It wasn't surrounded. There were no power failures, no hysteria. The trams kept operating. The stores remained open. The Jet d'Eau executed its futile dance.. The city had grown a tender place, a subtle decay, at its heart.
Devon strolled from Plainpalais heading toward Place des Nations sensing it emanate from the pavement beneath. It appeared in the deliberate change of a traffic signal the unhurried rhythm of a waiter arranging a terrace setting the manner in which disputes on park benches faded, not through conclusion but with a shared tired shrug. The ambient noise was subdued, not due, to scarcity. Owing to a deficit of immediacy. Vehicle horns were subdued. Sirens echoed distantly feeling detached and unimportant.
This marked the cult's achievement. Not the intense stupor of a group but the mild pervasive boredom of the majority. The manifesto had acted as a seed; the energized leylines served as the water;. Currently a quiet indifferent indifference was flourishing.
He walked past a bank. Inside, visible through the glass the tellers moved with unhurried elegance. Nobody stood in line with impatience. A man casually stepped away, from an ATM forgetting his card in the machine. No one waiting behind him voiced any protest.
The front pages at the newsstand detailed far-, off troubles. The seller remained seated with a gentle calm smile choosing not to announce the news of the day.
The effect was strongest close, to the lake. The typical crowd of visitors was substituted by a nearly sleepwalking parade. Individuals lingered for moments merely gazing at the water refraining from photographing or talking. Their expressions showed not amazement. A profound calm surrender. The "Tyranny of Action"—the urge to record to broadcast to engage—had been respectfully refused in this place.
This marked the edge of the Grand Conjunction. The quiet centers throbbed gently their vibrations softening the pace of the city nearby. It wasn't aggression. It was a shared tranquil breath of reassurance.
Devon sensed it affecting him well. The urgent blaze, in his stomach was dying down overtaken by a rational query: Why keep running? His own pace started to seem ridiculously rushed. He pushed himself to go like a swimmer struggling through a stream of thick syrup.
He spotted a silhouette: Agustin Arthur, the Swiss physician seated on a bench, beside the water. He wasn't wearing his coat. He reclined with his head tilted eyes shut face lifted toward the faint sun. Devon moved closer.
"Doctor Arthur?"
The doctor blinked his eyes open gradually. They appeared lucid, calm. "Ah. The analyst. Continually… analyzing?"
"The city is sick."
"Really?" Arthur inquired quietly. "From a perspective I'd argue it has never been healthier. The cortisol levels, in my patients are drastically falling. Anxiety conditions are subsiding. There is a… shared tranquility."
"It's not about health. It's about giving up."
Arthur pondered this then gave a nod. "Maybe.. From a health perspective the boundary between tranquility and illness is becoming unclear. The body cannot distinguish. It only recognizes the absence of stress." He motioned to the environment surrounding them. "Isn't this what we desired? A world, with stress?"
"We aimed to fix the root of the stress not remove the ability to experience it!" Devon spoke loudly. Several onlookers glanced over not with irritation but with sympathy, for his distress.
Arthur offered him a smile filled with sympathy. "The issue is the world, Analyst. A world that requires more than it should. You cannot heal the world. You can only decide not to let it harm you. They… they are merely demonstrating this to us." He shut his eyes more drifting back, to his sunlit repose. His task was complete.
Devon walked away a coldness settling within him. The cult's success wasn't, in triumphing in discussion. In rendering the discussion pointless. Why dispute the purpose of life when you could just… cease questioning?
The large flags of the United Nations compound appeared, drooping motionless in the atmosphere. The Place des Nations, a hub of demonstrators, reporters and envoys was nearly deserted. The few present. Stood or sat in modest silent clusters conversing softly or remaining silent altogether. The known Broken Chair statue—a towering emblem against landmines and unfairness—stood upright yet now it appeared less like a demonstration and more like an artifact, from a more turbulent intense era.
At the heart of the silent square a modest tidy circle of grey carpet had been placed on the pavement. Resting on it was Flavio Fergal seated cross-legged and motionless. He wasn't speaking to an audience. He was merely serving as a point of focus. Nearby at a distance about twenty people, in everyday attire were seated. They were not chanting. They were. Maybe simply… pausing. They stood as the consenting defenders against opposition, a human power source anchoring the ceremony, at the core of Geneva's diplomatic vision.
The gentlest plague had reached its source. The fight wasn't coming. It was already over, and the silence was the victor. Devon stood at the edge of the plaza, his pocketful of artifacts suddenly feeling as weightless and irrelevant as confetti against a glacier. He had come for a confrontation. But the city, the cult, Flavio—they were no longer confronting anything. They were just… resting. And the most terrifying part was how reasonable it all seemed.