The waiting was not passive.
It never was.
Asher's attention moved like a tide across fault lines, advancing and retreating in response to pressures no instrument could register. He did not anticipate outcomes so much as he listened for distortion—when intent and effect drifted too far apart to be reconciled without cost.
One of the undecided systems began to hum.
Not audibly. Structurally.
Metrics still looked healthy. Reports remained optimistic. But choices narrowed in subtle ways. Options that once required debate now defaulted. Exceptions hardened into rules. The space between can and must thinned until it was mostly rhetorical.
Asher leaned in slightly.
Just enough to feel where resistance still existed.
It lived in strange places. A maintenance schedule no one bothered to optimize. A protocol that allowed human override "in extraordinary circumstances," left undefined on purpose. A culture of asking forgiveness rather than permission—not celebrated, but tolerated.
