Patient D’s cold, wax-coated fingers snapped shut like the jaws of a bear trap.
They did not close around Julian’s flesh.
In the fraction of a second before the mimic’s grip landed, Julian twisted his left forearm. He brought the heavy beveled edge of the White Master Rounding Clipboard up between them.
The entity’s rigid claws clamped violently against the anodized aluminum frame.
CRACK!
A blinding flash of cobalt-blue electrical discharge exploded from the clipboard’s metal border.
“The grounding chain is taking the full station load!” Julian yelled over the crackle of blue sparks. “White Master Chart Rule W-One creates an active sixty-cycle institutional drain across the frame!”
“It’s a threshold discharge!” Elena shouted back from behind the station desk. “Any unmanifested entity attempting to seize the station register takes the full forty-amp grounding surge!”
