Leo lived in a city called the Silo, though no one remembered why. What they knew was this: the only browser allowed on their school-issued tablets was Envoy Plus . Envoy was fast, friendly, and filtered everything. Search for "ocean currents," and you got three approved links. Search for "why is the sky blue," and you got a cheerful paragraph about light refraction—no mention of wavelengths, no links to outside physicists.

And for the first time in a year, Leo smiled.

“What do you search for?” he asked.

“DuckDuckGo Browser,” she said. “My cousin sideloaded it from a USB key before the network lockdown. The school’s firewall can’t see it. It’s unblocked .”

He closed the browser, then reopened it just to watch the duck appear again.