Lin Mei’s fingers moved across the Grading Annex workbench with the speed of a night auditor clearing a register before the armored car arrived.
On the zinc-topped sorting table, tools salvaged from Notary Clerk Hollis’s leather kit lay scattered across yellow manifest sheets. Next to them sat a pair of needle-nosed pliers, a flat machinist’s file, two jeweler’s screwdrivers, and the heavy cast-iron frame of a spring-loaded brass notary hand-press.
In the center of the bench rested the 1998 Underwood Strike-Bar #4 assembly.
The hardened tool steel caught the crimson glare of the dying magnesium flare on the floor. Clara’s silver Parker 75 fountain pen remained wedged tight into the type-guide slot, its scratched nib aligned with the raised ‘r’ / ‘R’ and ’4’ / ‘$’ steel slugs.
“The return spring hooks onto the upper pivot pin,” Lin muttered rapidly, looping a stripped copper ground-wire from the Annex desk lamp around the lower brass stud of the hand-press. “If we don’t ground the strike-bar directly to the brass handle, the inductive discharge from the Shift Covenant will char the paper instead of printing clean ink.”
“Do you need me to file the retaining collar?” Julian asked, holding the heavy cast-iron press frame steady against the zinc tabletop with both hands.
