The term appeared first in the margins.
Not as instruction.As clarification.
A clerk added it beside a delay entry that had been revised twice already. The original cause had been struck through. The replacement explanation sat neatly above it, written in smaller hand.
Within expected variance.
No one asked what the expectation was.
The phrase spread without announcement.
It appeared beside structural notes. Beside medical tallies. Beside routing discrepancies that had once required explanation and now required only acknowledgment.
The language was tidy.
That mattered.
A meeting followed.
It was not called an assembly.Not an inquiry.Not a review.
It was a coordination session.
Five attended. Three spoke. Two took notes they would later discard.
They sat around a narrow table in a room that had once been used for storage. Shelves had been cleared. A map hung crooked on one wall, its markings outdated but familiar enough to feel authoritative.
A clerk read from prepared pages.
"Delays have decreased within controlled routes," he said. "Failures persist outside them."
That was expected.
"Casualties?" one of the seated men asked.
"None directly attributable," the clerk replied. "Two injuries. No fatalities."
A mark was made.
Another man leaned forward. "Then the measures are effective."
No one challenged that.
The discussion turned to thresholds.
Not openly.Not at first.
They spoke of tolerance instead. Of capacity. Of what systems could absorb without visible degradation.
"If a route fails once per cycle," one said, "that is disruption."
"And twice?" another asked.
"That depends on scale."
They consulted tables. Old ones. Revised ones. Numbers copied forward because replacing them would have required justification.
The word error was not used.
Not yet.
A quartermaster cleared his throat. "There will always be loss."
Several heads inclined.
"The question," he continued, "is how much can be sustained before confidence erodes."
That phrasing was noted.
Confidence mattered more than precision.
Someone suggested a ratio.
Not as policy.As handling.
"One in twenty shipments," he said. "Delayed or redirected."
A pause.
"That is already happening," another replied.
"Yes," the quartermaster said. "Which suggests the system tolerates it."
No objection followed.
The number was written down.
It would not be cited directly.It would be referenced.
Outside the room, movement continued.
Markers held.Guards checked papers.Clerks passed decisions upward when uncertain.
The city adjusted.
At the infirmary, linen was counted again.
Not requested.Counted.
Used cloth was set aside. Cleaned. Reissued. Ticked off in columns that were kept separate to avoid dispute.
Two patients developed fever overnight.
One recovered.One did not.
The cases were recorded apart.
No link was made.
The meeting resumed.
A different threshold was raised.
"What about structural loss?" someone asked.
"Localized," the clerk said. "Contained."
"And if it isn't?"
"Then it will be."
That was written down as contingency planning.
A line was added beneath the earlier notation.
Acceptable within operational limits.
No definition followed.
Definitions invited challenge.
By afternoon, the language had settled.
Not officially.Not in proclamation.
In repetition.
Clerks began using the phrase without emphasis. Guards repeated it when questioned. Engineers wrote it beside reinforcement schedules that had already slipped.
It was easier than explaining.
He encountered it at the depot.
A delay notice had been revised again. The original cause was no longer legible beneath the ink.
"What does this mean?" a porter asked, pointing to the margin.
He glanced at the page.
"It means it will stand," he said.
The porter frowned. "How often?"
He did not answer.
The ache did not come.
The ground held its silence.
By evening, a summary circulated.
Not public.Internal.
It praised stabilization. Cited improved predictability. Acknowledged residual disruption within acceptable margins.
The phrase appeared three times.
It was underlined once.
No author was listed.
At the southern quarter, the cracked bracing was reinforced again.
Not replaced.Strengthened.
Weight was redistributed. Stress transferred to neighboring sections that had not yet failed.
The wall held.
For now.
A report was filed.
It listed mitigation as successful.
At the bottom of the page, in smaller script, someone had added a note.
Margin observed.
He read it while carrying the ledger between offices.
The ground beneath his feet was unchanged.
Still.
Silent.
No warning followed the day's decisions.
No correction came with nightfall.
By morning, new notices would be posted.New limits clarified.New losses absorbed.
The system had learned how much it could lose without noticing.
And because of that, it would lose more.