We're Friends, Now

Raoul Beardsley drifts through the humming corridors of Crime‑Central, a rotund serological coordinator whose days are a blur of citizen files, endless annotations, and a nagging sense that his work has become little more than a mechanical ritual. The morning’s routine is shattered when the infallible AI—ECAIAC—malfunctions, and a high‑profile murder case erupts on every screen, thrusting the city’s justice system into a frenzy. Beardsley’s inner monologue crackles with self‑reproach and a simmering resentment toward the tech‑obsessed elite who seem to view him as nothing more than a cog.

The Carmack murder, tied to the very creator of ECAIAC, draws political fire and media spectacle, promising a rare spark of excitement in an otherwise stale bureaucracy. As Beardsley watches the AI’s broken diagnostics and hears the Minister of Justice warn of deeper conspiracies, he teeters between duty and a growing impulse to defy the very system that has long confined him. The stage is set for a clash of human frailty against relentless automation, and Beardsley must decide whether to become a footnote in the data stream or the unlikely catalyst that shakes the network’s foundations.