The mechanical vibration inside the reef exchange building did not carry the clean, rhythmic strike of a balanced telegraph line. It was an erratic, heavy thudding that traveled through the foundation blocks of the gallery floor, vibrating up through the legs of the slate layout deck where the glass indicators had only just stabilized.
Elara stood by the veranda rail, her hands tucked deep into the torn pockets of her charcoal wool coat to keep the cold morning drafts from biting into her raw, blistered skin. Her grey eyes watched the blue [STST] listing codes continue their frantic, desperate flicker across the remaining glass tubes, but her mind was already processing the physical layout of the reef.
