Cold grease and black bilge water dripped from the heels of Julian Vance’s work shoes as his soles hit the sodden wood of Tie Twenty-Nine.
Behind him, Marcus Cole let out a ragged breath of stale pipe smoke and diesel exhaust. The bus driver lowered his Duncan fare-box shield. The vulcanized rubber bumper smoked where a six-hundred-volt catenary wire had kissed it three seconds earlier.
“Still got all ten toes, kid,” Mac grunted, rolling his left shoulder until his steel arm whined. “Barely. That wire took the paint right off my shield.”
“Keep your boots centered on the wood,” Julian said. His eyes stayed glued to the cast-iron switch stand bolted between the ties. “The ballast water carries four hundred amps. Touch the puddle and you leave your boots behind.”
Above them, thirty feet up in the damp ceiling gloom, Signal Tower Ninety-Six hung from the cavern rock like a rusted iron wasp nest.
Its bay window was cracked from corner to corner. Through the soot-caked glass, two semaphore arms jerked upward in a spasming salute.
[CLACK-CLACK-SCREEE]
The Signalman Revenant leaned out through the shattered frame. His body was a tangle of braided copper wire, corroded brass contacts, and greasy track-flags. Where a man’s face should have been, a four-lens signal lantern spun on a rusted spindle. It flickered between dead carbon-black and furious kerosene-red.
