Graphite was pure carbon, an electrical conductor and a mineral lubricant that left no chemical residue on municipal paper.
The brass tare beam of the Toledo 4020 Scale did not wobble when Julian laid his left thumb against the counterweight notch. At minus two point one four degrees, the metal felt like a bar of dry ice biting straight through the skin of his thumb, but Julian did not pull his hand away.
Behind him, Magistrate Silt’s monorail winch shrieked as the steel cable wound two inches tighter around the drum. Clara’s ICU gurney lifted higher off the frosted porcelain tiles. The rear swivel casters dangled four inches in the empty violet air.
Elena threw her whole upper body across Clara’s shins to keep her from sliding off the rubber mattress. Mac jammed his boots against the drainage curb. His prosthetic forearm locked around the gurney’s lower chrome strut.
The steel tubing creaked under his grip.
“Twenty seconds, clerk!” Silt roared from the ceiling. His brass Simplex drum rattled, the internal gears churning with the sound of a rusted lawnmower blade chewing through gravel.
“The incinerator chute is open! Weigh the heart in your right hand, or your sister enters the intake furnace as un-audited biological scrap!”
