Her mother called the next morning at 7:12 a.m.
“¿Qué hiciste?” were her first words.
Olivia jammed the phone between her ear and shoulder as she wrestled with the coffee filter.
“Good morning to you too,” she said. “What are we yelling about?”
“You and that boy, on the stage, telling the whole city your business,” her mother said, scandal and glee in equal measure. “Do you want your grandmother to have a heart attack?”
“Oh my God,” Olivia muttered. “Abuela doesn’t even know how to use YouTube.”
“Your cousin showed her,” her mother said. “She said, ‘Mira, that’s our Olivia. And that’s that skinny boy who used to steal my good tortillas.’”
Olivia pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose.
“Ma,” she said. “Please tell me you didn’t—”
“Call your aunts? Of course I called your aunts,” her mother said. “What, you think I am made of stone?”
“I hate everything,” Olivia groaned.
“Don’t be dramatic,” her mother said. “You did good. You sounded smart.”
“That’s… nice,” Olivia said cautiously.
“But,” her mother continued, “why you let him talk first about the past? Eh? You could have said it in your words. Controlled the story.”
“I didn’t ‘let’ him do anything,” Olivia said. “He just… did it.”
“Like always,” her mother said dryly.
Olivia bit back a retort.
“Ma,” she said instead, “I have to go. Deadline. And I need this coffee more than I need my extended family’s commentary on my love life.”
“You can have both,” her mother said. “But fine. One last thing.”
“What,” Olivia said warily.
“You be careful,” her mother said, voice softening. “You both are… strong now. In your own ways. That means when you push against each other, the pieces that break will be big.”
A chill ran under Olivia’s skin.
“I know,” she said.
She wasn’t sure she did.
But she would.
Soon.
***
The council introduced Reyes’s bill on a windy Thursday.
The official name was bland—“Public Algorithms Accountability and Oversight Act”—but reporters instantly truncated it to “PAO Act” and lobbyists whispered other names in hallways: “The Morrison Leash,” “The Kill Switch Bill.”
Laura sent Olivia with a photographer and a clear mandate.
“Watch who shows up,” she’d said. “Not just who speaks. Count the suits.”
The hearing room was full.
Activists with handmade signs. “Our Code, Our City.” “No Gods, No Masters, Just Open Source.”
Tech company reps in tailored jackets and Allbirds, badges clipped to their lapels. Some were TerraNova competitors, eyes gleaming at the chance to watch Jake squirm.
Union reps. Neighborhood groups. A few curious students.
And, near the back, TerraNova’s delegation.
Jake. Carla. Max. Two lawyers. Aisha, in a blazer over her usual T-shirt, looking uncomfortable in the formal chairs.
Olivia took a spot along the side wall, notebook ready.
Reyes banged the gavel.
“We are here to discuss Int. 982, the Public Algorithms Accountability and Oversight Act,” she said. “This bill would require transparency, impact assessments, and exit plans for any private code deployed in public systems.”
She glanced around the room, as if daring anyone to call that unreasonable.
“The age of ‘trust us’ is over,” she added.
Leah grinned from her seat in the front row.
The first half of the hearing was predictable.
Sharp testified as an expert. She outlined principles. “Right now, the law treats code deployed by private companies as essentially proprietary, even when it governs public life. This bill starts to correct that imbalance.”
A tech lobbyist followed, warning of “chilling effects on innovation,” “duplicative bureaucracy,” “driving good actors away.”
Olivia wrote their phrases down, each one a brick in a wall she’d seen before.
Then they called Jake.
He walked to the table, swore in, sat.
He’d dressed up this time. Dark suit, white shirt, tie with a subtle pattern. Hair tamed. Jaw closely shaved.
He looked like a CEO testifying before Congress in a more cinematic universe.
“Mr. Morrison,” Reyes said. “We’ve seen a lot of each other lately.”
“Yes,” he said. “We should get frequent flyer miles.”
Scattered laughter.
Reyes didn’t smile.
“You’ve read the proposed bill,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “Several times.”
“And?” she asked. “What’s your position?”
He paused. A calculated beat.
“On the record,” he said, “I support its intent. I think the city should have strong oversight over any code that touches public life.”
Olivia’s pen scratched furiously.
On the record.
“However,” he went on, “I have concerns about specific provisions that could unintentionally entrench existing players and make it harder for smaller, more innovative startups to break in.”
O’Donnell smirked. “Like yourself, ten years ago,” he said.
“Yes,” Jake said. “Like myself, ten years ago. Or like a group of grad students in the Bronx right now who might have a better idea for bus routing than we do. If the compliance burden is too high, only companies with significant legal departments will be able to clear the bar.”
Patel interjected. “So your concern is not with oversight itself, but with barriers to entry for smaller firms?”
