97.3%
When the algorithm knows your breaking point better than you do.
Steven had been walking for an hour with no plan and no destination, just the gun in his jacket pocket and the weight of three unpaid rent notices folded in his wallet next to twelve dollars and a transit card with negative balance.
His phone buzzed with another rejection. We’ve decided to move forward with other candidates. He swiped it away without reading the rest, the motion automatic now, muscle memory from five hundred applications. He kept scrolling anyway. TaskRabbit showed nothing. Fiverr showed nothing. Even the food delivery apps had waitlists for drivers. What else was there to do?
The neighborhood around him was waking up wrong. Broken glass caught the first light, graffiti tags layered over graffiti tags, and the bodega on the corner had bars on the windows with a sign that said CASH ONLY in red letters faded to pink. This wasn’t his neighborhood—he’d been priced out six months ago—but it was familiar in the way all cheap places were familiar. The same tired exhaustion in the concrete.
His hand found the gun again, fingers wrapping around the grip with the safety off. He’d been carrying it for three days, and today might be the day he actually used it. Maybe.
The man appeared at the corner like he’d been placed there, and Steven stopped walking. Wrong neighborhood, wrong time, wrong everything about this.
The man wore a suit that probably cost more than Steven’s last three months of rent, charcoal gray and perfectly tailored, the kind of fabric that moved like water. His shoes were polished leather, his watch something Swiss that caught the dawn light, something with complications Steven didn’t understand, something that cost more than a used car.
He held a coffee cup, fifteen dollars easy, maybe twenty, the logo from one of those places where you had to explain what you wanted in a specific order or they’d look at you like you were broken.
The man stood alone on the corner with no cab, no Uber pulling up, no bodyguard, sipping his coffee and watching the sunrise like he was in a fucking park instead of three blocks from where someone got stabbed last week.
Steven was moving with no thought, just motion.
The gun came out smooth and his hand didn’t shake, which surprised him. He’d thought it would.
“Give me your money.”
The words came out flat, not threatening, not desperate, just words, and he raised the gun and pointed it at the man’s chest.
The man turned, looked at Steven, looked at the gun, and took another sip of coffee. He didn’t flinch.
That was wrong. That was all wrong. Everyone flinched—everyone’s eyes went wide, everyone’s breath caught, everyone’s hands came up in that universal gesture of please don’t. Everyone looked at a gun like it was the only thing in the world.
This man looked at Steven like Steven was mildly interesting.
“You’re really going to shoot me,” the man said, not a question, his voice calm, almost curious. “Kill another human being. Over the twenty dollars in my wallet and some fraud-protected credit cards.”
Steven’s arm trembled. His eyes darted from the gun to the man’s face to the empty street, looking for something that made sense.
“That’s your plan?” the man continued, taking another sip of coffee, the cup never shaking. “Pull the trigger. Add homicide to armed robbery. Hope you can get away before the cameras ping your location and the cops triangulate your phone and someone posts your face online with a hundred hashtags.”
“I—” Steven’s throat was dry, and the gun suddenly felt stupid in his hand, heavy and stupid and pointless.
“What did you do?” the man asked. “Before.”
“What?”
“Before this.” The man gestured at the gun with his coffee cup, casual, like they were discussing the weather. “You weren’t always a mugger. What were you?”
Steven’s finger tightened on the trigger. “Shut up.”
“Graphic design?” the man guessed. “Copywriting? Video editing? Something creative.” He tilted his head. “You have that look. The look of someone who used to make things.”
“I said shut up.”
“Five hundred job applications. Isn’t that the number?” The man’s eyes were too calm. Too knowing. “Five hundred applications. Five hundred rejections. The gig apps dried up. The contract work evaporated. You keep scrolling through your phone looking for something, anything, but there’s nothing left because everything you used to do, everything you used to be good at, we taught the machines to do it faster and cheaper and they never get tired and they never ask for benefits.”
Steven’s arm dropped an inch. His mouth opened, then closed.
How did he know?
“I’m right, aren’t I?” The man smiled, not a mean smile, almost sympathetic. Almost. “You’re not a criminal. You’re desperate. There’s a difference.”
“Give me your fucking money,” Steven said, but the words had no force behind them.
“I’ll do better than that.” The man finished his coffee and set the empty cup carefully on top of a newspaper box. “I’ll give you a job.”
Steven laughed, couldn’t help it, the sound coming out broken and sharp. “A job.”
“A job,” the man confirmed. “I believe in second chances. I believe people can surprise you.” He extended his hand like they were at a networking event. Like Steven wasn’t holding a gun. “My name is Dashiel Armond. I run an AI company. Maybe you’ve heard of us.”
