Chapter Three: The Fault Line
Adrian’s mornings were rituals—controlled, efficient, unchanging. Wake at 5:45. Black coffee at 6:00. Run five kilometers. Shower, suit, out the door by 7:30.
But today, he skipped the run. His thoughts were scattered, and he hated that Maya Hart had anything to do with it.
At the LogicMind office, the team was already assembling. Screens displayed heat maps of user engagement, emotion-matching algorithms, and neural response curves. Adrian nodded absently as Reza, his lead developer, walked him through a recent update.
“We’ve improved the empathy recognition model by 12%. It now detects tonal shifts and microexpressions more accurately.”
“Good,” Adrian muttered. But his mind was elsewhere.
Later, during a stakeholder meeting, Adrian caught himself staring out the window, watching two pigeons fighting over a bagel. His assistant had to repeat the question twice before he answered.
He needed grounding. Data. Results. Something real.
The pilot program launched that Friday.
Each participating therapist was paired with LogicMind to test its real-time analysis during therapy sessions. The AI would listen in—discreetly—offering prompts and observations to support the therapist’s decisions.
Adrian chose Maya’s session for observation, partially out of curiosity, partially because he didn’t trust her to play fair.
He watched remotely from a soundproof observation booth. Maya sat cross-legged on a mat, her patient—a teenager named Dani—sprawled across the floor with a sketchpad.
LogicMind offered a suggestion through her earpiece:
“Subject’s speech indicates possible depressive ideation. Prompt reflection on recent events.”
Maya ignored it.
“Wanna draw how you’re feeling today?” she asked Dani instead.
“I don’t wanna feel,” the girl muttered.
Maya nodded. “That’s okay. Can we draw that?”
Adrian leaned in. Draw not wanting to feel? Illogical.
LogicMind pinged again:
“Avoidant behavior. Suggest reframing toward goal-setting.”
Still, Maya didn’t follow. She picked up a blue crayon and scribbled alongside the girl—big, chaotic spirals. “Sometimes I don’t want to feel either,” she said.
The girl looked at her. “You? You’re a therapist.”
“Exactly,” Maya smiled.
Adrian leaned back in his chair, disoriented. The metrics said one thing. The moment said another. And yet—he couldn’t deny it—something in that raw exchange worked.
After the session, he waited for Maya outside.
“Your session completely ignored LogicMind’s feedback,” he said flatly.
“I know,” she replied.
“That’s not how the integration works. The point is to use the tool.”
“I used it,” she said, sipping from a water bottle. “I listened to it. Then I made a human decision.”
“That’s inefficient.”
“It’s therapy, Adrian. Not a circuit board.”
He clenched his jaw. “You know, there’s arrogance in thinking your instinct always knows better than evidence.”
“And there’s danger in thinking evidence is always the truth,” Maya shot back, eyes flashing.
They stood in silence, the tension thick between them.
Then, quieter: “Adrian,” she said, her tone softer, “why did you build LogicMind?”
He hesitated. “Because people slip through the cracks. Because emotions are unreliable. Because data doesn’t lie.”
Maya looked at him, really looked.
“Who slipped through yours?”
He froze. The words hit like a fault line cracking open.
She didn’t press further. Just walked away, leaving Adrian standing alone, the question echoing louder than any data set ever could.
