The city did not relapse all at once.
It slipped.
Rhen felt it first as a pattern re-emerging in the ledgers—small, efficient shortcuts reappearing in places no one thought to watch anymore. Not violations. Not even crossings.
Optimizations.
"They're compressing deliberation," an analyst said quietly, scrolling. "Still naming lines. Just… faster."
Nymera frowned. "Faster how?"
"Less disagreement," the analyst replied. "Fewer counter-advocates. Shorter pauses."
Skelda snorted. "That's called experience."
"Or forgetting," Nymera said softly.
The crisis that followed was ordinary.
That was what made it dangerous.
A supply convoy delayed by landslip and labor dispute. Food reserves sufficient—for now. No sirens. No water at doorsteps. Just the slow grind of inconvenience that turned into resentment.
People argued less.
They assumed more.
Rhen watched a decision pass in record time—clean, unanimous, efficient. And wrong.
Two days later, a peripheral district went without deliveries overnight. No deaths. No collapse.
Just hunger sharp enough to remember.
The backlash was muted but bitter.
"They decided without us."
"They didn't ask."
"They forgot who pays."
Nymera listened from the bridge, heart sinking. "Memory fades when pain fades."
Rhen nodded. "Efficiency is seductive."
Skelda crossed her arms. "So what—do we slow them down on purpose?"
Nymera shook her head. "No. We remind them what forgetting costs."
They did not issue a correction.
They issued a story.
At the next assembly, Nymera did not speak. Rhen did not speak. Skelda did not speak.
Instead, they invited the district coordinator who had gone without food.
She stood, hands trembling, voice steady only because it had to be.
"They didn't mean to," she said. "They were fast. Confident. Certain."
Silence held.
"But they didn't ask," she continued. "So when the trucks didn't come, there was no one to call. No one who remembered us."
Nymera closed her eyes.
The woman finished quietly, "That's how people disappear."
The deep listened—alert, unsettled.
Your system favors central coherence, it observed. Peripheral suffering increases.
"Yes," Rhen replied. "That's always been true."
You resist centralization, the deep said. Yet it returns.
Nymera opened her eyes. "Because memory is harder than structure."
They changed nothing.
No new rules.
No new safeguards.
They added one line to the ledger—visible, unavoidable.
DECISIONS MADE WITHOUT IMPACT TESTS REQUIRE RETELLING.
"What does that mean?" someone asked.
Nymera answered gently. "If you move fast without asking who's affected, you tell the story afterward. Publicly. In full."
Skelda added, "And you listen to the answer."
The first retelling was uncomfortable.
A senior steward stood before the city and described his decision—why it seemed right, what he'd missed, who paid. He did not defend himself.
He learned.
Others watched.
Efficiency slowed—not because it was banned, but because forgetting became work.
That night, Nymera and Rhen stood together, watching lanterns flicker on across the city.
"They're tired," Rhen said.
"Yes," Nymera agreed. "And still choosing."
The deep spoke once more—quieter than before.
Memory introduces drag.
Nymera smiled faintly. "So does love."
The water flowed on—constrained, visible, carrying scars and stories alike.
The city did not perfect itself.
It remembered.
And when memory pushed back against comfort, it did so not with force—
but with voices
that refused to be skipped.