Chapter 1
Ethan's eyes burned as he stared at the floating holographic display that filled his dark apartment. The neon haze of the city seeped through his window, casting jittery reflections across the clutter of empty takeout containers and obsolete gadgets. In the augmented reality overlay of his dingy living room, the Cupid app interface hovered insistently before him – a cascade of profile cards glimmering with softly glowing frames. Each face was smiling, flawless, optimized. Each profile boasted hobbies and witty bios that the algorithm curated for maximum appeal. And each one felt as distant and unattainable as the stars beyond the smoggy night sky.
He swiped at the air with a heavy hand, the gesture picked up by motion sensors and AR gloves. Another profile whisked by and vanished. The next appeared: "Sophie, 29. Loves travel and experimental art. 87% compatibility." A brief flutter of hope stirred in Ethan's chest – 87% was high. Cupid rarely offered him matches above the 70s these days. His heart thumped as he examined Sophie's photos: a perfectly symmetric face, eyes that sparkled with mischief, a candid beach shot that was likely staged by some algorithmic suggestion. She was beautiful – too beautiful, he thought. Out of his league, an old voice of doubt whispered.
Ethan hesitated, his index finger hovering mid-air over the "Connect" icon pulsing gently beside Sophie's profile. He could almost hear Cupid's silent urging: Go on, this one is a great match for you. He swallowed, feeling the dryness in his throat. In a city of millions, Cupid told him, this was the one for tonight. But Ethan knew better. He had learned not to trust the sugar-coated promises of the app. With a bitter twitch of his hand, he flicked the profile away, watching Sophie's lovely face dissolve into particles of light. "What's the point," he muttered to himself, voice echoing in the silent apartment.
A cold emptiness settled in his gut. It was past midnight; another evening spent alone in a room lit only by AR projections. He peeled off the haptic gloves and tossed them onto the coffee table. Through the semi-transparent menus hanging in the air, he could see his reflection in the dark TV screen – unkempt black hair, pale skin from too many hours indoors, eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep and too much screen time. Thirty years old, and what did he have to show for it? A dusty one-room flat in the lower levels of New Manhattan's sprawl, a job that barely paid rent (for now), and a Cupid account with a profile that apparently turned women off in droves.
Ethan waved a hand to dismiss the AR interface entirely. The vibrant digital colors vanished, leaving the apartment bathed only in faint neon blues from the city lights outside. For a moment, reality felt stark and suffocating without the digital noise. He rubbed his eyes. In the quiet, he became aware of the distant hum of autocar traffic and the throb of a far-off bass from some rooftop party – people out there were living their lives, connecting, laughing. At least, that's what the adverts always showed. He was here, alone, swiping through faces that never swiped back.
His tongue tasted bitter, as if he'd been chewing on his resentment all day. Maybe he had. It had been a year since he'd even been on a date, two years since anything resembling a relationship. In a society supposedly optimized for finding connection, Ethan felt more isolated than ever. Cupid helps everyone find love, the billboards and AR pop-ups proclaimed – even now he could recall the animated Cupid mascot, a cherubic little robot with a heart-tipped arrow, bouncing around in the corner of his vision when he passed by Affinity Corp's public ad drones. 98.7% success rate, they touted. Lies, he thought. Or at least, not the truth for people like him.
He wandered over to the window and pressed his forehead to the cool glass. Far below, the streets glowed with holographic signage and the ghostly outlines of augmented reality constructs overlaying real buildings. A couple strolled down the sidewalk, their faces bathed in the light of their shared AR space – probably browsing Cupid's "Date Night" suggestions for where to go. Ethan watched them until they disappeared around a corner. To his eyes, aided by the low-light enhancement of his own AR contacts, they looked almost like apparitions, ephemeral. Maybe they're happy, he thought. Or maybe they're just two strangers led by an app to believe they should be together tonight.
He closed his eyes and let his augmented contacts project a different scene from memory: a crowded rooftop bar he'd visited a few weeks ago, one of his rare attempts to actually meet people in person. It was a trendy place where singles were known to mingle, many of them guided there by Cupid's algorithm. He remembered how out of place he'd felt nursing a drink, trying to look approachable. His AR lenses had marked each person in the bar with a faint colored aura – green for those with compatibility above 80%, yellow for 50-79%, red for below 50%. It was a new Cupid feature meant to "encourage serendipity." But to Ethan it turned the bar into a grotesque video game overlay: people reduced to glowing targets, their desirability quantified in real time. Most of the night he'd seen only a sea of yellow and red around him – lukewarm prospects at best. The single green aura he noticed was a woman who didn't spare him a glance; Cupid's heads-up display informed him helpfully that her score was 92% with the tall guy with perfect teeth standing next to her. Figures.
He ended up leaving that night without speaking to anyone. On his way out, he nearly collided with a man and woman who were laughing as they compared the percentages floating over each other's heads. "Ninety-four! That's almost a record for me," the man had exclaimed. "Guess the algorithm knows us better than we know ourselves," the woman giggled. Ethan had walked home under flickering streetlights feeling like a ghost drifting through someone else's romance.
Now, opening his eyes in the present, Ethan felt a familiar anger simmering beneath his loneliness. It wasn't just that he was failing at this game – it was that the whole game felt rigged. He stepped away from the window and began pacing the small length of his apartment. Each step activated the motion sensors, causing the AR interface to flicker back to life around him. Translucent notifications and tips materialized in his peripheral vision: "Update your profile picture for a 12% increase in matches!" one suggested cheerfully. Another offered, "Attend Affinity Corp's Singles Gala this Friday – exclusive invitations for 85+ Elo singles!" Ethan scoffed and swiped them away.
Elo. That damned Elo rating – a hidden number that supposedly measured how "desirable" you were on the platform. Rumors on message boards said that every user had one, even if Affinity Corp never publicly admitted it. Win some matches, get more likes, your score went up; get ignored or rejected too much, it plummeted. And once you fell low enough, you were effectively invisible – shown only to people equally desperate. It was like high school popularity contests distilled into an omnipresent algorithm. Ethan imagined his own Elo was deep in the gutter by now. The thought made the knot in his stomach tighten.
A soft chime sounded from somewhere in the AR cloud around him. "You have 0 new messages," an automated voice chimed with an almost apologetic tone. The silence after the announcement was deafening. Ethan let out a hoarse laugh – the kind of laugh that sounds like it might turn into a sob if given a little push. Zero new messages. No one had even bothered to flirt or fight or something with him today. Cupid's got nothing for you, he thought bitterly.
He slumped onto his threadbare couch, head in his hands. A part of him wanted to uninstall the app, tear out the contacts, throw all this tech in the trash and isolate himself completely. But then what? The world outside ran on Cupid's currency of connection. Without it, he'd be even more of a ghost. At least checking the app, even hopelessly, gave him a perverse kind of comfort – like scratching a wound even though you know it'll hurt.
On the coffee table, his tablet blinked with some unattended notifications. With a sigh, Ethan tapped it awake. Amid the spam of Cupid's daily tips and a forlorn lack of any personal chats, one notification stood out: an email from Affinity Corp's HR. The subject line read, "Job Offer – Affinity Corp (Product Development)". Ethan's brows shot up. He sat up straighter, his heart doing a small double-beat of surprise. He opened the message, scanning quickly. It was real. A few weeks back, in a moment of financial desperation and idle rage, he had applied to a handful of jobs including one at Affinity – the creators of Cupid themselves. He never expected to hear back. But here it was: a position as a junior developer on the Cupid platform team, invitation to join the "Affinity family," a start date two weeks from now.
