Two days into a crisis, the world doesn’t shatter.
It tightens.
Air feels thinner. Conversations grow deliberate. Silence carries weight. The Concord Tribunal never wants chaos—it wants pressure. Pressure makes people sloppy. Sloppy makes them guilty.
And guilt is easier to govern than rebellion.
My territory doesn’t lock down like Orion’s. There are no gates to bar, no banners to raise. The Shadow Network was built to exist between lines on maps, not inside them. Silence is our normal state.
So any visible change is the danger.
Dawn bleeds grey through canopy and stone as I walk the perimeter corridor, boots quiet against matte flooring. The structures here sit low, angular, built to avoid notice. No ornament. No light spill. Nothing to attract eyes.
My people move as they always d
