Steel cable groaned against the ceiling drum as the gurney tilted toward the blades.
Twelve feet above the porcelain floor, the three-phase 480V electric winch howled like a jet turbine. The twin cadaver-chains snapped taut, dragging the chrome frame of Clara’s ICU cot straight toward the churning steel exhaust fan in the ceiling shaft.
Below the bed, the red-ink subpoena slid across the white blanket. The heavy parchment fluttered toward the edge of the mattress, its wet scarlet ink glinting in the violet fluorescent light.
Corvo’s warning echoed off the tiled walls: Touch that paper with your bare skin, and you accept service!
“Mac! The gear!” Julian yelled.
Mac didn’t ask questions. The fifty-four-year-old transit driver dropped his head, lunged past Table #1, and launched his entire body upward off the rim of the porcelain slab.
Mac thrust his prosthetic steel left forearm straight into the spinning teeth of the overhead hoist’s drive sprocket.
CLANG-CRUNCH!
