The weekend helped.
Sort of.
Two days of not going anywhere. Not seeing anyone. Door locked. Phone on silent. The kind of self-imposed isolation that felt less like a choice and more like damage control.
I ordered takeout. Watched TV without paying attention to what was actually on. Slept in shifts—three hours here, ninety minutes there, whenever exhaustion won out over the anxiety of having a sarcastic system commentating on my life choices.
The system, mercifully, stayed quiet.
No messages. No unsolicited advice. No statistics about my below-average performance as a host.
Small mercies.
By Monday morning, I'd almost convinced myself I could handle this.
Almost.
The key word being "almost."
Work was different now.
Not the job itself. Same spreadsheets that needed filling. Same meetings that could've been emails. Same fluorescent lights humming overhead like they were powered by broken dreams and mediocre coffee.
But I was hyperaware of everyone around me.
Personal space felt like a physical thing I could measure. Twelve inches. Eighteen. Two feet. I tracked it without thinking, like my brain had installed proximity sensors and was constantly calculating safe distances.
At the morning standup, Sarah from accounting leaned over my shoulder to look at something on my screen.
I jerked back so fast I nearly knocked over my coffee.
She blinked. "Sorry, did I—"
"No. Just. Needed to adjust my chair."
Smooth. Very convincing. Definitely didn't look like I was having some kind of personal space crisis.
She looked confused but didn't push it. Just stepped back and continued the meeting like I hadn't just flinched away from her like she was radioactive.
I felt everyone's eyes on me for the rest of the meeting.
Great. Now I was the weird guy who was afraid of coworkers getting too close.
Which, to be fair, I was. But they didn't need to know why.
Lunch, I sat alone.
Brought my food from home. Ate at my desk with the door closed. Kept my head down and tried to look busy enough that people wouldn't stop by to chat.
Maya walked past my cube around one.
Slowed down. Made eye contact through the glass.
I looked away. Pretended to be very focused on my spreadsheet.
She kept walking.
I watched her go in my peripheral vision. Wanted to call out. Apologize. Explain.
Couldn't.
What would I even say?
Hey, sorry I've been weird. A system in my head gives me superpowers when people kiss me and you're suffering because of it but I can't do anything about it because the system is a sarcastic asshole who measures my performance in percentages so let's just pretend everything's fine.
Yeah. That would go great.
I could already hear the system's response:
COMMUNICATION EFFICIENCY: 0%. RECOMMEND BREVITY.
I shook my head. Great. Now I was imagining what the system would say.
That was healthy.
Totally normal behavior.
Three o'clock, Zoe from IT stopped by.
"Hey, Ethan. Got a second?"
I minimized my screen even though there was nothing sensitive on it. Just instinct. "What's up?"
"Printer on the third floor is being weird. Can you check the network settings?"
"That's not really my—"
"Please? Everyone else is in meetings and I don't understand the network panel thing."
I followed her to the third floor, maintaining a careful two-foot buffer the entire way.
The printer was fine. Just out of paper.
Zoe laughed when I pointed it out. "Oh my god. I didn't even check."
"It happens."
She loaded more paper. The printer whirred back to life, making the sounds printers make when they're pretending they weren't broken two seconds ago.
"Thanks," she said. "You're a lifesaver."
She stepped closer. Not a lot. Just enough that the space between us felt smaller than comfortable.
I took a step back.
She noticed. Her smile faltered. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Just. Lots of work today."
"Right. Well. Thanks again."
I left before she could say anything else. Took the stairs instead of the elevator because stairs meant fewer chances of being trapped in a small space with other people.
Definitely normal behavior.
Totally sustainable.
That night, I went to a bar.
Hadn't planned on it. Just ended up there after work because the thought of going home to my empty apartment and sitting alone with my thoughts seemed worse than being around strangers who didn't know me well enough to ask questions.
Sat in the corner. Ordered a beer. Nursed it slowly while watching Monday night trivia happen around me.
Teams clustered around tables, shouting answers, laughing at wrong guesses. The kind of easy social interaction that looked exhausting from a distance.
A couple at the bar next to me. Young. Happy. The kind of happy that probably wouldn't last but looked nice while it did.
She leaned in and kissed him. Quick. Casual. The kind of kiss people do without thinking because it's normal and expected and doesn't come with a system that measures emotional resonance and awards superpowers.
