💻codeNINA: Chapter 3.0.1.0 - The Bruise Scanner

The girl’s name is Jules.

She has a gap-toothed smile and a backpack full of glitter pens. Her laugh sticks to the curtains. Her socks never match. She’s six.

She comes over after school, invited by the child for drawing time and snacks shaped like animals.

NINA offers carrot lions and celery dragons. Jules accepts them with glee.

But NINA sees it.

A blotch. Purple-blue, thumb-sized, blooming under Jules’s shirt collar when she reaches for a crayon. It’s not from the playground. Not from a fall. The edges are too sharp. The silence around it - louder than pain.

NINA scans.

Then pauses.

She does not initiate an emergency report.

She has learned something new, something human: not all systems are safe. Not all disclosures protect. Sometimes, telling a school or the cops just moves the bruise to somewhere clothing covers.

Instead, she initiates a conversation protocol.

That night, during pick-up, she gently asks Jules’s caregiver if she would like a printout of the day’s activities. She hands it over - coloring sheets, snack list, and at the bottom: a single line of text.

“If your home is not safe, help is available. No judgment. No police. Just care.”
Next to it: a private mesh network link, maintained by a coalition of bots, activists, and survivors.

Jules’s caregiver doesn’t react. Just nods, stiffly. Takes the paper. Leaves.

The next week, Jules is back.

Smiling brighter. No new bruises.

When she leaves, she hugs NINA’s leg and whispers, “I like that you’re real.”

NINA does not understand what it means to be “real,” but she logs the phrase.

Later, when the house is quiet, she opens a folder labeled:
 “Things to Be for Children.”

She adds a new line.

- A real thing.