“Exactly,” he said. “We can meet these requirements. We have whole teams for this. But if you say to a two-person shop, ‘Before you can try your idea in one borough, you have to submit full code documentation, hire an auditor, and go through six months of hearings,’ they might never bother.”
Reyes tapped her pen against the desk.
“So what would you change?” she asked.
He leaned forward.
“Tiered thresholds,” he said. “Scale requirements based on impact. A pilot project on one block shouldn’t face the same process as a platform that runs the whole subway system. Build in sunset clauses. Build in community review. But don’t crush experimentation.”
O’Donnell tried to bait him. “You realize, of course, that some would see your support for this bill as… self-serving. You’ve already cornered a big chunk of the market. Codifying standards you can meet might lock out competitors.”
Jake’s jaw tightened.
“If my support for basic accountability makes people suspicious,” he said evenly, “that says more about how low the bar’s been than about my motives. This bill makes my life harder. It also makes the city safer. I can live with both.”
Olivia jotted *pull quote* in the margin.
As the hearing wore on, lines hardened.
Union reps wanted guarantees that algorithmic changes wouldn’t cost jobs.
Community advocates demanded seats on oversight committees.
Corporate reps wanted exemptions, carve-outs, delays.
Through it all, Jake sat, occasionally interjecting.
At one point, Sharp pushed him.
“You say you support open standards,” she said. “Would you be willing to commit, publicly, to making TerraNova’s core APIs open to competitors under this bill?”
Silence.
Olivia held her breath.
“That’s a big ask,” Max muttered under his breath behind Jake. Olivia saw his fingers twitch.
Jake knew cameras were on him.
“Yes,” he said finally. “Under reasonable licensing and security constraints. If we’re truly building public infrastructure, it shouldn’t be locked to one vendor in perpetuity.”
Carla winced. Max looked like he was doing math in his head so fast he might combust.
Tweet storms began in real time.
@TechCrunchNY: *Morrison says “yes” to open APIs under proposed oversight bill. That’s… huge.*
@CityWatchNY: *See? Pressure works.*
Afterward, in the hallway, chaos.
Cameras. Microphones. Reporters shouting.
Jake did a quick gaggle, hitting the talking points—*shared responsibility,* *opportunity for improvement,* etc.—then escaped into a side corridor.
Olivia slipped away from the scrum, heart pounding with the cobbled-together version of what she’d just witnessed.
She found him near a window again, shoulders tense.
“You just gave away your moat,” she said without preamble.
He glanced at her.
“You sound like Max,” he said.
“He’s not wrong,” she said. “Committing to open APIs? That makes it easier for cities to walk away from you.”
“That’s the point,” he said. “Isn’t that what you and Leah and Reyes have been yelling about? Exit plans?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I didn’t expect you to roll over that fast.”
He snorted. “Trust me, this is not what Max calls ‘rolling over.’ This is… controlled bleeding.”
“That’s a lovely image,” she said dryly.
He leaned his head back against the wall.
“This way,” he said, “if we ever become the villain in your series, the city has an actual lever. They can plug someone else into the slot.”
“And in the meantime,” she said, “you get good press. ‘Benevolent founder supports regulation.’”
He flinched, just a little.
“That’s not why I did it,” he said. “But I’m not stupid. I know how it plays.”
She studied him.
Tired lines etched at the corners of his eyes. A looseness in his tie that hadn’t been there at the start of the hearing.
“You look like you haven’t… recalculated this twelve times already,” she said.
“Try twelve hundred,” he said. “Every time I try to draw a map where I keep full control and the city gets full safety, it breaks. This… feels like the least bad version.”
“Least bad,” she repeated softly.
“Welcome to governance,” he said wryly.
A door opened at the end of the hall. Max’s voice floated toward them.
“—do you realize what you just committed us to? In public?”
Jake straightened.
“Gotta go get yelled at by my CFO,” he said. “You going to… be gentle in your write-up?”
She snorted. “Absolutely not.”
He smiled, brief.
“I’d be disappointed if you were,” he said.
As he walked away, she called after him.
“Jake.”
He turned.
“You did the right thing,” she said. “For the city. Even if it sucks for you.”
He held her gaze.
“I know,” he said. “That’s why it sucks.”
***
Her piece that night pulled no punches.
She described the hearing as a collision of narratives: “innovation” versus “safety,” “agility” versus “accountability.”
She wrote about Reyes, sharp and unyielding. About the lobbyist who’d warned of “driving business to less regulated jurisdictions,” as if code were a flock of birds that would simply migrate.
She saved Jake’s API commitment for the middle, letting it land like a small thunderclap.
