Failure did not fade with the morning.
It reorganized.
By 06:18 the commons were already occupied. Screens floated in layered clusters above tables that hadn't been cleaned from the night before. Someone had fallen asleep on an open projection board and woken up mid-argument. Coffee dispensers had been drained twice over.
The twenty-four-hour revision window had done what Oversight likely intended.
It had forced ownership into daylight.
Dreyden leaned on the second-floor railing and watched the pattern below.
Students were not panicking.
They were overcorrecting.
Clipped debates broke out over fallback handshake thresholds. Tier C representatives argued for earlier override triggers. Tier B anchors pushed back, citing reaction lag integrity. No one mentioned the injured by name.
They didn't need to.
Every sentence referenced them indirectly.
