The private executive elevator ascended smoothly through the reinforced steel spine of Sterling Tower.
Floor numbers flashed past on the digital display above the polished brass doors. Fiftieth floor. Seventieth floor. Eightieth floor.
At the eighty-eighth floor, the elevator arrived with a soft, pressurized hiss.
The heavy steel doors slid open. A wave of freezing, sterile air rushed out to meet them, carrying the sharp, chemical tang of industrial solvents mixed with the foul, oily stench of dark spiritual miasma.
Lin Mo stepped out onto the polished black granite floor, flanked by Dr. Gu Qinghe, Marcus Reed, and Little Guo’er. The six-year-old girl wore her bright red embroidered shoes and held her small brass alchemy ladle in one hand, clutching Lin Mo’s coat sleeve with the other.
“Big Brother Lin Mo,” Little Guo’er whispered, wrinkling her small nose in deep distaste. “This floor smells like sour greed and stinky vinegar. It does not smell like a nice healing hospital at all.”
“That’s because bankers don’t make medicine to heal people, Guo’er,” Lin Mo said in his usual deadpan tone. “They make medicine to keep people just sick enough to keep paying their monthly subscriptions. It’s called recurring enterprise revenue.”
Marcus led the group down a long, dimly lit corridor lined with reinforced titanium blast doors.