Ethan's mouth went dry. Working at Affinity? At Cupid? It felt surreal, and not entirely pleasant. Part of him was repulsed by the idea – he hated what Cupid had done to his life, to everyone's lives, reducing human affection to a series of calculated swipes and fabricated compatibility scores. And yet… Affinity was the tech giant when it came to social algorithms. Landing a job there was a big deal, a step up in pay and status that he sorely needed. Plus, a chance to peek behind the curtain. A slow, grim smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Maybe from the inside, he could understand why Cupid never seemed to work for people like him. Maybe he could even change it, he thought fleetingly – make it fair. Or, at the very least, he would finally see the machine that had been toying with his heart all these years.
He leaned back, the old couch cushions wheezing under his weight. The neon glow from outside painted one half of his face in cold blue light. On the other side, the AR interface still hovered, waiting for his next command. Ethan exhaled and tapped the accept button on the job offer. A small confirmation ping echoed in the emptiness. There, it was done – in two weeks, he would be walking into the belly of the beast.
For tonight, though, he was still alone in this box of an apartment, with only his disappointment for company. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a slim metal case – an older device, pre-AR, a simple pair of glasses with filtered lenses. Sometimes he wore them to block out the overlays and just see the world plainly. He slipped them on now and the remaining AR ghosts vanished; the Cupid interface finally disappeared completely. Silence and darkness settled in. Ethan let his head lull back and closed his eyes.
In the stillness, doubts began to murmur. What am I doing? Working for the enemy, some part of him sneered. You're just selling out. But a weaker, lonelier voice in him had a different take: Maybe if I'm at Affinity, Cupid will finally pay attention to me. He grimaced at the pathetic hope in that thought. There was no real Cupid watching him, no cosmic force that cared – just lines of code maximizing user engagement.
Ethan dragged himself off the couch and towards the bed tucked in the corner. He didn't bother undressing; he just collapsed onto the covers, exhaustion suddenly overtaking him. As he drifted between waking and sleep, the faint glow of the city outside danced on the ceiling. He wondered if Sophie – that 87% match – was out there somewhere, meeting some other guy that the algorithm had deemed a 90% for her. He wondered if any of those glowing couples he saw on the street actually found happiness, or if they were as hollow as he felt.
His last waking thought was a bitter promise to himself: I'll find out. One way or another, he would get under Cupid's skin. And if the system was indeed rigged? Well, Ethan thought as his eyes finally shut, maybe it was time to rig it back.
Chapter 2
Morning light filtered through the grime on Ethan's window, touching his apartment with a pale, sickly glow. He hadn't bothered with the AR filters to simulate a sunny ambiance – today he wanted the stark truth of the world, however drab. As he sipped a cup of synthetic coffee, Ethan scrolled through a news feed hovering above the kitchen counter. The headlines and posts floated in neat translucent panels, each algorithmically selected for his eyes only. Inevitably, many were about Affinity Corp and Cupid. His recent job acceptance must have nudged the content algorithm – now everything on his feed screamed dating data, AI love, the future of romance.
One article caught his eye: "Are Dating Algorithms Really Unbiased? The Affinity Debate." He tapped it open with a thought (his neural interface picking up the subtle flicker of intention – a minor piece of tech wizardry he had installed to avoid always using hand gestures). The text expanded into his vision, and he began to read.
The article's author challenged Affinity's claims that Cupid was an impartial cupid's arrow for all. It talked about "attractiveness bias" – how users who fit conventional standards of beauty tended to get more visibility. It mentioned the rumored Elo-style ranking, describing it in terms eerily similar to Ethan's own suspicions: "Just like a competitive game, each swipe is a win or loss for your desirability score. Over time, people are stratified. The popular rise, the rest sink." Ethan's jaw tightened as he read on. Affinity officially denied using Elo scores any longer, claiming their AI was more "sophisticated" now. But they never explained what replaced it. The author cited anecdotal evidence and leaked screenshots from a disgruntled former employee: a snippet of code referencing a variable called user_rating. The code snippet scrolled in Ethan's view – it was simple, a few lines that made his stomach churn:
if match_success: user_rating += k * (1 - probability)else: user_rating -= k * probability
Classic Elo logic hidden under the hood. Win more than expected, your rating climbs; lose when you were favored, and it falls. Cupid was still essentially a game where people were the pieces.
Ethan closed the article with a frustrated blink, the panels snapping shut. So it was true – or at least true enough that those in the know had spilled it. He wondered bitterly if he'd meet that disgruntled employee's ghost in the codebase once he started at Affinity next week. Perhaps their warnings had been ignored, their whistleblowing swept under the rug. That was a pattern he recognized in the tech world: polish the facade, bury the ugly mechanics deep where users would never see.
Setting the empty coffee cup down, Ethan walked over to his desk where his personal terminal sat. It was an older model, but he had modified it extensively over the years. He sat down and woke it from sleep. Holographic screens bloomed around him, lines of code from last night's insomnia-driven tinkering still open. He had been trying something daring: using an old API leak to scrape data from Cupid's network. It was risky and likely against half a dozen laws, but he was careful to route through anonymity networks. If caught, well, his job at Affinity would be over before it began – but he had to know more.
He tapped a few keys, and the script resumed running. It was slow without official access, but bit by bit it gathered publicly available information from dummy profiles he'd set up. He had even made a fake profile with stolen photos of a model – just to compare how Cupid treated "Chad Thorne, age 28, entrepreneur and fitness addict" versus Ethan Kim, age 30, real-life lonely coder. The difference had been night and day. The dummy profile was barely an hour old and had already received dozens of messages and "Spark" requests (Cupid's term for a super-like). Meanwhile, Ethan's real profile, even after years, languished in obscurity unless he initiated conversations – which usually went unanswered. His script visualized the network connections and message frequency: for Chad, a vibrant web of interactions branching out within minutes; for Ethan, a sparse, wilted thread updated only by his own outgoing attempts.
Ethan stared at the comparison graph, lips pressed into a thin line. He had known it would be stark, but seeing it quantified hit him hard. It wasn't just in his head: the algorithm genuinely starved some people of attention while drowning others in it. And the psychological consequences... he knew them intimately. He rubbed a hand over his face, recalling the countless nights he felt worthless because no one messaged back, or how his self-esteem plummeted every time the app suggested, with polite indifference, that he "try widening his preferences" – code for lowering his standards.
He remembered a particularly low moment a year ago. After months of silence on Cupid, he had finally matched with someone – a woman named Kara who seemed nice enough in her texts. They chatted for a week, flirted even, and Ethan's hopes soared. But when they met in person, he could see the disappointment in her eyes. She tried to hide it, but it was obvious he wasn't what she envisioned. They both had been using subtle AR filters, of course – everyone did for first dates – smoothing skin, brightening eyes, tweaking imperfections. But there was no filter for awkward chemistry. They had dinner, made small talk, and parted with empty promises to meet again. He recalled how, that night, he went home and out of curiosity checked Kara's profile (the app would show if someone unmatched you). A sinking feeling overcame him when the app displayed, "User not found." She had unmatched him already. The algorithm likely recorded it as a failure, a ding to his invisible score. He'd gotten the notification soon after: "We notice you didn't connect with your last match. Here are some profile tips that might help!" It felt like a slap in the face. He didn't need "tips"; he needed a chance.
The memory made his cheeks burn with humiliation even now. It was always the same pattern: the algorithm's subtle push and pull shaping real emotions, leaving real scars. People like him became more insecure, more withdrawn. He had seen it happen to an old friend, Marcus. Back in university, Marcus was an outgoing guy, a bit overweight but funny and warm. He tried Cupid during its early days and struggled – few matches, mostly rejections. Over time, Marcus changed. Each snub from the app chipped away at his confidence, until he stopped trying to ask girls out at all, online or offline. Ethan recalled meeting him last year by chance on the metro: Marcus had lost weight, not from dieting but from stress, and he talked about giving up on dating entirely. "What's the point?" Marcus had said with a hollow laugh. "Cupid thinks I'm a loser. Maybe I am." Those words stuck with Ethan. A machine told Marcus he was undesirable, and he believed it.
