The digital and clockwork countdown on the master end-post blinked with unforgiving, clockwork indifference:
01:58... 01:57... 01:56...
Less than two minutes remained before the sub-dark rock drilled shaft rams completed their descent into the Mid-Atlantic fault line. Inside the central holding chamber, the cold-fusion reactor screamed at twenty-two thousand turns a minute. It shook with such ferocity that the rivets along the silver-steel casing were shearing off, ricocheting across the hall like high-speed bullets.
Arthur Vance closed his eyes for a split second. He drew in a measured draught of rotten-egg air.
physical Overdrive: Engaged.
The internal bio-monitor on Arthur’s Monocle Taxonomy Loupe flared with a crisp amber countdown: 00:60... 00:59...
A rush of liquid fire surged through Arthur’s nervous system as his man-made-infused bone marrow and Titus’s ringing stone pathways shifted into overdrive. The world around him slowed down by an order of size. The chaotic shrill of the sirens dropped into a low, droning deep. The flying rivets hung in mid-air, spinning lazily through ribbons of white steam. Arthur’s pulse spiked to one hundred and eighty beats per minute, delivering hyper-oxygenated blood directly to his brain cortex while keeping his hands rock-steady.
Second 08 of Overdrive.
