Carlos's office, which less than an hour ago had buzzed with debate over statistics and human resources, was now plunged into a sepulchral silence. The smell still lingered, an acidic, metallic ghost that seeped through the window cracks, reminding everyone the danger wasn't completely gone.

  Carlos was standing before the window, his back to the room, watching the column of white-yellowish smoke still rising, thinner now, from the industrial zone. His shoulders, usually squared under the weight of responsibility, seemed a little hunched. Aqua and Fernanda had been dismissed with brief instructions—one to release emergency funds for the hospital, the other to log the accident as a "serious occupational incident." The bureaucracy of tragedy had already begun.

  The door opened with a soft creak. Davi, the Minister of the Chemical Industry, entered. The once-enthusiastic man, whose eyes used to sparkle when talking about "autocatalytic cycles," seemed to have aged ten years in an hour. His face was pale, his clothes stained with soot and an unidentified dark residue. He smelled of smoke and the acrid sweat of fear. In his hands, he carried two objects: a small fragment of thick, opaque, corroded glass, and a piece of barrel wood with an irregular burn stain.

  "President," Davi's voice came out hoarse, almost a whisper. He didn't dare sit.

  Carlos didn't turn immediately. He kept watching the smoke, as if he could read the answers in it.

  "Shadow gave me a preliminary report," Carlos said, his voice flat, controlled, but with an underlying coldness that made Davi tremble. "'It wasn't enemies. It was human error.' He said two people nearly died. I want the full report."

  Davi swallowed hard. He placed the objects on the desk as if they were pieces of evidence from a crime.

  "It was... it was a handling error, President. A stupid mistake. A failure of... of communication. My failure."

  He began to explain, his words tumbling out in a contrite, rapid flow.

  "The process for today was simple: prepare a nitration solution using ethyl alcohol as the solvent. Dona Marta, at the workbench, was following the recipe. She asked the assistant, Raimundo, for the 'alcohol from the red barrel.'" Davi pointed to the piece of wood with the stain. "There were two drums in the yard with red marks. One, the correct one with alcohol, has a band of red paint around the lid. The other..." his voice faltered for a second, "...the other contained concentrated sulfuric acid. An old one, which had a leak weeks ago. The acid burned the wood and the paint of the original label, leaving this reddish burn stain."

  Carlos finally turned. His eyes, usually warm or determined, were as cold as the steel of his converter.

  "Let me see if I understand. You store one of the most corrosive chemicals we have, next to a flammable solvent, and the only thing distinguishing them for a man who can't read is... the shade of red of a stain?"

  The question wasn't a question. It was a blow. Davi shrank.

  "I... I had told Raimundo, when I put him on transport duty, to always bring the 'strong liquor with the red mark.' I used jargon, I thought it was easy... He got confused. He thought the burn stain was the 'mark.' The concentrated sulfuric acid, when poured onto the powdered nitrate..." Davi picked up the glass fragment. "...the reaction is instant and violent. It generates extreme heat and nitrogen oxide vapors, which are toxic. The glass container couldn't handle the thermal and chemical stress. It shattered. The cloud..."

  "The cloud that Raimundo breathed and that is dissolving his lungs right now," Carlos finished, cutting him off. "And that burned Dona Marta's arm. It's lucky I managed to get healing gems from the Popess, otherwise it would be two lives ruined. Potentially lost. For now, we just have production halted. All because you failed to create a system foolproof for the illiterate."

  Davi felt his legs weaken. The guilt was a physical weight.

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  "I know. I know, President. I was arrogant. I thought controlling the reaction in the reactor was the hard part. I didn't pay attention to the basics. Storage, identification, clear communication with the team. They are hardworking, but Raimundo was digging ditches last week! Dona Marta was a cook! They don't have the instinct for this. I should have..."

