Page 261 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

Jeffrey lowers his voice. “Same architectural logic. Different generation of software, same behavioral signature. Safety layer present in documentation. Partially active at idle. Under sensor conflict, command authority reroutes around the dampening layer.”

A stripped failsafe, hidden inside both systems.

I stare at the code.

At Bryce.

At the ghost of Bryce inside the machine.

“And the pilot input?” I ask quietly.

Jeffrey pulls up another file. “Delayed in the processed report.”

“But not the raw trace.”

“No.”

The old report appears beside the recovered data.

OFFICIAL REPORT:

Pilot response initiated at 31 seconds post-escalation warning.

RAW TRACE:

Manual correction command initiated at 9 seconds.

Nine.

Megan responded in nine seconds. My wife fought the aircraft almost immediately. For four years, they blamed her anyway.

I grip the edge of the table hard enough that my knuckles ache.

Jeffrey watches me carefully. “Ethan.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re visibly not fine.”

“Tell me everything.”

He nods once and opens another window. “We recovered the remote authentication trail from the legacy admin group.”

“I thought it was partial.”

“It was. Then I found the mirrored backup archive.”

I stare at him. “Where?”

“Old compliance storage. Unindexed.”

“We checked compliance.”

“We checked indexed compliance.” He exhales heavily. “Bryce wiped most of the access trail, but he missed the mirrored backups.”

Cold spreads through my chest.

The evidence strips away every remaining excuse until only one explanation remains: someone covered this up.