The marble of Pillar #4 groaned like a ship running aground on granite.
Julian pressed the muzzle of the portable stamping rig flat against the October 1996 municipal inspection label. Through the clear sight window, the dark blue Underwood ribbon hovered an eighth of an inch above the yellowed paper:
[MUNICIPAL COVENANT: STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY BOND #04] [this east pillar supports the weight of the roof unconditionally]
Above their heads, a three-foot crack zigzagged across the ornamental plaster ceiling. Dust rained down in gray sheets, hissing as it struck the pools of boiling carmine ink on the floor. A burning lath timber snapped in the second-floor ceiling, dropping an avalanche of red-hot soot into the elevator shaft.
“Julian, the arch is bowing!” Lin Mei shouted over the roar of the fire.
She held her Pickett slide rule against the fluted stone, watching the hairline fractures race upward toward the capital. “The shear modulus is exceeding three thousand pounds per square inch!
You have less than twenty seconds before the lintel collapses!”
“What’s the load distribution?” Julian asked, keeping his boots planted firmly outside the chemical puddles.
