Interstate 90 was built in the 1950s as part of the Eisenhower interstate system — a Cold War infrastructure project that was also, accidentally, the most significant American public works achievement since the transcontinental railroad. The stretch from Cleveland to Buffalo follows the Lake Erie shoreline for roughly 300 kilometers, passing through Erie, Pennsylvania on its way. In the corridor era, I-90 has been converted from a public highway into Ferrogate Transit Sovereign Corponation's most strategically important eastern asset: a dual-use corridor that carries both the high-speed rail line connecting Cleveland to Buffalo and an autonomous vehicle roadway that handles the cargo traffic too large, too heavy, or too hazardous for rail.

The Vein — as everyone except Ferrogate's legal department calls it — is a sovereign right-of-way strip averaging 200 meters wide that cuts through the landscape between the three major population centers of the Lake Erie shore. Within that strip, Ferrogate's jurisdiction is absolute. The Rail Hounds — autonomous patrol vehicles capable of 280 km/h — run continuous security sweeps. The Ferrogate Line Authority maintains an 18,000-officer paramilitary presence across the full corridor. Unauthorized access to the right-of-way is met with lethal force, a policy Ferrogate does not publicize but does not conceal.

What makes the Vein strategically critical is not just what moves along it but what it connects. Every community along the Lake Erie shore — from Toledo's Glass Yards to Buffalo's Dive Yards — depends on the Vein for supply chain connectivity, passenger transit, and communication relay (Ferrogate piggybacks Saltmarsh signal infrastructure on its rail corridor). Cutting the Vein at any point would isolate population centers within hours. Ferrogate knows this. Everyone who depends on Ferrogate knows this. The corponation has never needed to make the threat explicit because the infrastructure makes the threat self-evident. The Vein is not just a road. It is a leash, and every community it touches can feel the tension.