Normal operations began at 10:00.

No sirens.

No alerts.

No elevated risk markers rippling across Varenth’s systems.

The ledger favored mornings like this—predictable demand curves, stable response windows, human behavior folded neatly into expectation. These were the hours when efficiency confirmed itself, when variance slept, and clarity felt benevolent.

The city flowed on schedule. Trains arrived where they were meant to. Lights shifted in pre-approved gradients. Human motion aligns ...