Chapter 14 - Mourning

The transformation is complete, dear listener, and tonight the kingdom gathers to celebrate itself. A stirring tale, beautifully told, in which certain names appear rather more often than you might remember — and every word of it written by a machine.

Then the applause cools into arithmetic: a pay freeze for the many, bonuses for the few, and a bright new promise that everyone, now, is a developer.

When the lights go down, two quieter reckonings remain. One, across a desk, about what 'family' was always going to cost. And one at a midnight kitchen table, where a very tired engineer opens a chat window to write the angriest resignation of his life. What happens next is between him and the machine.