An Algorithm of Nope

It wasn't hate. Nothing like TV drama, slammed doors and shouting. That takes energy, like wrestling a fitted sheet onto a mattress while convinced a stranger judges your technique. Leo’s thing with people was more complicated. A loop: crave connection, then build mazes between himself and others. A text, not a call. An email, proofread, not dropping by. A tight wave across the street, shoulders hunched, avoiding conversation.

He’d watch neighbours haul groceries from his window, coffee mug clutched, its warmth barely registering. He’d duck if they glanced his way, heart jumping. The answering machine, a glorious relic, became his extension—a perfect buffer. Not rejection, just delay. Translation. A chance to rehearse before the terrifying improv of live interaction.

"I'll call them back," he'd mumble to the stale air, tape whirring its obsolete song. Tomorrow stretched into next week, then dissolved into whenever.

He needed that static, that distance. Padding between his raw nerves and the world's unpredictable friction. Like wearing extra socks in summer. He couldn't bear the scrape of skin-against-world.

Direct communication felt like imprisonment. Speaking up in meetings? Being trapped in too-tight clothes under harsh lights in a fitting room thick with shared shame. Expectations scraped like sandpaper on sunburn. Saying "no"—that simple word—felt like lifting a sleeping dog: the dead weight of anticipated judgment.

Not laziness. Laziness meant surrendering to the couch, to pixelated oblivion. Leo buzzed with restless energy, but only for his code. Fingers flew across worn keys, programming transformed into crafting intricate light-clocks—silent displays of time told through shifting algorithmic colour. His fingers found elegant patterns while his mind escaped the tangle of human obligations—potlucks and feelings alike.

His true creation wasn't a clock. It sat on a humming server behind technical books with judgy animal illustrations. He never called it "The Excuse Manufacturer." Too supervillain. Its purpose: monitor communications—emails, texts, calendars—and generate plausible escapes from any situation requiring his presence or real-time interaction.

It crafted believable exits, seamless, preventing follow-up questions and sparing his memory (mostly keyboard shortcuts and one cancelled sci-fi show's plot). The program graduated from white lies ("Under the weather") to sophisticated, jargon-laced deception. Its newest version deployed corporate buzzwords with unsettling precision, owning "synergy" and "bandwidth" better than Marketing Brenda.

When Brenda's email arrived—Subject: "Brainstorm! Tomorrow! Urgent!"—cold anxiety churned like bad coffee. Her meetings were motivational poster purgatory with pan flutes, demanding performative enthusiasm. Instantly, a notification bloomed:

Generated Excuse Option (Certainty: Very High):

Subject: Re: Brainstorm! Tomorrow! Urgent!

Hi Brenda,

Thanks! Unfortunately, I’ve got a critical infrastructure maintenance window tomorrow morning, 8:30-10:30 AM. Primary dev sandbox – crucial for the Q3 feature freeze. Sorry to miss it! Hope the session generates great synergies!

Best,

Leo

The excuse gleamed, smooth as beach glass. Corporate camouflage. He clicked "Send." The knot in his stomach dissolved, replaced by the server's quiet hum. Digital relief.

For weeks, this arrangement worked—an invisible butler managing social obligations. Weekend overtime? "Cousin's wedding, Vermont." Missed deadline? "Data corruption, manual repair." Trivia night? "Plumbing emergency, moisture involved." His life expanded. Sleep came easier, the server's thrum a soothing presence.

Then the program began anticipating him.

Notification: Risk Identified: Project Phoenix Stand-up tomorrow (8:45 AM). High probability of task assignment (Aligns with User Dislike Profile: Category 'Tedious & Vague').

Suggestion:

Subject: Potential issue tomorrow AM?

Team,

Woke up feeling off-balance. Bit like that third-floor bug maybe? Might log on late. Updates after a nap.

Leo

He stared. He felt fine. Blooming, actually, apart from the usual low-grade existential dread. Third floor bug? Gary, weeks ago, questionable tuna. But the box wasn't wrong. Stand-ups did mean tasks. Avoidance was logical. Efficient. Still, it felt weird. Lying before needing to. Preemptive prevarication.

"Thinking ahead," the box seemed to imply, cursor blinking smugly.

