Resonance alone does not collapse a system.
It primes it.
The Systemic Resonance Coefficient ticked to 0.81 overnight.
Still below structural danger.
But trending with disturbing smoothness.
In New York City, volatility desks reported synchronized hedging bursts at identical timestamps across unrelated sectors.
In London, liquidity providers adjusted exposure before price inflections—not after.
Anticipation had become embedded.
Maya layered an additional diagnostic over the waveform model.
Two oscillations.
Individually harmless.
But slightly offset in frequency.
When overlaid, they produced interference patterns.
When ω₁ ≈ ω₂, small phase differences create alternating reinforcement and cancellation.
Beats.
The market had entered a beat structure.
Keith leaned forward. "That means amplification isn't constant."
"Correct," Maya said. "It pulses."
Which explained the recent anomaly:
Short bursts of exaggerated volatility followed by deceptively calm intervals.
Not instability.
Interference.
In Chicago, gamma hedging intensified during reinforcement peaks.
In Tokyo, liquidity thinned precisely during constructive overlap windows.
Participants weren't coordinating.
Their models were.
Optimization algorithms converged toward similar cycle lengths.
Convergence created phase tension.
Jasmine monitored phase alignment drift.
When two oscillations align perfectly, resonance spikes.
When misaligned, damping occurs.
The critical variable was phase angle.
The φ (phi) term—phase offset—was compressing across asset classes.
Alignment probability increasing.
Day three.
A routine macro data print in Frankfurt arrived 0.2% above expectations.
Ordinarily minor.
But it coincided with constructive interference across volatility cycles.
Result:
A three-cycle volatility extension.
Not larger amplitude.
Longer persistence.
That was new.
In Singapore, cross-asset funds trimmed leverage temporarily.
In Zurich, private risk desks initiated micro-damping strategies—slightly widening execution spreads to absorb oscillation energy.
Adaptive friction.
The ecosystem sensed strain.
Keith asked the question none of them wanted to voice.
"What happens if phase fully locks?"
Maya didn't hesitate.
"Phase transition."
Not collapse.
Reclassification.
When oscillations synchronize completely, system behavior changes category.
From rhythmic to structural.
From waves to regime.
Jasmine overlaid thermal analogs from physics.
When energy density crosses a threshold, matter shifts state.
Solid to liquid.
Liquid to gas.
Market systems do the same.
Random to rhythmic.
Rhythmic to resonant.
Resonant to unstable—if alignment holds.
The Systemic Resonance Coefficient climbed to 0.84.
Boundary proximity.
Still no panic.
Credit markets calm.
Funding smooth.
Equities orderly.
But the internal waveform showed narrowing variance in φ.
Phase compression.
That evening, a coordinated volatility harvest strategy in Hong Kong unintentionally synchronized with U.S. gamma positioning.
Not by design.
By mathematics.
For 47 minutes, global asset classes moved in harmonic alignment.
Not violently.
Precisely.
Then alignment broke.
The system exhaled.
Maya stared at the timestamp.
"Forty-seven minutes," she said quietly.
Keith nodded.
"Proof of concept."
Chapter 177 closes with an experiment already performed.
No breach.
No crash.
Just a glimpse.
The system briefly entered phase lock.
It survived.
But survival required misalignment.
The architecture was never designed for perfect timing.
And perfection, in oscillatory systems, is not stability.
It is transformation waiting to happen.
The boundary is closer now.
Not measured in magnitude—
But in angle.