By morning, the megacity had decided nothing was wrong. Mara stood at the edge of the sidewalk outside her structure, coffee cooling untouched in her hand, watching commuters sluice history with rehearsed incuriosity. Streetlights blinked off one by one as dawn strengthened, business signals cycled obediently through red and green, storefronts lifted their essence shutters. Normal asserted itself with aggressive confidence, as if reiteration alone could overwrite the night. Yet beneath the clatter of morning routines, Mara felt it, subtle but constant, the low hum threading through the world like a suppressed memory that