The aetheric storm broke over the Rust-Belt outer edge with the fury of an uncoiled spring.
Gale-force winds screamed through the corrugated steel gantries of the outer edge fence. He drove sheets of rain horizontally against the heavy window panes of the triage bay. Outside, the sky was the color of bruised iron, torn by jagged discharges of violet lightning that flashed silently through the low cloud deck. The sky aether levels in the surrounding wasteland had spiked past forty-five parts per million. It carried the pungent stench of wet slate, sulfur, and distant rift foul fog into every crevice of the depot.
Inside the bay, the warmth was thick with the scent of boiled eucalyptus oil, harsh cleaning acid, and the iron tang of fresh wound dressings.
Arthur Vance leaned over the wooden check table, his hands steady as he knotted a razor-sharp stitch through the torn shoulder muscle of a yearling draft-ox. The animal, a poor hauler’s beast from the outer freight lines, let out a low, shuddering moan of relief as Arthur swabbed the wound with an umbral moss astringent.
“Steady there,” Arthur murmured, running his gloved fingers down the beast’s damp muzzle. “The flexor tendon is intact. Keep the leg bandaged for three days, and the fiber sheath will knit without scarring.”
