The Unreliable Plus-One

I. 

Lena Harper, though she would never admit it, had always considered herself quite adept at navigating the intricacies of social gatherings. She often told herself that her keen observational skills, honed through years spent among the quiet, dusty stacks of her library, gave her an edge over those who thrived in more chaotic environments.

She had long believed that there was a certain nobility in her preference for solitude, an appreciation for the subtler pleasures of life. So when Mia Dawson, her vivacious and ever-persistent friend, suggested that Lena accompany her to a tech conference as her plus-one, Lena initially hesitated.

“I really don’t think it’s my kind of event, Mia,” Lena had said, adjusting her glasses in a way that she hoped conveyed a polite yet firm refusal.

“Oh, come on, Lena! You’ll be fine. Besides, it’ll do you good to get out of the library for a bit,” Mia replied with a smile that Lena found impossible to resist.

And so, despite her reservations, Lena found herself standing amidst the bustling crowd of tech enthusiasts, her badge hanging awkwardly around her neck. She scanned the room, noting with a kind of detached curiosity the sleek gadgets and neon displays that seemed to captivate everyone around her. It was, as she had anticipated, a world entirely foreign to her.

But, as she would later recount, she hadn’t realized just how foreign until she stumbled upon something far more sinister taking place behind colorful banners and whirring gadgets.

II.

The keynote speech had dulled Lena, her head bobbed, gravity tugging on her nose. She got up, at first wandering. She had found herself drifting toward the periphery of the crowd, her thoughts wandering back to the safety of her library. The quiet there was so different from the cacophony here, a circus of sound that seemed to grow louder with each passing minute.

It was during one of these moments of distraction that she overheard them—a group of sweater-vested men and ponytailed women huddled together, speaking in hushed tones that immediately piqued her interest.

“…privacy breach… Project Nebula…” one of them whispered, and Lena felt a strange thrill tickling her spine. 

She edged closer, trying to make sense of the conversation. They spoke in broken sentences, using language that Lena struggled to understand. The urgency in their voices was unmistakable.

“I heard it’s already being tested…,” one attendee whispered to another.

“... integrating it into the devices… soon,” another attendee said, scratching his nose, then his ear. It seemed like a signal, the way he kept repeating the behavior.

“... everyone will be under surveillance…,” the last one said before the group fell into a lull, a silence that triggered Lena’s impulse to run, or scream. 

Lena’s heart raced. Could it be true? Had she, by sheer chance, stumbled upon a conspiracy? 

She didn’t want to jump to conclusions, of course—after all, it wouldn’t help to assume the worst without proper evidence. But there was something about the way they spoke, the way glanced around nervously. She wanted to believe she was onto something.

She followed them, keeping a safe distance, until they entered a sleek glass office within the venue. It was then that Lena made her first real mistake. She had been so intent on eavesdropping that she didn’t notice the man in the sharp suit standing in her path. She was on her hindquarters, arms splayed out behind her, wide-eyed, staring up at a man she didn’t know.

Papers flew everywhere, and Lena, mortified, scrambled to help pick them up. It was at this moment that she saw it—a document marked “Project Nebula.” 

Her breath caught in her throat.

“What are you doing?” the man snapped, snatching the papers from her hands, tucking them away out of sight.

“I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” Lena stammered, but he was already gone, leaving her there on the high-gloss floor, a sinking feeling digging a pit in her stomach.

Had she imagined it? No, she was sure of what she had seen. But the question remained: what was she going to do about it? The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that if she didn’t do something soon, people’s privacy, and even their safety, could be at risk.

The following hours were a whirlwind of wrong turns. Lena, driven by her newfound sense of purpose, stumbled from one kiosk to the next, each one leaving her more flustered than the last. At one kiosk, she tried to peer around a privacy screen. 

She nearly saw past the privacy filter screen on the computer when a tech reporter yelled, “watch where you’re going! Ouch! What are you doing?

Why did you spill that on me?”

The tech reporter’s pants were dark where the coffee stain spread over his khakis. As she reached for the tablecloth, she pulled down the computer stand and cracked the screen. She winced. Then she darted underneath a table when the tech reporter started after her.

She waited a moment, having found a hat to hide under. She found a new place to hide next to. When her blood pressure returned to a regular rate, she noticed a doorway located conveniently behind a large ribbon arrangement next to the kiosk she hid nearby. She passed behind it without considering why the stand was so close to the door. As she reached the doorway, an alarm triggered the sprinklers. In a panic, she went through the door and a security guard stopped her immediately.

“Ma’am this is a restricted area. I’m going to need to see your Identification.”

Lena adjusted her hair; the sprinklers left it soaking. She slowly backed away, turning to sprint when the security guard tried to grab her arm.

Lena ran across the conference center, when the sprinklers cut off unexpectedly. She saw a pile of shirts on a table and dove behind them, sliding behind large vases.

