Silence rebuilt itself slowly, awkward and human. The pilot looked at Dodi with something that might have been relief. Tango laughed again, softer this time. “You always did prefer messy endings.”

Dodi saw a woman on the quay raise her hands in prayer or surrender—the gesture indistinguishable now—and a kid across the street swing a baseball bat as if it were a sword. The prototype’s pulse found a children’s drone and howled through it; the toy dove into a billboard and the billboard fell like an answer no one wanted.

Tango’s mouth worked. “Or we can give it to people who don’t know what to do with it and hope they choose wrong enough to change things.”