The strike landed like a drill team—on time, in step, across every channel that mattered.
By midmorning, my wall was a chorus of wary headlines and sober broadcasts: OUROBOROS EXPANSION: LIBERATION OR CORPORATE TYRANNY?; FORMER EMPLOYEES SPEAK OUT: THE HIDDEN COSTS OF GUILD INTEGRATION; and, in journals that should have needed months of peer review, ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: UNSUSTAINABLE GROWTH PATTERNS THREATEN CONTINENTAL STABILITY. None of it was shrill. All of it sounded reasonable. That was the point.
Rose shouldered through my door, all the polish scrubbed off by a sleepless night. "It's coordinated," she said, flinging a ribbon of stories into the air. "Six-hour window, five blocs, three languages. And they've salted in just enough real data to make the rest sticky. Those numbers came from inside."
"How deep?" I asked.
