The meeting had a whiteboard.

  Howard noticed that first.

  Whiteboards meant someone expected the discussion to generate diagrams, which meant the discussion had already gone off the rails.

  County legal sat at the end of the table with a stack of printed emails. The county administrator sat beside him, looking like she had slept poorly. The PTA chair was present. Jake had arrived early and taken a seat near the middle, which he considered neutral territory.

  Trent leaned against the wall, holding his phone low.

  Howard sat down.

  The administrator cleared her throat.

  “Mr. Anxo, we’re here to clarify the statement you made about the system deciding what ‘didn’t matter.’”

  Howard nodded once.

  “That phrasing has caused concern.”

  Jake raised a finger.

  “Philosophical concern.”

  Howard ignored him.

  County legal spoke carefully. “The question being raised is: who decides what information is retained.”

  Howard considered the whiteboard.

  Then he stood.

  He picked up a marker and drew a small rectangle.

  “This,” he said, “is the internal storage.”

  He wrote beside it:

  32 GB NAND

  Jake blinked.

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  Howard drew a second box.

  “This is the operating firmware.”

  Half the rectangle vanished.

  “This is routing and mapping.”

  More space disappeared.

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  “This is diagnostics.”

  The remaining space shrank again.

  Howard stepped back.

  “What remains,” he said, “is about three gigabytes.”

  The room was quiet.

  Jake frowned.

  “So the machine... ”

  Howard cut him off.

  “It does not choose what matters.”

  He tapped the tiny remaining space.

  “It runs out of storage.”

  Silence.

  The PTA chair blinked.

  “You’re saying the system forgets things because it’s full.”

  “Yes.”

  Jake looked disappointed.

  “That’s… extremely unpoetic.”

  Howard nodded.

  “It is a trash robot.”

  County legal leaned forward.

  “And the buffer.”

  Howard drew a circle.

  “Ten-second rolling diagnostic buffer.”

  “For what purpose.”

  “Troubleshooting,” Howard said. “If the unit collides with something or fails a movement command, the last few seconds of sensor data are preserved so we can determine why.”

  The administrator frowned.

  “So if nothing goes wrong…”

  Howard erased the circle with his sleeve.

  “It overwrites.”

  Jake leaned back.

  “So the system isn’t deciding what matters.”

  “No.”

  “It’s just… small.”

  “Yes.”

  Trent lowered his phone slightly.

  “That might be the most disappointing explanation I’ve ever heard.”

  Howard nodded.

  “Engineering often is.”

  The parent who had filed the records request frowned.

  “So when my child walked past the fence—”

  Howard answered calmly.

  “The unit saw your child, adjusted its path, and continued. Nothing malfunctioned. Therefore the buffer overwrote normally.”

  She looked unsatisfied.

  “That’s it.”

  “Yes.”

  Jake tapped the table.

  “So theoretically the county could expand storage.”

  Howard looked at him.

  “Yes.”

  “And then it could remember everything.”

  “Yes.”

  Jake turned slowly toward the administrator.

  “That seems like a policy decision.”

  Howard shook his head.

  “It’s a budget decision.”

  The administrator rubbed her temples.

  “How much storage would be required to retain thirty days of video.”

  Howard did the math in his head.

  “Several hundred terabytes.”

  Jake whistled.

  “That’s a lot of hoodies.”

  Howard continued.

  “It would also require a new server room, monitoring staff, retention policy, access controls, and legal review for every records request.”

  County legal nodded grimly.

  “That tracks.”

  The PTA chair looked back and forth between them.

  “So the reason we don’t have video…”

  Howard capped the marker.

  “…is because the machine is designed to move trash, not operate a data center.”

  The room went quiet again.

  Jake stared at the whiteboard.

  “All this,” he said slowly, “because the robot only has thirty-two gigs.”

  Howard nodded.

  “Yes.”

  Trent muttered from the wall.

  “That’s the most Howard answer possible.”

  County legal closed his folder.

  “Well.”

  The administrator looked at the whiteboard again.

  Then she sighed.

  “I suppose that’s the clarification.”

  Jake leaned toward Howard.

  “You realize the internet is going to hate this explanation.”

  Howard nodded.

  “Yes.”

  Jake grinned.

  “I’m still making the shirt.”

  Howard looked at him.

  “What shirt.”

  Jake pulled out his phone.

  He turned the screen around.

  The mockup read:

  32 GB OF JUSTICE

  Howard stared at it for a moment.

  Then he picked up the marker again and added one final note to the board.

  FLASH WEAR LIMIT: DO NOT WRITE CONSTANTLY

  Jake squinted.

  “What’s that.”

  Howard capped the marker.

  “The other reason.”

  Jake blinked.

  “Wait, there’s another reason?”

  Howard walked toward the door.

  “Yes.”

  Jake followed.

  “What.”

  Howard answered without turning around.

  “If you wrote everything down, the storage would wear out in about a year.”

  Jake stopped walking.

  “Okay,” he said quietly.

  “That one might actually sell.”