assume clear actors. What happens when the chain dissolves? Privacy regulation assumes data can be contained. What happens when a single startup scrapes three billion faces online? Thirteen stories trace what happens when old walls meet new realities. Some walls still protect. Some now block progress. Some create false security while new risks slip through. A consulting firm discovers its AI invented sources. A housing estate is demolished under a law later struck down by Europe's highest court. Five mechanisms predict every collapse. Once you see them, you will see them everywhere. The question is no longer whether the walls will fall. It is which ones should, and what we build next.