Resonance requires structure.
Amplification requires persistence.
Collapse requires one more thing:
Loss of dissipation.
The vibration did not grow dramatically.
It grew efficiently.
In New York City, pullbacks shortened.
In London, hedges expired unrolled.
In Tokyo, volatility sellers reduced size.
Liquidity was present.
But it was thinner per oscillation.
Maya reframed the system again.
"This isn't pure harmonic motion," she said.
"It's driven."
She adjusted the model.
External periodic input.
Small amplitude.
Repeated.
Keith watched the live data.
"The forcing term isn't news," he said.
"It's flow."
ETF rebalancing.
Systematic volatility targeting.
Options delta hedging.
Mechanical inputs.
Consistent timing.
Jasmine isolated the damping parameter.
Market-making inventories.
Capital buffers.
Risk tolerance.
All declining marginally.
Not vanishing.
Just thinning.
Maya quantified the threshold.
When damping drops below critical value—
Above this: overdamped — smooth return.
Equal: critically damped — fastest non-oscillatory return.
Below: underdamped — oscillations grow when driven.
Keith didn't need the algebra.
"We're underdamped," he said quietly.
In Chicago, dealer gamma flipped intraday twice.
In Frankfurt, cross-asset VaR models triggered procyclical reductions.
In Singapore, overnight leverage tightened after moves rather than before.
Damping mechanisms were reactive.
Not absorptive.
The next oscillation was not larger in magnitude.
It was faster.
Amplitude was creeping.
Frequency was stabilizing.
Maya graphed energy over time.
Potential plus kinetic.
Energy was increasing slightly each cycle.
Not explosively.
Incrementally.
That was worse.
Explosions are visible.
Creep is ignored.
In Hong Kong, an early-session dip cascaded into U.S. futures before local liquidity returned.
In Zurich, wealth portfolios reduced optionality exposure simultaneously.
In Washington, D.C., a neutral policy statement triggered outsized rate adjustments—not due to content, but positioning density.
The forcing function didn't need to grow.
It only needed to persist near the system's natural rhythm.
Keith looked at the basin visualization.
"It still holds," he said.
"Yes," Maya replied.
"But we're feeding it."
Resonant systems don't require large shocks.
They require alignment between input and structure.
And the alignment was tightening.
Jasmine ran forward simulations.
Under current damping assumptions—
Amplitude doubles in twelve cycles.
Under slightly lower liquidity—
Six cycles.
Under stress withdrawal—
Three.
The basin remained deep.
But energy accumulation was becoming self-reinforcing.
Damping failure is not visible in price alone.
It reveals itself in recovery speed.
In widening spreads that do not narrow quickly.
In oscillations that do not decay symmetrically.
In risk controls that activate in unison.
The next session opened calmly.
Then moved.
Then overshot.
Then corrected.
But not fully.
Keith exhaled.
"We're no longer returning to the same equilibrium."
Maya nodded.
"We're orbiting it."
Chapter 187 does not deliver rupture.
It delivers phase-lock.
The forcing term persists.
The damping weakens.
Energy compounds.
The basin hums louder.
And when damping falls below threshold—
Stability does not disappear.
It transforms.
From rest—
To motion.
From motion—
To escalation.