The pavement was melting into greasy yellow water.
Julian didn’t look down at his boots. He seized the cold steel frame of the tailgate, threw his weight forward, and hauled himself over the rear bumper of crippled Notary Van N-1.
“Lin Mei, jump!” Julian shouted.
Lin Mei hit the steel lip of the ramp two seconds later. Her rubber-soled oxfords skidded on the diamond-tread plate, but Julian caught her right elbow with a firm, steady grip. Behind her, Elena leaped across the dissolving gap, her medical kit clutched tight against her ribs.
The hydraulic wheelchair ramp of Gillig Phantom Bus Number 404 vibrated beneath their feet.
The sixty-cycle hum of the bus’s Detroit Diesel engine was a solid, living pulse in the soles of Julian’s boots. It was mainland power.
It was transit power. It was completely different from the sick, dead drag of the dormitory’s broken clockwork.
Behind them at the wrought-iron gates, the golden-amber sanctuary dome stood blazing in the gloom.
