The system did not celebrate its survival.
It recalibrated.
By the time the enforcement backlash settled into something less volatile, the architecture had already begun doing what it was designed to do next, learn. Every reaction, every withdrawal of capital, every delayed endorsement and begrudging return was absorbed, mapped, and contextualized. The architecture was no longer merely executing principles. It was refining judgment.
That distinction mattered.
Dante felt it in the way decisions now arrived, not as crises, but as sequences. One choice unfolding into another, consequences no longer spiking but cascading. This was not war. It was governance.
"The volatility curve is flattening," Victor said, scrolling through layered projections. "Not because resistance is gone, but because it's becoming predictable."
Aria leaned over his shoulder. "Predictable resistance is manageable resistance."
Victor nodded. "And expensive to maintain."
Cassian's absence was conspicuous.
