Chapter 2 This System Never Lies—Except About Love

# Chapter 2: This System Never Lies—Except About Love

I don't bother knocking. The spare key Juniper gave me "for emergencies" slides into her lock, and I burst into her apartment like a storm. She's in the kitchen, still in her pajamas despite it being nearly midnight, a spoon of ice cream halfway to her mouth.

"Jesus, Eliora!" She drops the spoon with a clatter. "You scared the—"

"Explain this." I thrust my tablet at her, the damning video paused on a frame of her and Corwin.

Her face drains of color. She takes the tablet with shaking hands, and I watch as confusion, shock, and then anger flash across her features.

"What the hell is this?" Her voice is barely above a whisper. "This isn't real. I've never—we never—"

"Then why does it exist?" I snatch the tablet back, advancing on her. "Why is this on his private server?"

"I don't know!" She backs into the counter, her eyes wide. "Eliora, I swear to you, this never happened. I wouldn't do that to you."

"People lie all the time."

"Check VeriHeart then!" She gestures wildly at my AR glasses. "Check it right now!"

I hesitate, then activate the emotional analysis. Her biomarkers indicate genuine distress, her pulse elevated, pupils dilated—all consistent with shock and innocence, not guilt.

"You were in Chicago that night," I say slowly, remembering. "The tech conference."

"Yes! I was doing the live-stream about neural interfaces. You even liked the video, remember?"

I pull up my social feed, scrolling back to the date embedded in the video file. There it is—my comment on her stream: *Killing it, J! Those dinosaurs don't stand a chance against your brain.*

"Show me your location data," I demand, still not ready to believe.

Juniper grabs her own tablet, pulling up her location history, IP logs, even hotel receipts. The evidence is irrefutable. She was 800 miles away when that video was supposedly recorded.

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"It's a deepfake," she says, running a hand through her tangled hair. "A really good one, but that's what it has to be."

My knees suddenly feel weak. I sink onto a barstool, the adrenaline draining from my system. "But why? Who would do this?"

Juniper's eyes narrow. "More importantly, why was Corwin watching it?"

That question sends me racing back to my car and straight to Corwin's apartment. I don't call ahead. I need to see his reaction, raw and unfiltered.

He answers the door in sweatpants and a faded t-shirt, hair rumpled like he's been running his hands through it—a nervous habit I've always found endearing. Not tonight.

"Eliora? What's wrong?" Concern crosses his face as he takes in my wild eyes, my still-formal dress now wrinkled from my confrontation with Juniper.

I push past him into the living room, turning to face him with the tablet held out like a weapon. "What is this?" My voice is steadier than I expected.

He takes it, confusion evident in the furrow of his brow. Then his face changes—shock, recognition, and something else I can't quite read. Not guilt, but... pain?

"Where did you find this?" he asks quietly, his voice hollow.

"On your server. Behind three layers of encryption." I cross my arms. "Care to explain why you have a sex tape of you and Juniper?"

"It's not—" He stops, shakes his head. "It's not what you think."

"Then what is it? Because I just came from Juniper's place, and she was in Chicago when this was supposedly recorded."

He sinks onto the couch, the tablet limp in his hands. "It's a simulation."

"A simulation," I repeat flatly.

"A neural rendering. From the dream recording prototype I've been working on."

I stare at him, my mind racing to catch up. Corwin works in experimental neural interface technology—the same field that helped develop VeriHeart's emotional recognition systems. Dream recording is still theoretical, as far as I know.

"You're saying this is... a dream you had? About Juniper?"

He won't meet my eyes. "The system captures neural patterns during REM sleep and renders visual approximations. It's still experimental."

My throat tightens. "So you're dreaming about sleeping with my friend. That's so much better."

"I can't control my dreams, Eliora."

"But you saved it. Encrypted it. Watched it."

He finally looks up, his eyes haunted. "I was trying to understand why. Why her, why anyone but you. I don't want to feel this way."

I laugh, a sharp, bitter sound. "Is that why VeriHeart flagged you tonight? When you said you loved me?"

His head snaps up. "What?"

"Don't pretend you don't know. The system gave me a red alert when you said 'I love you' tonight. Emotion mismatch, it said. Your words didn't match your feelings."

He's silent for a long moment. When he finally speaks, his voice is barely audible.

"You trust VeriHeart more than you trust me."

The accusation hits like a physical blow. "Is it the system's fault, or did you say 'I love you' to someone else?" I demand, my voice rising.

Corwin stands, runs both hands through his hair in frustration. "You think I'm lying to you? After three years?"

"I think the system doesn't lie. It can't."

"The system doesn't understand everything!" He's shouting now, which is rare for him. "You know what happens when I say 'I love you'? The system glitches. Every time. Because I—" He breaks off, turning away. "Because I'm not even sure myself anymore if I'm talking to you or... or the person I keep seeing in my dreams."

His words are like ice water down my spine. I take a step back, then another.

"Eliora, please," he reaches for me, but I flinch away. "I'm trying to be honest with you."

"Too late." I grab my purse, needing to escape before I completely fall apart. "Much too late."

I make it to my car before the tears come, blurring the road as I drive aimlessly through the night. My phone buzzes with messages from Corwin, but I can't look at them. Not yet.

Instead, I pull over and check my work email—a desperate attempt at normalcy. Among the usual updates and meeting requests is something unexpected: a system notification from VeriHeart's core team.

"Report A-21b Processed. Video in question confirmed uploaded by developer account DEACON_MERRIT. Purpose: Testing module for emotional misdirection response."

Deacon Merrit. The name sends a chill through me. The programmer with perpetual headphones and a smile that never reaches his eyes. I remember him watching me in the lab cafeteria once, his gaze calculating as he said:

"AI's job isn't to tell you who loves you, but to show you who you want to hear it from."