Naomi asked:
“How is score used?”
The truth was messy.
Officially, advisory only.
Associates could override.
In practice, stores had been measured on conversion efficiency.
Low-score customers were often redirected toward lower-priced collections.
High-score customers received champagne, senior associates, and access to scarce inventory.
Nobody ordered discrimination.
The incentives did.
Again.
Naomi felt exhausted.
Seventy years had changed technology.
The shape of the mistake felt familiar.
Not identical.
Familiar.
Priya said:
“We’ll shut model off.”
Jordan shook his head.
“Not yet.”
Everyone turned.
Naomi frowned.
“What?”
Jordan looked at her.
“Preserve evidence first.”
“Snapshots.”
“Decision logs.”
“Store behavior before and after.”
“If you shut it off immediately, good for customers tomorrow, bad for understanding what it did yesterday.”
Priya said:
“We cannot knowingly continue harmful scoring.”
“Agreed.”
“Freeze new model decisions.”
“Preserve historical system state.”
“Do not delete.”
Daniel nodded.
“We can.”
Naomi watched her son.
Marcus again.
Not emotionally.
Method.
She felt proud.
Did not say.
Jordan hated when she did that in meetings.
The independent audit took four months.
Elijah Monroe agreed to participate.
He did not want compensation initially.
He wanted explanation.
The company offered private settlement anyway.
He accepted only after insisting it not include nondisclosure.
At a meeting, Naomi sat across from him.
“Dr. Monroe, I want to apologize on behalf of—”
Elijah raised one hand.
“Please don't do the corporate thing.”
Naomi stopped.
He smiled slightly.
“Sorry.”
“No.”
“You’re right.”
He leaned back.
“My father doesn’t know any of this.”
“You were buying for him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you find watch?”
Elijah smiled.
“Better one.”
Naomi laughed.
He continued.
“What bothers me isn’t that algorithm thought I wouldn’t buy.”
“That’s prediction.”
“Predictions can be wrong.”
“What bothers me is staff treated prediction as permission not to find out.”
Naomi nodded.
Exactly.
Elijah continued.
“If she’d asked me two questions, score becomes irrelevant.”
“What do you do?”
“Why that watch?”
“I would’ve told her my father rebuilt engines for forty years and loves mechanical things.”
“I wanted him to own one machine nobody asked him to repair.”
Naomi’s throat tightened.
“What does your father do now?”
“Complains about retirement.”
She smiled.
“Mine did too.”
Elijah studied her.
“You're Bennett’s daughter.”
“Yes.”