Loneliness & Company

By Charlee Dyroff

“An inventive and perceptive story about human connection and being alive.” – Emily Austin, author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

“Sharply etched and strangely propulsive” – Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams and Splinters

A warm hearted, beautifully written debut novel set in near future New York about a young woman who finds herself tangled in a secret Government project combating loneliness.

Lee's future is set-a top student and professor-favorite, she's destined to land a job at a prestigious Big Five corporation. So when, upon graduating, she's assigned to an unknown company in the dead city of New York instead, her life is completely upended.

In this new role, Lee's task is to gather enough research to train an AI how to be a friend. She begins online and by studying the social circle of her clueless, outgoing roommate Veronika. But when the company reveals it's part of a classified government mission to solve loneliness-an emotion erased from society's lexicon decades ago-Lee's determination to prove herself kicks into overdrive, and she begins chasing bolder and more dangerous experiences to provide data for the AI.

How far will Lee go to teach the algorithm? As the mysterious affliction spreads, Lee must decide what she's willing to give up for success and, along the way, learn what it means to be a true friend.

Loneliness & Company is an enchanting, gorgeously written novel about finding meaning and connection in a world beset by isolation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: May 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9781639732098

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Lights flick on as I round the corner, picking up speed. My steps echo off the walls, and even though I’ve walked this route every day for the past six years, something about it feels different. The familiar hallway is a luminous tunnel. Simple. Sterile. Beautiful.

I hold my award carefully with both hands and keep moving away from the noise. Away from the conversation seeping out of the auditorium where graduation took place. From the laughter in the cafeteria where classmates are enjoying the one night a year liquor is served, and the hushed goodbyes in the dorms where others have begun to pack. In the morning, our Placements will arrive, sending us all over the world.

The glass doors at the end of the hall register my face and slide open, revealing the lab’s lofty ceiling. I stride past rows of sparkling instruments and ergonomic test stations to my desk in the corner, where I set down the award, carefully lining it up with my Screen. Now that I’m finally alone, I let myself study it: a globe twirling one way and then another above a small plaque. When I bend down to face it, a glimmer glides across, highlighting the etching of my name.

No one was surprised earlier when they called me onstage. I’ve published the most research and scored the highest marks. But even though I knew I’d win, the applause that broke out when they announced it startled me. Seeing my professors’ serious faces contort with smiles, shaking their papery hands under the hot stage lights, it was almost too much. I could hardly breathe, let alone look at the object they handed me.

But now, in the empty lab, in the comfort of the place I love most, I examine the award, and a wave of pride washes over me when I think about everyone cheering; about the knowing look, small but visible, my mentor Masha gave me when I finally met his eye.

Thinking of Masha reminds me there’s still one more dataset left to analyze before I leave tomorrow. I could pass it off to the younger fellows, but I’ve been taught that how you do one thing is how you do everything, and I want to finish this Program the way I started: strong.

Besides, there’s nowhere I’d rather be when the Placements arrive than here in the room that shaped me. I want to be here when I confirm what everyone else already suspects: I’ll land one of the coveted spots at the Big Five, companies with the best research centers in the world.

Focus, I think, jabbing my Screen awake. I block out the lab, my thoughts, questions, hopes, and dive into the data while hours disappear outside my brain. It’s not until I’m done that I notice the soft morning light splayed across the floor, telling me it’s almost time.

After sending this final analysis to Masha, I check my project portal and see everything is done. There’s nothing left to do but wait, so I begin pacing the expansive space, staring at the large, angular numbers marking time on the wall.

When I pass my desk, that lovely performative glimmer runs across my award and I pause for a second, walk a few steps away, then back, and it streams again. Of course, I think to myself. It’s programmed to shine when I’m near, and discovering this makes me treasure it even more. It’s designed just like everything about this place. Intentional. Intelligent. Exact.

I continue pacing, thinking about what’s next. A role everyone dreams about. An opportunity, Masha said when he first started priming me for it in my second year. Small prongs of anticipation jab my stomach. Which one of the Big Five will it be? What team will I be on? What will be my first assignment be?

