The great bronze doors of the Grand Central Junction stood wide open to the autumn sun, allowing the cool, crisp mountain air to sweep away the last lingering traces of acrid anthracite smoke and ozone.
The station had completely shed its former identity as a transit hub. The forty oak clearing desks that had handled the emergency liquidation now formed a vast, impressive circle around the central turntable pit. Above the concourse, the massive wooden chalkboards had been replaced by polished slate tablets, inlaid with gilded copper lettering that displayed the real-time physical reserves of all twelve provinces: wheat, coal, steel, timber, and whale oil.
At nine o'clock in the morning, two hundred delegates—representing every farm cooperative, rail union, municipal bank, and provincial council on the continent—sat in quiet, disciplined rows surrounding the gallery platform.
