The numbers were correct.
That was the problem.
Doyun noticed it during a routine review, the kind he usually completed without thinking. A dashboard of minor incidents scrolled past his screen, each entry small enough to dissolve into background noise.
No spikes. No clusters large enough to trigger alerts. No anomalies demanding escalation.
The system was calm.
Doyun wasn't.
He leaned back and scanned the list again, slower this time. Not reading the details, just letting the structure of the data settle into his awareness.
Different districts. Different times of day. Different reported causes.
There was no obvious connection.
But the margins were wrong.
Each incident sat just below the threshold that would have required intervention. Not randomly. Not occasionally.
Consistently.
He zoomed in on one location.
A slip on wet stairs in a commercial building. Minor injury. No follow-up required.
Another.
A bicycle wobble near a curb. No collision. No report beyond the initial entry.
Another.
A low-speed contact in a parking structure. Cosmetic damage only.
Individually, they meant nothing.
Together, they formed a rhythm.
Doyun opened a second window and overlaid the incidents by response timing rather than location.
The pattern sharpened.
Adjustments were happening early.
Not early enough to be recorded as prevention. Just early enough to blunt impact. Each incident resolved at the lowest possible severity without eliminating the cause.
The structure was holding.
Too well.
His manager passed by and paused behind him.
"Anything interesting?" she asked, glancing at the screen.
Doyun considered the question.
"No," he said finally. "Nothing unusual."
It was the correct answer.
The data did not contradict him.
She nodded and walked on.
The system accepted the explanation.
Doyun stared at the screen long after she left.
If the system had been missing something, it would have shown gaps. Spikes. Errors.
There were none.
Instead, there was balance.
He ran another comparison, pulling reports from adjacent weeks.
The pattern persisted.
Not growing. Not shrinking.
Maintaining.
That unsettled him more than escalation ever could.
Growth could be tracked. Decline could be explained.
Maintenance required effort.
Invisible effort.
At lunch, Doyun carried his tray to a table near the window.
Outside, the city moved through a light drizzle. A delivery truck slowed earlier than necessary at a corner. A pedestrian hesitated, then crossed anyway.
The moment resolved smoothly.
No one stumbled. No horns sounded. No record would be created.
But Doyun felt the effort.
The adjustment had come before the decision. The correction had preceded the error.
Back at his desk, he pulled footage from a public traffic camera near one of the locations.
Nothing dramatic appeared.
Cars slowed. People adjusted. Paths widened, then closed again.
Normal behavior.
Except for timing.
The corrections came half a beat too early. Always the same half beat.
Doyun closed the window.
This was not coincidence.
The city was preparing itself.
Not to stop accidents.
To contain them.
Late in the afternoon, he drafted a note.
Not a report. Not a warning.
A question.
Why are response times improving without intervention?
He stared at the sentence.
There was no category for it. No department that would receive it. No metric it could attach itself to.
He deleted the note.
The system did not ask "why."
It only asked "how much."
On his way home, Doyun stood at the edge of a busy intersection.
Before the light changed, he felt the adjustment begin. The space tightened, redistributed, then relaxed.
No one noticed.
No one needed to.
He stepped back.
The sensation lingered longer than expected, then faded.
That night, he opened his notebook.
He wrote slowly, careful not to assign intent where none could be proven.
The data is accurate. The interpretation is empty.
He paused, then added:
The structure is not failing. It is compensating beyond visibility.
Doyun closed the notebook.
For the first time, he understood why the system felt increasingly irrelevant.
It wasn't blind.
It was late.
And being late was enough.