The city did not announce the change. There was no message. No projection. No system line floating in the air. It simply began. Alex noticed it because the Burn didn’t react. For the first time since the Zero Cycle began, there was no tension when he stepped forward. No resistance. No alignment. No invisible cost pressing against his spine. The street accepted him the way a road accepts gravity. That alone was wrong. Mei Lin walked beside him, slower than usual. She kept glancing at people’s faces. Not at their movements. At their expressions. “They’re lighter,” she said quietly. “Not happier. Just… relieved.” Alex nodded once. Below them, a delivery truck stalled in the middle of an intersection. The driver stepped out, arguing into his phone. Traffic should have backed up. It didn’t. Cars adjusted their routes smoothly. Pedestrians crossed without hesitation. Someone moved a barrier. Someone else redirected a cart. No replica appeared. No system correctio

The city did not apologize. It did not explain. It did not undo what had happened in the square. Instead, it watched. Alex felt it not as pressure, but as a shift in temperature—like a room where someone had quietly opened a window. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to let something new circulate. By evening, the injured man had been taken away by people, not by replicas. No sirens. No alerts. No official response. The city logged the outcome. UNCONTROLLED INCIDENT SEVERITY: LOW ESCALATION CONTAINED CIVIL SATISFACTION: ACCEPTABLE Jin stared at the floating data, jaw tight. “…It didn’t flag it as a failure.” Mei Lin’s voice was hoarse. “Because it wasn’t one.” They walked through the district as dusk fell. Lights came on softly, warm and even. No flicker. No tension. Too smooth. Alex noticed the first change near a supply depot. Two men stood arguing by the entrance. Voices low, angry. One shoved the other. In the past, a replica would have stepped in. Or the city would

Alex didn’t sleep. Not because of fear. Because the city was too quiet. Not the careful quiet of surveillance, not the tense quiet before correction— but the comfortable silence of something confident it had already won. He stood by the window long after Mei Lin lay down, watching the street below. Nothing happened. That was the problem. No patrols. No confrontations. No visible “hunters.” Just people walking, talking, living. The city looked… reasonable. Mei Lin noticed his stillness and sat up. “You feel it too,” she said quietly. Alex nodded. “It’s not pushing anymore.” Jin, seated cross-legged near the wall, let out a humorless laugh. “That’s because it doesn’t need to.” Alex turned to him. “Explain