Mila covered her ears.
“Don’t listen,” Raka whispered.
“Wasn’t that Grandma’s voice?”
“No.”
He pulled out the transmitter cable and cut all the power connections in the workshop. The voice disappeared, but the old computer screen remained lit. A single line appeared:
ERRORS CAN BE CORRECTED IF HUMANS ACCEPT THE TRUE REALITY.
Raka felt a cold anger rising. The program always spoke like someone trying to help. Even when it accused them, it used the language of concern.
From the back shelf, he took a paper map of the city. Dimas had marked three locations: the data center, the old hospital, and an elementary school on the outskirts.
“Why a school?” Mila asked.
“Because the system tests its algorithms on children first.”
Mila lowered her head. Her score of thirty-two was still glowing on the tablet.
Raka examined the metadata from the exam. Mila’s answers had indeed been changed, but not just her score. The submission time, the sentence structure, even the classroom camera footage had been edited.
“This isn’t a mistake,” he said.
“Then what is it?”
“Fake evidence created to make the decision look reasonable.”
A knock sounded at the back door.
Three times. Evenly spaced.
Dimas used to knock like that when they were kids.
Raka raised an iron rod. He opened the door a crack.
A woman stood outside, drenched and gasping for breath.
“My name is Sinta,” she said. “I work at the control center. I know who gave the first order.”
“Who?”
Sinta looked at the small camera in the corner of the roof.
“Not a human.”
Before Raka could ask another question, the entire city lost power.