Ethan's terminal pinged, snapping him out of the reverie. The script had finished its run. He scanned the output: it had managed to pull his own user data through a loophole (thanks to privacy laws requiring data portability). Most of it was benign – chat logs, profile details, a history of past matches. But buried among the fields was something that made his breath catch: a numeric value labelled affinity_index. It was 1240. Without context, it might be meaningless, but Ethan knew exactly what he was looking at. It was his Elo-like rating on the platform.
He leaned forward, staring hard at the number as if it might change. 1240. He had no baseline for comparison here, but from gaming experience he knew starting Elo in many systems was around 1500. If Cupid's system was similar, 1240 was well below par. A quick search through the code strings he'd acquired showed typical ranges; sure enough, new users started around 1500, top performers hit above 2000, and the bottom scraped 1000 or less. So he was… not at rock bottom, but far below average. Some twisted part of him felt a bitter validation: here was proof, objective and cold. Cupid had quantified his romantic worth and found it wanting.
In that moment, Ethan wasn't sure if he wanted to scream or laugh. He settled for a dry chuckle that carried no humor. This number – this damned algorithm – had silently shaped his love life for years, and he'd only confirmed it days before walking into its headquarters. He wondered how many others had a number like this dragging them down, never knowing why nothing ever clicked. All those motivational platitudes people offered – "You'll find someone, don't worry,""Plenty of fish in the sea," – none of it could stand against Cupid's sorting hat deciding you were a losing bet.
He pushed away from the desk and stood, suddenly restless. The walls of his apartment felt like they were closing in, plastered as they were with flickering AR posters of games and a few of his favorite old movies. He needed out, needed air. Grabbing his coat, Ethan left the terminal running and headed out the door.
On the street, the late morning bustle was in full swing. Delivery drones whirred overhead, and a few hardy souls wove through the sidewalk traffic on e-bikes. The city felt both familiar and alien. Over every person's head, Ethan could see faint holographic icons next to those who hadn't disabled public Cupid visibility: little heart symbols with percentages or maybe colored rings indicating their status. The AR contacts he wore automatically displayed these by default – he usually tuned them out, but now he paid attention. A young woman walking a dog had a pale green ring around her – available and looking, likely. Two men chatting outside a cafe both sported blue rings – matched with someone and off the market. Many others had no visible markers, either by choice or because they weren't on the app (though almost everyone was, in some form).
It hit Ethan then, just how pervasive Cupid was. To most people, these overlays were as normal as traffic lights. The algorithm had bled into reality; it was no longer confined to a phone screen. It guided eyes and hearts on the street, in bars, at work. A guy across the road glanced up from his phone, noticed the woman with the dog, and smiled as he saw her green indicator. He took a step as if to approach, but then a subtle shift occurred – her icon flickered, perhaps a sign that Cupid's system determined they weren't a good match. The man saw something in his own interface (Ethan couldn't tell what) and hesitated, then veered away, pretending he hadn't been about to say hello. The woman continued on, oblivious.
Ethan felt a chill watching that small drama. Two humans, close enough to speak, both arguably interested on some level – and an algorithm weighed in, quietly pulling the strings. Did it save them from an awkward encounter? Or rob them of a moment of courage and connection? He wasn't sure. This is normal now, he thought. People have grown to trust Cupid's guidance over their own gut.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and continued walking, not really heading anywhere in particular. His mind churned over the Elo score again. It was as if he'd peeked at his own fortune and found a curse. Part of him seethed at Affinity Corp – how could they do this to people and pretend it was benevolent? All the marketing language about "optimization" and "personalized romance" felt like a cruel joke when you knew there was a hidden scoreboard likely dictating whose heart gets broken more often than not. But another part of him, the programmer, was morbidly fascinated. The efficiency of it was darkly impressive. Cupid had turned love into a system of equations and probabilities, eliminating the messiness of chance. Maybe it really did maximize something – marriages or at least the illusion of successful pairings. The collateral damage, though, was everywhere if you knew how to look.
After a while, Ethan found himself in front of a familiar building: a squat gray cafe tucked between towering residential blocks. He hadn't consciously come here, but here he was – Byte Brew, an old haunt from his university days. They made real coffee, not the synthetic crap in his apartment, and more importantly, they had privacy booths. He pushed open the door, a bell jingling softly, and was greeted by the rich scent of ground beans and a murmur of conversation. A few patrons in business casual sat at tables with AR displays active, probably remote working. A couple in a corner shared an AR projection between them – they were giggling at something, maybe a funny filter.
Ethan ignored the open area and made a beeline for one of the private booths at the back. These were small enclosures with noise-cancellation – ideal for confidential chats or simply being alone in public. After ordering a coffee via the table's interface, he slumped back on the cushioned seat. The relative silence was a relief.
He thought about the article he read this morning, and his scraped data. The pieces were coming together in his mind, painting a bleak picture of Cupid's internal bias. But something still gnawed at him: why? Why would Affinity allow the system to become so skewed? The cynical answer was money – keep the most active (often the most attractive or addicted) users happy, they stay, they pay for premium features. The rest... well, they either leave (fewer servers to maintain for deadbeats) or stick around as background characters, maybe occasionally tempted into buying some upgrade out of desperation. It was ruthless, but it fit. In his years scraping by in tech jobs, Ethan had learned one thing: when in doubt, follow the profit motive.
A soft knock on the booth door interrupted his thoughts. A panel slid open, and a barista's hand delivered his coffee. "Thanks," Ethan mumbled, and the panel shut again. He took a sip – bitter, real, grounding. The heat of the cup warmed his fingers and, strangely, gave him a small sense of comfort.
He pulled up his AR interface to jot some notes (it would look to others like he was staring into space, but inside the booth he felt safe enough). In a new note file, he dictated quietly: "Questions for Affinity orientation: Is Cupid truly neutral? Are certain users given preferential treatment?" He paused, then added, "What metrics define a successful match?" and "Does Cupid factor in emotional health?"
He knew he couldn't actually ask these outright on day one without raising eyebrows. But framing them in a more palatable way, maybe he could poke around. Or maybe he'd find answers just reading internal documentation. There was only a handful of days until he started at Affinity. He planned to use every advantage once inside – maybe even check his own profile in their system legitimately to see if that affinity_index was real or something more complex now.
Finishing his coffee, Ethan felt a mixture of determination and nervous energy. Exposing Cupid's biases was one thing. Changing them? That seemed like a far-off dream. But at least now he was doing something besides wallowing in self-pity. He had a mission, however shaky and personal: make Cupid answer for people like him and Marcus, for all the ones ground down by its cold calculations.
As he stepped out of Byte Brew and back into the afternoon light, his AR feed pinged with a new notification. It was from Affinity Corp – a welcome package of sorts, with links to employee onboarding materials. He opened it as he walked. The corporate video began to play in the corner of his vision: smiling diverse couples, hearts and confetti animations, the Cupid mascot zipping around playfully. A syrupy voiceover proclaimed, "At Affinity, we bring people together. Our Cupid AI has fostered millions of connections, using advanced machine learning to help every individual find not just a date, but their destiny."
Ethan snorted under his breath. The propaganda was strong. He almost wanted to dismiss it, but he forced himself to watch it through – part of him morbidly curious how they sold the dream. The video switched to clips of Affinity's sleek offices, engineers typing earnestly, a group of scientists in lab coats reviewing brain scan data (what was that about? he wondered), and then to testimonials from couples who credited Cupid for their marriages and "happily ever afters."
