Chapter Four: The Equation of Loss
Adrian sat alone in his apartment, the dim glow of London’s skyline washing over the minimalist furnishings. No clutter. No photos. No signs of a life lived—just space, sterile and ordered.
He stared at a glass of untouched water on the table, his mind looping on Maya’s question:
Who slipped through yours?
He tried to shake it. Tried to drown it in numbers—open spreadsheets, user reports, funding forecasts—but none of it stuck. His concentration cracked like ice under pressure.
Finally, he let the memory come.
He was fifteen.
The living room of his childhood home in Lagos had felt colder that day, despite the sweltering sun outside. His sister, Chioma, sat on the floor, knees to chest, tears silently streaming down her cheeks.
Adrian had been studying for a math competition. He remembered resenting the interruption.
“Mum said you should eat,” he said, holding out a plate of jollof rice.
“I’m not hungry,” Chioma whispered, her voice brittle.
He didn’t understand then. Couldn’t make sense of her sudden silence, the way she withdrew from the world like a tide retreating. It wasn’t logical. There was no trigger. No clear variable.
Later that week, he found her on the bathroom floor. Pills scattered like broken promises.
She survived. But everything changed. Their parents treated it like a shameful glitch in the system. Something to be erased.
Adrian did what he knew best—he distanced. He optimized. He became obsessed with certainty, with cause and effect, with logic.
If emotions couldn’t be trusted, then maybe data could.
Back in his apartment, Adrian stared into the dark.
He’d built LogicMind to prevent what happened to Chioma. A machine that would never miss the signs. That wouldn’t look away. That wouldn’t fail.
And yet… Maya’s session with Dani haunted him. There was no model in LogicMind for sitting with silence. No algorithm for scribbling blue spirals on the floor.
Was that his blind spot?
His phone buzzed. A message from Maya.
“Meeting a few therapists at the art studio tomorrow. Come. See how the other side works.”
No emojis. Just an invitation. A crack in the wall.
He hesitated. Then typed back:
“What time?”
