Mac’s heavy steel fist struck the porcelain rim of Table #2 with a sharp, ringing crack.
“Walt,” Mac said. The gravel in the driver’s voice broke into raw chunks. “Jesus Christ.
It’s Walt Mercer.”
Julian moved up beside him, his boots quiet on the hexagonal floor tiles.
The man lying on the cold porcelain wore the dark navy serge vest of the Municipal Transit Division. A brass pin was fastened over his left breast pocket, tarnished by switch-tower grease: #MMT-DSP-0112. His face above the cheekbones was gaunt, his grey hair cut to bristle, and his pale eyes stared unblinking at the ceiling lamps, while from the bridge of his nose down to his chin the outer skin had been cleanly peeled away along a dotted surgical margin.
“You know him?” Julian asked.
“Twenty-six years on the night desk at Switch-Tower 9,” Mac said. His right hand gripped the chrome push-rail of the table until the tendons in his wrist stood out like wire. “When the bells went crazy at Terminal 9 an hour ago, Walt held the drawbridge gates open for Coach #404.
He overrode the interlock with a hand crank so we could cross the canal. If he hadn’t held that bridge, the auditors would’ve stripped our chassis down to bare iron.”
