Chapter Two: The Error Enters Reality

Red text flooded Lin's vision: failure conditions for lights, signals, engines, rules. The brightest hung above the green light. 【Failure condition for absolute safety: One acknowledged instance of harm.】 “Give me control of a maintenance drone,” Lin said. “Why?” “The safety rule needs to fail first.” Gu swiped her administrator card. A palm-sized drone sprang from a cabinet. Lin strapped a metal flask to it, plotted a course, and sent it through the window. The bus was thirty meters away. The drone dived and released the flask within the green-light zone. It struck the finger of a bronze sculptor in the traffic island—a statue, not a living person. The bronze digit broke and fell across the white stripes.