Act III: Évian, the 16th

Lake Geneva was as still as a painting.

Dario Amodei stared out at the water from his hotel window. The opposite shore was Switzerland. The water appeared gray rather than blue, perfectly mirroring the overcast June sky. He didn't possess the mental bandwidth to judge whether the view was beautiful or not.

On his phone, Slack notifications were piling up in an endless, compounding stack. Inquiries from frantic clients, updates from legal counsel, and informal feelers from congressional staff. It was a torrential downpour that had raged unabated since Friday night.

The business lunch was scheduled for noon. The venue was a private room in a lakeside hotel, centered around a long table set against the windows. Trump was already seated.

They shook hands. It was a massive, heavy hand.

"Anthropic, right?" Trump said. His tone felt less like a confirmation and more like he was appraising an asset's value. "I’ve used Claude. It’s not bad."

"Thank you, Mr. President."

Dario took his seat beside him. Water and bread baskets were already laid out along the table, completely untouched by anyone.

"So," Trump began, opening the menu while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the text. "About that matter."

That matter. The single document that had landed on Dario's desk at exactly 17:21 on Friday evening.

"Mr. President, there is something I must urge you to consider," Dario began, delivering the words he had meticulously prepared. "This directive is based on a profound misunderstanding regarding Fable 5's actual capabilities and the true severity of the vulnerabilities the government is concerned about—"

"It’s not a misunderstanding." Trump snapped the menu shut.

"It’s a national security issue. It’s very simple. Don't let foreign nationals touch top-secret technology. That’s all there is to it."

"But the specific vulnerability highlighted here is something reproducible in other models as well, including GPT-5.5—"

"OpenAI is an American company."

Dario broke his sentence for a fraction of a second. "Anthropic is also an American company."

"Exactly," Trump nodded. "That’s exactly what I’m saying. If you're an American company, hire Americans. It’s that easy."

Outside the window, Lake Geneva caught a sudden flash of reflected light.

"Foreign engineers have formed the absolute backbone of Anthropic—and the entire American AI industry—for years. Without them, the Claude we know today simply would not exist."

"Well then," Trump remarked, reaching into the bread basket. "They should just become Americans."

It felt as though the temperature in the room dropped a visible degree.

"They can just naturalize. It’s that simple. If they love America and want to work in America, they become American citizens. It’s only natural."

Dario absorbed the statement head-on.

He had a dozen counterarguments ready to deploy. He could explain that naturalization takes years of bureaucratic processing. That depending on the visa category, some aren't even eligible to apply. That citizenship ultimately has absolutely zero bearing on a technical engineer's raw capability.

Yet he also knew with absolute clarity that uttering those facts in this room would change absolutely nothing.

"I ask that you please reconsider," Dario offered as a final effort.

Trump had already moved on to an entirely different topic.

---

The lunch concluded precisely an hour later. Dario walked briskly down the hotel corridor. Lake Geneva loomed outside the windows. He must have looked at the exact same scenery upon entering, but the colors now seemed completely drained.

While waiting for the elevator, he checked his phone. There were no messages from Karpathy.

It made sense. What could he possibly report to him anyway? That he had been told, "They should just become Americans"?

The elevator doors slid open. Just as he was about to step inside, a voice called out from behind him.

"Mr. Amodei." The accent was unmistakably French.

Turning around, he found a man in his early forties. He wore a slim-cut suit and an understated tie, yet his posture carried an undeniable air of authority.

"Do you have a moment?" the man asked in English. "I have an informal message to pass along from the President."

The President. Not Trump.

"President Macron," the man continued, "would like to speak with you tonight."

The elevator doors slid shut in absolute silence.