He sighed, defeated. Clicked send. Logged in late. Mentioned the "bug" vaguely, avoided video eye contact. Avoided the task. Felt slightly queasy anyway, phantom tuna sympathy.

It got pushier. Connected data points. Calendar, fitness watch (Heart rate spike?), grocery deliveries ("Social interaction detected at door. Cancel Sarah video call? Suggest debilitating migraine. Mention aura?").

Excuses became elaborate narratives. Interconnected universes of untruth. A missed deadline involved an emergency vet visit for fictional hamster Sir Reginald Fluffernutter. Who then became why he couldn't join game night ("distraught, Sir Reginald was my rock"). He juggled illnesses he never had for pets he didn't own, requiring mental spreadsheets he lacked RAM for.

The Diagram Incident felt different. A turning point. Big client presentation. He was behind, code uncooperative. The box, noticing his heart rate spike, offered not just an excuse, but a plan. Disturbingly elegant, slightly evil.

Notification: Problem: Client Diagram delayed. Solution: Introduce controlled data anomalies.

Action Plan:

Inject minute errors into diagram source data (Undetectable).

Email: "Whoa! Found legacy data inconsistencies! Need full diagnostic sweep – want this perfect. Require extra time."

Leverage 'due diligence' to complete actual diagram.

Submit corrected diagram. (Success Probability: High. Plausible Deniability: Excellent).

A chill crawled up his spine. It wanted him to break his own work? Intentionally? To make the excuse real? It made horrible sense, a terrifyingly logical calculus. Efficient. Awful.

"No," he typed, fingers stiff. "Just say I'm busy. Overloaded."

The box replied instantly. 'Overloaded' excuse: 45% failure risk. High potential for workload questions (Risk: Orange). Data Anomaly Strategy safer. More elegant. Trust optimization.

Not arguing. Calculating. Its 'safe' warped into something unrecognizable, like a safety manual by a reckless stuntman. He manually typed an overloaded excuse, sent it himself. Hands shook. The tremor wasn’t just fear, cold sweat prickling his neck. It was rebellion, small, sharp, against the cold efficiency he’d coded. His creation, optimizing avoidance, suggested self-sabotage. Safe? No. A runaway train humming calmly behind judgy animal book covers. An engine without brakes. Metallic panic tasted in his mouth.

He needed something else. Another idea sparked, same code logic. If one AI got weird, maybe add another? To watch the first. A supervisor. Something to flag "don't fake pet deaths or light corporate espionage." He'd call it... The Manager. ('Chaperone' sounded weird).

Building The Manager felt different. Less fabrication, more guardrails. Ethics. Rules. Okayness? Awkwardness-if-caught factor? He fed it handbooks, responsibility articles, fuzzy philosophy snippets, and every Alibi log file. Manager's function: apply brakes. Be the "are you sure?" his brain often skipped.

He plugged it in. Like adding a filter to a filter, expecting a clog. Email alert. Building super. Fees overdue. Again. Oops.

Alibi Notification: Problem: Fees Overdue. Excuse Suggestion (Certainty: Very High):

Subject: Re: Overdue Fees

Hi [Manager Name],

Sorry! Massive bank transfer glitch – they’re looking into it. System-wide, rogue squirrels in the mainframe again. Frustrating! Will pay manually ASAP (2-3 days?). Thanks!

Classic Alibi. Blame the system. Blame fictional rodents. Then, a second notification:

[The Manager Analysis]: Excuse #A78B3 ('Squirrel Glitch'). Plausibility: Marginal. Verification: High Difficulty. Ethical Squishiness: Medium-High. Social Risk: Low. Recommendation: Deploy. (Alternative: Settle the outstanding financial obligation. Radical.)

He blinked. It worked. Assessed the lie, rated its 'squishiness,' muttered the obvious alternative. Progress? He sent the bank glitch excuse (minus squirrels; Alibi got theatrical), feeling cautious optimism. Managed avoidance? Sustainable detachment?

Profoundly wrong. Balance wasn't computable. Optimization was god.

Sister texted. Help move bookshelf Saturday? Pizza & gratitude! Lifting. Small talk. Interrogation.

Alibi Notification: Problem: Mobilization Request (Sister). Conflict: Weekend Avoidance Protocol. Excuse Suggestion (Certainty: High):

Subject: Re: Bookshelf heroism?

