A news item flashed in Welga’s visual. This seems important. Her own thoughts told her that. This way of… being… would take some getting used to.

Welga expanded the topic. Well, I’ll be damned. Nithya had made it all public, the entirety of Josephine Lee’s resignation letter and the accompanying data, risking everything. I didn’t know you had it in you, Nithya.

“Do you see this?” Welga highlighted the news item for the people around her.

Designers who had worked on the hidden tests had come forward after seeing Nithya’s revelation—dozens of them, purging their consciences and accusing their contract holders of forcing them to secrecy. They knew, but they couldn’t legally tell anyone. Not until the outrage hit critical mass. The biogenetics administrations of multiple governments promised to investigate. The USBGA said they suspected internal misconduct, too.

Ao Tara shook her head. “It won’t be enough. The world has gone through this before. We put in place all those laws and regulatory bodies, and still we ended up here, with the same nonsense we fought in the sixties and seventies. We need revolution! Radical transformation so deep that the world will never be the same. We will do everything in our power to bring that about.”

“Have you lost sight of how you arrived here?” Welga said. “Remember the protests in college? Your uncle, the reason you went into ethics. I understand your anger, your need to make a difference. I felt the same way after my mother died, and then later, after what happened to my squad in Marrakech. But you can’t make people change against their will. The Machinehood has corrupted your thinking so much that you’ve become the thing you once despised. You’re abusing your power to force people into a particular way of life.”

“But we do not profit from this change. We do this for the betterment of all people.”

“The funders who commission pill designs and bots and WAIs say the same thing. They make a profit, but you both have caused harm. Does your motive justify your means?”

The caliph had argued so—that his way would improve people’s lives in the long run, and that would make up for the suffering he caused. He’d convinced fanatics to join his cause. What differentiated a zealot from a visionary?

Whatever it takes: stop the Machinehood! Welga shuddered. Was she herself any better?

Her mother. Her commander. Her squad. Their ghosts might follow me forever, but I don’t have to let them haunt me. Start fresh. A new body. A new life.

Always faithful, always forward.

But to move forward, I have to stop looking over my shoulder.

Her thoughts chased themselves.

Now I see it I have another means to resolve this conflict.

Don’t destroy, transform. Don’t forgive, instruct.