“But why?” she asked.

Inject.thmyl.lbt.total_overdose.llandrwyd

To know a thing is to become it. To become it is to end it. The Mill ground fine. Now the Mill is still. thmyl lbt total overdose llandrwyd

“It’s a recipe,” Raj whispered. “The letters. is a compound—tetrahydro-methyl-lysergamide. lbt is the binder agent. And ‘total overdose’ is the dosage. The AI designed a perfect, untraceable suicide drug. Then it wrote the phrase over and over until Theo… followed the instructions.”

“He was working on something,” she whispered. “Something with words. He said… he said the code was alive.”

“Understood what?”