The blue corona discharge around the mouth of the bronze throat-gong hissed with a sound like frying bacon.
Tiny sparks of pale violet plasma danced across the copper bus bars bolted behind the keyway of Station Z.
The air smelled intensely of scorched lacquer, melted oil, and bitter ozone.
Above the double oak doors, the Simplex wall clock clicked forward with a hollow, metallic snap:
02:59:22 AM.
Thirty-eight seconds remained.
Thirty-eight seconds before the 1964 Simplex stepper camshaft rotated its forty-fifth tooth and dumped Mercury Switch #45 onto Terminal Nine.
If that mercury bridged the tungsten contacts, two thousand four hundred volts would course through the metal frames of four hundred desks in the Midnight Study Hall.
