The port of Naples did not stop for the dawn of a new paradigm. As the black hull of the salvage vessel drifted into the commercial basin, the city was already a cacophony of screeching cranes, horn-blasts from container ships, and the heavy, diesel-soaked air of a Mediterranean hub. To the dockworkers throwing mooring lines, the vessel was just another private contractor returning from a deep-sea run. They didn’t see the invisible dust of an erased empire coating the deck plates.
Down in the hold, the silence was different. It was the quiet of a bank vault after the currency had been demonetized.
Giulia stood before the central structural pillar of the ship's keel. With the jammers deactivated, the room was lit only by a pair of low-wattage yellow work lamps. Exposed between the heavy s
