Zephyr could not stop thinking about Page 413.
The Arbiter's polite, devastating note about the telegraph designs was filed away, the Cold Peace was formalized, but the three hundred and forty dead mortals in Oakhaven anchored his attention.
They were dead because he hadn't read a maintenance report.
He initiated a systemic audit of his own administrative architecture. He opened the interface labeled [UNREAD ALERTS / ARCHIVED REPORTS].
The queue was 1,847 items deep.
It was a monument to his own limitations. For decades, as the Dominion expanded, industrialized, and generated exponential amounts of data, Zephyr had triaged his reading. He had prioritized military movements, border security, and direct threats from rival gods.
