The Disconnected City

“Obsidian's Black Gold network?” Zhao asked. “Black Gold still uses terrestrial backbones.” Lin expanded the layer. “These go straight up.” Every gold route had latency below four milliseconds and load below three percent. While the world paid scarcity prices, a vast satellite network sat almost idle above ordinary people's heads. Zhao's face hardened. “I worked in Obsidian's highest-security server rooms. I've never seen this.” Lin opened a node. An insufficient-clearance notice flashed, then Oracle's new Node credentials partially overrode it. Data surfaced for a fraction of a second: commodity pre-quotes, port schedules, hospital bed counts, municipal power loads—information arriving minutes or hours before public release.