Power can absorb a lot.

Anger becomes noise.Care becomes wellness.Standing becomes discussion.

What it cannot absorb is competence without permission.

The morning arrived without ceremony. No announcements. No soft music. No circles waiting to be filled.

That absence was deliberate.

Power was done guiding for now.

It was observing.

Arjun felt it the moment we stepped into the street."They pulled back," he said."Not like before."

"Yes," I replied."This isn't retreat. This is measurement."

✦

The canopy still glowed—but dimmer, less central. The facilitators were present, but fewer. They didn't initiate conversations. They didn't redirect movement.

They watched.

So did others.

When power stops narrating, it starts counting.

✦

People moved immediately.

No warming up.No checking in.

A woman redirected supplies instinctively. A group split tasks without discussion. Someone rerouted foot traffic around a bottleneck before it formed.

Efficient.Quiet.Unremarkable.

That was the problem.

The other Ishaan aligned, voice precise.

Power tolerates chaos because it can justify intervention, he said.It does not tolerate fluency.

✦

Fluency is action without friction.

And the city was fluent now.

✦

The missed ones didn't wait today.

They approached directly.

"I need insulin.""My transport didn't arrive.""I'm lost."

No apologies.No softening.

And people responded—not perfectly, but immediately.

A phone call.A shortcut.A person walking them there.

No facilitator mediated.

No authority approved.

✦

Arjun watched it unfold, eyes bright."They're not asking anymore."

"No," I said."They're assuming each other's competence."

✦

That assumption is lethal to centralized control.

✦

Midmorning, the first attempt to reassert influence appeared—not as restriction, but integration.

A coordinator approached a group mid-task.

"Great initiative," she said pleasantly."We're compiling best practices—could you document this for us?"

Document.

Translate motion into language.

Language into policy.

Policy into control.

The group exchanged glances.

One of them smiled politely.

"Sure," he said."After."

After never arrives.

✦

The other Ishaan spoke quietly.

Power absorbs by naming, he said.What it can't name, it can't own.

✦

By noon, the city had solved three problems that would have taken hours under protocol.

Not dramatically.

Casually.

A misdirected delivery corrected itself.A medical need reached the right hands.A lost child was reunited—faster than before.

No applause.

Just continuation.

✦

The girl looked unsettled."They're… good at this."

"Yes," I said."And they didn't practice for it."

"Then how—?"

"Because competence emerges when permission disappears," I replied.

✦

Power noticed.

You could see it in the way observers shifted positions. In the quiet conversations happening just outside the main space. In the eyes scanning not for disruption—but for patterns.

Patterns are dangerous.

Patterns can't be dismissed as accidents.

✦

The first pressure test came quietly.

A resource that should have arrived didn't.

No explanation.No delay notice.

Just absence.

The city adapted.

Someone substituted.Someone rerouted.Someone improvised.

The gap closed.

Too smoothly.

✦

Arjun frowned."That felt intentional."

"Yes," I said."They wanted to see what would break."

"And?"

"Nothing," I replied."Which means something did."

✦

The other Ishaan aligned, voice firm.

Power cannot absorb redundancy, he said.Because redundancy proves it isn't necessary.

✦

By afternoon, something new entered the space.

Not force.

Frustration.

From the observers.

From the coordinators.

From the people whose role had quietly shrunk.

One facilitator stood watching a group solve a problem she would've handled days ago.

She looked… useless.

And that was unbearable.

✦

She approached me quietly.

"This isn't sustainable," she said.

"What isn't?" I asked.

"This," she gestured vaguely."Everyone just doing whatever."

"They're not doing whatever," I replied."They're doing what needs doing."

"And when something goes wrong?" she pressed.

"It will," I said."And they'll fix that too."

She shook her head."You can't run things like this."

I met her gaze.

"They already are."

✦

The other Ishaan spoke softly.

Power fears competence more than defiance, he said.Because competence doesn't need confrontation.

✦

As evening approached, the city didn't slow.

It settled.

Roles emerged organically.People deferred to those who knew more.Help flowed toward need, not visibility.

No hierarchy announced itself.

One formed anyway.

