The city exhaled.Not relief. Adjustment.John felt it as soon as they stepped out of the hotel’s shattered illusion into the night air. The streets were no longer frozen in fear. They moved. Not smoothly. Not safely. But with intent.Crowds gathered in pockets, not to riot, not to flee, but to listen. Makeshift screens replayed fragments of exposed records. Names repeated themselves in low voices like prayers and curses stitched together.Rita stayed close to John, her posture alert but no longer aggressive. “They are watching you differently now.”“Yes,” Elias said. “Not as a spark. As a constant.”Celine scrolled through incoming data, her hands steady despite the chaos flowing through her screen. “Independent tribunals are forming. Some are legitimate. Some are opportunists. Everyone wants a piece of this.”Morgan cracked his knuckles. “Let them fight over scraps. The core is already out.”Kael slowed, eyes narrowing. “Movement on the perimeter.”Figures approached through the cro

They did not announce the move.No speeches. No signals. No rallying cry that could be traced, replayed, or turned into a slogan.John insisted on it.They split before dawn.Not physically at first. Digitally. Functionally. Trust broken into compartments small enough to survive betrayal.Celine seeded the first layer within hours. Not messages. Questions. Simple prompts injected into public feeds, local networks, school forums, and worker collectives. How do you verify urgency? Who benefits if you rush? What happens if you wait?The Continuum’s acceleration hit resistance almost immediately.Confusion slowed momentum.Anger lost its target.Rita watched the data streams roll in from a quiet corner of the safe floor. “They are overcorrecting.”“They always do,” John replied. “Control hates friction.”Kael’s voice came through comms, low and steady. “First hub relocated. No fixed anchor. People rotate in shifts. No names. No hierarchy.”“Good,” John said. “Hierarchy attracts decapitati

The city answered hesitation with noise.Not riots. Not screams.Movement.Doors that stayed shut for years now opened. Old tunnels woke up. People who had learned to look down began looking sideways instead, checking who else was watching the lie wobble.John felt it before anyone said it.The Crest was no longer reacting.It was orienting.Rita noticed the change in his posture immediately. “You feel something.”“Yes,” John said. “They are bracing.”Celine’s console flickered, then stabilized. Her jaw tightened. “They just reclassified Zone Delta Nine.”Morgan leaned closer. “Meaning.”“Meaning it no longer officially exists,” she replied. “No zoning data. No public infrastructure tags. It has been digitally erased.”Kael’s voice cut in from comms, low and precise. “Physical presence just tripled around the perimeter. Not overt. Plain clothes. Utility disguises. Municipal ghosts.”Elias closed his eyes briefly. “They are burying a wound instead of treating it.”John turned away from

The city did not roar.It argued.John felt it as they pushed through the narrow service stairwell into open night. Not screams. Not panic. Voices layered over one another. Shouting from windows. Debates spilling into the streets, broadcasts clashing mid-sentence, authority dissolving not with fire but with contradiction.That was worse for the Council.Rita pulled him hard into cover as a transport screamed overhead, too low, too fast. Its undercarriage lights swept the street, searching for shapes that refused to stand still.“They are sealing sectors,” she said. “Selective lockdowns.”Morgan crouched beside a burned-out vehicle, weapon tracking the sky. “Too late. You do not lock a door after the house starts talking.”Celine’s console was a blur of cascading alerts. Her voice shook, not with fear but overload. “They are trying to suppress the lattice manually. Human intervention. No automation.”Elias grimaced. “That means they are afraid of what the system might reveal next.”Joh

The hotel watched the city burn itself awake.John felt it the moment they crossed into the upper district. The air changed, quieter, polished, streets cleaned too often to remember what they covered. Towers reflected chaos without admitting it existed.Luxury always pretended innocence.Rita adjusted her grip as the hotel rose ahead of them, glass and marble catching fractured light from the skyline. “They fortified it.”“Yes,” John said. “After we left.”Morgan scanned the perimeter. “Discreet reinforcement. Civilian face. Council spine.”Celine slowed, eyes locked on her console. “They layered old permissions over new authority. This place is pretending it never learned the Council language.”Elias nodded. “Because it did not. The hotel was a mask long before the Council learned how to wear one.”Kael touched his comm. “Movement inside. Not security patrols. Administrators.”Rita frowned. “Paper pushers do not come out during riots.”“They do when records start breathing,” John rep