The cylindrical brass weight clicked into the keyhole of the mortuary gate like a safe tumbler.
Julian Vance held the sixteen-ounce counterpoise firmly between his fingers.
The brass was cold, heavy, and unyielding. When he turned the cylinder a quarter-turn counter-clockwise, four internal bronze locking pins snapped back inside the mortuary door with the sharp, hollow crack of a rifle shot.
CLACK-CLACK-THUMP.
The heavy, lead-lined mortuary gate groaned on its iron hinges.
A puff of stale, seventy-year-old air puffed out from the dark doorway, smelling of yellowed library index cards, powdered chalk, and dried formaldehyde.
Behind them in the hallway, Elena Rostov and Mac Cole stood guard at the grounded threshold of Autopsy Bay 1. Clara’s ICU cot remained securely plugged into the isolated wall receptacle, her sinus monitor beeping in a steady, reassuring cadence. Mac leaned against the doorway, his scorched steel arm resting on his brass transfer punch, his keen eyes sweeping the quiet ceiling monorail track.
“Watch the corridor, Mac,” Julian said over his shoulder. “If Silt tries to tap another line from Subway Line Zero, hit the earth ground.”
