Oversight didn't announce the change.
They embedded it.
At 05:58, while most of the Triangle still slept, a system-wide parameters update propagated through scheduling cores, evaluation scripts, and access permissions. No banners. No red text. No this is important framing.
Just new defaults.
By 06:30, the Triangle felt heavier.
Not physically.
Procedurally.
Doors took longer to unlock. Reservation windows tightened from hours to minutes. Training halls that had once been "open use" now required justification tags. Interface prompts appeared one beat earlier than usual, asking for confirmation before actions that had never required it before.
Normalization.
Oversight's favorite tool.
You didn't punish deviation.
You made deviation inconvenient.
Dreyden noticed it immediately—not when his access lagged, but when it didn't.
The system anticipated his requests now.
Preloaded responses.
Prefabricated paths.
It wasn't blocking him.
It was steering him.
He didn't follow.
