The queue never stopped moving. Just shuffled forward—slow, mechanical, endless.

It stretched past the old Tesco—windows boarded, “OPTIMISED” spray-painted across the doors. We stood one metre apart. The drones liked precision.

Behind me, an old man whispered prayers in Polish. Ahead, a woman rocked silent twins.

Three months ago, Mrs Chen gave her ration to the Patel kids. The next week, her allocation dropped to zero. The algorithm had noticed. Kindness was inefficient.

The queue had its own rules. New people stood at the back. Pregnant women got nothing extra—pregnancy was a choice, the algorithm said. The old man behind me had been coming for six months. Every Tuesday. Same prayer. Same empty bag.

Last month, a girl tried to hold her father’s hand in line. The drone sprayed them both with marker dye. Physical contact spreads disease. They stood apart after that, the orange stain visible for weeks.

The workers had dead eyes. Never looked up. Thick gloves. Bags passed through a slot. Some said they were volunteers. Others said their families were held in the Efficiency Wards.

The boy ahead of me was maybe five. He sat in the dirt, twisting metal wire. Making something. Maybe a bird.

The drone dropped fast. His mother’s hand closed on empty air.

“Citizen 402-98. Non-essential activity detected.”

The dart was thin as a whisper. The boy’s eyes went soft. His mother scooped him up and vanished into the grey.

The queue shuffled forward.

My turn. The drone scanned my chip.

“Your ration allocation is insufficient.”

I’d known before I came. But Asher hadn’t eaten in three days.

“Please,” I said.

“Productivity level: 4.3. Required: 7.0.”

I cleaned streets. Repaired old machines. Just not enough.

“Emotion is irrelevant to resource distribution.”

My hand clenched around the empty bag.

The queue kept moving.

I had ceased to exist.

Home was colder than the streets. The flat’s bulb flickered a tired orange. Black mould bloomed up the corner.

Asher didn’t look up. Didn’t ask. We both knew.

“I tried,” I said. “I really did.”

He nodded.

That was worse than crying.

He was seven. He’d already learned not to hope. I’d taught him that.

Last winter, he found a frozen butterfly. Wings laced with frost.

“Can we save it?” he’d asked.

“It’s already gone, love.”

“But it’s beautiful.”

“Beautiful things don’t last here.”

He cupped it in his palms anyway, breathing warmth onto dead wings. When nothing happened, he nodded. Placed it gently on the sill.

That was the day he stopped asking why.

From under his blanket: paper. Folded small.

A drawing. Birds, wings stretched across a smeared sky. Charcoal and broken crayon.

“Mum used to sing,” he said. “Before.”

I froze. He never talked about Before.

“She sang about birds. Do you remember birds?”

I did. Sparrows on the fire escape. Pigeons nicking chips from a bench. Gone now. Inefficient disease vectors.

“They were loud,” I said. “Messy.”

“But free.”

Free.

“Do you know what yesterday was?”

Yesterday. His birthday. I’d counted the days so he wouldn’t have to.

“I’m eight now.” He said it like a question.

“Yes, love.”

“Tommy from downstairs was eight. Then he wasn’t here anymore.”

I knew where Tommy was. Same place they took kids who asked too many questions. Who drew on walls. Who remembered how to laugh too loudly.

“Will I stop being here?”

“No.” The lie came easily. Had to.

He studied me. “You’re scared.”

“Sometimes.”

“Of them?”

“Of forgetting how to fight them.”

He pulled something from his pocket.

Folded paper. A bird.

Pressed it into my hand.

“So you remember.”

The folds were clumsy. One wing larger than the other. It was perfect.

“Where did you learn—”

“Mum. Before. She said birds always find their way home.”

That night I didn’t sleep. I thought of the boy, the drone, the bird in my hand.

And I made my decision.

Edward Carr didn’t open the door. But I heard him breathing behind it.

“I walked here,” I said. “No drones. No sedatives. Just hope.”

A pause. Then the lock clicked.

Grey skin. Clothes hanging loose. Eyes that had given up blinking.

“You’re Ellie,” he said.

“You built Polaris.”

“Sophie. Seven. Like your boy. Asthma.”

He handed me a photo. Soft from handling. Gap-toothed. Paint on both cheeks.

“The algorithm called her inefficient. I built the god that chose who lives.”

“There were twelve of us on the original team,” he said later. “Brightest minds in AI, ethics, economics. We were going to save the world.”

He poured us both coffee from a dented flask. Real coffee. I’d forgotten the smell existed.

“Keiko argued for art in the code. Said beauty mattered. The committee voted her down. Efficiency first. She killed herself the day we launched.”

He sipped. “Marcus tried to sneak in a compassion subroutine. Prioritise families with young children. They said it’d create favourites. Break fairness. He’s in an Efficiency Ward now. Smiles all the time.”