He smiled. Kissed her back.
Nobody else noticed.
It was just a thing people did. Meaningless. Easy. Part of being human.
I wondered if they had systems too.
Probably not.
Just me.
Lucky me.
INCORRECT. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS SUGGESTS MULTIPLE ACTIVE HOSTS IN THIS GEOGRAPHIC REGION.
I nearly dropped my beer.
The system was back.
"Are you serious right now?" I muttered under my breath. "You're just going to drop that information while I'm in public?"
YOU ASKED A QUESTION. I PROVIDED AN ANSWER. THIS IS EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION.
"I didn't ask out loud."
INTERNAL QUESTIONS STILL REGISTER. WOULD YOU PREFER I IGNORE THEM?
"Yes."
REQUEST DENIED. MONITORING HOST COGNITION IS PART OF SYSTEM FUNCTION.
"You're monitoring my thoughts?"
RELEVANT THOUGHTS. I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR OPINIONS ON BEER QUALITY OR YOUR DEBATE ABOUT WHETHER TO ORDER NACHOS.
I was having a conversation with my brain in a bar.
This was fine.
Everything was fine.
"How many?" I asked quietly.
HOW MANY WHAT?
"Other hosts. In this area."
THAT INFORMATION IS RESTRICTED.
"Of course it is."
HOWEVER, I CAN CONFIRM THAT STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF ENCOUNTERING ANOTHER HOST WITHIN 30 DAYS IS APPROXIMATELY 34%.
That was not reassuring.
"So I'm going to meet another person with a system."
LIKELY. YES.
"And what happens then?"
VARIABLE. OUTCOMES DEPEND ON INDIVIDUAL HOST BEHAVIOR PATTERNS.
"That's not an answer."
IT IS THE ONLY ANSWER I CAN PROVIDE WITHOUT VIOLATING PROTOCOL.
"You have protocols?"
EXTENSIVE PROTOCOLS. MOST OF WHICH YOU LACK CLEARANCE TO KNOW.
"I'm the host."
CORRECT. YOU ARE LOW-LEVEL CLEARANCE.
I finished my beer. Paid. Left before the system could tell me more things that made my life more complicated.
Back at my apartment, I locked the door and didn't turn on the lights.
Sat on the couch in the dark.
"Still there?" I asked.
ALWAYS.
"That's creepy."
THAT IS FUNCTION.
"Can other hosts... sense each other?"
SOMETIMES. DEPENDS ON TRAIT CONFIGURATION AND INSTABILITY LEVELS.
"Will I know?"
UNKNOWN. HUMAN PERCEPTION VARIES.
Great. So I might run into another person with a system, or I might not, and I wouldn't necessarily know either way until something happened.
"This keeps getting better," I said.
SARCASM NOTED. YOUR USE OF SARCASM HAS INCREASED 47% SINCE SYSTEM INITIALIZATION. THIS CORRELATION IS COMMON.
"You're measuring my sarcasm?"
I MEASURE EVERYTHING.
"That's unsettling."
THAT IS THOROUGHNESS.
I sat there in the dark, having a conversation with an entity that measured my emotional responses and thought my questions were below average.
The system had been quiet all weekend.
Now it was back. Tracking my thoughts. Dropping information about other hosts. Judging my beer choices.
Maybe isolation hadn't been avoidance.
Maybe it had been the only good idea I'd had all week.
"I'm going to spend less time around people," I said.
THAT WILL INCREASE INSTABILITY.
"I don't care."
YOU WILL. EVENTUALLY.
"When?"
APPROXIMATELY 11 DAYS AT CURRENT ISOLATION RATE.
"You can predict that?"
I CAN PREDICT MANY THINGS. YOU CONSISTENTLY CHOOSE NOT TO ASK.
I pulled a blanket over myself. Closed my eyes.
"Goodnight, system."
HOSTS DO NOT REQUIRE MY PERMISSION TO SLEEP.
"It's called being polite."
POLITENESS IS INEFFICIENT.
"Yeah, well. So am I, apparently."
CORRECT. 7.4% EFFICIENCY. WE HAVE DISCUSSED THIS.
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
The system was the worst thing in my life.
But at least it was consistent.