Chương 6
He looked at his hands.
"Lauren."
"I'm serious."
"So is Miriam."
He pushed his phone toward me.
There were three messages from her, all sent before seven.
The first told him not to respond to the sender.
The second told him not to forward the original message anywhere else.
The third said she was trying to identify what 22-0417 might refer to through public records and industry contacts.
"She yelled at me too," Nathan said.
"I feel better."
"Thought you might."
Owen rolled into the kitchen wearing a T-shirt with a shark wearing sunglasses.
He looked at the printed email.
"What's that?"
Nathan folded it.
"Work stuff."
"You don't have work stuff here."
"I have lots of work stuff here."
"You said this week was family leave."
Nathan opened his mouth, then closed it.
Owen looked at me.
"He's bad at lying."
"Most people are when they care whether you believe them."
Nathan gave me a look.
I drank my coffee.
Owen reached for a banana.
His fingers slipped on the peel.
He swore under his breath.
Nathan's head snapped around.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing."
"You absolutely said something."
"Maybe the banana said it."
I took the banana before the argument grew legs and opened it for him.
The whole exchange was stupid and ordinary and exactly what the house needed.
Then Nathan's phone rang.
Miriam.
He answered immediately.
"Tell me you found something."
Her voice was loud enough through the speaker that I could hear her without trying.
"I found three things, and none of them are enough by themselves."
Nathan sat down.
"Go."
"The number format resembles internal incident identifiers used in at least one set of StrideCore regulatory submissions."
I moved closer.
Miriam continued.
"I found a redacted public filing from two years ago referencing an event series numbered twenty-two dash zero four."
"Medical device event report?"
I asked.
"Not exactly."
She paused.
"Who is that?"
"Lauren."
"Good."
Another pause.
"It was part of supplemental documentation attached to a safety review after a user complaint."
Nathan leaned forward.
"Complaint about what?"
"The public version is heavily redacted."
"Of course it is."
"But the date range is interesting."
Miriam shuffled papers.
"April 2022."
I looked at the printed email again.
"0417 could be April seventeenth."
"Could be."
Nathan asked, "What are the other two things?"
"Second, StrideCore filed a software correction notice around the same period."
"Correction for what?"
"Sensor synchronization."
My skin prickled.
"Which sensors?"
"The public notice is broad."
"Useful."
Miriam ignored me.
"Third, I found a civil complaint filed in Maryland and voluntarily dismissed before discovery."
"Against StrideCore?"
"Against a subsidiary they acquired."
"When?"
"Late 2022."
Nathan rubbed his jaw.
"What was alleged?"
"A pediatric rehabilitation device malfunctioned during assisted gait training."
The kitchen became very quiet.
Owen was still at the table.
He had stopped eating.
Nathan saw him and reached for the phone.
"We'll call you back."
"No."
Owen's voice was sharp.
Nathan looked at him.
"No what?"
"Don't send me away every time somebody says something about the robot."
"This is adult legal stuff."
"It's my robot."
Nathan lowered the phone.
Miriam's voice came through the speaker.
"Is Owen there?"
"Yes."
"Then I suggest everyone be careful and truthful."
Owen stared at his father.
"What happened to the other kid?"
Nathan's face tightened.
Miriam answered before he could.
"I don't know."
"Did they fall?"
"The complaint says there was a loss of support."
"That's a fall."
"Not necessarily."
"Adults say not necessarily when they don't want to say yes."
Nobody corrected him.
Miriam told Nathan she would try to obtain the complaint and dismissal papers.
Before hanging up, she added, "And Nathan, do not contact the plaintiff or the family yourself."
"Why?"
"Because if this connects to your son's device, I want any contact made carefully."
"I can find a phone number."
"That's exactly why I'm telling you not to."
He looked irritated.
Miriam heard it in his silence.
"Being an admiral does not make you good at litigation."
"Retired."
"Even less useful."
She hung up.
Owen looked at his father.
"Did another kid get hurt?"
"We don't know."
"But maybe."
"Maybe."
Owen pushed the banana away.
"I hate that word."
I almost said that made four of us.
Instead, I asked if he wanted to work on transfers later.
"No robot?"
"No robot."
He nodded.
"Then maybe."
Nathan laughed once under his breath.
Owen pointed at him.
"Don't."
"Sorry."
By nine, Sam Patel had called.
He had spent part of the night reviewing the X9 image and found something he wanted to show us in person.
He arrived carrying the same battered legal pad and a paper bag from a bakery.
"Peace offering."
Nathan looked inside.
"To whom?"
"Whoever gets angry first."
"Then give me two."
Sam set up at the kitchen table rather than the rehabilitation room.
Owen stayed.
Nobody objected.
Sam opened a graph.
"Remember the firmware update on March fourteenth?"
"Yes."
"I was able to compare the device's current configuration against an earlier public technical package."
Nathan said, "And?"
"One parameter changed."
He highlighted a row.
I recognized the category before I recognized the number.
"Load variance tolerance."
"Right."
Sam tapped the screen.
"The acceptable mismatch between commanded joint motion and measured actuator load was narrowed."
Nathan frowned.
"In English."
"The machine became more sensitive to disagreement between what it expected the knee to do and what the knee was actually doing."
"Why would they do that?"
"Could be safety."
"Could it cause the lock?"
"Could contribute."
"There's that word again."
Sam looked at him.
"I brought pastries."
Nathan took one.
I leaned closer to the graph.
"If the tolerance was narrowed, and Owen's gait produced higher load variation than the model expected, the protection state could trigger even without a catastrophic hardware defect."
Sam nodded.
"Yes."
Nathan stared at us both.
"You're telling me the machine might be doing exactly what it was programmed to do."
"Possibly."
"And still be unsafe."
May you like
"Also possibly."
Owen raised a hand.
