Chapter 24: Emergency Protocols

Director Sarah Chen stared at the wall of monitors in the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency, each screen showing a different metric of social breakdown. Power grid instability. 911 call volumes dropping by 40%. Hospital admissions down, but discharge rates up as patients were “healing faster than medically possible.” Employment statistics showing mass resignations across white-collar sectors.

And now social media algorithms were failing to predict user behavior entirely.

“Talk to me about the Reddit situation,” she said to her tech liaison, a twenty-something named Jake who looked like he hadn’t slept since this crisis began.

“The posts were spreading faster than normal viral content. Engagement patterns we’ve never seen—comments that were somehow coordinating real-world behavior, not just online activity.” Jake pulled up analytics dashboards that looked more like abstract art than data. “Then the resistance narratives started getting traction. We had to intervene.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we asked the platforms to suppress content that was promoting panic or coordinating potentially dangerous meetups.”

Director Chen had been managing emergencies for fifteen years. Hurricane Sandy, the Boston Marathon bombing response, three different pandemic waves. She understood crisis management, resource allocation, public safety protocols.

She did not understand this.

“Show me the anomalous medical data again.”

Jake switched screens to hospital reporting systems. “Rhode Island Hospital, Miriam Hospital, Kent—they’re all reporting the same thing. Patients recovering from major surgeries in days instead of weeks. Chronic conditions resolving spontaneously. Psychiatric holds being voluntarily discharged as patients report ‘sudden clarity.’”

“Drug interactions? Environmental contamination?”

“That’s what we thought initially. But the blood panels are clean. If anything, people are testing healthier than baseline—lower cortisol, improved immune markers, brain scans showing increased activity in areas associated with… well, with happiness.”

Director Chen felt the familiar weight of decisions that could save or cost lives. But every protocol in her emergency management handbook assumed the crisis was something to be contained, controlled, resolved. What did you do when the crisis seemed to be people getting healthier and happier?

Her secure phone rang. Governor’s office.

“Sarah, I need a briefing. Now.” Governor Patricia Walsh’s voice carried the strain of someone fielding calls from federal agencies, mayors, and very concerned donors. “The media’s starting to ask questions about why we’re not talking about the Providence situation.”

“Because we don’t know what the Providence situation is, Governor.”

“I need better than that. I’ve got senators asking whether this is terrorism, foreign interference, some kind of psychological warfare. The FBI wants to send a joint task force.”

Director Chen looked around the emergency operations center. Her staff worked with the focused intensity of people managing a disaster, but half of them looked… different. Calmer. Like they were responding to the crisis from a place of clarity rather than stress.

“Governor, what if this isn’t an emergency to be managed?”

Silence on the line.

“What if this is… something else entirely?”

“Sarah, are you having symptoms? Because we’ve had reports of key personnel experiencing—”

“No symptoms. Just questions.” Director Chen realized her voice sounded steadier than it had in years. “What if the people who are changing aren’t sick? What if they’re getting well?”

“That’s not… Sarah, I need you to focus. We have infrastructure failing, people abandoning their responsibilities, social media platforms reporting unprecedented coordination of abnormal behavior. This is a crisis.”

Director Chen looked at the monitors again. The power grid wasn’t failing randomly—the outages followed patterns that seemed almost organic, like a living system adjusting itself. The “abandoned responsibilities” were mostly people leaving jobs that made them miserable. The “abnormal behavior” looked a lot like people starting to prioritize their wellbeing over external expectations.

“What are my orders, Governor?”

“Contain it. Whatever’s causing the behavioral changes, we need to limit the spread. Work with the platforms to suppress coordinating content. Issue public health guidance about avoiding mass gatherings. Recommend people maintain normal routines and seek medical attention if they experience sudden personality changes.”

Director Chen wrote down the orders, but something in her chest resisted. “And if people don’t want to maintain normal routines? If they’re choosing these changes?”

“Then we help them understand they’re not thinking clearly. That’s what emergency management is for, Sarah. To protect people from making decisions they’ll regret when they’re back to normal.”

After the call ended, Director Chen sat in the operations center watching her staff work. The ones who looked different—calmer, more present—were actually performing better than usual. More creative problem-solving, better collaboration, less of the stress-driven mistakes that usually plagued emergency response.

Jake appeared at her desk with more data.

“Director, you should see this. We’ve been tracking the social media suppression effects.”

He showed her engagement analytics from the deleted Reddit posts, the suspended accounts, the “coordinated inauthentic behavior” flags.

“The content isn’t actually going away. It’s just… moving. People are finding each other through different channels. Private messages, face-to-face meetings, phone calls. Like the more we try to contain the information, the more organic the networks become.”

“Show me the resistance group formation.”

“That’s the weird part. There are two distinct patterns emerging.” Jake pulled up network analysis charts. “One cluster is organizing around fear—conspiracy theories, control strategies, trying to fight whatever’s happening. The other cluster is organizing around… acceptance? They’re creating support systems for people going through the changes, but not trying to prevent the changes.”

Director Chen studied the data. Two responses to the same phenomenon: resist or embrace.

“Which group is growing faster?”

“The acceptance network. By a lot. But the resistance network is more… intense. More likely to take actions that could destabilize public safety.”

Her secure phone rang again. This time, a number she didn’t recognize.

“Director Chen? This is Dr. Patricia Wells, Chief of Cardiology at Rhode Island Hospital. I think we need to talk.”

“About the medical anomalies?”

“About the possibility that we’re managing the wrong crisis.”

Director Chen looked around the operations center one more time. Half her staff working from stress and protocol, half working from clarity and intuition. The stressed half making more mistakes, the clear half finding solutions she wouldn’t have thought possible.

“Dr. Wells, what would you recommend?”

“Stop trying to fix people who aren’t broken. Start supporting the transition instead of fighting it. And maybe… maybe consider that our emergency response protocols were designed for a different kind of emergency.”

Director Chen ended the call and stared at the wall of monitors showing a society in transformation, not collapse. For the first time in her career, she wondered if the real emergency might be the systems trying to prevent the change, not the change itself.

She picked up her phone to call the Governor back, then set it down.

Some decisions were too important to make from fear.