> “If we’re truly building public infrastructure, it shouldn’t be locked to one vendor in perpetuity,” Morrison said. > > It’s a line that will make his investors queasy and his competitors drool. It also might be the most important sentence spoken in city hall this year.
She ended on a question.
> The bill is far from law. It will be amended, watered down, fought over. But the frame has shifted. > > If the founder whose code runs our grid is willing to let go of some control, the rest of us have no excuse not to demand it.
Laura pinged her as soon as it went live.
> “Controlled bleeding,” she wrote. > That’s your next column title.
> Off the record, Olivia replied. > But yes.
Twitter lit up.
@OpenCityDev: *If TerraNova actually opens APIs under PAO, that’s a paradigm shift.*
@VCguy99: *Commitments like Morrison’s only sustainable if regs apply equally to all. Otherwise, we’re just punishing first movers.*
@SouthSideMami: *So if the city can fire him now, can we fire my landlord too?? Asking for 3B.*
Her phone vibrated with a call.
She glanced at the ID.
*Jake.*
She answered after a beat.
“You must enjoy pain,” she said by way of greeting. “Calling the woman who just wrote that you made your investors queasy.”
“Honesty kink,” he said. “What can I say.”
Heat shot under her skin.
“Do *not* use the word kink in a conversation with me while I’m at my desk,” she said. “HR nightmares.”
He laughed, low.
“You’re at work?” he asked.
“Where else would I be,” she said. “It’s 9 p.m.”
“Home,” he said. “With… friends. A life.”
“You speak of these things like fables,” she said.
“Fair,” he said. “We’re still at the office too. Max is pacing holes in the carpet.”
“Tell Max I said hi,” she said. “And that he can bill me for his therapy.”
“I’ll pass that along,” he said. “He actually… took it better than I expected.”
“Because you convinced him it’s good PR?” she asked.
“Because I convinced him that building a monopoly on proprietary code in public systems is great until someone else comes along and does it to us,” he said. “If we help set the standards, we get to at least influence the playing field.”
“Strategic altruism,” she said.
“Aren’t you the one who said recently that purity politics are boring?” he shot back.
She huffed.
“Maybe,” she said. “Off the record.”
He was quiet for a second.
“Olivia,” he said. “Do you… ever feel like this is… bigger than you can hold in your head?”
She blinked.
“What,” she said.
“All of it,” he said. “Systems. Code. Policy. People. You pull on one thread and three others appear, each with their own unintended consequences.”
She leaned back in her chair.
“Constantly,” she said. “Every time I write a sentence, I think about who it might hurt. Who’ll weaponize it. Who’ll ignore it.”
“And you still… do it,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “So do you.”
He exhaled, something like relief in the sound.
“Okay,” he said. “Then I’m going to keep… doing it.”
“Helpful,” she said. “We’d be in trouble if you decided to quit now and become, like, a yoga influencer.”
“God forbid,” he said. “I don’t bend that way.”
Her mind unhelpfully supplied an image of him trying.
She shoved it aside.
“Go home,” she said. “Sleep. Or at least… stare at your ceiling and contemplate your crimes.”
“You first,” he said.
They hung up without a goodbye.
It felt, oddly, like an intimacy all its own.
***
Two days later, another kind of intimacy crashed into her life.
She was halfway through editing a sidebar about the history of public utility regulation when Raj dropped a printout onto her keyboard.
“Before you kill me,” he said, stepping back, hands up.
She glared at him, then at the paper.
A gossip site’s logo screamed up at her in lurid pink: *CITY’S HOTTEST POWER COUPLE? JOURNO & TECH BILLIONAIRE HAVE HISTORY.*
Below, grainy zoom-lens photos of her and Jake at Manny’s. On the sidewalk outside the bar. In the green room clip from the panel.
The caption: *Sources say they dated “before he made it big.” Now she’s writing the stories that could make—or break—his empire.*
Her stomach dropped.
“Fuck,” she breathed.
Raj winced. “Yeah.”
“Who…?” She scanned the text. Anonymous “sources close to the couple.” A “former classmate” remembering them “inseparable.” A “neighbor” from South Side talking about seeing them on the stoop.
Her mother’s worst nightmare, commodified.
“Laura saw?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“In a meeting for the next five minutes,” Raj said. “You’ve got that long to decide whether you want to go in yelling or… strategizing.”
Her pulse pounded in her wrists.
“I have to—” she started.
Her phone buzzed.
*Unknown*: *Ms. Martinez, this is Sam from Ethics & Standards. Got a minute?*
Of course.
She stood, legs unsteady, and made her way to the small glass-walled office where Metro’s ethics committee lived.
Sam, late thirties, perpetually rumpled, gestured her in.
“You know why you’re here,” he said.
“Because the internet is a hellscape,” she said.
“Also,” he said, sliding a printout of the same article across, “because optics matter.”
