Exceptions don't end problems.
They price them.
The city woke with the same clean efficiency it had learned to love—but something in the rhythm was off, like a song played half a beat too late. People followed schedules. Coordinators checked lists. Lines moved.
Yet eyes lingered longer than before.
Not suspicious.
Aware.
Arjun noticed it as we crossed the clinic street."They're watching each other now."
"Yes," I said."Because they saw a rule bend."
✦
The boy from yesterday wasn't there.
That mattered.
He hadn't vanished loudly. He'd simply been processed, absorbed, resolved—removed from visibility the way systems prefer their problems.
But the memory remained.
A volunteer glanced at the spot where he'd sat.A coordinator avoided looking there at all.
The other Ishaan aligned, voice measured.
Exceptions create precedent, he said.Precedent creates anxiety.
✦
By midmorning, the first cost arrived.
Not punishment.
Clarification.
