She walked past the row of students, who were now stretching and whispering. Caio caught her eye. “Did you finish?” he mouthed.

She blinked. Probably just glare from the window.

Backup station. The words landed like a death sentence. The backup station was a single, ancient desktop computer in the corner, its monitor a fat, cream-colored beast from another century. To move there was to admit defeat. It was where the kid who had a fever went. The kid whose tablet ran out of battery. The symbol of failure.

The exam proctor, a man with a tie so tight it looked like a tourniquet, shuffled over. He clicked the power button. Nothing. He tried the reset sequence. Nothing. He looked at Luísa with the grave expression of a doctor delivering bad news.

But as she left the auditorium, the blue screen already fading into a minor annoyance rather than a catastrophe, she realized something. The test hadn’t been about Machado, or climate policy, or math. The real test had been the blue screen itself. And she had not broken.

The old computer did not crash. It did not flicker. It chugged along with a stubborn, loyal hum, as if to say: I am slow, but I am here.