The fracture didn't appear where anyone expected it to.
It wasn't public.
It wasn't loud.
It happened in private channels, in delayed replies and carefully edited silences.
The advisory presence flagged it quietly.
[Anomaly detected within Type B collective.]
Marcus looked up from the screen. "That didn't take long."
"No," I said. "Because certainty only works when no one has to look too closely at the cost."
Mara sat cross-legged on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees. She hadn't spoken much since the rail incident—not withdrawn, just… processing.
"Someone broke ranks," she said suddenly.
I turned to her. "How do you know?"
She pressed two fingers to her temple, eyes unfocused. "I don't see outcomes anymore. But I still feel pressure shifts."
The advisory presence confirmed it.
[Internal dissent probability rising.]
The image that followed was smaller than the others—less polished.
A man in a conference room long after everyone else had left. His jacket lay draped over the back of a chair, his tie loosened, his phone glowing in his hand.
He stared at the screen.
At the rail projections.
At the time stamps.
At the margin by which disaster had been avoided.
"This wasn't nothing," he muttered.
He typed.
Deleted.
Typed again.
We said no intervention. But what we actually meant was no accountability.
The message sat unsent.
Marcus leaned closer to the projection. "He's hesitating."
"Yes," I said. "Because he can't unsee it."
The advisory presence supplied context.
[Subject previously voted in favor of rollback.]
Mara looked up sharply. "He wanted certainty."
"Yes," I replied. "Until certainty almost killed people."
The man's phone buzzed.
A reply from another member of the collective.
Outcome avoided. Framework unstable. This proves our point.
The man closed his eyes.
"No," he said quietly. "It proves something else."
He sent the message.
It proves that doing nothing is also a decision.
The channel went silent.
Marcus exhaled slowly. "That's it."
"That's what?" Mara asked.
"The crack," he said. "Once someone admits that passivity has agency, the old model stops being clean."
The advisory presence pulsed.
[Collective cohesion reduced by 3.1%.]
"That's not much," Mara said.
"It's enough," I replied. "Ideologies don't collapse all at once. They erode."
Outside, the city moved through a fragile calm. The rain had washed the streets clean, leaving reflections where certainty used to be.
"What happens now?" Mara asked.
"Now," I said, "they start asking each other questions they were never supposed to ask."
The advisory presence hesitated.
[Internal debate escalation projected.]
Marcus rubbed his temples. "They'll turn on each other before they turn back to us."
"Yes," I agreed. "Because certainty requires unanimity."
Mara frowned. "And choice doesn't."
The room felt quieter than before—not empty, but expectant.
"Is this what you wanted?" she asked me suddenly.
I met her gaze.
"No," I said honestly. "This is what happens when you stop pretending there's a painless option."
The advisory presence chimed again, softer this time.
[Rejection rate updated: 9%.]
Marcus raised an eyebrow. "It dropped."
"Yes," I said. "Because doubt spreads faster than fear."
Mara let out a shaky breath. "I don't like that people almost died so someone could learn that."
"Neither do I," I replied. "But the alternative was letting them die so no one had to learn anything."
Silence settled.
Not agreement.
Acceptance.
The advisory presence waited—not for orders, but for interpretation.
"Log this," I said quietly. "As the first internal dissent triggered by transparency."
[Logged.]
"And note," Marcus added, "that it occurred without coercion."
[Logged.]
The presence stilled.
Somewhere, in offices and private rooms and sleepless kitchens, people were rereading projections they had once dismissed.
Not because they were told to.
But because they couldn't forget what almost happened.
Mara hugged her knees tighter.
"This is going to get harder," she said.
"Yes," I replied. "Because now no one can say they didn't know."
The future didn't fracture loudly.
It creaked.
And in that sound—quiet, uncomfortable, impossible to ignore—
The old certainty began to fail.