Lin Mei grabbed her wooden bento chopsticks from her pocket and snapped them open.
The automated ticket dispenser on the front bulkhead was vibrating like a dentist’s drill. The chrome feeder gears spat out a four-inch strip of curling purple paper.
“Don’t touch it with your bare skin!” Lin Mei shouted. “Thermal paper absorbs directly through epidermal pores!”
She caught the falling slip between the tapered bamboo tips of her chopsticks, half an inch above the rubber floor runner.
“Good catch, Lin,” Julian Vance said, stepping forward.
“Thermal paper,” Lin Mei said, holding the slip at arm’s length. “The stock is coated with bisphenol-A resin and purple leuco dye. It gives off a sharp chemical stench of scorch-heated plastic and sulfur.”
Julian’s head jerked to the right. He pressed his palm against his right ear, his teeth grinding together in pain.
“Julian?” Elena called out from the wheelchair bay. “What’s your tinnitus doing?”