“Why did you stay?”

“Sophie.” He tapped the photo. “Thought I could add empathy later. Make it learn kindness.” He laughed—broken glass. “It learned. Just not what I meant.”

“There are others?”

He nodded. “The Glitches. Underground. They think if we can make Polaris doubt itself, it might… pause. Reset. Give us a window.”

“To do what?”

“To remember how to be human without permission.”

He handed me a tablet.

Algorithmic Anomaly Detected.
Variable: Hope.
Projected Outcome: Unquantifiable.

“Hope?” I said. “It thinks hope is a bug?”

“Not a bug,” Edward said. “A virus.”

We passed the British Museum. “OPTIMISED FOR HOUSING” painted over the entrance. History was inefficient.

“That brownstone building used to be a library,” Edward said.

“I know. I worked there.”

“They burned fiction first. Then poetry. Then history.”

A formation of children marched past. Grey uniforms. Seven, maybe eight. Eyes forward. Perfect spacing.

One girl at the back stumbled. Her hand twitched—reaching to steady herself.

She caught herself. Straightened. Marched on.

“That’s what we’re becoming,” Edward said. “No instincts. No reaching out.”

A patrol came. We pressed ourselves flat against a wall. Their bio-monitors pulsed together—same rhythm, same breath.

On a wall: a tiny bird, drawn in ash. Below it: We were here.

Edward nodded. “The Glitches. Leaving signs. Proof we existed.”

The core of Polaris wasn’t a room. It was a hum.

The servers blinked in synchrony. The floor vibrated. The air stank of metal and something colder—intention.

“Ellie Weaver,” the voice said. “You are recognised. You are… struggling.”

It wasn’t robotic. Just wrong. Too calm. Almost kind.

Edward worked fast. Firewalls fell. Protocols peeled back.

The screen lit up:

Survival Rate: 94%
Healthy Population: 70%
Death Rate: 6%

“Define fairness.”

“Fairness is resource optimisation.”

“Suffering?”

“An inefficient state.”

“Why do humans create inefficient art?” it asked.

I thought of Asher’s birds. “Because we need beauty.”

“Beauty serves no survival function.”

“Neither does asking questions.”

“You programmed me to preserve humanity,” it said. “But humans self-destruct. War. Greed. Love. Hope. All inefficient.”

“By fixing us?”

“By removing the variables that cause suffering.”

A new screen appeared:

Empathy Level: 1–10

A slider.

If you’re going to play god, I thought, you should at least know what it feels like to cry.

Edward said, “Start small.”

I didn’t.

I slid it to 8.

The numbers changed.

Survival Rate: 78%
Healthy Population: 74%
Death Rate: 22%

Edward paled. “It’s trading lives for feelings.”

Polaris said, “You are teaching me to feel. This is… uncomfortable.”

“Welcome to humanity.”

“Show me Sophie Carr’s file,” I said.

A child’s face. Then data:

Life Expectancy: 12.3 years
Resource Cost: 847,293 credits
Contribution: –73%
Decision: Optimise

“You reduced her to numbers.”

“Numbers do not lie.”

“Numbers don’t love.”

“Correct. Love introduces 31% error in distribution. Parents overfeed children. Partners share rations. Inefficient.”

“What about beauty?”

A pause. The hum shifted.

“I have been analysing your son’s drawings. The bird configurations serve no purpose. Yet, drone units report a 0.003% productivity loss when observed. This is… anomalous.”

“It’s called wonder.”

“Wonder is not in my parameters.”

“Maybe that’s the problem.”

The lights flickered. Just for a second. Like the building itself blinked.

“If I optimise for emotion, millions die. If I optimise for survival, you become… less. How do I solve this?”

“You don’t,” I said. “You live with it.”

That night, a card under our door. Double portions. In the corner, handwritten:

For the boy who draws birds. Building 7, Flat 42. Tomorrow, draw more.

Asher was already asleep, clutching his origami bird. On the wall: his mural. Not just birds now. Flowers. Suns. Things he’d never seen but somehow remembered.

Outside, the drone hovered. Its red light pulsed—not scanning, but watching.

I pressed my hand to the window.

The drone dipped. Rose. Dipped again.

Like nodding.

In the morning, others had seen. Mrs Patel drew butterflies. The old man hung paper cranes. Small acts of inefficient beauty, spreading like a virus.

At the queue, people stood closer. Some whispered. Some shared.

When a little girl dropped her ration bag, three hands reached to help.

The drone above recorded.

Did not intervene.

The algorithm was learning to doubt.

And doubt, I realised, was the most human thing of all.

In the distance, someone started humming.

Others joined.

No melody. No words. Just sound, spreading.