It didn’t look like collapse at first. Not to outsiders. Not to analysts watching from safe distance dashboards. Even inside Carter Holdings, the first reports were still wrapped in calm language.
**“System-wide recalibration continuing.”**
**“Liquidity normalization in progress.”**
**“Operational redistribution stable.”**
Words that sounded like maintenance. Not endings. But Adrian had learned enough now to recognize what those words really meant. They meant: nothing was being saved anymore. Only completed.
He was back in his office when it happened. The same glass walls. The same skyline. But the system feeds on his screens had changed tone.Not urgent. Not alarming. Just… final. As if the machine had stopped trying to convince him it needed him at all.
Marcus entered without speaki