The award continues to glisten, and the numbers on the wall slowly switch places. I watch the clock, time dripping in front of my eyes, until finally my Screen collapses into darkness.

This is it! The Placement! I rush over and lean in close. So close, I feel the heat of it: my future. Flying through the ether on its way to me.

Two seconds pass, three. And then it arrives, words crashing through the dark, raining glitter across my Screen. I blink, trying to process the name sitting there. A company I don’t recognize. And I know every company, or at least every good one.

The Placement disappears and bursts onto the Screen again. My throat swells as I stare at the impossible, watching those terrible sparkles rain.

Breathe, I tell myself as the lab begins to spin, becomes too bright, too hot.

This can’t be happening. This can’t be right.

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

I open my eyes to a strange room with blank beige walls and feel as if I’ve never slept, or as if maybe I’ve been asleep for my whole life and am finally waking up. The bed hasn’t molded to my body yet. The air is muggy. Even the sheets feel off, starchy instead of smooth.

I study the paintbrush strokes on the wall. A hairline crack stems from the window, and I stare at it as I do my best to not think about anything. But it turns out that not thinking about something generally makes you think about it. So I struggle back and forth, thinking and not thinking, unsure what to do with myself.

When I can’t lie in bed any longer, when my phone warns me I’m about to be late, I force myself up and pull on jeans, fumbling with the cold metal button between my still-sleeping, seminumb fingers. I throw on a white T-shirt from the top drawer, where I must have folded my clothes in a daze last night.

As I drag myself down the hall, hoping to find coffee, my new roommate, Veronika, pokes her head out from the bathroom, making me jump.

Nope, uh-uh. Go change, she says, a pink towel on her floating head. Her skin puffs out, makeupless.

I was so concerned with getting my mind right that I forgot she existed. Forgot that last night, when I first arrived, she wrapped her arms around me as if we’d known each other for years. I forgot her dimpled smile, her perfectly curled blond hair, her large boobs. How overwhelming all of her—all of this—is.

You can’t wear that on the first day, she says, as if this were a simple fact.

I blink, trying to figure out if I should turn around or keep moving. Whether she’s serious or attempting to make me laugh.

Here, let me help. First impressions are important.

Veronika closes the door and emerges seconds later swaddled in a pink robe that matches the towel on her head. In my room, she pulls open the drawers and digs around, ruining the neatly organized piles. She plucks a pair of tan slacks and a blue sweater from the mess and lays them on the bed.

This top will bring out your eyes, she declares, and walks back to the bathroom.

I look at the outline of a person on the bed. After spending the last six years in uniform, I’d forgotten I even owned these slacks, this sweater. At the Program, we wore all black. The only thing that differentiated us was our skills, our research, our talent. Not our appearance. Is it possible to miss a uniform’s stiffness? To want the security of simplicity? Will Veronika be doing this all the time? Weighing in on my outfits, my habits, my life?

I’ve never had a roommate before, and it’s strange to share a space with someone, to have two lives crash together in one apartment. I’m used to my small, neat dorm room. To quiet routine. Uninterrupted thought.

I know none of this is a dream. When I touch my arm, it’s still warm, slightly hairy, real. When I put my finger in my eye, it waters, rejecting the poke. But everything feels blurred at the edges, as if time is moving faster than I can think. My classmate published a report on the moment after a decision is made and a person is suspended between what once was and what will be. The Gray Area, he called it.

Well—former classmate. Ex-classmate? How long can a person get stuck inside The Gray Area if the decision wasn’t theirs to make?

I change quickly into the clothes on the bed. Technically, the decision was mine, I remind myself. I entered the Program understanding that after I received my degree, I would work one year wherever the Placement System assigned me. Usually, the System puts you somewhere that benefits your personal development and that of the Country. But being placed here seems to follow none of those criteria. In fact, it seems to follow no logic at all.

I feel strange in my own clothes, but when I exit my room for the second time, Veronika peeks her head out again, face much tanner than before, and nods in approval.

---

The office is near the water in Tribeca, just above where the old Financial District used to be, or so Maps tells me with its small, dotted outline commemorating land that doesn’t exist anymore.