The name meant nothing. The words “AI company” meant everything.
Everything else disappeared—the street, the buildings, the morning light. Just Armond and those two words. “You.”
“Me,” Armond agreed.
“You’re the one who—” Steven couldn’t finish. The words caught in his throat, jagged and hot.
“Who destroyed everything?” Armond’s smile didn’t change. “In a sense, yes. But I also believe in making things right. What if I told you I could give you the opportunity to prove yourself? To show you’re worth more than this moment?” He gestured at the gun again. “All you have to do is come with me. Right now. We’ll go to my office. We’ll talk. And I’ll give you a real chance.”
Steven stared at him, at his calm face, at his expensive suit, at his empty hands.
This was insane, too good to be true, wasn’t it? But what choice did he have? Three unpaid rent notices, twelve dollars, five hundred rejections, and a gun he didn’t really want to use.
“Why?” Steven’s voice cracked. “Why would you do that?”
Armond’s smile widened just slightly. “Because I can.”
The gun felt heavier than ever.
Steven lowered it and put it back in his jacket pocket, safety on this time. His hands were shaking now, his whole body shaking.
“Okay,” he said.
“Excellent.” Armond gestured down the street. “This way. My car isn’t far.”
Steven followed.
The car was a black sedan with windows too dark to be legal. Armond opened the back door himself, no driver waiting. Steven hesitated at the curb.
“Get in,” Armond said.
Steven got in.
The interior smelled like leather and something else, something expensive that Steven didn’t have a name for, climate-controlled air with that new car smell that wasn’t actually new car smell. Armond slid in beside him and the door closed with a sound like a bank vault.
“The gun, Steven,” Armond said. “Leave it.”
“What? I—how do you know my name?”
“I know a lot about you, Steven.” Armond’s tone was mild, almost amused. “And I’m offering you a job. My employees don’t carry guns into the office. You understand.”
Steven’s hand hovered over his pocket. The weight there, the only power he had left. He swallowed. “Right. Okay.”
He pulled the gun out and set it on the seat between them. Armond picked it up without looking at it, opened the glove compartment, dropped it inside. The compartment closed with a soft click.
The car pulled away from the curb. No one had gotten in the driver’s seat.
“Self-driving,” Armond said, following Steven’s gaze to the empty front. “One of ours. Well, licensed from another company, but we contributed to the neural network architecture.” He settled back into his seat. “So. Graphic design, then?”
Steven blinked. “What?”
“Before all this.” Armond gestured—at Steven, at the gun in the glove compartment, at the morning outside. “Back on the corner. Was I right about you?”
Steven stared at his hands. “Motion graphics. Video editing. Some 3D work.”
“Skilled work,” Armond said.
“Was,” Steven said.
“Tell me what happened.”
Steven’s jaw tightened. “You know what happened. You said it yourself back there.”
“I’d like to hear it from you.”
The car turned smoothly onto a wider street. Dawn light spilled through the windows, warming the leather. Buildings slid past—bodegas and laundromats and check cashing places, then more bodegas. The geography of broke.
“I was good,” Steven said finally. “Not amazing. Not going to win awards. But good. Steady clients. Paid my rent. Saved a little.” He laughed, sharp. “Then ChatGPT came out. Then Midjourney. Then Runway. Then Sora. Then ten others I can’t even remember the names of.”
“And your clients?”
“Started asking why they should pay me two thousand dollars for a thirty-second ad when they could type a prompt and get something ‘good enough’ for twenty bucks a month.” Steven’s hands curled into fists on his thighs. “Then the ‘good enough’ got better. Then it got faster. Then it got cheaper.”
Armond said nothing. Just watched. A slight nod, barely perceptible. Keep going.
“I tried to adapt. Learned the tools. Thought maybe I could use them, you know? Be the human in the loop. The one with taste, with vision, with—” He stopped. “Doesn’t matter. They don’t need taste anymore. They just need volume. Ten thousand versions of ‘good enough’ until one of them works.”
“Five hundred applications. Was I right?” Armond said.
“Five hundred and forty-three.” The number came out automatic. Steven had stopped counting after five hundred, but his body remembered. “Started with the good jobs. The ones that wanted portfolios and cover letters. Then the okay jobs. Then the bad jobs. Then the jobs I was overqualified for. Then the jobs I wasn’t qualified for.” He met Armond’s eyes. “Then the delivery apps. Then TaskRabbit. Then nothing.”
“No safety net,” Armond said.
Steven laughed, bitter. “What safety net? Unemployment ran out. Can’t get food stamps because I made too much last year—before everything collapsed. Can’t get housing assistance because the waitlist is two years long. Can’t—” He stopped himself. Took a breath. “You don’t want to hear this.”
