The correction came quickly.
Too quickly.
By midmorning, the Academy's channels carried a new notice—neutral in tone, immaculate in wording, and circulated everywhere at once.
Clarification on Observation Protocols
This notice supersedes prior interpretations.
Luke read it once.
Then again.
The document did not mention him. It did not need to. Every sentence traced the edges of the clarification he had submitted the night before—tightening them, redefining them, claiming them.
They're narrating my move, Luke thought. After the fact.
In the margins of the notice, terms repeated: transparency, consistency, institutional integrity. Familiar words, used carefully enough to sound inevitable.
Elowen found him beneath the west tower. "They published it as policy," she said. "Your clarification."
"They removed the ambiguity," Luke replied. "That's the overcorrection."
The effects rippled outward.
Requests appeared on Luke's schedule—interviews framed as consultations, observations labeled as audits. None were mandatory. All were expected. Each carried a different emphasis, a different audience, a different promise of protection.
Too many eyes.
Too much agreement.
Luke declined three politely. Accepted none.
By afternoon, the refusals had become data.
A senior tutor paused him in the corridor. "You should be careful," she said softly. "Declining everything looks… oppositional."
Luke nodded. "Accepting everything looks owned."
She hesitated, then moved on.
The archive reacted next.
Not Mareth—systems.
Indexes shifted. Cross-references bloomed and collapsed. A record Luke had seen the night before now redirected to a sanitized summary. The summary cited a guideline that did not exist yesterday.
Luke smiled, thin.
They're cleaning in public, he thought. That means someone panicked.
He left the archive before the pattern could finish settling.
That evening, a second notice arrived.
This one was smaller. Quieter. Targeted.
Provisional Alignment Session
Participants: Selected
Purpose: Harmonization of Interpretive Frameworks
Elowen read it over his shoulder. "Harmonization is what they call it when too many people disagree."
"Or when they want to," Luke said.
"You're invited," she added.
"Yes."
"And?"
"And the invite list is curated," Luke replied. "Which means someone was excluded."
Elowen frowned. "That's leverage."
"It's noise control," Luke said. "They're trying to reduce variance."
Luke attended the session.
The room was rectangular, unadorned, its wards tuned to documentation rather than suppression. A long table ran down the center. Eight seats were occupied. Two were conspicuously empty.
Luke took one of the empty seats.
Conversation paused—just long enough to register surprise.
A man at the head of the table smiled professionally. "Thank you for joining us. This is an informal alignment."
Luke inclined his head. "Then I'll keep my answers informal."
A few smiles tightened.
The man continued. "Your clarification introduced uncertainty into observation practices."
"It introduced conditions," Luke said. "Uncertainty already existed."
"Nevertheless," another voice said, "it has encouraged divergent interpretations."
Luke nodded. "That was the point."
Silence fell—denser this time.
"We'd like," the man said carefully, "to understand how you propose we stabilize this."
Luke leaned back. "You don't."
Brows furrowed.
"You let it remain unresolved," Luke continued. "Stability achieved by force isn't stability. It's latency."
A woman across the table folded her hands. "And in the meantime?"
"You observe honestly," Luke said. "And accept that some observers will disagree."
The man smiled again, thinner. "That's not an answer."
"It's a boundary," Luke replied.
The session ended without consensus.
That was new.
As Luke left, Elowen caught up with him in the hall. "They're frustrated," she said. "You can feel it."
"They wanted convergence," Luke replied. "They got divergence."
"That's dangerous."
"Yes," Luke said. "Which means it's informative."
The backlash arrived at dusk.
Not as punishment.
As generosity.
Luke's access expanded—temporarily. Invitations multiplied. Protections were offered. Someone even suggested a stipend "for research continuity."
Elowen stared at the message. "They're buying time."
"They're buying me," Luke said.
"And?"
"And they're bidding against each other," he replied.
Luke closed the terminal.
He did not respond.
That night, the Academy did something it had not done before.
It split its narrative.
Different channels quietly carried different explanations. Different offices offered different assurances. Different observers wrote different summaries—each internally consistent, collectively incompatible.
The margin widened.
By morning, whispers no longer asked who would be allowed to watch—
—but which version of Luke they were seeing.
Luke walked through the courtyard as the bell rang, calm amid the dissonance.
Overcorrection had done what pressure could not.
It had revealed the seams.
And seams, once seen, could not be unseen.
End of Chapter 9