The arrival of morning in Rookvale on Day Eight was measured strictly by the ticking of brass escapements, fully divorced from the condition of the sky.
Above the tram shed, the sky shield remained an unbroken, choking canopy of dark violet clouds, but on the grease-stained route table, the three chronometers all crossed the half-hour past five together. In the unlit streets outside, the morning shift workers—couriers, coal-haulers, and water-tenders—began to move between the copper lamp posts, their breath steaming in the damp chill, their boots wrapped in sacking to muffle the sound of their transit.
Len Vey stood beside the dispatch board. His uninjured right hand held a stub of red chalk, marking the updated supply status of the seven wards.
Behind him, Ivara Quill was bent over her transit ledger, verifying the pressure logs brought in by the paired runners: - River: 3.1 bar steady. Weir bypass carrying 12,000 heat units. No resurgence of manifestations. - Orchard: 0 bar. Spark bus-bars cold. Frost covering all sixteen glasshouses. Seed grain secured. - Salt: 4.2 bar on Annealer One. Reserve fuel-oil consumption steady at eighty gallons an hour. - Quarry: Level Five sump drained. Sixteen heat-proof glass panels seated and leveled. Water jacket carrying six bar working head.
