After losing the log file, I stopped improvising.
Curiosity had carried me this far. From here on, it would get me erased.
If the system punished interference, then the only way forward was to reduce noise—to observe without triggering correction, to test without leaving fingerprints.
At 6:30 a.m., I prepared the setup.
No personal devices.
No synced clocks.
No network connections.
I used an old analog wristwatch, one that had never been calibrated digitally. I paired it with a mechanical kitchen timer and a notebook—paper, pen, nothing traceable.
If the anomaly reacted to data, then I would remove data from the equation.
At 6:47, I started the timer for exactly five minutes.
I didn't watch it.
Instead, I stared at the wall, counting breaths, keeping my awareness deliberately unfocused. Not asleep. Not attentive. Somewhere in between.
When the timer rang, I checked the wristwatch.
Five minutes had passed.
Nothing unusual.
I wrote it down.
Test A: Passive awareness. No correction.
Encouraged—but cautious—I adjusted the variables.
At 7:05, I set the timer again.
This time, I watched.
Not intensely. Just enough to be aware of the passing seconds.
The ringing came early.
By my count, at least one second early.
The wristwatch confirmed it.
I didn't move.
I didn't react.
I simply recorded the result.
Test B: Light observation. Minor deviation.
No messages followed.
No shutdowns.
No warnings.
Which meant one thing.
The system tolerated small discrepancies.
Or rather—it tolerated me noticing them.
At work, I kept my head down. No scripts. No log access. I behaved like an ordinary employee doing ordinary tasks. If something corrected itself, I made sure I was looking elsewhere.
Still, I felt it.
A pressure at the edge of perception.
At 1:22 p.m., a spreadsheet recalculated itself twice.
At 3:09, an email timestamp updated after being sent.
Both times, I noticed only after the fact.
Both times, nothing happened.
By evening, the pattern was clear.
There was a threshold.
Observe too closely, and the system reacted.
Interfere directly, and it punished.
But below that line—below that invisible boundary—it watched silently.
At 9:40 p.m., I performed the final test.
I wrote a false time in my notebook.
Just ink. No device. No signal.
21:39
I waited one minute, then crossed it out.
Nothing changed.
I felt something ease in my chest—not relief, but confirmation.
The system didn't care about lies.
It cared about records.
That was when my phone vibrated.
I hadn't used it all day.
A single message appeared.
"Better."
No number.
No typing indicator.
Just one word.
I didn't reply.
I placed the phone face down and sat quietly, letting the implications settle.
This wasn't a force reacting blindly to errors.
It was adaptive.
It adjusted not just reality, but tolerance.
And somehow, it had noticed that I was learning.
That realization was more unsettling than any threat.
Because systems that adapted expected users to continue.
And I had no intention of stopping.