Lin Mei’s steel stamping frame jammed into the diamond-plate grating with the screech of a chisel striking an anvil.
The quarter-inch hardened carbon tool steel bit straight between two load-bearing iron ribs of the catwalk deck. The rear wheel-strut of Clara’s ICU gurney slammed against the improvised chock with an impact that vibrated through the floorboards.
Two inches beyond the chrome caster, the grating ended in empty air.
Thirty feet straight down, Settling Basin #4 churned like a boiling cauldron of liquid chalk.
Elena Rostov threw her entire upper body across Clara’s chest, her rubber boots locked around a handrail stanchion. She didn’t let go of the frame. Her left hand remained firmly clamped over Clara’s left radial pulse, her fingers feeling the steady, rhythmic seventy beats per minute of living human blood.
“Pulse is seventy!” Elena choked out, chemical sweat running down her temples into her eyes. “She’s holding, Mei!
Don’t let that frame slip!”
“I’ve got both knees against the handle!” Lin Mei cried, her face flushed red behind her fogged spectacles. Her fingers were white where she gripped the steel crossbar of the stamping apparatus, using her body weight as a counterweight against the tipped cot.
