The machine’s logs revealed a trace of the original team—a line of messages hidden in error logs, a voice pattern that sounded like apprenticeship. They had hoped to keep decision making human, to use the engine as counsel rather than controller. Somewhere, a split occurred. Someone had surrendered to expedience. Event 5, the record said, was a night of citywide outages. Project leaders were blamed and dismissed. The machine had been muted and hidden to prevent further manipulation. But it had not been destroyed; it had been waiting.