The Blackfriars Vault
The iron stair spirals down into a cathedral of brass. Beneath the Thames, an engine vaster than St. Paul's breathes in slow, sighing exhalations of steam, its cam-shafts the size of oaks, its punch-reels turning with the patience of tides. No ledger records this place.
You understand, then, with a cold certainty: the cards in your arms are not a program. They are a thought—one stray dream shed by this leviathan as it sleeps. And it has been waiting, perforation by perforation, for you to bring them home.