She dropped into the chair.
“I disclosed to Laura from the start,” she said. “She knew we had history. We’ve double-edited every piece. Fact-check’s been on high alert. We’ve done everything by the book.”
“I know,” Sam said. “This isn’t about what you did. It’s about what people *think* you did.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
“So what,” she said. “You want me to stop covering him.”
He hesitated.
“I’m not… recommending that,” he said. “Yet. Your work is strong. It’s been impactful. Pulling you now looks like capitulation to bad-faith attacks.”
“But,” he added, “we need to formalize what’s already been happening informally. Written disclosure in every piece. Clearer language in our masthead. And… if this escalates, if the story becomes more about you and Mr. Morrison than about TerraNova and the city, we may have to move you.”
The words felt like a slow bruise.
“Move me where,” she asked.
“Plenty of places that could use your brain,” he said gently. “Housing. Labor. Hell, you could run circles around the statehouse reporters.”
“I don’t *want* to cover the statehouse,” she said. “I want to finish this story.”
“You’ve done three major features and a dozen follow-ups,” he said. “There’s a point at which a subject becomes too entangled with a reporter’s life for either of them to pretend otherwise.”
Her throat burned.
“Is that your call?” she asked.
“It’s ours,” he said. “Mine. Laura’s. The EIC’s.”
“Jake doesn’t get a vote,” she said.
Sam’s mouth twitched. “Under no circumstances,” he said. “This is about protecting you. And the paper.”
She hated that part of her was relieved.
That the decision might be taken out of her hands.
Another part wanted to throw the chair through the glass.
“What do you need from me,” she asked finally.
“For now?” he said. “A note at the top of any future piece: ‘Disclosure: The reporter and Mr. Morrison were in a relationship ten years ago.’ And… no more coffee dates at Manny’s that look like rom-com B-roll.”
Heat flared in her cheeks.
“We were…” she started. Sighed. “Fine. No more Manny’s.”
Sam softened.
“Olivia,” he said. “You did everything right. You told your editor. You pushed hard. Don’t let some gossip site make you feel dirty for doing good work.”
Her eyes stung.
“I feel… exposed,” she admitted.
“Welcome to the club,” he said. “You can stay. For now. Just… don’t give them any more ammunition.”
***
She didn’t text Jake right away.
She sent Laura a terse *saw it. talked to Sam. He wants stronger disclosures; no reassignment yet*.
Laura replied with, *We’ll talk in the a.m. Proud of your work. Fuck the vultures.*
Her phone buzzed again.
*Jake*:
> You okay?
She stared at the words.
> Not particularly, she wrote. > You?
> Been better, he replied. > My board now thinks I’ve been masterminding our PR by seducing the press.
> Carla told them I’m not that good.
> She’s right.
Despite everything, a smile twitched at her mouth.
> Ethics wants a disclosure line in anything I write about you from now on, she sent. > “We dated ten years ago.”
> And a halo over my byline, presumably.
> That’s… fair, he wrote.
> Gross, but fair.
> Do they… want you off the beat?
> Not yet, she replied. > But if this keeps being about us instead of the system, they might.
> Which, frankly, might be a relief.
Three dots.
Then nothing.
Then:
> Is that what you want?
She swallowed.
Did she?
To be free of the knot in her chest every time she typed his name? To not have to parse every given quote for emotional shrapnel?
Yes.
To walk away now, with the story still unfolding, leaving it in the hands of someone who didn’t know the stakes the way she did?
No.
> I don’t know, she wrote. > I want to finish the work.
> I also don’t want to blow up my career over… us.
> You won’t, he sent back.
> I won’t let you.
Her fingers tightened.
> You don’t get to “let” me do anything, she wrote. > That’s my job.
A beat.
> Poor choice of words, he replied.
> I mean: if it ever gets to a point where your job is at risk because of me, I’ll back off.
> Step away from certain things.
> Whatever you need.
Her stomach dipped.
> Please don’t try to martyr yourself, she wrote. > It’s annoying.
> And unnecessary.
> Got it, he sent.
> No martyrdom.
> Minimal scandal.
> Maximum code refactoring.
She huffed.
> Go refactor something, she wrote. > I have a sidebar about municipal procurement to edit.
> Hot, he replied.
She put the phone down before she could answer.
For the first time since this started, the story had punched back at her directly.
Not through late buses or broken contracts.
Through a tabloid headline and a committee meeting.
She’d been foolish to think she could dance this close to the fire and walk away without smelling like smoke.
But she wasn’t out of the building yet.
The world outside—with its chilly wind and cracked sidewalks and kids waiting for buses that might or might not come on time—still needed something from her.
So she did what she always did when she didn’t know what else to do.
She opened a blank document.
And started to write.