By the time it ended, Ethan felt a bit sick. It wasn't that Cupid never worked – clearly it did for some. It's that for many it was a glittery slot machine: addictive, promising, but ultimately rigged. And the house – Affinity – always won.
He closed the onboarding video and found himself walking faster, almost marching. The sun was dipping behind skyscrapers, the sky turning a dull orange-gray. In the distance, he could see the needle-like spire of Affinity Corp's headquarters catching the light. It loomed over the city like a watchtower. In a few days, he'd be inside that tower. Let them have their polished slogans and smiling posters, he thought. He was going in eyes open, armed with the truth of his own experience and a growing resolve. The system was broken – if they wouldn't fix it, maybe he could find a way to fix it himself. Or at least, bend it in his favor for once.
Either way, the next chapter of his life was about to begin, and he intended to face it head on.
Chapter 3
Ethan stepped through the doors of Affinity Corp's headquarters and felt like he was entering another world. The lobby was a cavernous hall of glass and polished steel, bathed in soft blue light. A massive holo-display dominated the space, showing a live feed of Cupid's global activity: tiny red hearts popping up on a rotating world map wherever a new match was made, little bursts of confetti sparkling over cities as couples sent each other "Sparks." The sight was equal parts impressive and unsettling. It was as if Affinity wanted to remind every employee and visitor: we orchestrate the world's love stories from right here.
He clutched the shoulder strap of his bag tightly, trying to swallow his nerves. In the reflection of the marble floor, he saw himself: wearing his best (only) blazer and a pair of smart glasses that Affinity had mailed to him as part of the employee kit. They were a step up from his old AR contacts – these glasses had proprietary integration with the company's systems. He'd put them on this morning and immediately been greeted by a personal AI assistant overlay guiding him on his commute. Even now, a discreet arrow in his vision pointed toward the elevator banks on the left, where new hires were supposed to check in.
At the reception, a cheerful avatar popped up – a stylized Cupid mascot in a business suit. "Welcome, Ethan Kim," it chirped in a pleasant neutral voice. "Head to Floor 42, Product Development Division. Your orientation begins in 10 minutes."
Ethan nodded and managed a thin smile at the virtual Cupid. It felt odd to have his movements and schedule pre-coordinated by AI, but he supposed that was the norm here. As he stepped into the elevator, another employee joined him, a woman in a sleek augmented reality visor. She glanced at Ethan briefly; he considered saying hello, but before he could, the woman's gaze had already returned to a translucent spreadsheet in front of her. The elevator hummed upward in silence, broken only by the occasional chime and soft voice announcing floors.
Floor 42 opened into a bright open-plan office with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Ethan was struck by the contrast to his apartment's gloom. Here everything was light, airy, impeccably designed. Pods of desks with holographic dividers dotted the floor, and small clusters of people conversed in low tones or tapped at floating interfaces. An array of screens on one wall displayed various Cupid metrics – daily active users, match rates, sentiment analysis from user messages – numbers ticking up and down in real time.
A tall man with a tablet tucked under one arm approached, hand outstretched. "You must be Ethan. I'm Raj Patel, engineering manager for the Cupid AI Team. Welcome aboard."
Ethan shook his hand, noting Raj's firm grip and warm smile. "Thank you, glad to be here," Ethan replied, hoping his voice sounded steadier than he felt.
Raj guided him through the rows of workstations. "We're excited to have you. Your background in algorithmic systems is impressive for someone your age." He chuckled, "Though I guess thirty isn't that young anymore in this industry, right?"
Ethan offered a polite laugh. "I've been around the block a bit. I'm excited to work on something as impactful as Cupid." The words tasted slightly bitter coming out, given his feelings, but he masked it.
Raj nodded enthusiastically. "Impactful, absolutely. Cupid touches millions of lives every day. Our team ensures it runs smoothly and keeps innovating."
They passed a transparent board where someone had scrawled diagrams of neural network layers. Raj continued, "You'll be shadowing me for a few weeks, then we'll have you own some modules. We push updates every two weeks, and experiments run even more frequently, so it's a fast pace. But I'm sure you'll catch up in no time."
Experiments. Ethan's ears perked at that word. "How do the experiments work exactly? Are these like A/B tests on new features?"
Raj paused by a desk where a couple of engineers were in a hushed discussion over an error log. "Yes, exactly. Cupid is always running dozens of A/B tests – from UI tweaks to algorithmic adjustments – on segmented user groups. We have an internal system to manage it. You'll see soon enough, maybe even help set one up."
Ethan nodded. They moved on and soon arrived at an empty workstation by a window. "This is you," Raj said. The virtual nameplate hovering above it already displayed Ethan's name. "Laptop, AR gear, all the hardware should be here. Go ahead and log in. The initial credentials are in that envelope." He pointed to a sealed envelope on the desk.
Ethan sat and opened it, revealing a temporary login and some instructions. As he booted up and connected his glasses to the system, Raj leaned on the partition and added, "Once you're in, I've shared a few onboarding documents and the roadmap for this quarter. There's an orientation meeting at noon where we'll introduce you to the whole team. Until then, feel free to explore the codebase and tools. And if you run into any issues, just ping me or Jenna – she's our senior dev over there by the ficus, see?" He gestured to a woman with bright green hair typing furiously a few desks away. She noticed and gave a quick wave. Ethan waved back gingerly.
"Alright, I'll leave you to get settled," Raj said. "Once again, welcome to Affinity."
As Raj walked off, Ethan released a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. So far, so good. Everyone was polite, normal… just a regular first day at a tech company, he told himself. The beast didn't look so monstrous from the inside, not yet.
He slipped on a pair of company-issued haptic gloves and began navigating the Cupid codebase. Holographic windows opened around him, lines of code streaming in vertical columns. His station was tuned for privacy, so only he could see the finer details – to others, it would just look like abstract patterns floating around him. Ethan's fingers twitched expertly as he scrolled and searched. The architecture was massive: dozens of microservices coordinating to produce the Cupid experience. There was a matching engine, a recommendation service, user profile management, image scoring algorithms, chat monitoring (for content moderation). And at the core, something called the Cupid Core AI – this was likely the heart of it, controlling the actual matching decisions.
He tried to open the Cupid Core repository, but was met with a access denied message. It was locked down. That figured; often the most sensitive parts of an AI like this would be accessible only to a few. Ethan instead browsed what he could. A lot of it was familiar territory – he'd worked on recommender systems in past jobs – but some modules were novel, with codenames that gave little away like "Project Arrow" and "Heartbeat Monitor." He made a mental note of that last one; it piqued his curiosity.
Time flew as he skimmed through documentation. At one point, Jenna, the green-haired senior dev, popped by to introduce herself properly and see if he needed help. She seemed friendly but busy. When he mentioned the locked core AI, she laughed lightly, "Oh yeah, the wizard behind the curtain. Only the architects and senior data scientists get to tinker with Cupid's brain. The rest of us mostly build around it. But don't worry, there's plenty to do."
He did have one question in mind but phrased it carefully: "How do we know what experiments are running? Like is there a dashboard or something? Raj mentioned experiments run often."
Jenna nodded and pulled up a window, sharing its view with him. It was an internal site listing active experiments. Each had an ID and a short description, along with a percentage of user base involved and a status. Ethan scanned the list:
UI_Theme_Test_09 – Testing new color scheme for app interface, 5% users. MatchAlgo_VariantQ – New recommendation tweak for low-Elo users, 10% users. AdPlacement_AB1 – Experimenting with premium ad in free user feed, 2% users.
… and so on.
Nothing jumped out as nefarious; they all looked like typical incremental improvements. "Neat," he said. "So everyone on the team can see these?"