I squish into the subway with all the bodies, and no one takes their jacket off as the train speeds downtown, so I keep mine on, too, forearms growing damp in their sleeves. The ads spin and turn, targeting new people when they step on.

When I arrive at the address, I gaze up at a crumbling stone building. A fire escape dangles from the side like a barnacle and looks like it would blow away if rust weren’t holding it in place. I walk up to the door and run right into the glass pane that I thought would slide open but remains stubbornly solid. Rubbing my forehead, I step back and try to pull on the door’s handle. A small camera blinks in my face.

Levels too low. DENIED.

The door remains sealed. I wait in the cold for a few minutes and think about what to do, studying my breath as it escapes and lingers in the air. We received an Onboarding Packet, but I couldn’t get through it. Normally, I would have read it three or four times. Normally, I overprepare. But when I started swiping through this one, the first section was filled with stupid, empty buzzwords about how sometimes small, unknown things can change the world and blah, blah, blah. Besides, the less I know, the less real this seems.

I check my phone for the thousandth time this morning just in case. Any minute now they’ll realize the glitch. A representative from the Placement System will call to correct it. I’ll be understanding, of course. These things happen, I hear myself saying calmly, even though they don’t. The System is nearly infallible, at least historically.

A throat clears behind me, and I step aside to watch as a large man looks up into the camera and smiles, his face transforming from tired to thrilled. The door clicks open and his smile vanishes as he steps inside and the door slides shut behind him.

Fascinating.

I can’t tell if this is an antiquated system or a new one. The way things operate here is strange: noticeable. Back at the Program, everything ran seamlessly without calling attention to itself. The buildings simply scanned you without making such a fuss.

I step up to the door again, look into the camera, and copy the man, using muscles I haven’t tapped into for a while. I force the biggest smile I can, the camera blinks, and the screen flashes green.

Work happiness levels 91%. Have a productive day!

The door slides open and I step inside, feeling victorious until it dawns on me what I’ve done. I’ve entered the office.

CHAPTER 2

As Janet watches the familiar faces step off the elevator, she can’t help but smile. From the glass conference room, she studies them, these people she’d recognize anywhere even though they’ve never met. It’s thrilling, really, to see them here in the flesh. Janet loves watching her ideas come to life.

Toru types away next to her, sending a message to their Tech Team located across the globe. She nudges him softly, and he glances up at the small half circle forming in the middle of the office, nods, and returns to his phone. After years of working together—gosh, how many now, fifteen?—Janet knows this gesture is equivalent to a thumbs-up. She knows that Toru’s way of showing emotion, especially good ones, is to bury himself in business.

Janet shuffles things around on her Screen, stalling. She and Toru have founded multiple companies together and she knows how to build a successful team. She’s learned that the first few minutes colleagues meet can be uncomfortable, but also provide a crucial opportunity for bonding.

Just a few days ago, Janet and Toru had sat in this very room, sifting through profiles in the Placement System. They’d jumped through countless regulative hoops to convince the Government that what they needed for this particular role was precision. Control. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust the System to give them quality candidates, but this was an entirely new kind of role. One it had never matched people to before.

When the Government reluctantly gave them the green light, Janet had their own developers reprogram the Placement System with very specific criteria. And then she and Toru used it to select their newest employees.

They projected the candidates on the wall, and Toru flipped through them as Janet watched patiently. The first four were easy. The System surfaced them right away. But the final one was more difficult to find. Toru stood at the front and flipped through a pool of people with a small flick of his wrist.

Flick, flick, flick. Faces flew through the night. Hundreds of people appeared and disappeared in an instant. Narrow jaw. Wide eyes. Large forehead. Bunchy bangs with hidden freckles. Red lips forming a very large, very sad smile. A blink, a smirk, a shrug, and when Janet or Toru saw a few red marks on the side indicating they fell short from the criteria, flick, they were gone.

Finally, after hours, they found their fifth and final match. As Janet filled out selection forms, Toru played around with the Placement System for the fun of it, scanning the pool of talent and commenting on how the more rigorous Programs become, the more monotonous minds they produce. Young people ground down to nubs.

