The telegraph did not pause for winter.
It carried on through frost and sleet, through frozen fingers and numbed concentration, through nights when oil lamps burned low and operators leaned closer to hear patterns that never truly slept. By the time the year turned, the system Phillip had helped birth no longer announced itself with novelty or fear. It announced itself with expectation.
People expected answers now.
That was the change Phillip felt most sharply.
He noticed it first in Shropshire, during what should have been a routine inspection. The foundry yard was quieter than it had been at the height of construction. Fewer wagons came and went. Fewer shouted orders. The work had shifted from expansion to maintenance, from creation to continuity. Poles were no longer raised daily. Instead, men checked footings, re-coated insulators, replaced worn wire segments before failure occurred.
Predictive work. Preventive work.