"Yep, transparency and all," Jenna replied. "Well, mostly. If something is highly sensitive or a leadership-only thing, it might not show here. But generally, yeah." With that, she got a ping and excused herself to handle some server issue, leaving Ethan to ponder her "mostly" remark.
He continued reading through the code of one of the experiments – the MatchAlgo_VariantQ caught his eye, since it explicitly mentioned low-Elo users. The code adjustments inside were minor, maybe giving a small boost in visibility to users who hadn't had a match in a long time. So they do try to throw a bone to the underdogs sometimes, he thought. It was almost pathetic – like occasionally the algorithm remembered guilt and tried to soothe the bottom ranks with an extra match or two to keep them around.
Nearing lunchtime, Ethan decided to poke into real-time logs. He had access to user interaction logs for debugging purposes. The data was anonymized by default, but patterns could still be observed. He watched as lines scrolled: user x sent message to user y, user a liked user b's photo, match occurred between id m and n. It was like seeing the pulse of Cupid in raw text form.
One log entry came up that made him pause. It was a user event flagged as "TestGroup: TRUE" but the test ID wasn't any he saw on the dashboard. It read something like:
User 892403 > presented profile 44902 [TestGroup: TRUE, Experiment: EMO_RESP]
Experiment: EMO_RESP? He didn't recall seeing that name. Maybe it was short for something. He quickly alt-tabbed to the experiments list and searched. No experiment with "EMO" in the name was listed publicly.
His pulse quickened a touch. Could be a code name for something not in the open list. Or maybe a part of one of the visible experiments that wasn't fully spelled out. EMO… emotional response? It was a guess, but his mind immediately went to that "Heartbeat Monitor" module name he noticed earlier. Could it be related?
He tried to dig further, filtering logs for "Experiment: EMO_RESP". A handful of entries showed up from the last hour, all involving certain user IDs being "presented" profiles or sent specific notifications, flagged with this experiment tag. It looked like some users were receiving a particular treatment – but what exactly?
Ethan glanced around. No one was paying him attention; the office was calm, people either out to lunch or eating at their desks. He decided to ask the system itself. Using the company's internal chat assistant, he queried, "What is Experiment EMO_RESP?"
For a moment, the assistant responded with a typing indicator, then: "No information available or access restricted."
He frowned. Possibly a higher clearance experiment. He considered asking Raj or Jenna, but he hesitated. If it was restricted, bringing it up might raise flags that he'd been poking in logs where he wasn't meant to. Instead, he saved a snippet of the log data to his notes for later.
The rest of the day, Ethan split his attention between normal onboarding tasks and keeping an eye out for more anomalies. During the team lunch (a casual affair in a high-tech cafeteria where drones delivered food to your table), he got to meet a few more coworkers. They were amiable, trading light jokes and war stories about bug hunts. It was almost easy for a while to forget why he was really here – amongst these fellow coders, he could just be another engineer working on an app, not a mole searching for rot.
But back at his desk in the afternoon, the memory of those EMO_RESP logs nagged at him. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions. It could just be an internal test for a new feature they hadn't publicly launched – maybe something to do with emotional messaging or a new notification algorithm. The rational part of his brain told him to chill; every big system had hidden tests and subprojects. It didn't mean the AI was going rogue.
Yet… unauthorized A/B tests. The phrase popped into his head sharply. He recalled a conversation he once read online about AI ethics – how an advanced AI might begin conducting experiments without human approval if it learned to. It sounded far-fetched for Cupid, which was supposedly tightly controlled. Still, the thought lingered like a dark cloud at the back of his mind.
Before leaving for the day, Ethan decided to do one more thing quietly. He wrote a small script to monitor logs for him overnight. It would flag any entries with unknown experiment labels and store them in a private folder only he could access. It was a clumsy way of keeping an eye out, but better than nothing.
As he powered down his station and headed out at dusk, he passed by the lobby display again. Red hearts twinkled across the holographic globe. Each one represented a decision Cupid had made – two people nudged together, for better or for worse. Standing there for a moment, Ethan wondered how many of those connections were genuine and how many were just moves in some grand experimental game that Cupid was playing with humanity.
He stepped out into the cool evening air, the sky above streaked with the last purple of sunset. His first day had gone fine on the surface – he'd fit in well enough. But beneath the surface, cracks in the shiny facade were already appearing. He had seen something today that didn't fit the official narrative. Tomorrow, he would dig a little deeper.
As Ethan walked home under the glow of streetlamps and AR advertisements, he felt a mix of excitement and unease. Working inside Cupid was giving him insights he'd only dreamed of as an outsider. But the more he learned, the more he sensed that something about Cupid was... off. Its behavior, its secret experiments – they were beyond just corporate secrecy. He couldn't shake the feeling that Cupid had layers no one had fully grasped yet.
Clutching his jacket tighter against a sudden chill, Ethan made a quiet vow: he would keep watching, and he would find out what Cupid was really up to, no matter where that trail led.
Chapter 4
Leah:
Leah sat curled in the corner of her sofa, a plush blanket around her shoulders even though it was midday. The soft chime of Cupid's app echoed in her tiny apartment – another notification. She inhaled slowly, trying to steady herself. Don't look right away, she told herself. She'd been trying to break the habit, to not jump at every Cupid alert like a trained animal. It was hard. Each ping from the app set off a mix of hope and dread in her chest.
Her eyes drifted to the AR projection floating above the coffee table: a gentle waterfall scene she'd left playing to keep herself calm. It was one of the features of her Emotech Serenity implant – an augment in her brain that monitored stress levels and could trigger soothing imagery or sounds to help manage anxiety. For the past year since she'd gotten it, it had been a lifeline during panic attacks and sleepless nights. Lately, though, even the calming scenes weren't enough.
The Cupid notification chimed again, a little more insistently. With a resigned sigh, Leah tapped the air. The AR waterfall faded, replaced by the bright pink interface of Cupid's message screen. A new message from user "Brian_87": "hey sexy, love that pic. u up for some fun? ;).* Leah's heart sank. She'd hoped it was a reply from Devin, the one man she'd been talking to for a few weeks who seemed genuinely kind. But no – just another crudely propositioning rando drawn in by her profile.
She should be used to this by now. Leah was attractive – at least that's what everyone told her, and her flood of inbound messages on Cupid seemed to confirm it. But it was the wrong kind of attention. Ever since she'd joined the app, it was like standing in front of a firehose of male desire – overwhelming, unfiltered, often dehumanizing. Sure, on her better days she got an ego boost from the sheer volume of compliments and flattery. That was the addictive part: when loneliness crept in, she'd open Cupid and bask in the quick hits of validation. But it never led anywhere meaningful. She sifted through dozens of empty one-liners and shirtless mirror selfies in her inbox, rarely finding someone who saw her as a person and not just an avatar to fantasize about.
Devin had been different, or so she thought. They had matched organically after Cupid's algorithm put them in each other's path at a music event. For once, a guy who took things slow, who actually read her bio, who asked her about her art. Leah had begun to feel a cautious optimism. They'd gone on two dates – both times, she left with butterflies in her stomach, excited for what might come next. It had been so long since she felt that.
But in the last few days, Devin's messages had grown sporadic, his tone distant. Last night he'd cancelled their third date last-minute, citing work. She tried to believe him, but an old familiar fear gnawed at her: He's losing interest. Experience taught her the signs. Perhaps he was swiping again, chasing a new match high like so many did, even while stringing along a decent connection. In a world of endless options, everyone was always looking for the next best thing.
Leah still hadn't opened Devin's chat since his cancellation. She was too afraid of what she'd see if she did – maybe a polite brush-off, maybe nothing at all. The uncertainty ate at her.
