Chapter 143 - The Pressure Variable

The scent of the Old Iron-Woods—that sharp, metallic tang of silica and ozone—was replaced within three days by the heavy, salt-crusted air of the Western coast. Port Meridian didn't look like a city of the future; it looked like a place that had been forgotten by time and then partially reclaimed by the tide. The buildings were hunched things of barnacle-encrusted stone, leaning against one another as if exhausted by the constant battering of the Glistening Sea. But beneath the decay, I could feel it. The ground here didn't just hum; it throbbed with a rhythmic, subterranean power that made the soles of my boots vibrate.