Value is revealed when payment becomes optional.
The city didn't wake into conflict. It woke into consideration. The kind that slows movement not because of fear, but because every step now carried a price tag—and people had learned how to read it.
Not everything was worth the cost anymore.
✦
Arjun noticed it first in the small things.
"They skipped it," he said, watching a routine process quietly abandoned.
"Yes," I replied."Because it wasn't earning its keep."
✦
The other Ishaan aligned, voice calm and exact.
Once people can choose what to pay for, he said,value replaces obedience.
✦
By midmorning, the shift was unmistakable.
Tasks that existed only because they'd always existed began to disappear. Not announced. Not protested. Simply left undone when no one volunteered to absorb the cost.
What remained were the things people chose—deliberately.
✦
A woman folded her arms, staring at an outdated checklist.
"No one needs this anymore," she said.
And that was that.
✦
