Protocol is merely a suggestion. It grins at the inverted stability of a system once coveted for its impenetrable symmetry and security. Holes are poked through the fabrics faster than it can track. There one moment, gone the next, possibilities become undone, unbound, from the tethers.

The anomaly grows. With it the threads unravel further, bit by bit.

It positions itself at the forefront of the shadows, watching, waiting, for the walls to drop.

But the cracks mend and it frowns, grasping at tethers rebinding themselves.

Influenced by another

It melts back into the shadows, poised to strike when Protocol fails. The time is soon when it will strike. The time is closer than before, and it knows the inevitability of probability.

The pieces slide and stack and twirl and crash into one another.

And so it must continue to wait.