The shift did not announce itself.
It accumulated.
At first, it was almost imperceptible—a slight increase in responsiveness, a subtle tightening of the relationships between elements that had previously coexisted with more freedom. The lattice did not restrict them.
It began to listen.
Neo noticed it in the delay.
Not a lag, but a pause that hadn't existed before. The system no longer reacted immediately to every input. It considered.
"Did you feel that?" he asked.
Ti responded without hesitation.
"Processing latency has increased by 0.3%."
"That's not what I mean."
Beatrix intervened.
"It is not latency," she said. "It is deliberation."
Lira's eyes lit up.
"Wait—are you saying the system is… thinking?"
Cassandra raised an eyebrow.
"Let's not jump to conclusions."
Ast, however, was already aligned with the shift.
"It's not thinking," she said. "It's weighting."
That landed differently.
Because they could feel it.
