And it did.
The video didn't creep into people's feeds.
It hit.
By the time Sharon looked up from her laptop, the numbers had already crossed what she normally used as a marker for "this is spreading." It wasn't slowing down, and it wasn't staying in one place. The clip had moved past the original post, past the outlet that recorded it, and into everywhere else at the same time.
She didn't rush. She never did when things moved like this. Rushing meant reacting, and reacting meant missing the actual pattern. She leaned back slightly, one hand resting on the table while the other scrolled, not reading every comment, just tracking behavior, speed, repetition, the kind of engagement that meant something would hold instead of fading out in a few hours.
Across the room, Dayo stood near the window, not looking at the screen, not asking for updates. He already knew what this would do. He didn't need to watch it happen in real time to understand the direction it would take.
