The red brass trip button clicked down three-eighths of an inch, bottoming against its internal steel stop.
Inside the cast-iron enclosure, a gold-plated microswitch closed, energizing the pilot solenoids at forty-eight volts direct current.
Across a hundred yards of armored signal channel, the spark trigger reached the steam trip valves in less than a heartbeat.
What followed was the fastest, most violent clockwork actuation in the history of world-size building.
Four high-pressure steam dump valves snapped open at the same time.
Three thousand pounds of pressure of piled up white-hot steam slammed into the four nickel-steel actuator cylinders.
The sound was not an explosion. It was an ear-splitting, bone-shattering clockwork thwack that echoed off the granite walls.
The pistons lunged forward with twenty thousand foot-pounds of instant striking force.