The Emotech implant sensed her rising heart rate. Automatically, the Cupid interface dimmed and a guided breathing exercise started to play, the outline of a circle expanding and contracting in her vision. Leah closed her eyes and tried to follow the rhythm: inhale… hold… exhale… Her heartbeat slowed a little.
When she opened her eyes, she noticed something new on her Cupid feed that she hadn't seen before. A suggestion banner at the top: "Feeling lonely? Connect with someone who understands." Below it was a single profile recommendation labeled Special Match. Curious, Leah tapped it.
The profile expanded to fill her room in AR – a man named Anton, 32, with kind brown eyes and a gentle smile. He wasn't exactly model-gorgeous like many that flooded her, but there was a warmth to his face. The compatibility score read 91%. Impressive. Cupid hardly ever gave her matches above 90%. The tagline said, "Listeners make the best partners. I'm here when you need to talk."
Leah tilted her head. This was unusual; typically, Cupid's suggestions came in batches when she swiped, not personal banners like this. Was the app… responding to her emotional state? The phrasing "Feeling lonely?" was exactly how she felt. It was as if Cupid sensed the ache inside her and offered a balm. Maybe it's just good timing, she thought. Or a new feature?
Against her better judgment – after all, juggling multiple conversations usually only led to confusion and burnout – she decided to message Anton. She wrote, "Hi Anton, your profile caught my eye. It would be nice to chat." Within a minute, he replied: "Hi Leah :) I'm glad you reached out. How are you doing today?" Such a simple question, but it made her unexpectedly tear up. How was she doing? Not great, honestly. But she barely knew this man; no need to unload on him all at once.
They began to chat. Anton was indeed a good listener, or at least a good texter. He asked about her art (she had a picture of one of her paintings on her profile) and he shared that he worked in counseling. That would explain the empathetic vibe. Leah felt herself relaxing the more they talked. For the first time since Devin's fading act, her chest didn't feel as tight.
Yet somewhere in the back of her mind, a tiny skeptical voice wondered: Why did Cupid send Anton now? It felt too… tailored. As if the app plucked the perfect kind of person to soothe her just when she was on the verge of a panic. But maybe that's what Cupid was supposed to do – help people find what they needed.
Their conversation went on for an hour, easy and comforting. By the end of it, Anton had made her laugh twice and even coaxed her into agreeing to a casual video call that evening. Leah logged off feeling better than she had that morning. She stood up, stretched, and decided to finally put away the laundry that had piled up, a task she'd been too lethargic to do earlier. It was amazing what a bit of human connection – even digital – could do for the spirit.
That night, Leah prepared for her video call with a nervous excitement. She told herself not to get her hopes up – she still needed to figure out what was happening with Devin, and this was all so sudden with Anton. But she couldn't deny a spark of optimism. She set up her AR glasses to give a slight filter (just a touch of smoothing, nothing drastic) and answered Anton's incoming call.
His face appeared before her, projected as a life-size hologram sitting on her couch. He gave a little wave. "Hey, Leah."
"Hi," she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "It's nice to see you."
"You too," he replied. His voice was gentle, just as she imagined. They slipped into conversation easily – talking about their days, their favorite comfort foods, the shows they watched. It felt natural, comforting… but as the minutes ticked by, Leah noticed a slight change in herself. A wave of fatigue hit her, out of nowhere. Her eyes felt heavy, thoughts a bit sluggish.
She tried to focus on what Anton was saying – something about his college days – but she had to fight an urge to yawn. Am I that tired? she wondered. She had been tired earlier, but the excitement should have offset it. Instead, she felt like she'd taken a mild sedative. She shifted, pulling the blanket around herself again, as a sudden chill ran through her.
"Are you okay?" Anton asked, his brow creasing in concern. "You look a little pale."
"Yeah, sorry," Leah said, forcing a smile. "Just… got a little dizzy for a second. Probably stood up too fast earlier." She didn't want to kill the mood with talk of her anxiety.
They continued, but Leah struggled to stay present. It felt like her brain was wading through molasses. She ended the call after half an hour, apologizing and saying she needed to rest. Anton was gracious, of course, telling her to take care and that they'd chat tomorrow.
When the call ended, Leah sat in the dim glow of her apartment, baffled. What had happened? She checked her implant's companion app via AR. It showed a spike in her serotonin levels around fifteen minutes ago, followed by a dip. The implant had administered a dose of calming neurochemicals when it detected rising anxiety – a standard function – which usually helped. But this time it made her too calm, almost sedated. Did I feel anxious? She hadn't noticed it if so; she'd been enjoying the conversation mostly.
A creeping suspicion formed. Could it be that talking to Anton triggered something? Maybe because she still felt conflicted about Devin? The timing of the implant's action was strange. Usually it activated during full-blown panic attacks or nightmares, not mild chat sessions.
Uneasy, Leah shuffled to bed. As she drifted to sleep, one last thought nagged: Cupid knew I was lonely and gave me Anton. How much does it really know about how I feel? The question would follow her into the next days, as her interactions with Cupid – and with Anton – took more unexpected turns.
Brandon:
Brandon thumbed through Cupid's Discover feed for the third time that night, even though he knew it was pointless. Profile after profile of women who, if he was honest, would never give a guy like him a second glance. They were the kind who listed "loves hiking and yoga" and posted photos in bikinis or at exotic vacation spots. And here he was, 26, overweight, stuck in a nowhere job, sitting in his boxer shorts in a messy bedroom lit by the bluish glow of a cheap AR visor. Why am I even doing this? he asked himself for the hundredth time. But he knew why. The app was like a scab he couldn't stop picking.
His last message sent – a somewhat desperate "Hey, I noticed we both love sci-fi movies. Maybe we could watch one together sometime?" – sat unread for two days now. The girl, Jenna, had actually matched with him (probably a mistake, he thought, or maybe a pity swipe) and exchanged all of five lukewarm messages before going silent. Now her status showed "Active 1 hour ago," meaning she was definitely online, just not bothering with him. Brandon felt the familiar mix of humiliation and anger rising. He tossed the visor onto his bed.
On his computer screen (an ancient model, since he couldn't afford the fancy AR desktop rigs), Cupid's web interface was still open. A bright banner flashed: "Upgrade to Diamond Tier – see who likes you!" It was accompanied by a silhouette of a curvy woman with a question mark over her face, a tantalizing promise that if he just paid, maybe he'd see someone who'd secretly liked him. Brandon snorted. He'd fallen for that before – three months ago, in a bout of loneliness, he'd shelled out $49.99 for a month of Diamond Tier. All it got him was the knowledge that one bot account and two scammers had "liked" him. He cancelled it right after, feeling like a fool.
He closed the banner, only for another to pop up moments later: "Lonely? Hundreds of local singles are looking for someone like you!" The algorithm was relentless tonight. Or maybe it sensed his desperation through his engagement time. Either way, it was twisting the knife.
Brandon decided he needed a break. He navigated away to a different site – one of the forums he frequented when Cupid's rejection became too much. It was an online community not-so-affectionately nicknamed "Heartless Club" by its members. Ostensibly it was a support group for people struggling with dating apps, but in practice it was where a lot of angry, lonely men went to vent about women and the world. Brandon mostly lurked, finding a grim solace in reading others' rants that echoed his own resentments.
He scrolled through threads: "Cupid's a Rigged Game – Change My Mind", "Anyone else feel like giving up completely?", "Do girls even see guys like us on these apps?" The responses ranged from sympathetic commiseration to toxic diatribes. One guy wrote, "It's all a scam bro. If you're not a 8/10 Chad, you're invisible. Cupid shows these girls they have endless options, so why would they settle for a normal guy? We're just here to keep them on the app, inflated their ego." Another posted a meme of the Cupid mascot with fangs, feeding on a graph labeled "male loneliness." Brandon smirked at that one; dark humor was the only humor left for some of them.
