The iron tires of the gatehouse tracks groaned under four hundred volts of emergency current.
Coach #404 rolled smoothly past the shattered threshold. Behind them, the towering twenty-foot iron-truss gates jolted as their automatic limit switches clicked into the open position.
Julian Vance stood by the driver’s partition, his fingers resting on the brass handrail.
High above the entrance, on the concrete gatehouse roof, the fire-suppression standpipes continued their savage roar. Thousands of gallons of freezing river water poured across the roof apron like an alpine waterfall.
The two syndicate enforcers scrambled on hands and knees through the pink foam. Their charcoal oilskins were soaked and torn. One man lost his dark ballistic goggles as the rushing water slammed him against the safety rail.
“Look at them slide,” Mac Cole said from the driver’s seat. A dry laugh rumbled in his chest. “Like wet mice trying to climb out of a drainage bucket.”
“The 1968 municipal safety relay logged them as obstructionist vandals,” Lin Mei said, her eyes glued to the Casio terminal. “Under the original depot charter, anyone who impedes an arriving Chief Inspector is classified as a hostile trespasser!”
Arthur Pendelton’s register printed with rapid clatter:
