The underground reactor chamber beneath Gate Seven was filled with the ear-splitting hum of four massive magnetic turbines spinning at thirty-six hundred turns a minute.
Thick bundles of high-voltage zero-pushback cables, padded in yellow hardened rubber, ran along the curved concrete ceiling like the exposed sinews of a clockwork giant beast. The air was dry, scorching hot, and soaked with the stinging, metal tang of spark-charged ozone.
Arthur Vance stepped through the heavy blast door into the control gallery. His boots were silent against the steel diamond-plate flooring. His left arm remained firmly strapped across his ribs, his right hand leveled with the ARC-7 Mag-Carbine.
At his left heel, Grimm moved in a low, hunting crouch. The dire-hound’s black glass osteoderms seemed to absorb the flickering orange warning lights of the consoles. His amber eyes burned with hungry intent. Behind them, Valerie Koslov racked her shotgun, her boots clicking with deliberate, heavy power.
At the far end of the narrow high walkway, standing before the emergency coolant bypass pipe hub, were eight men.
Six were elite House Vance retainers in dark gray combat uniforms, their faces hidden behind blackened tactical respirators, armed with high-hum star-fire carbines. Standing between them was Dean Horatio Pendelton, his velvet coat rumpled and stained with machine grease. His hands wildly tapped an override cipher into the manual reactor release end-post. Beside Pendelton stood Sub-Bailiff Silas Vance, a lean, scarred guard with a prosthetic chrome eye and the stitched silver wolf crest of House Vance on…
