clenched the benign package and strode to the nearest trash bin, as a darting woman grazed his arm and dislodged the sack. Gareth bent to retrieve it and collapsed, shrouded in a cloud of his mother’s perfume. He pressed palms to damp eyes and heard the repeated boarding call.

Eris did not exist. Before her eyes, her fingers flexed, tools and weapons of another lifetime. The hour had come to disappear; yet she sat in darkness rooted to her swivel chair. Through the polished glass touch-top, she watched the pulsing green status light and resisted the temptation to boot the machine and follow the plan.

For four years, she had spent every night in this room while her skin turned sallow and her bank account grew fat. She was irreplaceable. Eris snorted remembering her mother’s snide comment, “When you’re done with all this education, the only thing you’ll be qualified to do, is teach!” The Committee thought otherwise, and she was heavily recruited.

She had perfected the algorithm the second year; anonymous partners parsing while she slept. Those were the honeymoon days, flowing wine and conversation. But then the negotiations began. The Committee grew, and disagreements led to silence and silenced. She fed the heuristics from their printed words on slips of blue and red.

Yesterday The Chair had signed off on the release. Tonight Eris had discovered the error. Three months of testing pleased The Committee, each member satisfied. Most had required cleansing. All were coached on maintenance. Their enemies remained unnamed, but she saw them rise in red as she fed the words into the machine.

Minos III was scheduled for silent launch tomorrow as an innocuous function of the world’s most popular search engine. The spiders had been crawling for decades, and she knew what would happen when people discovered the link. Her models showed early trending identities, Hitler and Elvis, Mother Theresa and Madonna. Embedded in code and human consciousness, consensus seducing trust and wet recursion.

Within hours, the apps would appear and memes would build. Who’s your celebrity soul mate? Are you more generous than your boss? Are you dating a scumbag? Is your mom a serial killer? Within days, investigations would launch, marriages would end and the cleansing business would breathe new life.

Public information fueled the engine. Teachers taught them to create and publish. Employers promoted transparency. Friends and family connected and shared. Lifestreams. The algorithm was less complex than she led The Committee to believe. Even the voice and facial recognition gave little difficulty, driven by data from her dissertations and studies of facial muscle underlying human expressions. She had adopted sophisticated translators from open source projects and fed her challenges to the support community.

She was not the judge. Minos III meted at The Committee’s command. Real code held and she had no regrets. As new information entered the system, humanities remained consistent. She had tested with names of those she knew, not just the powerful and their enemies. Her favorite professor ranked with intelligence, compassion and humor. Her college roommate displayed a mean streak, political inconsistencies and poor health. She knew they had not been cleansed.

Manual testing had ended months ago, and she should never have discovered the error. Tonight she had been surfing and the image caught her attention. His hair was now white, but the face was unforgettable. He held a child on his lap, and his smile seemed genuine, sincere, and innocent. But she knew that smile. She had been that child. She entered him into the engine and revealed his humanity. Minos III labeled him a philanthropist with deep religious values, generous, affectionate and an optimist.

She looked again at his face, and knew where she had erred. The muscle was easy to overlook, but she had assigned the code early in the development. It was a simple switch. On/Off. Good/Evil. Done. She had sighed and lifted the signed release, ready to move on, to disappear. Before shutting down for the last time, she tried one more search, and then another, heads of state, high school buddies, talk show hosts and sports heroes.

She tested her models and witnessed the results in horror. But horror led to resolve and conviction. Eris knew she was right, and right was all she had left. She was clean. She no longer existed. The island awaited and she was prepared. She set the alarms and walked away from the bunker.