Thresholds were rarely visible.
They didn’t announce themselves with alarms or collapse. They revealed their presence only after they were crossed—when returning to what came before was no longer possible. The system had been designed to operate just short of them, managing tension, absorbing instability, retreating before damage became irreversible.
But noise had changed that balance.
Aryan sensed it in the system’s behavior before he understood it intellectually. Responses arrived slower now, not because of overload, but because the system was hesitating. Models that once produced confident outcomes now generated ranges. Probability bands widened. Certainty fractured into options.
The system was approaching a limit it had never needed to define.
“They’re stalling,” the man said as t