Janet nodded along as she worked. She’d heard similar rants from him before, but each round has new nuggets of insight. That’s one of her favorite things about Toru, the way he thinks. The way he approaches problem-solving: with intelligence and, sometimes, a necessary recklessness. He’s not afraid to try things, to experiment.

And neither is Janet. It’s one of the reasons they work so well together, why they’ve been so successful. They’re both deeply competitive, deeply committed to approaching projects differently than everyone else. Freely. Which is why it was shocking when the Government invited them to work on this project. That’s how Toru likes to phrase it, anyway, although they both know it wasn’t really an invite but more of a demand.

Janet finished the forms just as Toru stopped speaking. Stopped flicking through faces. She looked up to see him staring at one that stared back. A plain face, no makeup, with hair pulled in a low bun. The girl spoke about the Program she was about to graduate from, her research and awards. She spoke with an irritating confidence and a naïve devotion.

Janet thought Toru would use her as an example of how these Programs were just making everyone the same. But he didn’t. Instead, they listened as she finished her introduction by saying, simply, that she was the best. She said it without blinking, without smiling, while looking straight through the Screen.

We’re done, Janet said, closing her Screen. We don’t need any more.

Toru grunted, showing he’d heard her. But something had sparked his curiosity, and he tapped into the candidate’s profile anyway. Intellect, work ethic, dedication: her qualitative scores were high. Research methods, data analysis, critical thinking: her skill scores even higher. Technically, she was better than everyone they’d seen so far.

Interesting, Toru said, flipping through her publications, references, and behavioral mapping.

She’s not a match, Janet pointed out. Relieved to see that the Placement System showed the candidate lacked one crucial criterion. It highlighted the deficiency in red.

True, he said, eyes still glued to her files. But she outscores everyone in the other categories. And she seems … bored. You can hear it in her voice. And people who are unsatisfied—

They’re always open to more, Janet said.

Exactly. And this role you came up with, J, it’s brilliant. But not for the fainthearted, Toru said, still digging around on the Screen. But your call. I’m just thinking out loud. I trust you on this stuff.

Toru’s phone rang and he picked it up, nodded to her, and stepped out, leaving Janet with the candidate projected on the wall. Something about the girl repelled her. Maybe it was the way she didn’t smile, not once, but didn’t frown, either. Or maybe it was the way she acted so certain, as if her life were already set. But Toru was right: she outscored almost everyone in the skill sets they needed. It couldn’t hurt to have one more talented researcher, right?

Someone’s nudging Janet’s shoulder. She blinks to see the same wall where the faces had been projected, but this time it’s blank. Toru taps his watch and points to the circle of people in the middle of the office. It’s time.

Janet gets up slowly to open the door and let her new team into the conference room. In the last few seconds before it all begins, she watches them through the glass, shifting from foot to foot, laughing too loudly or not at all. And as she does, she feels a strange attachment to them. A desire to protect them, though she isn’t sure from what.

CHAPTER 3

Welcome to your new home!

A tall white woman standing at the front of a large glass conference room gestures around. I think about what I just walked through to get to this room: mismatched chairs, idea boards, abandoned Screens, and headphones strewn about haphazardly. The office is a mess.

I lean back in my chair to study her and the others, assessing who does what and how important they are. It’s clear the people at the front of the long table all know each other. I can tell by the way they chat or sit in silence with such ease.

The other five in the room are new, like me. Their eyes dart around, they shift in their chairs. Across from me, a man in a suit nods at every word. Next to him is a woman with big wire-frame glasses. Long, beautiful black braids fall down around her, and she keeps her arms crossed over her chest.

There’s a lanky boy with acne, a loud girl who laughs shrilly when nothing is funny, and one with green eyes that remind me of a cat’s. She stares at me and I stare back, neither of us wanting to break eye contact first.

We’re thrilled to have you all here! the woman at the front continues. She’s strange, birdlike. Smiling without showing any teeth.

I’m Janet, and this is Toru.

Small gold bracelets slide down her wrists as she gestures to the Asian man sitting next to her, who gives a quick nod without looking up. His black hair shoots up in different directions, like a porcupine on top of his head. He types furiously on his Screen, as if he doesn’t have time for this orientation bullshit. I like him better than the rest already.