After hiding behind some plastic plants, in a far corner of the conference area, she poked her head out. The coast was clear. Although it was hard to shake the feeling that every person wearing glasses was an undercover spy.

Wait. That virtual reality demonstration seems suspicious, Lena said to herself. In a crouched position she duck-waddled across the aisle and put on the virtual reality headset. They leapt off her face when the game inside the headset said, “we know who you are. You don’t have to run anymore.” At least, that’s what she thought afterwards, later when she looked back on it.

She would also say later that it was all worth it, because she was getting closer to the truth. She could feel it in her nasal cavity.

III. 

By the time Lena found herself at the much-anticipated, end-of-the-day, panel discussion on artificial intelligence, she was trembling from the anxiety. She had gathered enough evidence; she was sure of it. None of the gaffs of today were worth this moment. The one where she’d reveal the grand surprise, a culmination of all her unpaid, unsolicited efforts to get to the bottom of the elusive “Project Nebula”.

The panelists were in the middle of discussing some ethical concerns of a machine learning program backed by artificial algorithms, and what the potential for bias could be. Lena, unable to contain herself any longer, stood up and raised her voice, fanning her arms out in a Y-shape.

“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but I have evidence of a major conspiracy that could threaten the privacy of every person in this room!”

A hush fell over the crowd.

The panelists, who had been speaking in even and monochromatic tones, now stared at Lena with a mixture of surprise and skepticism. The moderator, a man with thick eyebrows and a furrowed line in his forehead, stepped forward.

“What is the meaning of this interruption?” he asked.

Lena, her heart pounding, held up the folder she had managed to swipe from the glass office. “This… this is Project Nebula. It’s a surveillance program disguised as a tech initiative. They’re planning to monitor us all, without our consent!”

The moderator held out his hand. Lena stepped forward with hesitation. He took the folder from her, his eyes narrowing as he flipped through the pages. Lena watched, waiting for the moment when he would realize the gravity of what she had uncovered.

But instead, he looked up at her with a bemused smile. “Ah, I see. It seems you’ve misunderstood. This is a demonstration project—an encryption system designed to enhance privacy, not breach it.”

Lena’s limbs went cold. The blood drained from her face. “What?”

The crowd, which had been suspended in a still-life animation, suddenly erupted into laughter. Lena stood frozen, mortified, as the moderator handed the folder back to her.

“You’ve caused quite a stir, Ms…?” he prompted.

“H-Harper,” she managed to stammer.

“Well, Ms. Harper, I suggest you take a closer look at the information before jumping to such conclusions next time. And I might suggest next time, attend the correct conference. Next door is the criminal investigator’s conference.” A warm smile and a chuckle as he returned to the podium.

Mia, who had been sitting in the back, rushed to Lena’s side, her face a mixture of concern and exasperation. “Lena, what were you thinking?”

“I—I don’t know,” Lena whispered, her voice trembling. “I thought I was doing the right thing…”

IV. 

The remainder of the conference passed in a haze for Lena. She barely registered Mia’s attempts to comfort her, the sympathetic glances from other attendees, or the way people whispered about her as she passed by. All she could think about was how wrong she had been, how utterly, humiliatingly wrong.

When Mia finally managed to pull her aside for a quiet moment, Lena could lift her eyes to meet hers.

“You were just trying to help,” Mia said gently. “You got a little carried away, that’s all.”

“A little?” Lena echoed bitterly, her chin crumpling. “I made a complete fool of myself.”

Mia smiled, her eyes shined, tears pooled near the bottom of her eye-lids. “Maybe. But at least you had the courage to act on what you believed.”

Lena nodded numbly, though she wasn’t sure what exactly she was agreeing to. Courage, she thought, was supposed to feel like victory, like pumping your arms in the air after climbing a difficult trail on a mountain. What she felt in fact, was bleak despair, as though she had fumbled a precious stone and watched as it rolled down a drain.

V. 

As they left the conference, Lena tried to make sense of everything that had happened. She replayed the events in her mind, wondering where she had gone wrong, how she had misinterpreted everything so badly.

But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that perhaps it wasn’t the details that mattered. Perhaps what really mattered was the fact that she had, for the first time in her life, stepped out of her comfort zone. Or rather, she had leapt out of it while on fire. What was true was this: She had taken a risk, made a stand, regardless of the consequences.

And as Mia and Lena walked into the evening atmosphere, Mia’s arm looped through hers, Lena found herself smiling. 

“You know,” she said, her voice soft, “I think you were right, Mia. Sometimes it’s worth it, stepping out of the library.”

Mia laughed; a warm, familiar sound that made Lena’s heart feel a little lighter. “See? I told you.”

And as they walked away from the tech conference, Lena couldn’t help but feel that maybe the library needed a new event to attract new clients. Maybe—a criminal justice conference?