Chapter 101 - Chapter 101: The Post-Parity Friction

The dawn following the century settlement did not arrive with a celebratory clearing of the mountain mists. Instead, by four o'clock that Tuesday morning, a low, dense coastal fog had rolled into the delta from the deep-water keys, wrapping the high granite switching arches of the Grand Registry in a damp, gray shroud. The glowing green line across the central glass data-tubes—the one that had solidified at the close of the yesterday's historic session—remained perfectly unbroken, but the quiet inside the gallery felt less like a permanent peace and more like the heavy, suffocating stillness before a structural failure.