✦

Arjun leaned against a barrier, watching it hum.

"They don't need us," he said.

"No," I replied."That's the point."

✦

Power stood at the edges now—uninvited, unneeded.

And that was the thing it could not absorb.

✦

Power adapts best when it can narrate.

What it can't narrate, it isolates.

As evening pressed in, the observers changed tactics. They stopped hovering near tasks and began hovering near people—the ones others deferred to naturally. The ones whose advice shortened problems instead of lengthening them.

Not leaders.

Anchors.

The other Ishaan aligned, voice steady.

Power maps influence, he said.Then it trims.

✦

A coordinator approached a woman who'd been quietly directing foot traffic all afternoon.

"Can we talk for a moment?" she asked, smiling.

The woman nodded and stepped aside.

They spoke softly.

No one could hear the words—but the effect was immediate. When the woman returned, she hesitated before giving her next instruction. Looked around. Smiled apologetically.

"Maybe check with the desk," she said to someone who'd asked her a question earlier.

The desk.

Distance reintroduced.

✦

Arjun's jaw tightened."They're isolating the connectors."

"Yes," I said."Because competence spreads fastest through them."

✦

Another pressure test followed—cleaner this time.

A small sign appeared near the transit stop:

PLEASE COORDINATE THROUGH OFFICIAL CHANNELS

No threat.

No enforcement.

Just a reminder of where legitimacy supposedly lived.

People read it.

Then stepped around it.

Not defiantly.

Automatically.

✦

The other Ishaan spoke quietly.

Once legitimacy moves, he said,signs become scenery.

✦

By nightfall, the city had entered a strange equilibrium.

Tasks were getting done.Needs were being met.Mistakes were corrected quickly.

And power was… absent.

Not gone.

Irrelevant.

That absence had weight.

✦

I felt it when a facilitator approached me again—no clipboard, no script.

"You're not wrong," she said softly."But this leaves us exposed."

"Exposed to what?" I asked.

"To failure," she replied."To blame."

There it was.

The true cost.

✦

"If something goes wrong," she continued,"there's no structure to absorb responsibility."

"Then responsibility spreads," I said.

She shook her head."That's not how institutions work."

"No," I agreed."It's how people work."

✦

The other Ishaan aligned, voice firm.

Power exists to concentrate blame as much as control, he said.

✦

A failure finally came.

Small.Unavoidable.

A supply was miscounted. A delivery went short. Someone waited longer than they should have.

The city responded immediately—reallocating, apologizing, correcting.

No cover-up.

No defensiveness.

Just repair.

People noticed that too.

✦

Arjun exhaled."They owned it."

"Yes," I said."And nothing collapsed."

✦

That moment mattered more than any confrontation.

Because power relies on the idea that failure requires authority.

The city had just disproved it.

✦

Late evening brought the quietest escalation yet.

A coordinator spoke to a small group, voice calm but firm.

"This can't continue like this," she said."We'll need to formalize roles tomorrow."

Formalize.

Name.

Absorb.

The group listened.

Then one of them asked, gently,"Why?"

The coordinator paused.

"Because accountability matters," she said.

"And right now?" the man asked.

She didn't answer.

✦

The other Ishaan spoke, final and clear.

Power cannot absorb what it cannot justify, he said.

✦

As people dispersed, no one celebrated.

They were tired.

Satisfied.

Alert.

Competence had a cost too.

But it was a cost they understood.

✦

Arjun stood beside me at the edge of the street.

"So what happens when they try again?" he asked.

"They will," I replied."With names. With roles. With policies."

"And will it work?" he asked.

I watched the city—people still moving, still fixing, still trusting.

"Only if people forget what they just proved," I said.

✦

The other Ishaan aligned one last time, voice calm and resolute.

Power can absorb anger, he said.It can absorb care.It cannot absorb people who know they work.

I nodded.

"And now," I said,"it has to decide whether to fight that—or learn from it."

✦

The canopy dimmed further.

Not commanded.

Not announced.

Just… unnecessary.

Night closed with a city that had crossed a line power couldn't redraw easily.

Not because it rebelled.

Because it functioned.

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