The morning session did not begin with the mechanical rhythm of the telegraphs. It began with an ominous, absolute silence that stretched from the lower delta wharves all the way to the marble steps of the central exchange. The blue luminescent data-tubes overhead, which had flickered frantically for weeks with shifting global exchange codes, now held a single, unmoving numbers block.
The offshore syndicates hadn't launched another clumsy market embargo. They had done something far more damaging: they had walked away from the clearing desks entirely, pulling their baseline silver reserves out of the common pool and leaving the Southern Trust's transaction network spinning in an empty vacuum.