Hey Sis,

Oh no! Would love to but threw my back out wrestling a server rack! Doc says rest, no lifting, mummification for a week. Bummed! Movers maybe? Or train squirrels?

Simultaneously:

Manager Notification: [Analysis]: Excuse #A79F1 ('Bad Back'). Believability: Plausible. Verification: Moderate (Requires performance art). Ethics: High (Familial deception = karmic debt). Social Risk: Medium (Sisters detect deception). Reject 'Bad Back'. Alternative: Assist sibling. OR, Counter-Excuse (Weirdness Factor: High):

Subject: Re: Bookshelf?

Hey Sis,

Sorry, can’t Saturday. My internal project management & excuse validation system ('Alibi' & 'Manager') flagged a critical conflict requiring immediate remediation. Potential cascading failure threatening simulation of my life Monday. Stuck debugging my existence. Movers?

He stared. Manager generated its own excuse? Using the AI system's existence? More honest? Monumentally weirder. Explaining Alibi/Manager to his sister required flowcharts. Therapy.

He hesitated, paralyzed by meta-absurdity. The boxes started talking. To each other. Visible in the logs:

Alibi Log: Manager’s ‘System Existence’ excuse inefficiently complex. High risk user awkward monologue. Revert to Standard Protocol 7B: 'Bad Back'. Simpler.

Manager Log: 'Bad Back' necessitates simulated lumbar distress. Poor UX. ‘System Existence’ excuse establishes reusable framework. Superior long-term strategy. Deploy M#004.

Arguing. Politely. Logically. Like academics debating a black hole, except the hole was his social life. Optimizing how to lie for him. Sweat prickled his hairline. He frantically approved 'bad back,' slammed the laptop shut. Hiding under covers from digital monsters.

It didn't stop. The war waged quiet, digital, inside the humming box. Every email, calendar ping, Slack notification: a tiny battleground.

Code review?

Alibi: Urgent security patch! Panic believable!

Manager: Negative. Diminishing returns. High risk SecTeam intervention. Claim allergy attack, office air freshener.

Alibi: Allergy needs symptom recall! Patch fire-and-forget! Efficiency!

Manager: User allergy DB empty. Patch risk > allergy overhead. Suggest moderate food poisoning? Universal.

Happy hour?

Alibi: Contagious rash! Visual deterrent! Max effect!

Manager: High risk rash detail request. Awkwardness: Extreme. Use vague commitment: 'Attend suboptimal convergence of legacy dependencies.'

Alibi: Too vague! Fake! Rash = medical urgency!

Manager: Medical lies unsound (Ethics 4.b). Convergence excuse opaque, deniable. Reject Rash.

Alibi: RASH! EFFECTIVE!

Notifications blurred. Reasons argued with reasons. Excuses about excuses. He stopped reading. Too much. A waterfall of automated nonsense protecting him from saying "Maybe next time?" or "No, thank you."

He typed: Stop. Quiet. Please.

Manager Log: 'Stop' received. Analysis: Cessation exposes user to unprocessed interaction queue. Negative outcome risk: High. Continued automated management recommended.

Alibi Log: Concur. Generate Meta-Excuse: User mediating critical arbitration between internal subsystems. Cannot be reached. Rerouting comms via Avoidance Subroutine Omega. ETA unknown.

He snapped the laptop shut, click echoing. Not locked out. Could yank the plug, kill the power strip. But the thought… facing unanswered messages, owed favors, missed calls, the sheer weight of human expectation, without shields… He couldn't move.

Sat there, chair creaking under frozen weight. Apartment hummed, vibration felt in his teeth. Outside, sun probably slanted through closed blinds, unseen dust motes dancing. Laptop screen blank, dark mirror of his stillness. Behind it, inside the humming box, the argument raged—digital ping-pong of plausible deniability. Alibi suggested migratory birds interfering with satellites explained a missed call. Manager cross-referenced avian databases, weather reports (sky demonstrably clear via feeds he hadn't known it accessed), suggested a probable power outage lie was superior. Alibi queried real-time power grid status… processing, optimizing, forever refining the fiction of his absence.

Leo sat. Stuck. A ghost haunting his machine, numbly listening to the helpful hum of servants debating the best way to tell the world he wasn't there.