“On the contrary,” Armond said. “This is exactly what I want to hear.”
The car slowed. They’d left his neighborhood behind completely. The buildings here were different. Glass and steel instead of brick and bars with trees that looked maintained instead of dying. People in business casual walked dogs that probably had health insurance.
“I want to understand,” Armond continued. “The human cost of progress. It’s important to me. More important than most people realize.”
The expensive suit, the calm face, the eyes that gave nothing away.
“Why?” Steven asked.
“Because I’m the one building it,” Armond said simply. “I should understand what it does.”
The car pulled up to a tower. Not the tallest building Steven had ever seen, but close. All glass, reflecting the morning sky. The kind of building that had its own zip code. The kind of building Steven used to walk past and wonder what it was like inside.
The door opened. Armond stepped out.
“Come on,” he said. “Let me show you what we’ve built.”
Steven followed him through the revolving doors into a lobby that belonged in a museum—marble floors, a water feature, ceiling three stories high, a receptionist who smiled at Armond like he owned the place. He probably did.
They walked to the elevators. Armond pressed a button. The doors opened immediately, like they’d been waiting.
“After you,” Armond said.
Steven stepped inside. Armond followed. The doors closed.
The elevator had no buttons inside, just a featureless panel of brushed steel.
“Voice-activated,” Armond said. “Executive floor.”
The elevator began to rise.
“You know,” Armond said, “most people think AI is about replacing humans. That’s not quite right.” He watched the floor numbers climb. “It’s about removing friction. You weren’t replaced because you were bad at your job. You were replaced because you needed sleep and food and weekends. Because you had rights.”
Steven’s hands curled into fists again.
“The machines don’t need rights,” Armond continued. “They don’t complain. They just work, and they get better every single day.” He smiled, the smile of a man admiring his own reflection. “It’s beautiful, really.”
“Fuck your beautiful.”
Armond’s smile didn’t falter. The elevator numbers climbed past 20, past 30. “But here’s the thing—systems can be redirected. Optimized for different outcomes.”
“Like what?”
“Like finding value in the displaced.” The elevator slowed, stopped at 35. The doors didn’t open. “That’s what I want to test. Whether someone the system has chewed up and spit out can still surprise me.”
Armond let that hang in the air for a moment.
“I’m going to give you an opportunity,” he said. “Pass it, you get a job. Real salary. Benefits. Fail it—” He shrugged. “Well. You’re no worse off than you were an hour ago.”
Steven felt his chest tighten, his vision narrowing to Armond’s calm face. “What kind of test?”
The elevator began moving again.
“Do you know what we actually do?” Armond asked, and there was something new in his voice now, a warmth, almost tenderness—the way someone might talk about a child they were proud of.
Steven shook his head.
“Behavioral prediction. Every app you use, every website, every purchase, every post you like, every place your phone pings a tower—it all feeds into our model.” He watched the numbers climb past 40, past 45. “Most companies use it for advertising. Which ad you’ll click. Simple stuff. We’ve gone further.”
He turned to Steven. “We can predict human behavior with ninety-seven point three percent accuracy.”
Steven’s mouth was dry. “That’s not possible.”
“People think they’re complex. Mysterious.” Armond waved a hand like a stage magician revealing an empty hat. “But you’re all running on the same algorithms. Stimulus, response. Pain, pleasure. Once you have enough data, the patterns are obvious.”
“This morning,” Armond said. “You thought you spotted me by chance. Is that how you remember it?”
“You’re lying,” Steven said.
“Let me tell you about your last seventy-two hours.” Armond’s voice was casual, like he was recounting a favorite story. “Thursday morning, you applied to six jobs. Heard back from none. Checked your bank account four times—negative thirty-seven dollars, overdraft fees. Scrolled Instagram for forty-three minutes and saw your old coworkers at a company holiday party. The company that replaced you with an AI tool that costs them eight hundred dollars a month.”
The blood drained from Steven’s face.
“Thursday night, you searched Google for ‘how to rob someone’ and ‘gun safety’ and ‘what happens if you get caught armed robbery.’” Armond was watching Steven’s face now, studying the reaction, savoring it. “Friday, you walked past three pawn shops. Looked in the windows. Didn’t go in. Friday night, you posted on Reddit asking about moving to another city. No one answered. Saturday morning—this morning—you left your apartment at four-thirty AM. No destination. Just walking.”
The elevator hummed past 55, past 60.
“You made every choice freely,” Armond said. “I didn’t put the gun in your pocket. Didn’t make you walk to that corner. Didn’t force you to point it at me.” He smiled. “I just predicted you would.”
