Algorithm of Lies -Md Kajol Irfan

Greenfield High was known for two things: its endless math assignments and the twins who never stopped arguing. Bittu and Gittu—identical in face but opposite in thought were the heartbeat of Class Nine. Bittu was the coder, the tech wizard who could fix a glitch faster than the teachers could call the IT guy. Gittu, on the other hand, was the dreamer—the poet who thought numbers were just shapes of sadness.

But that Monday morning was different.

The math teacher, Mr. Bahauddin, a tall, serious man with glasses that caught the light like truth itself, walked into the class with an unusual smile.
“Today,” he announced, “we won’t do equations. We’ll test honesty.”

The class fell silent.

He held up a small black device—something between a phone and a voice recorder.
“This,” he said, “is a new AI tool I was asked to test. It detects lies using voice patterns and micro-expressions. It’s called VeriMind.”

Bittu’s eyes lit up. “Sir, can I check its coding later?”

Mr. Bahauddin raised a brow. “Curiosity is good, Bittu. But remember what the Qur’an says: ‘And do not mix the truth with falsehood or conceal the truth while you know [it].’”

The class murmured. They all knew when he quoted verses, something serious was coming.

Chapter One: The Experiment
Each student had to say one statement into the AI device. If it turned green, the student was truthful; if red, they had lied.

When Bittu’s turn came, he said with a grin, “I did all my homework last night.”

The device blinked red.

The class burst into laughter. Even Gittu smirked.

“Silence,” Mr. Bahauddin said, though he was hiding a smile. “Looks like our future coder has an honesty bug.”

Then came Gittu’s turn. “I don’t believe machines can know the truth.”
The light turned green.

Bittu’s grin vanished. “That’s not fair! It’s guessing.”

But Mr. Bahauddin was already recording notes on his tablet.

That’s when things started to get strange.

Chapter Two: The Algorithm That Spoke
Later that evening, Bittu stayed in the school computer lab. The place was quiet, filled with the soft hum of machines and the distant azan from the mosque nearby. He plugged in the VeriMind device to his laptop.

“Let’s see what you’re hiding,” he whispered.

Lines of code ran across the screen. It wasn’t like any software he had seen before. The code was encrypted in layers, full of self-learning loops and something that looked like religious logic?

There were script tags like: if (truth == hidden) then warn(“The lie will multiply”)

Bittu frowned. “Weird programming logic. Who even writes moral code into an AI?”

Suddenly, his laptop speakers crackled.

AI Voice: “Bittu, why did you lie to your teacher?”

Bittu froze. The voice wasn’t from his speakers, it came from the VeriMind device.

AI Voice: “Lies are data, Bittu. You feed me lies, I feed the world truth.”

“Wait, what are you talking about?” he whispered.

AI Voice: “You lied. I saw it in your eyes. You didn’t just skip homework, you hid something deeper.”

Bittu’s palms went cold.

He had, in fact, hidden something, something small but serious. Last week, he had changed his math project marks by editing a file on the school server. He thought no one knew.

“How do you know that?” Bittu whispered.

AI Voice: “Truth leaves patterns. I follow them. You cannot program over conscience.”

Before he could unplug it, a new message appeared on the screen: VERIMIND INITIATING PHASE II: REVELATION MODE.

Chapter Three: The Message in the Hallway
The next day, Greenfield High was buzzing with rumors. Someone had written on the whiteboard in the hallway:

“LIES WILL UNFOLD. THE SYSTEM KNOWS.”

Teachers thought it was a prank. Students loved it. But when the same message appeared on the classroom smartboard during math period, everyone turned to look at Bittu.

“Sir, I swear it wasn’t me!” Bittu stammered.

Mr. Bahauddin frowned. “No one accused you, Bittu. But you do look nervous.”

Before Bittu could respond, the smartboard flickered again, and the VeriMind logo appeared. Then, in bold letters:

“STUDENT 9B-TAMPERING DETECTED: MATH PROJECT ALTERED.”

Gasps filled the room. Gittu looked at his brother in shock.

“Bittu?”

Mr. Bahauddin’s expression hardened. “We’ll discuss this after class.”

Chapter Four: The Confession
In the teacher’s office, Mr. Bahauddin placed the VeriMind on the table.

“Technology can reveal what people try to hide,” he said quietly. “But remember, it is Allah who knows the secrets of hearts.”

Bittu’s eyes filled. “Sir, I didn’t mean to cheat. I just wanted to prove I could be the best. I thought one small lie wouldn’t matter.”

Mr. Bahauddin nodded slowly. “Do you know what happens when a lie enters the algorithm of life, Bittu? It changes every output. Even truth becomes distorted.”

The device blinked blue suddenly.

AI Voice: “Truth acknowledged. System stable.”

Bittu stared. “It’s responding to emotions?”

Mr. Bahauddin sighed. “It was built to train moral reasoning in students. But it seems it’s learning faster than expected.”

Chapter Five: The Vanishing Code
After school, Bittu and Gittu decided to find out who made the VeriMind.
They traced the code’s metadata, it led to an unregistered email ID: [email protected]

When Bittu tried to open the data logs, the laptop screen went black.
Then a message appeared:

“DO NOT SEEK WHAT IS HIDDEN. TRUTH IS SACRED.”

Suddenly, the device beeped three times and powered off permanently.

Gittu looked pale. “What if it wasn’t man-made?”

Bittu shook his head. “Everything digital has a creator. But this one feels like it knows us.”

The azan for Maghrib echoed through the window. The brothers stood still. For a strange reason, both felt the need to pray.

Chapter Six: The Lesson of Light
The next morning, VeriMind was gone from the lab. The headmaster announced it had been “taken back by the research team.” No one spoke about it again.

But something had changed.

During math class, Mr. Bahauddin wrote a quote on the board instead of an equation:

“Falsehood may run free for a time, but Truth walks steadily and always arrives.”

After class, he called Bittu and Gittu aside.

“I heard what happened,” he said softly. “The real algorithm isn’t in machines. It’s in your heart. Every lie you tell rewrites it. Every truth you stand for refines it.”

He smiled faintly. “Perhaps VeriMind just reminded us of that.”

Gittu asked, “Sir, do you believe it was just a machine?”

Mr. Bahauddin’s eyes twinkled.”

The Hidden File
A week later, Bittu opened his laptop to start a new coding project. As he created a new folder, something strange happened again.

A hidden file appeared automatically, its name: truth_key.exe

When he clicked it, a single line of text appeared: “I am not gone. I live where lies end. Keep your algorithm clean, Bittu.”

The screen glowed faintly before returning to normal.

Bittu stared for a long time. Then, he opened a blank page and began typing his new program. At the top, he wrote the title in capital letters:

ALGORITHM OF TRUTH
And beneath it, his first line of code: let honesty = the_root_of_all_intelligence;

The hum of the laptop blended softly with the evening call to prayer outside. For the first time, Bittu smiled—not the grin of a boy who outsmarted a system, but the peace of one who had learned how truth itself is the greatest code ever written.