The committee met for ninety-two minutes.
That detail mattered later.
Every procedure was followed.
Every disclosure was logged.
Every conflict of interest was declared and recorded.
Nothing about the meeting was rushed.
Nothing about it was careless.
And the decision they reached was wrong.
Not morally ambiguous.
Not tragically unavoidable.
Just wrong.
I learned about it the same way everyone else did—through a cleanly formatted notice pushed out to public channels at exactly 9:00 a.m.
Temporary Crowd Density Regulation – Effective Immediately
Marcus read it aloud, his voice flat.
"Public assemblies exceeding threshold density will require advance authorization. Unauthorized gatherings may be dispersed to prevent escalation."
Mara stared at the screen.
"They're banning spontaneity," she said.
"No," Marcus replied. "They're regulating it."
I felt a pressure behind my eyes—not sharp, not sudden. A dull insistence, like something pressing from the inside.
"They're afraid of another square," I said.
"And they're allowed to be," Marcus said. "After what happened."
Yes.
That was the problem.
The decision was defensible.
Legal.
Documented.
And it shifted the cost again—quietly, neatly—onto people who didn't sit in that room.
"They followed the rules," Mara said. "All of them."
"Yes," I replied. "They just chose the wrong outcome."
The advisory presence stirred faintly, like a ghost remembering it used to matter.
[System observation:]
[Human governance reproducing optimization patterns.]
"Don't say it," Marcus muttered.
I didn't need to.
By noon, enforcement had begun.
Not violently.
Not dramatically.
Just barriers placed earlier than usual.
Permits denied with polite explanations.
Police presence increased—not aggressive, just visible enough to remind people where decisions now lived.
We walked past the square where it had all started.
Metal barricades lined the edges, clean and symmetrical. A small sign had been zip-tied to one of them.
AUTHORIZED GATHERINGS ONLY
Mara stopped.
"This is what they asked for," she said. "Structure. Accountability."
"Yes," I replied. "And now it's doing what structure always does."
Marcus folded his arms. "Reducing variance."
I nodded.
"They didn't reinstate the old system," Mara said slowly. "They reinvented it."
With faces.
With names.
With signatures.
"That makes it worse," she added. "Because now people will think it's theirs."
The pressure behind my eyes intensified.
I blinked hard, steadying myself.
"Elena?" Marcus asked. "You okay?"
"I don't know," I said honestly. "It feels like… echo."
Mara frowned. "Echo of what?"
"Of responsibility," I said. "Staying longer than it should."
The advisory presence chimed weakly.
[Unmodeled anchor strain detected.]
"Ignore it," I muttered.
I shouldn't have.
That night, I couldn't sleep.
Not because my mind raced—but because it looped.
The square.
The fall.
The committee room.
Over and over, with tiny variations that didn't resolve into futures—just reminders.
When I finally sat up, the room tilted slightly.
"Okay," I whispered. "That's new."
Marcus noticed immediately when I missed a step the next morning.
"You're off," he said.
"I'm fine," I replied automatically.
Mara watched me closely.
"You're not," she said.
She was right.
Every time I focused too hard—on people, on decisions, on consequences—the pressure spiked. Not pain exactly. More like saturation.
"I think," I said slowly, "this ability doesn't turn off cleanly."
Marcus frowned. "Meaning?"
"Meaning I'm not just aware when I choose to be," I said. "Some of it lingers."
The advisory presence, unhelpful and distant, offered:
[Preliminary hypothesis:]
[Extended exposure to unbounded human variance increases cognitive load.]
"Translation," Mara snapped.
"It costs more than we thought," I said.
She went quiet.
That afternoon, the first dispersal happened.
A small group—peaceful, organized late—gathered without authorization. They weren't shouting. They weren't blocking anything.
They were standing together.
Police approached calmly. Voices were raised—not angry, but confused.
Permits were cited. Regulations explained.
Someone cried.
Someone refused to move.
No one was hurt.
But something else was.
"This is wrong," Mara said, watching the footage. "They're following the rules."
"Yes," I replied. "That's why it's dangerous."
She turned to me sharply.
"You helped design this," she said.
"Yes," I replied.
"And now you're saying it's wrong?"
"I'm saying," I replied, "that legality isn't a moral shield."
Mara shook her head.
"This is what happens," she said, voice rising, "when you refuse to draw lines."
"No," I said quietly. "This is what happens when lines draw themselves."
She stared at me.
"You wanted people to own their choices," she said. "Now they do. And people are being pushed out of public space."
I felt the pressure surge again—hard enough that I had to sit down.
"Elena," Marcus said urgently.
"I'm okay," I lied.
Mara didn't move.
"This is what I was afraid of," she said. "That freedom would turn into procedure. That harm would come back wearing a badge."
I looked up at her.
"And what would you have done?" I asked.
She didn't answer right away.
Then—quietly—
"I would have stopped this," she said.
The words landed heavier than any shout.
"How?" Marcus asked.
"By drawing a line," she said. "By saying: no authority—system or committee—gets to restrict people preemptively."
"That invites chaos," Marcus said.
"It invites risk," Mara corrected. "Which we're already living with."
I met her gaze.
"You're saying the committee went too far."
"Yes," she said. "And you let them."
The pressure in my head pulsed in time with my heartbeat.
"You're asking for a veto," I said.
"I'm asking for resistance," she replied. "Publicly."
The room went still.
This wasn't anger.
This was divergence.
"If you do that," Marcus said slowly, "you fracture what little cohesion is left."
Mara nodded. "I know."
She looked at me.
"And if you don't," she said, "you become what you warned everyone about."
Silence stretched between us—not hostile, not pleading.
Final.
I realized then that this wasn't about policy.
It was about where each of us was willing to stand when the consequences stopped being theoretical.
"I won't lead a revolt," I said quietly.
Mara swallowed.
"But I won't stop you from speaking," I added.
She held my gaze for a long moment.
"Then this is where we diverge," she said.
Not a threat.
A fact.
The advisory presence didn't speak.
It had nothing useful left to add.
As Mara turned away to prepare her statement, the pressure behind my eyes eased slightly—replaced by something colder.
Loss.
Not of friendship.
Of alignment.
The committee's decision stood.
The rules were enforced.
And for the first time since all of this began, I understood something with absolute clarity:
Freedom didn't break all at once.
It eroded—
through decisions that followed every rule,
answered every concern,
and still managed to be wrong.