We have a lot of work to do. Toru and I are excited to dive into the project a little bit more now that you’ve all signed the Agreement.

Agreement? What Agreement? I sift through the files in my brain to try and remember when I signed something, and if so, what it was.

Everything from the last seventy-two hours is hazy. There I am under the bright lights of the freezing-cold lab, analyzing just one more dataset. There I am pacing in circles, waiting for the Placement. There I am as it bursts onto my Screen.

From then on, the memory becomes a mess of precise objects and gaps. The zipper of my suitcase. The single cloud in the sky above the dorm as I leave without saying goodbye. My parents, Greg and Cindy, sitting sockless at the wooden kitchen table in my childhood house while I collect my belongings. Eating a hamburger on the airplane and not tasting a thing.

But among the mess of memory, I find it, deep in the recesses of my brain. My stomach grows heavy as the scene clicks into place. I’m in the lab trying to make it stop. Those ridiculous shiny words placing me at a company I’d never heard of in a city where no one wants to be. A company with no prestige, no brand recognition, no track record of success.

All I wanted was to get the Placement out of my sight, to get it away from me, to stop those terrible joyless sparkles from raining down over and over again.

The scene becomes clearer. There I am in shock, placing my pointer finger on the Screen, signing an Agreement just to get it away from me.

What choice did I really have, anyway?

---

The woman named Janet is somehow still talking. According to her monologue, we’re supposed to be developing an artificial intelligence that will operate as a friend. She says this slowly, as if selecting each word with care, as if she’s telling us a secret. The goal is to build something so humanlike, so natural, that people won’t know it’s not real.

But then again, what is real and what is fake anymore? Janet laughs. See, these are the kinds of questions we need you to be asking.

As her mouth moves, questions pop into my mind, pushing through the fog.

Who are these people? Did they come from other Programs? Why is the headquarters in a ghost city? Do we have funding? What strategies are they utilizing to teach the technology? Why create an AI when there are so many already? Even in this hopeless Placement there’s still some primal part of me that, at my very core, wants to understand, solve, and help.

Questions used to be one of my strengths at the Program. Masha always encouraged them. One query could lead to years of investigation, discovery. It could open minds and instigate other ideas, he said. But where have they landed me now?

We have a prototype, Janet beams from the front, with that same lippy smile. But it needs a lot of work. We’re counting on all of you, our Humanity Consultants, to guide and develop the cognition and humanization of our product.

Humanity Consultants? There are thousands of things I’d rather be called, thousands of roles I’d rather do. Janet keeps talking, repeating the same limited information in different ways. I’m convinced she wants to say more but can’t. Something about her is suspicious. Something about her charm or cheer is fake. Practiced and hollow.

Her name is Vicky, Toru interjects. His voice is loud, excited, more energetic than I expected. He’s been silent the whole time, seemingly preoccupied with other things.

Right, Vicky. Janet smiles, looking at us as if she’s letting us in on a secret. At least that’s our nickname for it.

Vicky. What a strange name. I gather what I know about it: Female, low on the name popularity chart. Meaning victory or some sort of triumph.

Images flutter around inside my head from past studies I’ve done. A woman with purple glasses. Someone with red hair. A crazy aunt. A roommate who wears socks with frogs on them. She could be a high school chemistry teacher. A professional who records sound effects for pizza commercials.

Her name is Vicky, they say proudly, as if it were the most extraordinary thing to name artificial intelligence after someone I may know but have never met.

---

I was right. The two employees who were sitting nearest Toru and Janet at the front of the room have been here for a few months already. They’re in charge of showing us around the office, and they introduce themselves as Ted and Nikita, the Co-Heads of Relationships, whatever that means.

I repeat their names a few times so I can look them up later to see where they came from and what their accolades are. Ted is large and boyish, with a goofy smile and bright blue eyes. Nikita is tiny next to him, with long frail arms and long red nails. They show us the kitchen, the bathroom, the storage closet, the dartboard, and the fridge packed with craft beer.

Seriously?! the giggling girl says in her shrill voice. And then she laughs in the same octave. She also can’t believe there’s a water