Nate’s Concern
Nate didn’t ask. That was the first decision he made, and the hardest one. He noticed the change the way he noticed everything else: by its absence. Alicia no longer carried the faint edge of vigilance that had threaded through her movements since the confrontation. She moved cleanly now, decisively, without scanning rooms or bracing for interruption. The systems around her felt steadier because she did. That should have reassured him. It didn’t. Concern, Nate had learned, wasn’t always loud. Sometimes it arrived as a quiet discrepancy between what made sense and what felt resolved. They were in a Helix working session when he felt it most sharply. The agenda was straightforward. The data clean. The risks contained. Alicia spoke once, brief, precise, and then returned to listening, p
- Writer
