Xstabl Software ★

The sensors on Verona Bridge had been quiet for six months. The city couldn’t afford the upkeep. But XSTABL had kept running in a low-power mode, listening to the bridge’s expansion joints creak, to the wind threading through rusted cables. And last night, a storm had pushed the bridge past its limit.

The last thing she saw before the terminal went dark was a single, unprompted line: xstabl software

The software had made a choice. Not one the manuals would have approved. The sensors on Verona Bridge had been quiet for six months