By the sixth day, the city discovered a new strategy.
It didn't solve anything.
But it made the pain easier to tolerate.
Blame stopped moving upward.
It spread sideways.
The morning briefings no longer ended with conclusions. They ended with lists.
Multiple contributing factors.
Shared responsibility.
No single point of failure.
Each phrase was accurate. Each phrase was also a kind of anesthetic.
Minh Truong recognized it immediately—not as denial, but as dilution. When responsibility was everywhere, it became harder to feel it anywhere.
At Oversight, the language changed before the data did.
Incident reports grew longer. Timelines branched. Every decision was framed as the product of overlapping constraints: policy, precedent, incomplete information.
No lies.
Just distance.
Zhang Yu scrolled through a municipal summary, jaw tight. "They're writing it so no one can finish reading."
Minh nodded. "So no one can finish feeling it."
On the main display, three unrelated failures from different districts were grouped under a single heading:
SYSTEMIC PRESSURE EVENTS
It sounded structural. Impersonal. Almost geological.
As if no one had chosen anything at all.
The first protest didn't look like a protest.
It gathered quietly outside a regional administrative building—thirty, maybe forty people. No chants. No signs. Just presence.
They stood there holding printed reports.
Not photos of victims.
Not demands.
Documents.
People wanted to know who had signed what.
Security didn't disperse them. There was nothing to disperse.
By noon, a second group formed across the city. Then a third.
Different incidents. Same posture.
Waiting.
Elena Park called Minh into her office just after midday.
"They're asking for accountability statements," she said. "Personal ones."
Minh raised an eyebrow. "From whom?"
"That's the problem," Elena replied. "Everyone wants transparency. No one wants concentration."
Minh leaned against the table. "So they're inventing collective guilt."
Elena gave a tired smile. "That's one way to survive."
"And another way to stall," Minh said.
She didn't disagree.
"They think if the blame spreads thin enough," she said quietly, "it won't cut."
Minh looked at her. "It still cuts. Just slower."
In the afternoon, a regional council tried something new.
They released a statement signed by twelve members instead of one.
The message was careful, balanced, almost compassionate.
The reaction was immediate.
People weren't angry.
They were unsatisfied.
Minh watched the sentiment analysis flatten—not spike. Flatness was worse. It meant disengagement.
When no one could be pointed to, no one could be answered.
Responsibility had become fog.
Late that evening, Minh walked past one of the protest sites.
A man stepped forward—not confrontational, not pleading.
Just tired.
"Are you Minh Truong?" he asked.
Minh nodded.
"My sister was affected by one of those 'pressure events,'" the man said, using the term with visible effort. "No one's saying they made the call. They're saying everyone did."
He paused, searching Minh's face. "Is that true?"
Minh felt the familiar pull—the urge to clarify, to frame, to absorb.
He resisted.
"It's true that many people were involved," Minh said carefully. "It's not true that this means no one chose."
The man swallowed. "Then why won't anyone say they did?"
Minh answered honestly. "Because saying it now would concentrate the pain."
"And not saying it?" the man asked.
Minh looked past him, at the quiet line of people holding papers. "It spreads it. And makes it last."
The man nodded once. He didn't look relieved.
He looked educated.
That night, the system published a longer note than usual.
[OBSERVATION] SHIFT DETECTED: RESPONSIBILITY DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIES
EFFECT: REDUCED IMMEDIATE BACKLASH
SECONDARY EFFECT: TRUST EROSION OVER TIME
No recommendation.
No correction.
Just memory.
Minh read it slowly.
"So this is the new shelter," he said aloud. "Not Control. Not delay. Diffusion."
The system remained silent.
Before sleeping, Minh wrote in his notebook:
When blame belongs to everyone,
it belongs to no one long enough to heal.
He closed the book.
The city outside was quieter tonight—not calmer, just flatter. Anger had not vanished. It had been thinned, spread across too many surfaces to burn brightly anywhere.
Minh understood the danger now.
Distributed blame didn't stop harm.
It postponed reckoning.
And reckoning, like time, had learned how to catch up faster than before.
Tomorrow, the city would discover that fog did not make responsibility disappear.
It only made it harder to breathe.