The steel deck vibrated under Julian’s boots.
Forty feet above the concrete hangar, the two Ink-Hounds charged along Catwalk #05. Their bent copper pipe-legs struck the diamond grating with sharp, rhythmic clangs.
Their brass ticket-punch jaws chattered at sixty hertz:
Snick-snap! Snick-snap! Snick-snap!
Boiling crimson clause-ink dripped from their red vinyl ribs, smoking as it hit the rusted steel.
“They’re fast!” Lin Mei yelled, backing up against the handrail. “Twenty yards and closing! What’s the plan, Julian?”
“Get behind me, Mei!” Elena shouted.
Elena planted her boots on the grating. She raised her titanium trauma crowbar with both hands, angling the sharpened chisel-end toward the lead hound’s chest.