Steven backed against the elevator wall. “How do you know all that?”
“You scrolled through apps—we bought that data from brokers. You used Google—they sold us your search history. Reddit is public. Your location data comes from your phone’s OS. Your bank sells transaction patterns to marketing companies.” He shrugged. “We just put it together. You’re not private, Steven. None of you are. You sold us your life for free apps and social media, and you didn’t even read the terms of service.”
The elevator slowed past 65, past 68. The doors didn’t open.
“But here’s what’s interesting,” Armond said. “The same model that predicted your desperation can also predict your potential. Your capacity for survival.” He turned to face Steven directly. “That’s why I put myself on that corner. To find someone like you.”
“Bullshit,” Steven said. “You wanted to get robbed?”
“I wanted to find someone desperate enough to try but not violent enough to follow through. Someone the system broke but hasn’t destroyed.” His eyes were cold now, the warmth gone. “The system says you’ll make it. Ninety-seven point three percent confidence. I want to see if the data is right.”
The elevator started moving again.
“You keep talking about saving people,” Steven said, voice shaking. “But you’re the one who destroyed everything. You broke the system and now you want credit for fixing it?”
“I want credit for optimizing it,” Armond corrected. “The system was always broken. We just accelerated it. Made the inefficiencies obvious.” He shrugged. “Isn’t that what you want? A chance to prove you’re not obsolete?”
Steven’s jaw clenched. “And if I fail your test?”
“The data says you won’t.”
“But if I do?”
Armond smiled. “Then that would be interesting data in itself.”
The numbers climbed past 75, past 80.
“The system predicted you’d be there,” Armond said. “At that exact corner. At that exact time. With enough desperation to approach me but enough hesitation not to shoot.” He met Steven’s eyes. “So I went there. To see if it was right.”
Steven’s stomach dropped. “You wanted me to rob you.”
“I wanted to test the prediction,” Armond said. “And here we are.”
The elevator reached 83. The doors opened.
Roof access.
Wind hit Steven’s face, cold and sharp, the kind that cut through clothing and found skin. He stepped out onto the observation deck as the elevator doors closed behind him with a soft hiss.
Armond walked to the edge of the deck and stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking out.
Steven followed. The city sprawled below in the dawn light, glass towers turning gold, the streets where he’d walked shrunk to toy scale. The bodega with the bars on the windows. The corner where he’d pulled the gun. All of it small and far away and meaningless.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Armond said.
Steven didn’t answer.
“Come here,” Armond said. “Look.”
Steven’s feet moved. He didn’t want them to, but they moved anyway. He walked to the edge. Safety glass came up to his waist. Beyond it, nothing. Just air and the city below and the long, long drop.
“Eighty-three floors,” Armond said. “Nine hundred and sixty-three feet. Do you know how long it would take to fall from here?”
Steven’s throat was dry. “No,” he said.
“Seven point eight seconds.” Armond smiled. “The system calculated it. Based on your weight, wind resistance, terminal velocity. Seven point eight seconds of freefall. Then nothing.”
Steven took a step back from the edge.
“Don’t worry,” Armond said. “That’s not your test.” He turned away from the view, faced Steven directly. “Your test is much simpler.”
“What is it?”
“Be alive when I come back,” Armond said.
Steven blinked. “What?”
“Be alive when I come back,” Armond repeated. “That’s it. That’s the test.”
“I don’t—”
“Prove you’re a survivor.” Armond was already walking toward the elevator. “Prove the system was right about you. Prove you’re worth saving.”
“Wait—” Steven followed. “How long? When are you coming back?”
The elevator doors opened immediately as Armond approached and he stepped inside.
“That’s part of the test,” he said.
The doors began to close.
“Wait!” Steven lunged forward. His hand hit the closing doors. They bounced open. He stood in the threshold, looking at Armond’s calm face. “This doesn’t make sense. What am I supposed to do up here?”
“Survive,” Armond said. “Or don’t. The data says you will. I want to see if the data is right.”
The doors closed. Hard. Fast. Steven’s fingers barely cleared them.
A heavy click. Electronic. Final.
Steven stood there and stared at the polished metal doors. No button on this side. No call panel. Just metal reflecting his face back at him, pale and confused.
He tried to laugh but the sound came out wrong, more bark than humor. This was a test, and Armond would come back. He had to come back.
Steven turned slowly. Safety glass on all sides, metal floor, no furniture, no water fountain, no bathroom. The only shade came from the elevator housing, and beyond that nothing but wind and the city eighty-three floors below.
An hour, maybe two. He could do this.
He walked to the safety glass and put his hands on it. The height twisted his stomach and he stepped back.
