Power doesn't crack where people are looking.
It fractures where pressure is redistributed.
By the next morning, the system felt… louder.
Not in volume—in frequency.
Too many check-ins.
Too many clarifications.
Too many people suddenly "looping me in" on decisions they used to finalize quietly.
When control senses competition, it performs transparency.
An emergency alignment session was announced.
Not mandatory.
But attendance was noted.
That phrasing alone told me everything.
The room was different this time.
No glass walls.
No observers pretending not to observe.
Just oak paneling and low lighting—trust theater.
They wanted intimacy.
They wanted concessions.
The Lead didn't open.
Legal did.
"We've reviewed your documentation trail," counsel said, fingers steepled.
"It's… thorough."
That's lawyer for dangerous.
"Accuracy tends to be," I replied.
A few people shifted in their chairs.
Small movements reveal who already feels implicated.
"We're concerned," the Lead said carefully, "that your approach creates parallel authority."
"No," I corrected. "It creates parallel visibility."
Same smile as yesterday.
Less warmth.
"Visibility without alignment can be interpreted as defiance."
"Only by structures that depend on invisibility."
Silence.
Again.
They presented a compromise.
They always do.
A role expansion.
A task force seat.
A chance to "shape outcomes from within."
Golden handcuffs polished to a shine.
"You'd have influence," the Lead said. "Direct input."
"At the cost of what?" I asked.
"Discretion."
There it was.
Not loyalty.
Not silence.
Discretion.
I didn't answer immediately.
I let the discomfort do its work.
Then: "Discretion is neutral only when power is."
No one challenged that.
They couldn't.
After the meeting, the fallout began in earnest.
One director resigned—quietly, suddenly.
Another requested reassignment "for personal reasons."
Stress fractures don't announce themselves.
They disappear.
Han Zhe sent a single line over secure chat:
They're shedding load.
Meaning: the system was lightening itself to survive.
Which meant pressure was working.
That evening, a junior analyst I'd never spoken to stopped me in the hallway.
Voice low. Eyes sharp.
"I read the source logs," they said.
"They don't match the synthesis."
I waited.
"They told us to ignore the mismatch."
I nodded once. "And?"
"And I didn't."
There it was.
Not loyalty.
Not rebellion.
Recognition.
"Document everything," I said.
"Time-stamp it. Don't editorialize."
They swallowed. "Will that protect me?"
"No," I said honestly. "But it will protect the truth."
They nodded anyway.
People don't always choose safety.
Sometimes they choose coherence.
That night, the system released a memo reframing the situation.
Language scrubbed.
Tensions minimized.
Narrative restored.
For the casual reader, everything was fine.
For those inside the machinery?
The hum had changed pitch.
Two centers of gravity were no longer theoretical.
They were operational.
And somewhere between them, a fault line had formed—
not loud,
not visible,
but alive.
And once a fault line wakes up,
the ground never quite settles again.