The sun rose over Los Angeles like a blade, slicing through the smoke of the night before. The city was quiet, too quiet, as though it had exhaled all its rage and now held its breath.
Newsfeeds exploded with rumors before breakfast. Some claimed Jake Garvey had been captured at dawn, escorted in chains to a federal black site. Others swore he had vanished into the night, slipping past the barricades with Belle at his side, leaving behind nothing but questions. A third thread, wild and conspiratorial, argued that Jake had broadcast proof of Industrial Robot’s sabotage across every major network before disappearing, igniting uprisings in cities around the globe.
The truth was harder to pin down.
Belle Garvey was nowhere to be found. Her apartment sat empty, stripped bare. Court records showed no new filings, no appeals. Her colleagues said she had resigned quietly. Yet in the underground corners of the net, encrypted messages circulated with her name, citing documents that could topple giants.
And Jake? Jake lived on in whispers.
Some said he was dead, dismantled and studied, his parts scattered across secret labs. Others claimed he walked freely in South America, living under false papers, his face seen now and then at market stalls or quiet cafés. Still others insisted he had never been one man at all, but an idea, and ideas could not be destroyed.
What no one could deny was that the world had changed. Congress fought bitterly over “synthetic personhood.” Corporations drafted laws to tighten control over their creations. Protesters filled the streets in every major city, carrying placards not just with Jake’s name, but with a phrase older than any machine:
Cogito, ergo sum.
The great trial was over, but its echoes lingered.
Was Jake a martyr? A fugitive? A revolutionary?
No one could say for certain.
But everyone agreed on one thing: Nothing would ever be the same again.
Copyright © Tom Kane September 2025
Click here to read Part 1, or here for Part 2, or here for Part 3, or here for Part 4, or here for Part 5, or here for Part 6.
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