Forty seconds was enough time to ring up three hurried customers on a mechanical register, but not enough to make change for a counterfeit bill.
Julian Vance braced his boots against the slick platform tiles of Morgue Siding #00. The floor jolted with a deep vibration that rattled his molars. Behind them, down the granite tunnel of the airlock stairs, the roar of boiling harbor effluent sounded like an oncoming freight train inside an iron tube.
White steam, smelling of scorched bone, caustic soda, and river silt, rolled along the ceiling. The fog bit at Julian’s nostrils with the taste of burnt pennies and acid.
“Thirty-two seconds!” Elena yelled over the thunder of water. She threw her shoulder against Clara’s ICU gurney, locking foot-brakes against tile while Lin Mei gripped the chrome IV pole with both hands.
“Julian, the wave hit the mezzanine! It’s clearing the turnstile bank right now!”
“Mac!” Julian shouted. “What do we need?”
Marcus “Mac” Cole moved with the sharp efficiency of a shipyard mechanic facing an engine room breach. His steel prosthetic arm clicked into high-tension lock, his good hand digging into the canvas work pouch at his hip.
“We need leverage, non-conductive insulation, and thirty pounds of municipal mass,” Mac barked, pointing his steel punch toward the four-foot chasm below Car #1’s front bumper. “The Westinghouse trip-cock reset lever sits on the right journal box of the leading truck frame, six inches above the running rail. If I lean down there with my steel…
