Morning arrived without announcement.
No sirens.
No declarations.
No sweeping changes to signal a new era.
And yet the city woke differently.
Not hopeful, hope was too fragile for what followed, but alert, as though a collective breath had been drawn and held. The air carried weight now. Every system pulse, every bureaucratic delay, every approval or denial felt watched, not by an authority, but by memory.
Documentation had done what force never could.
It made the present accountable to the future.
Aria stood at the eastern balcony, watching light stretch across concrete and glass. The city did not glitter. It endured. That endurance was the point.
Victor joined her without speaking, placing a tablet on the rail between them.
"Public sentiment metrics," he said. "Not volatility. Pressure."
She scanned the data. "Expectation density is rising."
"Yes," Victor replied. "They're not asking for change. They're assuming it."
