Chapter 165

# Chapter 165 SERAPHINA The first pilot program launched in the Pacific Northwest Integration Zone three weeks after the council vote. I stood in the observation deck of the regional coordination center, watching through reinforced glass as enhanced and conventional teams worked through their initial collaborative exercises. It was messier than our theoretical models had predicted. "The conventional planners are overthinking the resource allocation matrix," Dr. Elena Vasquez observed, her voice carrying the particular frustration of someone watching theory collide with reality. "They're treating it like a zero-sum optimization problem instead of a dynamic balance assessment." Below us, a team of six conventional urban planners sat around a holotable, their faces tense with concentration as they attempted to integrate real-time environmental data from their enhanced partners. The enhanced individuals—two specialists in ecological modeling and one in social dynamics—waited patiently as t