The final hour began with everyone alive and no one believing that would last.
That was progress, apparently.
The Ethical Collapse Event had stabilized, but the simulation did not return to normal. Normal had been dead since the first prayer slip screamed. The district remained under a cracked silver sky. Gold Hall's command platform leaned over the opened apology route like a throne discovering it had been built on stairs. C1 glowed with copper-root braces around the hidden bell clapper. The chapel shelter held patients, testimony, fear, and three kinds of doctrine that no longer agreed with one another.
The archive door stayed shut.
That was not comfort.
Closed doors had caused most of today's problems.
The board displayed the remaining timer.
The timer made everything crueler.
Numbers pretended the exercise had edges. Fifty-nine minutes, then judgment. Fifty-nine minutes, then score. Fifty-nine minutes, then everyone could call the damage contained inside a lesson.
