The first message came to Raisel at 06:12.
It wasn't from her family.
That would have been predictable.
It wasn't from Oversight either.
That would have been obvious.
It came from an unmarked internal relay.
Encrypted, but not aggressively so. Just enough to feel private.
She read it once.
Didn't react.
Read it again.
Then locked her screen and sat very still.
Across the dorm wing, enforcement presence had thinned compared to the previous week. Public pressure had softened. The visible grid was gone.
That had never meant safety.
It meant phase shift.
Raisel stood, dressed, and went to find Dreyden before first block.
Dreyden was already awake.
Not because he slept poorly.
Because he preferred waking before information moved.
The Mandarin file hadn't updated overnight.
That meant something subtle was happening.
When Raisel entered his space, she didn't speak immediately.
She handed him her interface.
He read.
A small projection unfolded in clean text:
