Pulse K7P4X2 · May 12, 2024 · 8 min
Poppy, Feathers, and Other Things My Score Doesn’t Understand
An unexpected encounter reveals how GRACE quietly changes not only behavior, but perception itself.
Theresa took the subway to campus. She kept noticing more and more people with scores floating above their heads. She’d made the right choice, she reminded herself. More people could see her now. She studied everyone around her—the way they moved, how they behaved, what they wore, what their scores were. She took in every detail until the metallic announcement echoed through the train.
“Mind your step.”
It pulled her back to the present.
After experimenting with different outfits, she’d realized her score responded best when she dressed neutrally. Before GRACE, she loved wearing something red—not flashy, just a subtle touch. But somehow, on her “red” days, her score always came in lower than when she stuck to a more muted color palette.
Lately, Theresa had been consciously reshaping herself. At home, she kept a journal in an old notebook, writing every evening about what worked and what didn’t. Laughing too loudly? Negative score. Inappropriate behavior? Negative score. Slouching? Negative score. Good grooming? Positive. Cleanliness? Positive. She even started tracking Mary’s and Angel’s behavior, hoping to learn something from it.
She walked toward the place where they always met, away from the crowds and out of the direct sunlight, but with a perfect view of the campus.
The past few weeks had been exhilarating. She and Mary could talk about GRACE for hours. Theresa had started noticing they experienced it differently. Mary saw it as a system for improving behavior. Theresa saw it as a system of adaptation and control. What they shared was their fascination. They could stay up talking until dawn about updates, new features, and behavioral algorithms.
Angel remained the one constant in silence.
She was always there, but never really involved. It didn’t seem to interest her. She was always busy with those art projects of hers instead of thinking about her future.
Mary crossed the square, her boots clicking across the smooth stone, echoes bouncing off the campus buildings. Every step landed with the precision of a metronome. Confident, focused, and somehow impossible to read.
Then something appeared in her vision that GRACE didn’t recognize.
[UNKNOWN PERSON]
— — —
Score unavailable
Mary knew exactly who it was.
Her confident expression softened into a smile.
Bright green overalls, far too big, splattered with what looked like pizza sauce—or maybe old fryer grease. A faded pink sweater with holes in the elbows, shapeless and worn. On her feet, something halfway between combat boots, Crocs, and rain boots: chunky, flat, and plastic.
And hanging from her ears: two feathers tied on with bits of string.
No earbuds.
No wearable.
No screen.
Mary slowed her pace.
“Poppy Kramer,” she whispered, more to herself than anyone else.
The name felt unexpectedly familiar.
Poppy had sat a few rows behind her in class years ago. Never bullied. Always noticed. Once, she’d given a presentation about food waste using a homemade sandwich as a prop. Ever since then, Mary hadn’t been able to smell an avocado without thinking of Poppy.
Poppy’s eyes met hers for only a moment—unfiltered—and then drifted away again, as if Mary were nothing more than another object in Poppy’s world.
No score hovered above her head.
Mary looked back.
Poppy had already disappeared into the crowd, as though she’d never really been there at all.
Mary’s fingers brushed the smooth curve of her watch. She tapped it.
No new notifications.
And yet something kept nagging at her, somewhere behind her eyes.
As if something outside GRACE had made itself known.
Something with stains.
And feathers.
She kept walking.
Her stride slipped back into the rhythm of the campus. Two turns, a staircase down. The hallway where they always met sat just beyond the main flow of traffic.
For Mary, Theresa, and Angel, it had become their place.
Away from the crowds.
Out of sight.
They sat on the low edge of a fountain that had been dry for years. Mary’s shoes scraped softly across the tiles while HUD information drifted through her field of vision.
Theresa M. — 761
Angel D. — 504
Just the numbers.
Discreet.
Theresa’s score had climbed noticeably over the past few weeks.
Angel, meanwhile, stayed stuck around 500.
Mary found herself wondering more and more whether it was really just indifference. Sometimes she thought she caught a glimpse of regret.
