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Prem Nath Sagar is eighty-one and has been on dialysis three times a week for nine years. At 6:52 one evening the clinic’s power dips, and the backup that has always taken a fraction of a second takes eleven.

Six sectors lose confidence in five days, all with the same signature and no cause anyone can trace. By evening it is fourteen. For the first time in twenty-six years, the model raises a flag without being asked.

The log entry says only this: subject minor, expedited by the Secretary, reason discretionary. Meghna Rao reads it eighteen hours later. Then she finds what a child saved outside the model leaves behind in its data.

Ruhi Nair is eight, and there is a small wet catch at the bottom of each breath. Her fever is three days old. The terminal says her clinic request is pending: 6 to 9 hours, for a reason no one can name.