LOAD BEARING

A year after Meridian City's discovery was quietly sealed, a heritage building in Tokyo survives an earthquake it should never have survived. Structural engineer Kenji Ashida can't explain why — until statistician Grace Okonkwo's models connect his data to a growing, uncomfortable pattern: identical structural signatures appearing in cities that have never shared so much as a sensor feed.

When an old stone bridge in Istanbul collapses despite every warning sign pointing the other way, Reza Sarwono is pulled back into the investigation she thought she'd left behind, and the team is forced to admit what none of them wants to say out loud: Meridian was never an isolated find. It was the first confirmed point in something considerably larger — and it has just claimed its first casualties.