📘 CHAPTER 12 — DEVIATION
499 Words
Lam realized this when his colleagues stopped asking for his opinion.
It wasn't sudden.
There was no conflict.
It was just… a subtle distance, like an undrawn line.
Before, when faced with difficult cases, they would lean over and ask:
— How can we handle this efficiently?
Today, they handle it themselves.
Not wrong.
More right.
It's just that they no longer seek his help.
During the morning meeting, the shift supervisor talked about “optimizing the work rhythm.”
— We need to reduce individual dependence, — he said. — The system is already smart enough to guide us.
No one looked at Lam when that sentence was spoken.
But he felt it slide past him, very close.
At lunchtime, Lam sat with the group as usual.
The conversation revolved around harmless things: system updates, new restaurants, holiday schedules.
He interjected a comment.
No one objected.
No one interrupted.
The conversation simply drifted on, as if he had never spoken.
Lam remained silent.
He wasn't excluded from the dinner table.
He was simply no longer considered an anchor point in the conversation.
That afternoon, another small thing happened.
The internal evaluation system announced:
Recommendation: Limit inter-departmental task assignments for individuals with declining interaction scores.
No names were mentioned.
No specifics.
But Lam knew who that score was referring to.
After work, Lam walked to the parking lot with a colleague.
"—How are you doing lately?" the other asked politely.
"—Fine," Lam replied.
"—Uh…" the other hesitated. "—If anything happens… just follow the guidelines to be safe."
The sentence ended the conversation.
Not advice.
It was a soft line.
That evening, Hai called.
"My acquaintances… don't recognize me anymore," he said. "Not completely forgotten. Just… they talk like strangers."
Lam closed his eyes.
"Do they have a history with you?" he asked.
"Yes. Years."
"But what about their social networking system?"
Hai was silent.
"I don't know," he said. "I only know that when I talk, they listen… but don't hold back."
Lam opened his personal dashboard again.
Interaction Stability Index: 94 → 91
A small arrow pointed down.
Not red.
No warning.
Just a gradually increasing deviation.
He looked at the sub-item:
Social Trust Index: Adjusting
"Adjusting."
A light, clean word, no one could object to.
Lam took out his notebook.
He redrew the three dots.
This time, the dots were no longer the same thickness.
One faint.
One very faint.
One almost blended into the paper.
He wrote next to it:
The system doesn't need to separate people from the world.
It just needs to make the world no longer cling to them.
Lam closed the notebook.
Outside the window, the city was still bright, still crowded, still functioning perfectly.
Only one thing had changed—very small, very precise:
Lam was deviating from the center of the interactions that once belonged to him.
And in a data-driven society,
that deviation wasn't a fault.
It was the desired outcome.
- Writer
