The iron teeth of the Heidelberg platen press slammed together with a bone-jarring THUMP-CRUNCH.
A spray of orange sparks erupted from the press bed as the two-ton steel jaws parted. Lin Mei’s heels kicked violently against the van’s diamond-plate tailgate, her sneakers scraping shrill shrieks from the metal. The living cloth was hauling her forward by her throat, reeling her head toward the crushing jaws at three feet per second.
“Hold her legs!” Elena screamed, lunging across the van threshold.
Elena dropped her empty nitrogen cylinder onto the floorboards and grabbed the heavy stainless steel handles of her surgical trauma shears. She jammed the blunt lower blade between the biting ribbon and Lin Mei’s windpipe, levering the cloth upward with all her weight.
SNAP-SCREECH.
The woven cotton didn’t cut. It shrieked like tempered piano wire under tension.
The razor-sharp edge of the fabric sliced through Elena’s surgical tape, biting deep into the meat of her palms. Bright red blood welled across her knuckles, hissing as it dripped onto the scorching ribbon.
“The weave is reinforced with steel wire!” Elena gasped, her teeth gritted against the pain.
