THREE DAYS LATER — THE PROBLEM WITH NOTHING HAPPENING
The first medicine shipment arrived one day late.
Not enough to cause death.
Not enough to trigger emergency protocol.
Just enough to keep thirty-two families waiting in a clinic corridor one night longer than they should have.
The rail permits for eastern grain transfer took two extra signatures.
No law changed.
No decree was issued.
No one could identify the exact obstruction.
A widow's pension review in Greyhaven vanished into "clerical reassessment" for twelve days.
A school roof repair in Bellwake sat in contract limbo because one regional counterseal failed to appear.
Two floodgate crews in the southern corridor were put on hold because no one could locate a required maintenance attestation that had existed quite reliably for six years until now.
Nothing catastrophic.
That was the point.
By the end of the week, everyone in the Alliance felt a little more tired than they should.
A little less patient.
