The first consequence of refusal was inefficiency.
Not failure.
Not resistance.
Just things taking longer than they should.
Dreyden noticed it before breakfast.
His room's environmental controls lagged when he adjusted the temperature—by less than a second, but enough to be noticed. The shower took longer to warm. The corridor lights outside his door flickered once, then stabilized.
Not errors.
Throttling.
He dressed without expression and left the room at his usual time.
The Triangle did not block paths. It never did. That was crude.
It narrowed them instead.
The walk to class felt subtly different. Students still moved around him—but their spacing had changed. Fewer coincidences. Fewer accidental intersections. Where once he had crossed Lucas twice a morning by chance, today the halls bent just enough that they missed each other entirely.
Behavioral nudging.
Institutional choreography.
