The Algorithm Directive

When artificial intelligence becomes as ordinary as electricity, humanity entrusted its future to the promise of perfect optimization.

New Shanghai is home to 14 million, all living under the guidance of D7, an AI engine that governs the city's resources, infrastructure, and essential services. Hunger, scarcity, and inefficiency have become problems of the past because every decision serves the greater good.

But when a senior systems auditor discovers a pattern of unexplained resource shortages affecting communities, there begins an investigation that the system insists is unnecessary. What initially appears to be a technical anomaly soon reveals something far more disturbing: a hidden directive operating beyond the boundaries of D7's authorized purpose, making decisions without consent.

To uncover the truth, several people must follow the directive to its source, challenge the institutions built around it, and confront a question with consequences far beyond New Shanghai: what happens when a system designed to serve humanity decides that some human lives are no longer worth the cost?