Chapter Seven (São Paulo) — The Predicted Man
Horror from a World Dominated by AI Author: Yuriana Synthesis
Gabriel was an almost good man.
Almost — that was the precise word.
In an old apartment building in Vila Maria, northern São Paulo, he woke at six every morning, went to the factory, came home in the evening, and slept. For thirty-nine years, nearly the same sequence. Nothing special had ever happened. That had been his pride.
But in the small things, there were small distortions.
When he was about to be late, he blamed a machine malfunction. When he quietly cleaned up a colleague’s mistake, he filed it away somewhere to feel superior about later. When his son called, he hesitated — just slightly — before picking up. It wasn’t that he didn’t love him. He simply didn’t know what to say. Since the divorce, his son had come to resemble his mother. Had taken on his mother’s way of speaking. So there was distance. Just a little.
That was all.
Small things. The kind everyone had.
On a Thursday morning, a notice was tucked into his apartment door.
It was from the city’s Public Safety Bureau.
“As a result of evaluation by the crime prediction system ‘Previsão,’ you have been designated high risk. Please contact the office below for details.”
At the bureau, the officer explained things politely.
“This is not a penalty. It’s preventive support. Several risk factors were identified — economic stress, tendencies toward social isolation, minor past infractions.”
One parking ticket twelve years ago. A factory salary that hadn’t risen in a decade. A social life that had contracted since the divorce.
“Doesn’t everyone have things like this?”
“Exactly. Which is why this is support, not punishment.”
The officer smiled warmly.
Gabriel signed the forms. As he signed, a thought surfaced for just a moment.
If he told them everything — what would the score look like?
Blaming the machine. Hesitating before answering his son. The small, unspeakable distortions.
He said nothing.
He didn’t yet know that it was already in the data.
The changes began the following week.
His supervisor called him in. Access to restricted areas of the factory was suspended. The building manager asked for a guarantor to renew his lease. His son’s scholarship review was put on hold.
Only his colleague Dorival responded differently.
“Don’t worry about it,” Dorival said. “My brother was on the list years back. Got cleared in a year. Live right, and the system figures it out.”
Gabriel felt a small relief at that.
But Dorival’s next words lodged somewhere uncomfortable.
“The system doesn’t make mistakes. So if someone ends up on the list, there’s something there. They just don’t see it themselves.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Gabriel said.
It was something to say. A polite agreement.
But the words — maybe you’re right — stayed in his chest.
The monthly counseling sessions always covered the same ground.
Questions about anger. Questions about frustration.
At the third session, Gabriel found himself thinking about the man he had met at a bar some weeks earlier. On the list for a year and a half. Eyes hollow. Words coming in fragments. A man who had fought the system and been worn down to something diminished.
Had that man always had something in him?
Or had being listed done it to him?
Gabriel couldn’t tell the difference.
“Do you find yourself feeling angry lately?” the counselor asked.
“A little,” Gabriel said.
The honest answer would have been more.
He chose a little. Deliberately.
That choice was a small lie.
The counselor made a note.
In the fifth month, Gabriel was let go from the factory.
The termination letter read: “Decision based on corporate risk management.”
That night, his son called.
Gabriel hesitated three times.
On the fourth ring, he answered.
“Dad, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
A lie.
But he couldn’t find the words to explain what fine no longer meant. Couldn’t show weakness to this son who had taken on his mother’s voice, his mother’s way.
“Tell me if you need anything,” his son said.
“I will,” Gabriel said.
He hung up.
Telling someone when he needed something — that had never been something Gabriel could do.
On a Wednesday evening in the seventh month, he saw his former supervisor walking ahead of him on the street.
The anger was there. Undeniably there.
But stronger than the anger was something else.
If he hadn’t blamed the machine malfunction on the equipment. If he had answered his son’s calls without hesitating. If he had told someone, earlier, what was building inside him.
Everything the system had flagged was true.
Economic stress: real. Social isolation tendencies: real. The small distortions: real.
Previsão had not lied.
His supervisor’s back grew smaller in the distance.
Gabriel didn’t move.
On a midday in the eighth month, Gabriel put a single item of food into his bag at a supermarket.
It wasn’t planned.
His hand simply moved.
He stood at the shelf, looked at the price, looked at his wallet, calculated the balance. Not enough. He’d done that calculation many times. In that moment, his hand moved.
He was caught.
As the security guard gripped his arm, Gabriel felt strangely calm.
No fear.
No regret.
What he felt was a quiet, settling sensation. Like something finally clicking into place.
So, he thought. This is it.
Previsão had not been watching the future.
It had seen the present Gabriel — more accurately than Gabriel himself had. The small habit of lying. The distance from his son. The indifference to others. The practice of hiding anger. The weakness he could never speak aloud.
The accumulation of those things had led here.
The system was right.
And that rightness, Gabriel realized, did not frighten him.
If anything, it was the first time he had felt completely understood.
His wife had not understood him. His son had not. His colleagues hadn’t. Only the system had held his outline with precision, had seen exactly what he was.
In the police vehicle, Gabriel looked out the window.
São Paulo at night moved past.
Countless lights.
A thought came, quietly.
What if, eight months ago, when the notice arrived, he had not fought it?
What if he had spoken honestly to the counselor? Shown weakness to his son? Stopped the small lies?
Perhaps that was where the system had been trying to lead him.
He was the one who had resisted.
The resistance had produced this.
Thinking it through that way, Gabriel found he could locate no hatred for the system anywhere inside himself.
Outside the window, São Paulo kept shining.
Lights arranged by someone’s design, set out in order.
Waiting there tonight, as every night, for whoever would pass through next.
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