The morning after the full city was different.
Not dramatically — nothing in the estate's physical environment had changed. The same corridors, the same rooms, the same view from every window. The same city below the balcony. The same channel network below the city.
And yet.
He noticed it in the quality of the morning's first hour. The specific, altered quality of a space that has contained sustained concentrated effort for a long time and has suddenly been released from that effort. Not empty — spacious. The difference between a room where important work is happening and a room where important work has been completed.
He made tea.
