Page 193 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

But patterns?

Patterns I understand.

The AI demo code, the corrupted stabilization loop, the dampening layer that should stop escalation, the old aircraft documentation.

Megan’s flight.

The report, the gap… the ugly little gap.

I lean closer, elbows on my knees, scanning the printed sheets while he explains. “So this line here means the system thought the dampening layer was still active?”

“Yes.”

“But this output says it wasn’t actually changing anything.”

His eyes flick to mine. “Correct.”

“Which is weird.”

“Very.”

I furrow my brows. “And this is from Megan’s aircraft?”

“Yes.”

I pick up another page, comparing it to the one beside it. “And this is the demo?”

“Yes.”

“They look different.”

“They are different systems.”

“But…”

I pause and squint. This is probably where someone with actual engineering credentials would have a meaningful thought. I, however, am operating on nanny pattern recognition, caffeine, and stubbornness.

“But they fail the same way,” I say.

Ethan goes still.

I look up. “Right?”

His gaze sharpens.

I point between the pages. “I mean, not the code. Obviously. I’m not pretending I suddenly know plane robot language.”

His eyebrow lifts faintly.

“But this part.” I tap the demo failure sequence. “It says here the correction repeats after bad feedback.”

“Yes.”

“And here.” I tap Megan’s report. “Same idea, right? It keeps reacting to bad information like it thinks the pilot is the problem.”

He doesn’t speak.

Then he reaches for the page. “Show me.”