The ozone in the corridor was sharp enough to sting the back of Elena Rostova’s throat.
Down the long hallway of Ward 4B, the eight wall-mounted Diagnostic X-Ray Viewboxes hummed in unison.
With the return of clean one-hundred-and-twenty-volt power from Mac’s diesel generator, the fluorescent tubes behind the frosted plexiglass panels flickered twice. Then they blazed with cold blue light.
Bzzzzzzzz.
The sixty-cycle transformer hum filled the empty corridor, vibrating through the stainless-steel frames.
Elena stood just inside the yellow bio-line at Nurse Station 4B. Her Littmann stethoscope hung around her neck, its cold stainless-steel chestpiece resting against her blue scrub top.
Beside her on the oak desk, Arthur’s Casio HR-100TM pocket calculator let out two short mechanical clicks. The tiny print head tapped against the ribbon:
VOLTAGE RESTORED // 120V AC
