The Review That Will Not End Is Its Own Kind of Answer

LAGOS — For the tens of thousands of workers who carry a Somaform Augmetics neural interface, the most consequential fact of 2124 is a thing that has not happened: the safety review opened on their implant line has neither closed nor cleared it, and it has stayed that way for months. "Not cleared is not the same as unsafe," said Adaeze Nwosu, 31, a logistics coordinator whose interface lets her run a warehouse floor in her head. "But it is not the same as safe, either. I live in the gap." With augmented humans now past five percent of the population, that gap is crowded. Founder Julian Morrow has argued the extended review proves the system works, not that it failed; regulators say only that the questions remain open. Saturday's Brazil vote will test how a democracy prices the same uncertainty. Nwosu is not augmented for the argument. She is augmented for the job — and waiting, with everyone else, for a verdict that keeps not arriving.