What Created the Hesitation
■ The machine was not the cause
Hakobukun was working correctly. The stop button sat where it should, within Takasugi's reach, and she read the situation accurately. Every condition was in place. Her finger still stopped short. Look for the cause in hardware or placement and this pause has no explanation.
■ The only difference was knowing
Oshiro pressed the same button without a word. What separated them was a single fact: knowing she was allowed. Takasugi lacked neither skill nor judgment, only information about where the authority sat. What was slow was not the person — it was the information that never arrived.
■ Conclusion: the hesitation was written by what went unwritten
"Nobody ever wrote down that I'm allowed to." Anyone could press it; the authority had been universal from the start, and it appeared nowhere. Authority that is not made visible is, on the floor, authority that does not exist. Without visible grounds for believing you may act, those few seconds become incident time.
A button that doesn't say you may stop it is a button that doesn't stop it.