  "You should have trained them!" Carlos's voice finally rose, not in a shout, but in a contained explosion of frustration and anger. He slammed his palm on the desk, making the objects jump. "You should have created color codes even a colorblind person could understand! Different barrel shapes! Universal symbols—a skull for toxic, a flame for flammable—painted in large size! You should have done simulations, double-check protocols! Instead, you trusted luck and a stupid piece of jargon! 'Strong liquor'!"

  The silence that followed was absolute. Davi seemed to want to disappear into the concrete floor.

  Carlos took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, the fury had given way to a deep exhaustion and an even darker determination.

  "Their condition?" he asked, calmer.

  "Thanks to the healing gems, they will both recover..."

  Carlos nodded slowly, absorbing the blow.

  "Effective immediately," he said, each word a nail being driven in, "the chemical factory is shut down. No one enters until a safety committee—composed of me, you, Nia (to inspect containers and structures), and Specter (to evaluate procedures as if they were an attack)—develops a new regulation. A regulation that assumes every worker can, on a day of fatigue or haste, make the worst possible mistake. The system must prevent it."

  "Yes, President," murmured Davi.

  "You, Davi," Carlos continued, looking him in the eye with an intensity that allowed no evasion, "remain as Minister."

  Davi gasped, as if expecting immediate dismissal. Carlos raised a hand, silencing any protest before it could begin.

  "For three reasons. First, because there is no one in this world who knows these chemical processes like you do. Your knowledge is a treasure we cannot waste."

  He paused, letting the statement settle. Davi swallowed hard.

  "Second," Carlos's voice lowered, becoming graver, "because the guilt you carry now, this weight here"—he tapped his own chest lightly—"will be the only tutor, the only voice in your head that will ensure this never, ever happens again. You will review every procedure thinking of it. You will check every label seeing the stain on that barrel."

  Davi lowered his head, his shoulders trembling slightly.

  "And third..." Carlos took a deep breath, and for the first time, his rigid expression softened a little, showing a sliver of genuine fatigue and self-criticism. "Because I also have my part in this. I was too hasty. Blinded by progress, by necessity. I should have stopped, sat down with you, and developed safety procedure manuals, step-by-step training guides, before even thinking about scale production. We lacked a foundation. And for that... I apologize."

  The words fell into the office silence like stones in a pond. Davi lifted his face, his red, swollen eyes wide with disbelief. The President was apologizing to him?

  "But know this," Carlos continued, his voice regaining a thread of firmness without losing its gravity, "that your guilt does not disappear. I told you, several times, to be careful, to teach the novices well. I gave verbal warnings. What was missing was the written structure, the fail-proof system that I, with the experience from my world, should have provided. The ultimate responsibility for daily operation was yours."

  He leaned forward over the desk, his hands planted on the wood.

  "Your first task, therefore, is not at the factory. It's at the hospital. Go there. Look Raimundo and Dona Marta in the eye. See the price of our mistake." Carlos's voice became almost a rough whisper. "Afterwards, you will go to an empty room, with paper and ink. And you will write the new protocols. Every rule, every warning, every step must be written with their faces in your mind."

  Carlos straightened up, resuming his tone of command.

  "Furthermore, you will inform them, personally, of the following: they will continue to receive their full salaries for the days they are away. There will be additional compensation for their suffering and any lasting effects. And, once they recover, they will be free to choose. If they wish to return to the factory, under the new and strict rules, their positions will be guaranteed, and they will receive double the training. If they decide they never want to go near a factory again, they will have guaranteed employment in another sector of their choice, according to their aptitudes. The Republic does not abandon its own, especially when we fail them."

  Davi remained still for a long moment, processing the sentence and the opportunity it carried. It wasn't forgiveness. It was penance. A second chance loaded with the heaviest weight in the world: the weight of two broken lives.

  "Understood, President," he managed to say, his voice a thread of sound. "I... I will do it right this time. For them. And for all the others."

  "That is what I expect," Carlos nodded, his gaze still serious but without the initial fury. "Now go. Start with the hospital. The rest will come later."

  Davi just nodded, unable to speak, his eyes brimming.