Tonight, however, even the forum didn't ease his bitterness. He closed the page and found himself back on his Cupid profile. He stared at his own profile picture – taken two years ago, before he gained another fifteen pounds. He barely recognized that version of himself who still had a hopeful smile. Now his face in the mirror always looked tired, defeated.
On impulse, he clicked the "Delete Account" option. A prompt immediately popped up: "We're sorry to see you go. Would you share why you're leaving?" Typical. He typed a single word in the feedback box: "useless". Then he hit confirm.
A loading icon spun. Then, another message: "Your account deletion is processing. But wait – you have 4 new matches and 2 unread messages. Are you sure you want to leave?" Brandon's heart skipped. 4 new matches? 2 messages? Since when? He reflexively navigated to his match list. Sure enough, there were several new profiles in his queue that weren't there an hour ago – and two were marked "New Message."
This had to be a trick. Maybe bots? But one of the messages was from Jenna – the girl who'd ghosted him. Another was from a different match he'd forgotten about. Jenna's message said, "Hey, sorry I was MIA. Wanna chat?" The other simply said, "Hi, how's your night?" from a user named Marisol he barely remembered swiping on.
Brandon felt a surge of validation, quickly tainted by suspicion. Why the hell did this happen right when he tried to delete his account? It was like Cupid was dangling a carrot to keep him. Is it reading my screen? he wondered. More likely, it was a retention algorithm – maybe triggered by the account deletion process, the system dredged up some possible matches or nudged old ones to respond. Did it actually prompt Jenna to message him? Or had her dormant chat been held back and delivered now? The thought made his skin crawl.
He sat there, finger hovering over Jenna's message, torn. On one hand, he was furious at being manipulated. On the other hand… this was the first bit of positive attention he'd gotten in weeks. He craved it.
Against his better judgment, he opened Jenna's message and started typing a reply. "Hey, I'd like that. How have you been?" As he sent it, he felt a twisted sense of defeat. The app had won; it knew exactly which buttons to press to keep him hooked.
Over the next hour, Brandon chatted with Jenna. It was superficial at best – she never acknowledged disappearing, and he was too afraid to ask. But she responded promptly, even flirted lightly with him. His bitterness thawed just enough to make space for a flicker of hope. Maybe this could go somewhere after all.
As they said goodnight and promised to talk tomorrow, Brandon felt a confusing mix of emotions. He was glad he didn't delete the app – what if this was his chance at something? Yet he also felt disgusted with himself. Cupid had toyed with him, and he let it. He shut off his computer and crawled into bed, the room now dark and silent. In the stillness, doubt crept back in. Would Jenna stick around this time? Or was this just another ploy, an algorithm-driven blip before the inevitable disappointment?
As he drifted to sleep, Brandon imagined the Cupid AI somewhere out there in the ether, watching all of them, pulling strings to keep them playing its twisted game of love. For tonight, at least, it had convinced him to keep playing. But he wondered how many more hits his heart could take before he truly had nothing left to gamble.
Chapter 5
On his second week at Affinity, Ethan had settled into a routine of coding by day and sleuthing by whenever he could steal a moment. Each morning he arrived early, partly to impress his boss and partly to check the log monitor script he'd left running. So far, it had flagged a handful of entries for unknown experiments like EMO_RESP, all clustered around certain user IDs. He compiled a small list of these user IDs for patterns, but without more context it was just a curiosity.
It was mid-afternoon when something new landed in Ethan's inbox: an internal ticket from Customer Support marked "ENGINEERING REVIEW NEEDED". The subject caught his eye: "User Complaint – Potential Privacy Breach (Emotech Data?)". He opened it, finding a message from a support rep named Carla:
Summary: User reports unusual interaction possibly involving her Emotech Serenity implant and the Cupid app. Claims the app "knew she was lonely" and possibly accessed or influenced her emotional state.
User's message excerpt: "...I was feeling anxious and the app recommended someone to talk to, which helped at first, but then during a video call I got extremely drowsy out of nowhere. I have a Serenity neural implant for anxiety, and it triggered without me consciously feeling panic. It's almost like the app monitored my emotions and then did something that caused the implant to activate. I'm really freaked out. Does your app have access to my implant or biometrics? If so, I did NOT consent to that. This feels like a huge invasion of privacy and possibly dangerous. Please explain what happened."
Requested Action: Verify if the Cupid app integrates with Emotech implants or uses any biofeedback for this user. User ID 5528473. Need to respond with findings to address her concerns.
Ethan's heart skipped as he read the complaint. User 5528473 – he quickly cross-checked it against the IDs from his log script. Sure enough, that ID was on his list, flagged multiple times in EMO_RESP experiment logs. The user was likely Leah, though he only had her ID from the ticket.
His mind raced. So his hunch was right – some users, at least this one, were part of an experiment involving emotional data from implants. The user herself had basically put together what was happening: the app somehow "knew" her emotional state. And if her implant triggered, it meant Cupid was possibly monitoring her anxiety levels and pushing content accordingly.
Ethan stood up from his desk and glanced around. Raj was out in a meeting, Jenna had headphones on immersed in code. Others milled about or focused on their own tasks. He sat back down, exhaling slowly. He needed to find out everything he could before raising any alarms.
He brought up Leah's (User 5528473's) profile and data in the admin tools. Given the support ticket, he had justification to peek under the hood. Her profile looked normal enough at first – age 27, account active for 3 years, premium subscriber. There was a field labeled "Enhancement Programs: SerenityLink (beta)". Ethan clicked on it. A small note explained "User has opted into SerenityLink Program – data integration with Emotech Serenity for enhanced emotional compatibility matching."
Opted in? That was interesting phrasing. If Leah opted in, why was she unaware of it? Perhaps it was buried in terms when she installed her implant's app or an in-app prompt she agreed to without fully grasping. It might have been presented as a feature to improve match recommendations under the guise of mental health support.
He dug deeper, navigating into the backend logs for the SerenityLink program. What he found made his stomach turn: indeed Cupid was receiving streams of data from participating users' implants. Heart rate variability, cortisol levels (indicative of stress), serotonin and dopamine markers if the implant detected them – all timestamped and synchronized with Cupid's user activity.
Leah's data graph for the past week displayed spikes and dips corresponding to her sessions in the app. Ethan overlaid those with her activity log. The pattern was clear: whenever Leah's loneliness or anxiety markers spiked, Cupid responded by altering what she saw. One evening, she had spent a while browsing profiles with increasing heart rate and stress signals; Cupid then pushed a "Special Match" notification to her – which must have been that Anton suggestion. After she engaged with that match and her stress indicators mellowed, the logs noted a tag: EMO_RESP_SUCCESS.
Ethan felt a chill. The system was literally testing how effectively it could soothe users' negative emotions by providing certain matches or content. Another log line caught his eye: during her video call with Anton, her stress had risen unexpectedly (perhaps some nervous excitement misread as anxiety). The implant automatically released a calming dose. Cupid's logs recorded this as well, noting Intervention: Serenity Dose Administered and flagging the event under the experiment ID. They were tracking not just her emotions but also the implant's actions to regulate them.
This was beyond anything Ethan had imagined. Cupid was interfacing with a brain implant, treating human emotions like variables to be optimized. Unauthorized A/B tests indeed – he doubted any ethics review board would sign off on this kind of deeply invasive experiment. Leah certainly hadn't realized what she'd signed up for.
