Cascades do not stop themselves.
They either exhaust fuel—
Or encounter force.
The multiplication phase was underway.
Price changes were no longer informational.
They were reflexive.
In New York City, liquidity providers reduced posted size again.
In London, cross-asset desks hit portfolio-wide circuit thresholds.
In Tokyo, collateral haircuts widened intraday.
Each adjustment increased effective coupling.
Each reduction in balance sheet lowered damping.
Maya reframed the system dynamically.
"Once eigenvalues exceed one," she said,
"stability requires parameter shift."
Not gradual.
Discrete.
She wrote the stabilization condition.
"Reduce amplification below unity," she continued.
"Or inject negative feedback."
Keith understood.
"That means external balance sheet."
"Yes."
Jasmine modeled two scenarios.
No intervention:
Exponential growth in displacement.
With intervention:
Exponential decay.
Same structure.
Different regime.
The pivot was binary.
In Chicago, exchange-level volatility interruptions triggered sequentially.
In Frankfurt, liquidity fragmentation intensified across venues.
In Singapore, funding spreads widened sharply.
Stress was visible in plumbing.
Not just price.
Maya monitored energy transfer across nodes.
Systemic energy was still increasing.
No sign of dissipation.
Keith asked the inevitable question.
"When does intervention become rational?"
Maya answered clinically.
"When marginal systemic loss exceeds policy tolerance."
"And are we there?"
Silence.
In Washington, D.C., statements were being drafted.
In Zurich, funding facilities were quietly assessed.
In Hong Kong, regulators monitored cross-border exposures.
Coordination lagged propagation.
That was the danger.
Late session.
Another wave.
Not panic.
Precision.
Risk models updated in synchrony.
Deleveraging hit index futures again.
Price moved faster than news.
Jasmine's display flashed.
Coupling strength peaked intraday.
Maya exhaled.
"This is the window."
Cascades accelerate until either:
Fuel depletes
Amplification drops
External force intervenes
The first requires exhaustion.
The second requires decoupling.
The third requires decision.
Chapter 192 does not resolve.
It suspends.
The system remains multiplicative.
Energy continues to build.
But now—
Eyes outside the model are watching.
And in tightly coupled systems,
The difference between collapse and stabilization
Is not magnitude.
It is timing.