Julian Vance smoothed the heavy cyanotype blueprint flat across the oak charting counter of Nurse Station 4B.
To keep the stiff drafting paper from rolling back into a tight coil, he weighted the four corners.
At the top left, he set the brass Number Three Bard-Parker scalpel handle. At the top right, he placed Dr. Tallow’s blue Addressograph death plate.
At the bottom corners, he set the heavy brass Store #04 Senior Clerk stamp and Arthur’s Casio HR-100TM pocket calculator.
The shift clock on the wall clicked forward with a quiet, authoritative tick: 01:40 AM.
The station was quiet once again. The air smelled faintly of burnt linen and electrical heat from the shattered pneumatic damper, but the atmospheric pressure was stable at fourteen point seven pounds per square inch.
Elena stood beside Julian, her grey eyes scanning the intricate technical drafting lines.
“Turn on the ultraviolet light, Julian,” Elena murmured. “Drawings from 1996 always have administrative margin notes.”
