Atlas did not open another private channel. He left the residual monitoring station, checked the core-cap reading on his collar once, and walked the long corridor to the secondary systems deck.
The monitor stayed flat. No residual load. Only the ordinary weight of moving through a structure that had already decided most of its allocations.
The secondary deck ran quieter than the lattice nodes. Clean air handlers, low lighting over the architecture boards, training pipeline schedules scrolling without urgency.
Callen sat at the central console and did not stand when he entered. She had kept the non-lattice side of the Weave operational through every contraction. Her residual profile was ordinary. Her authority was not.
"You're not here about residual baselines," she said. "Those are clean."