Or worse.
Pain.
As Mary sat down, she noticed herself straightening her back, arranging a faint smile, placing her legs neatly together.
Good for my score.
Theresa seemed to notice too.
Neither of them said anything.
Theresa tucked her legs up and leaned against a column.
“Did you know Professor Hannigan has an 812?”
She sounded half impressed, half suspicious.
Angel laughed quietly.
“That explains why she circles around every sentence she says. She calculates every word.”
Mary nodded without really listening.
Her gaze drifted toward the arches farther down the hall.
A breeze swept across her skirt. Without thinking, she caught the hem to keep it sitting neatly. The scent of fresh flowers drifted from an alcove nearby, unusually sharp against the stale air of the old building.
Theresa brushed a leaf from her jeans and grinned.
“The next batch of invites goes out next week. Maybe GRACE decides for itself who’s worthy.”
Mary ran her fingers across her watch again.
“Not everyone would want an invitation.
Or even want to participate.”
Theresa looked up.
“Why not?”
Mary hesitated.
“I saw someone today.
Poppy Kramer.”
The name pulled Angel back into the conversation.
She laughed softly.
“Jesus... Poppy? I honestly don’t think GRACE could even process her. She’s way too unique.”
She said it lightly, but something in her expression carried a hint of pity.
Maybe even envy.
Mary said nothing.
Her eyes traced the lines between the floor tiles until they reached the flowers tucked into the alcove.
Theresa wondered what was going on with her today.
Should I ask her what’s bothering her? Or is this really just about Poppy?
Theresa knew Poppy too.
Awful girl.
Unkempt.
Pure chaos, in all the wrong ways.
Where Angel was, in Theresa’s eyes, a free spirit—a beautiful exception, a ray of sunshine on a dark day—Poppy was a stain that needed to be scrubbed away.
Undisciplined.
Unrestrained.
Outside every rule.
She noticed Mary smiling.
Theresa checked her own score, then Mary’s, then Angel’s.
Everything looked normal.
Though Angel’s was, as always, low.
Poppy’s image lingered in Mary’s mind.
The stains on the overalls.
The feathers hanging from her ears.
Wildly inappropriate.
Free.
Outside everything that mattered.
Mary smiled faintly.
No number.
Nothing to hold on to.
Her fingers itched with the urge to check her own score.
To anchor herself again inside the invisible web they had begun spinning together.
She couldn’t remember exactly when it had started.
But ever since GRACE...
she felt calmer inside.
The world seemed clearer.
Maybe even safer.
But everyone outside that network...
was beginning to fade.
They became unknown.
There had never been a single moment.
No notification.
No sudden leap.
Just a gradual shift, as though the system had calibrated her eyes first...
and then, little by little, her mind.
It didn’t force anything.
It seeped in.
Like water finding tiny cracks until it was everywhere.
Mary only noticed it when she saw someone she knew...
and didn’t recognize.
No HUD information.
No score.
Just a face.
Disconnected.
Empty.
Like an unfinished thought.
It was as though her brain could no longer reach the information it needed to remember who they were.
It happened more often now.
Her world was becoming sharper.
But also smaller.
Everyone inside the system gained definition.
Weight.
Numbers as anchor points.
Everyone else...
the faces without markers,
the bodies without profiles,
began to blur.
Not out of cruelty.
Out of function.
As though her eyes could only focus on what GRACE had already chosen to see.
That evening, alone in her room, she realized how quiet she had become.
Not from fear.
From alignment.
She moved differently.
Spoke more carefully.
Laughed more selectively.
Even her breathing felt curated.
And she wasn’t the only one.
GRACE never had to issue commands.
The system never pushed.
It simply shifted.
And the world shifted with it.
Mary liked the feeling.
As though uncertainty had become a choice she no longer needed to make.
One morning, on her way to class, Mary stopped at the corner of the square.
Her eyes swept across benches, faces, and shadows.
Everywhere she looked, there were tiny gestures.
Glances.
Postures.
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