THE QUANTUM INTELLIGENCER

DELFT, 11 DECEMBER — Night fog off the Maas cloaked the wharves where ASML dockhands lashed crated DUV cannons—38 nm relics, yet still spitting silicon shot—for outbound passage. Bills of lading name CETC, munitions-maker to rocket troops, and the Shenzhen Quantum Academy’s fledgling battery. Dutch ordinance scribes insist the iron is too antique for siege works; Washington’s observers counter that even smooth-bore cannon can breach a curtain wall when aimed at the quantum keep. Harbour lamps flickered crimson as freight cranes lifted the last crate; somewhere a customs seal thudded, rubber stamp echoing like a distant mortar. If these pieces reach the foundries across the plains, the next volley may not be smoke and saltpetre but qubits and code. The line holds tonight—yet every silent diode is a powder charge waiting for spark. —Inspector Grey Dispatch from The Scramble E2