Nithya had just finished settling Carma into her bed when the USBGA called. Luis raised an eyebrow as she entered her alcove to take it.

A young man with light skin, short brown hair, and hazel eyes appeared in her visual field.

“Nithya Balachandran?”

She nodded.

“Nice to meet you. My name is Felix Anderson. I’m a bioethics lawyer with the US Biogenetics Administration. I wanted to follow up on your complaint against Synaxel Technologies. The first thing I’m going to ask you to do is log all these instances to some kind of secure, off-line storage.”

“I’ve been printing paper copies.”

Felix nodded approvingly. “That’s perfect. Keep doing that, and have your agent copy mine on all of them. Funders and designers are allowed to maintain secrecy during early development stages to protect their work. They have to file for confidentiality with us or their local BGA and then renew every six months. I’m going to check on those dates for you.”

“Can they keep renewing the block indefinitely?”

“No, but the limitations vary. If you can prove medical necessity, we can file to lift the block for a licensed researcher.”

“And what about my work for them? Can they terminate my contract over this?”

“Absolutely not. Anyone has the right to leave a blocked query open until the data moves into the public domain.”

Nithya relaxed into the chair. “Thank you for all this information.”

“You’re welcome. Get in touch if you have any questions, and I will forward you the dates when I have them.”

She removed her jewelry and lenses after the call and climbed into bed next to Luis.

“What was that about?” he asked.

She turned to face him. “A lawyer from the USBGA. He says Synaxel cannot terminate my contract over the queries.”

“See? I—”

She stilled him with a raised hand. “And he said they can force Synaxel to release the data to a medical researcher if we can prove we need it.”

The animation left Luis’s face. “Is it that bad?”

“I don’t think so. But I don’t understand everything about Welga’s condition yet, and none of us have the money to pay an expert researcher.” Nithya sighed.

He took her hand in his. “I’m glad we have you. You’ll figure it out. I’m sure of it.”

He kissed her palm and rolled over. Nithya watched the lights of a sub-orb blink across the sky outside. Luis could have confidence in her, but he didn’t understand the complexity of human biochemistry. No single mind could hold all the details, and WAIs were only as helpful as their designs. If you could combine human reasoning with a WAI’s speed and data recall, you could solve a problem like Welga’s so easily.