The intervention did not arrive as an order.
It arrived as a correction.
Marikka felt it while she was still sitting against the wall, her knees drawn up, Serian's case pressed against her chest like a weight that no longer had a defined shape. Not a new vibration. A subtraction. Something that was present an instant ago... stopped being so.
Not silence.
Reduction.
The city around them lowered its volume by an imperceptible degree. The surfaces responded with greater sluggishness, as if someone had inserted a filter between the world and what could be perceived.
Cedric noticed it immediately, even without being able to feel it as she did. "What's happening?" he asked, looking around. "It's like—"
"—as if the air has become denser," Marikka thought mentally.
She wrote with her still-unstable hand:
THEY HAVE SET A LIMIT.
Aurelian appeared from the side corridor with an irregular step. He was paler than usual, his posture rigid as if his body were compensating for something that no longer worked as before.
"No," he said softly. "They have set a priority."
Marikka looked up. She immediately sensed that Aurelian was perceiving something she wasn't reading directly. Not information. Structure.
She wrote:
WHO.
Aurelian hesitated. A fraction of a second too long. Then he spoke. "Someone who doesn't need to be present to intervene."
Cedric stared at him. "Are you talking about the Athenaeum."
Aurelian didn't answer right away. When he did, his voice was lower. "I'm talking about Isaak."
The name did not vibrate.
It did not react.
Marikka felt the void left by that absence of response as a pressure on her temples. Isaak Verne was not here. He was not observing her. He was adjusting the context.
Serian's case reacted with a weak, almost imperceptible pulse. As if the echo were trying to understand if it was still allowed to exist in that way.
She wrote:
WHAT DID HE DO.
Aurelian ran a hand over his face. "He froze the resolution."
Cedric widened his eyes. "That's good news, isn't it?"
"No," Aurelian replied immediately. "It's a high-level containment move. When Isaak freezes something, it means that—"
"—that the system doesn't yet know how to eliminate it without causing damage," Marikka completed mentally.
She wrote:
HE ISOLATED US.
Aurelian nodded. "From the rest of the flow, yes."
The city continued to move. People passed by. Minor procedures proceeded. But around them was now a thin zone of misalignment. Not visible. Registered.
A man and a woman in civilian clothes stopped a few feet away. They didn't look directly at Marikka. They observed an empty point between Marikka and the wall, as if an annotation that only they could see had appeared there.
"Case suspended," the man said, in a low voice.
"With active interference," the woman added.
Cedric took a step forward. "Hey—"
Marikka grabbed his arm. No.
She wrote, more slowly than usual:
THEY ARE NOT HERE FOR US.
Aurelian confirmed. "They are here to make sure no one else touches the problem."
"The problem?" Cedric repeated.
Aurelian looked at him. "Yes."
Serian trembled, as if he had heard the term even without being able to fully comprehend it.
Marikka felt the saturation return, but different. Cleaner. Colder. The kind of pressure that comes not from chaos, but from imposed order.
She wrote:
AND NOW.
Aurelian inhaled slowly. "Now Isaak observes the effects."
"He doesn't act?" Cedric asked.
"He is acting," Aurelian replied. "Just not on us."
Marikka understood.
Isaak had taken away their ability to make the situation worse... and with it, the possibility of making it better. Every action now would be read as a deviation from an artificially stabilized context.
Serian's case suddenly became colder under her fingers. Not physically. Functionally.
She wrote:
SERIAN.
Aurelian lowered his gaze. "He has been classified as non-priority residue."
Cedric turned pale. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Aurelian replied, "that until he becomes a bigger problem, he won't be corrected."
Another subtraction.
Marikka felt anger mounting, but she remained under control. Isaak wasn't making a mistake. He was doing what the system did best: minimizing overall risk.
She wrote:
HE IS STUDYING US.
Aurelian nodded. "And he's taking notes."
A faint pulse crossed the ground. Not a full vibration. A confirmation signal. As if, somewhere, a variable had been updated.
The woman in civilian clothes spoke again. "The suspension will last as long as the behavior remains coherent."
Cedric snapped. "Coherent with what?"
She finally looked at him. "With the error."
Silence.
Marikka closed her eyes for an instant. She felt the imposed limit, she felt the loss in Serian, she felt the delay in her own body. Everything had been stabilized.
And precisely because of this, it was intolerable.
She opened her eyes.
She wrote, with a calm that cost her more than any physical effort:
THEN THE ERROR MUST GROW.
Aurelian looked at her, surprised. Not by the phrase. By the clarity.
Cedric swallowed. "Marikka..."
She didn't look at him. She was reading something that hadn't happened yet, but was now inevitable.
Isaak had set a limit.
And every limit, sooner or later, becomes a challenge for what cannot be integrated.
Serian emitted a faint, but stable echo. Not enough to be corrected. Enough to remain.
Somewhere, far away, someone had decided to observe.
And when systems stop intervening directly and start studying,
it means the next move won't be a correction.
It will be a choice.