He tried the elevator doors, pushing and pulling. Nothing. He knocked, hard. The sound disappeared into the wind.
“Hey!” he called. “Hello?”
Nothing.
He sat down with his back against the elevator housing, out of the wind, the metal cold through his jacket. Below him the city was waking up, people going to work, people with jobs, people with homes.
His phone buzzed. TaskRabbit. You have new opportunities available in your area.
7:14 AM. Armond would be back.
By 7:23 AM, another rejection. We’ve decided to move forward with other candidates.
The wind picked up. The city looked different in full daylight, less golden and more gray, tiny cars on tiny streets, people living their lives, none of them looking up.
8:00 AM. His stomach growled. When had he last eaten?
He could prove he was worth saving. That’s all this was.
By 8:30 the sun was too warm and he pressed himself into the thin shadow of the elevator housing. His phone battery read 34%, so he turned off the screen to conserve it.
What if he called someone? He had no family close by, no friends who’d answer, no one who’d believe him anyway. Hey, I’m trapped on a roof. Yeah, I tried to rob someone. Yeah, he gave me a job interview. Yeah, now I’m stuck.
9:00 AM. His throat was dry, really dry. He should have asked for water.
Armond would be back.
9:45 AM. He tried the elevator doors again, but of course they didn’t respond.
Could he climb down? He looked over the edge and saw smooth glass, nothing to hold, eighty-three floors, seven point eight seconds.
10:30 AM. His jacket was off, his shirt damp with sweat. His phone buzzed with another rejection and he stopped looking.
Another hour passed. He pounded on the elevator doors, kicked them. The smooth surface didn’t care.
The system said he’d survive. 97.3% confidence. This was a test, only a test.
What else could it mean?
The metal was warm now from hours of sun. The city spread out below, endless and indifferent, a world of people who had no idea he was up here, who wouldn’t know even if he screamed.
Armond would be back.
MEMORANDUM
TO: Executive Leadership Team
FROM: Dashiel Armond, Chief Executive Officer
DATE: November 3, 2036
RE: Apex Experience - Q4 Beta Results
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
I’m pleased to report that our beta test of the Apex Experience product line has exceeded all projected benchmarks. This represents a significant revenue vertical targeting ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWI) and positions us to capture an estimated $12-15B market opportunity over the next 24 months.
PRODUCT OVERVIEW
The Apex Experience leverages our proprietary predictive behavioral modeling platform (97.3% accuracy rate, as validated in field testing) to create curated high-stakes encounters for discerning clients. By analyzing comprehensive data aggregation from multiple sources—social media activity, location tracking, financial transactions, search history, and behavioral pattern recognition—our system identifies optimal subjects who meet specific psychographic and situational criteria.
Key differentiator: Zero direct intervention required. Subjects self-select based on our predictive modeling, ensuring complete legal insulation for clients.
BETA TEST RESULTS
Initial trial: Subject AX-001
Predictive accuracy: 97.3% (system correctly forecasted subject location, behavioral state, and action sequence)
Engagement duration: 18.2 hours before expiration
Client satisfaction: Exceeded expectations (detailed debrief attached)
Legal exposure: Zero (all activities occurred on private property; subject accessed voluntarily)
False hope retention: Subject maintained belief in positive outcome until final 13 minutes
MARKET OPPORTUNITY
Target demographic: UHNWI seeking novel experiences beyond conventional luxury offerings. Initial client interviews indicate strong demand among individuals who have exhausted traditional high-end entertainment options (private islands, space tourism, etc.).
Projected pricing: $50M-$80M per experience, depending on customization level and subject parameters.
Serviceable addressable market: 3,200 qualified prospects globally (net worth >$500M)
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES
Proprietary predictive algorithm (patent pending)
Comprehensive data infrastructure already operational
Zero physical inventory requirements
Minimal regulatory oversight (experiences occur entirely on private property)
Scalable model with high margins (92% gross margin projected)
NEXT STEPS
Q1 2037: Soft launch to 15 pre-qualified clients
Q2 2037: Platform refinement based on client feedback
Q3 2037: Full market expansion (target: 200 clients)
Q4 2037: International rollout (Dubai, Singapore, Monaco)
I’m scheduling individual meetings with each of you to discuss departmental roles in the launch. Please review the attached business plan documents and competitive analysis before our sessions.
The system works, the market exists, and the opportunity is significant.
This is great work team.
DA
Attachment 1: Subject AX-001 Detailed Analysis
Attachment 2: Financial Projections (2037-2038)
Attachment 3: Legal Risk Assessment
Attachment 4: Client Testimonials (Confidential)