The screech of the iron harbor gate cutting into the bottom plates of the slate-grey ironclad did not echo across the delta as an explosion; it arrived as a prolonged, agonizing structural groan that vibrated up through the basalt foundations of the reef exchange building. In the upper gallery, the amber light of the single surviving gas lamp flickered violently, its brass gimbal arm twisting two degrees to the port side as the entire stone facility settled into the shifting silt of the inner channel.
The multi-continental market logic was no longer a matter of balancing paper certificates or adjusting the velocity lines on a blue ticker screen. The physical harbor was actively contracting around them, the rising iron barriers locking thousands of tons of capital into a shallow, mud-choked trap.
