Nova Reyes had never followed anyone below a FameScore of 7.5.
It wasn't snobbery—it was strategy.
In a world built on algorithms, followers were currency.
Her parents used to joke that she'd gone viral before she was born. There were pregnancy vlogs, baby reels, toddler dance clips. Every milestone had been documented, edited, captioned, and sponsored.
By sixteen, Nova had mastered the art of visibility: knowing when to smile, when to post, when to cry just enough to trend but not enough to ruin her eyeliner.
She didn't notice Eli Nwoko at first.
No one did.
He was background noise—the quiet type whose presence you only realized when he wasn't there. His FameScore had been **0.0** since the system started tracking in junior school. Teachers assumed it was a glitch. Students thought it was a curse.
But to the algorithm, Eli simply didn't exist.
That afternoon in the courtyard, Nova was filming her usual "after-class reflections" livestream. The sun painted the school steps gold; drones hovered overhead capturing aesthetic angles. She was mid-sentence—talking about "authenticity and digital balance"—when her lens drifted, briefly, across the benches.
And there he was.
Sitting alone under the jacaranda tree, sketching in a torn notebook.
The stream chat exploded immediately.
> **@luna_8:** who's that behind u???
> **@trendynick:** new transfer? his score isn't showing lol
> **@mirror_me:** wait why can't i tag him
Nova frowned, pinched the screen, zoomed in—
and then the feed *glitched*.
Static for half a second. Then black.
When the video came back, the tree was still there, but the boy was gone.
Her followers spammed the chat.
> **@mirror_me:** what just happened
> **@famelogic:** yo the video's bugging, rewind!
> **@neonqueen:** he vanished???
The clip saved automatically to her feed—except it didn't. When she tried to replay it, the segment where Eli appeared was *missing*.
Deleted. Corrupted. Erased.
It was the first time in Nova's life a video hadn't gone as planned.
---
At first, she laughed it off. Probably a connection drop, she told herself. Or maybe her lens filter had bugged. But deep down, something about it itched—a glitch in her perfectly curated reality.
She checked the system log.
No trace of him. No name. No ID tag. Not even a pixel record.
That kind of invisibility wasn't supposed to be possible.
Later that day, she cornered her friend Zara near the lockers. "Hey, did you see that boy in my live? The one who disappeared?"
Zara blinked, confused. "What boy?"
Nova opened her stream archive to show her—but the file had *auto-edited* itself. The entire three-second glimpse of Eli was gone, replaced by a transition filter. The metadata listed "content inconsistency corrected by AlgoSync."
"That's not possible," Nova whispered.
Zara shrugged. "Maybe your editor app glitched again. You've been overusing filters."
But Nova wasn't convinced.
She'd built her entire life on the algorithm's predictability—knowing exactly what the system rewarded and what it erased. It didn't make *mistakes*. It optimized.
And yet… that boy had vanished like a ghost in daylight.
---
The next morning, she decided to find him.
The school's central plaza buzzed with usual activity—holo-ads pulsing above the courtyard, groups rehearsing for the FameWeek showcase, drones scanning faces to update scores in real time.
Nova's wristlink pinged with a notification:
**"Daily Rank: #8 Local | Engagement: +12%."**
Still climbing.
Perfect.
Except she couldn't stop thinking about him.
She spotted him near the noticeboard, slipping a paper form into the physical suggestion box—something no one had used in years. He wore the same dark hoodie as yesterday, sleeves rolled to his elbows, sketching something on the lid of a lunchbox.
Nova hesitated. She wasn't used to approaching people who didn't glow.
"Hey," she said finally.
Eli looked up, startled. His eyes were a deep brown, calm but wary—like someone who'd learned to expect disappearance.
"Hi," he said simply.
"I think I filmed you yesterday."
He blinked. "Did you?"
She nodded. "You were sitting by the jacaranda tree. My live glitched right after. The video… deleted itself."
"Oh." He returned to his sketching. "That happens."
Nova frowned. "That happens?"
He shrugged, flipping his pencil. "Usually when people try to post me. The system removes it."
Her jaw dropped. "The algorithm *deletes* you?"
Eli didn't look up. "Guess so. Doesn't like me much."
"But that's—" She caught herself. *That's impossible*, she wanted to say. But the evidence was on her phone.
"Look, I don't know how it works," he said, packing his things. "But trust me—it's better this way."
He walked off before she could reply, leaving her standing there with a camera drone still recording.
When she reviewed the footage a minute later, the screen showed only an empty hallway. Eli had vanished again.
---
That night, Nova couldn't sleep.
She scrolled through archived forums and old tech threads—stuff normal influencers didn't bother reading. Buried deep in a restricted board, she found a phrase that made her heart skip.
**"Blacklisted Entities: Individuals who cannot be tracked, measured, or monetized by the FameScore system."**
There were rumors. Myths. Urban legends about users who'd slipped through the cracks—people the algorithm "forgot."
Most thought they were deleted for breaking content rules or going off-grid.
But Eli wasn't off-grid. He was *in* the grid—walking the same halls, breathing the same air—and still completely invisible.
The post ended with a warning:
> *"Contact with unlisted entities may destabilize your own visibility score."*
Nova stared at her reflection in the dark screen.
Her score was everything. Her brand deals, her popularity, even her future college placement depended on it.
But something inside her—some quiet corner of curiosity she hadn't felt since she was a child—refused to let it go.
---
The next day, she sat beside him at lunch.
No one noticed. The cafeteria cameras barely registered her movement when she crossed to his table. It was like stepping into a shadow where the light didn't follow.
Eli looked mildly surprised but didn't say anything.
"Can I sit?" she asked.
"Sure," he said, moving his bag.
Nova placed her tray down, then her phone—recording quietly. "I just want to see what happens," she murmured.
"Let me guess," Eli said. "You're testing the system."
"Maybe."
They ate in silence for a few moments. Her screen stayed black—no recording, no error message, just absence.
"I've tried everything," he said suddenly. "Photos, tags, mentions. I don't show up anywhere. Sometimes the system deletes my name from group chats."
Nova leaned forward. "How long has it been like this?"
"Since I was nine."
Her breath caught. "That's… half your life."
He nodded. "I stopped trying to fix it a long time ago."
"Doesn't it bother you? Not being seen?"
Eli met her gaze then, quiet but steady. "Depends who's looking."
For the first time, she didn't have a comeback.
---
After lunch, she checked her FameScore. It had dropped by **0.02**—the tiniest dip she'd ever seen.
A warning blinked on her wristlink:
> **Exposure Alert: Proximity to Unlisted Entity detected. Visibility optimization decreasing.**
She stared at the message, her pulse racing.
The algorithm was punishing her for *talking* to him.
For the rest of the day, her videos lagged. Comments slowed. Even her brand feed posted a notice: *"Engagement recalibration in progress."*
And yet, when she saw Eli leaving school with his sketchbook, she followed anyway.
Nova Reyes had never followed anyone below a 7.5.
But that afternoon, she followed **Eli Nwoko**—the boy the algorithm refused to see.
And somewhere deep in the system's unseen core, a warning signal flickered red.