The digital buzzer on Lin Mei’s stopwatch gave a harsh, double-chirp.
“Forty-five seconds!” Lin whispered, her knuckles whitening against the plastic stopwatch casing. “Julian, the turntable outside is already rotating!”
A deep, grinding jolt vibrated through the concrete floor of the archive. Even through thirty feet of wire mesh and steel shelving, Julian felt the massive gears of the sixty-foot central turntable groaning.
Track 08 was cycling its hydraulic shears at nine hundred PSI. If they did not return to Coach #404 before alignment, the bus would be crushed into scrap metal.
“I hear it, Lin,” Julian said, his voice flat and controlled. “Panicking makes you miss the margins. We don’t guess.”
“We have four identical targets,” Lin said, shining her beam across the steel rack. “Backpack A on the left, B, C, and D on the right.”
“We use the Three-Point Proofreading Method,” Julian said. “Point One: Acoustic frequency.”
“Can your tinnitus pick up a difference through heavy canvas?” Lin asked, checking the clearance around the shelf.