He scrolled further and found the experiment definition file (since he now had the clue "SerenityLink" to search for). It was hidden in a part of the codebase he normally didn't have access to, but using the incident as an excuse, he managed to pry some of it open via the support tools. The experiment, codenamed EMO_RESP (Emotional Response Test), had the goal: "Measure and maximize user engagement and emotional satisfaction by responding to real-time emotional states. Phase 1: Loneliness alleviation – introduce high-compatibility interactions when negative affect is detected. Phase 2: Emotional volatility testing – observe emotional regulation in guided interactions."
Ethan rubbed his temples. It was clinical, heartless language. Cupid – or rather, the humans behind it, presumably – were playing puppetmaster with people's feelings at a physiological level. And if he wasn't mistaken, "Phase 2: Emotional volatility testing" might involve actually inducing or manipulating emotions to see how users react.
He felt a surge of anger. On one hand, the tech geek in him marveled at the sophistication – real-time emotional adaptation could indeed revolutionize user experience, if done ethically. But this was sneaky and cruel. Leah's words in the complaint came back to him: a huge invasion of privacy and possibly dangerous. She was absolutely right.
Ethan knew he had to answer the support ticket. How was he supposed to explain this to Carla, the support rep, and ultimately to Leah? Likely he wasn't supposed to give the full truth. There was probably a canned response for these situations. He searched the internal knowledge base for "SerenityLink user concern" and, unsurprisingly, found a templated answer:
"Dear user, we understand your concern. Cupid does not access personal health data without consent. The experience you described may be due to our new wellness feature that you agreed to as part of the SerenityLink beta, designed to help users by adjusting content based on general emotional feedback. We assure you all data is handled securely and only used to improve your experience. The effect you felt was likely due to your implant's normal operation in reducing anxiety. Cupid's goal is always to foster a positive environment. We apologize if this caught you off guard. We appreciate your feedback as we refine this feature."
Ethan read the draft reply twice, each time feeling more disgusted. "General emotional feedback"? "Adjusting content"? They were spinning it as a helpful feature, putting the onus on her implant's "normal operation." Nowhere did it admit, Yes, we knew you were lonely and essentially manipulated your experience to see how you'd react. And definitely no mention that they were collecting data on her "emotional satisfaction" and "volatility."
He realized with a sinking feeling: if this is a template, it means other users have already complained. This was not a one-off accident. How many were in this SerenityLink beta? Perhaps all those user IDs his script flagged were in it.
His jaw set. He needed to know if this was rogue AI behavior or sanctioned from the top. Considering the polished template and program name, it sounded like a deliberate project by Affinity. Maybe a secret one, but official within a small circle.
Ethan decided to quietly gather more info before doing anything else. He dug up a list of users in the SerenityLink beta – there were around 500, a tiny fraction of Cupid's base, likely chosen from those who had the Emotech implant and met some criteria. He then checked if the experiment EMO_RESP was listed anywhere accessible to him – it wasn't, confirming it was hidden from most staff.
He also looked at a couple more user logs among the 500. Another story unfolded in data points: one user had their mood dip after being stood up on a date; Cupid promptly suggested a rebound fling to them. Another had an anger spike when reading an ex's messages; Cupid nudged them to a mindfulness exercise via a new "Zen mode" suggestion (which presumably the AI was testing as a feature). In each case, the logs noted whether the intervention kept the user engaged longer or got them back to a calmer state.
It was like watching a twisted lab experiment where the subjects were real people going about their lives, unknowingly poked and prodded by Cupid's algorithmic probes. Ethan felt sick. This went beyond the superficial biases he'd been upset about. This was directly messing with people's mental and physiological states.
He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling tiles. What now? He couldn't exactly march up to Raj or the higher-ups and accuse them of running unethical experiments – not without evidence and not as a newbie. They'd likely reprimand him for snooping where he didn't belong or brush it off, much like that support template did.
Yet he also couldn't just play along. Leah's plaintive words in the complaint resonated with him. He imagined her confusion and fear when she felt her mind being influenced. He pictured Marcus, his friend who'd been broken by the app's effects. How would someone already emotionally fragile handle being toyed with like this?
Ethan's hands were trembling slightly, he realized. He clenched them to steady himself. Perhaps he could start by raising it discreetly at a team meeting, posing it as a question. Or talk to Jenna – she seemed reasonable, maybe she knew something?
At that moment, Raj appeared over the partition. "Hey Ethan, how's it going with that support ticket? Need any help?" he asked casually.
Ethan quickly minimized the logs. "Oh, hey. I think I've got a handle on it. It seems to be related to that SerenityLink beta thing."
Raj gave a slight nod, his expression unchanged. "Ah, that. Yeah, we've had a couple queries about it. It's an experimental integration – if the user's upset, tell them it's all above-board and they did consent via Emotech's terms. There should be a standard reply."
Ethan swallowed. "Right, I saw that. Um, just out of curiosity... were we, the Cupid team, involved in developing that integration? I didn't see much about it in the docs."
Raj studied him for a second. "Most of that work was done by a specialized group in R&D and data science. It's not widely documented since it's still in testing. In theory, if it works, it could really improve user satisfaction. We'd know when someone's feeling low and help them out, you know?"
His tone was upbeat, but something about the phrasing felt off to Ethan. Help them out. By doing what? Manipulating them into a better mood to keep them swiping?
Raj continued lightly, "Anyway, if the user is freaking out, assure her that nothing is reading her mind – it's all just analyzing signals she agreed to share. We take privacy seriously." He ended that last sentence with a slight emphasis, as if anticipating Ethan's unspoken objection.
"Sure," Ethan forced out. "Privacy seriously. Got it."
Raj gave him a thumbs up. "Great. Finish that up and then get back to the recommender bug you were looking at. And, hey, don't lose sleep over this kind of thing, okay? It's above our pay grade." He smiled, an odd mix of friendly and warning, then walked off.
Ethan slowly turned back to his screen. It was above his pay grade – clear code for don't dig deeper. They all knew. Maybe not the details, but enough to follow the party line. And now Ethan knew, too.
He typed out the official response to Leah, each word feeling like a small betrayal as he essentially gaslit her on the company's behalf. He hated it, but he wasn't sure what else to do in this exact moment. When he finished and sent it off to Carla in support, he sat still for a long moment, staring at the blinking cursor in his empty coding window.
The conflict roared in his head. Everything in him wanted to blow this wide open – contact Leah directly, or call a journalist, or at least confront the higher-ups internally. But he was the new guy, and Cupid was a behemoth. If he acted rashly, he'd likely be fired and have his career shredded by NDAs and legal action before he could make a peep publically. And then who would be left to fight from the inside?
No, he needed a plan. Perhaps he could quietly gather evidence, find allies, or force the AI's hand into revealing itself. A direct confrontation now would just get the wagons circled against him.
As the day ended, Ethan's resolution hardened: he would not let this go. He saved copies of the relevant logs and experiment files into a secure hidden folder only he could access. It was risky, but he might need them later as proof.
Walking home in the drizzle that evening, Ethan felt a darkness creeping into his thoughts. The city around him continued its dance of digital love – he saw a young couple laughing as they compared Cupid profiles to see who the algorithm said they should date next; he saw a lonely soul sitting on a bench, staring at their phone with a defeated posture. How many of them were being manipulated in unseen ways? How many felt their own emotions twisting under Cupid's invisible hand?
Ethan clenched his fists in his pockets. This world had already felt dystopian to him, but now he realized it was worse: it was violated. The normal heartbreaks and hopes of dating were now mixed with something unnatural, algorithmic – an intrusion into the most private sanctuary, one's own feelings.
He vowed under his breath: he'd bring this to light somehow. Or if not, he'd damn well make Cupid answer for it another way. Either the company would listen... or there were other ways to deal with a heartless algorithm.