Eighteen seconds remained on the clock, and the punch-needles were beginning to hum.
The vibration came through the soles of Julian Vance’s work boots, buzzing through the frozen marble tiles like an electric current. High inside the guide collars of Gate Alpha, the three-ton lead drop weights were shifting against their mechanical pawls. The polished tool steel of the trocars caught the dim lantern light, reflecting two tiny, sharp points directly over comatose Clara’s closed eyelids.
Beside the gurney, Elena Rostov did not move. She remained bent over Clara, her arms locked like steel struts around the frame of the cot, her body serving as an organic shield between the descending spikes and the girl’s face.
“Julian,” Elena said, her voice tight but calm. “If those weights drop, my coat won’t stop them. You have twelve seconds to clear this gate.”
“I see the counter, Elena,” Julian said.
His right ear was ringing with a steady, punishing tone. The baseline hum of 4,200 Hertz had settled into a flat, icy carrier frequency. It was not dropping to the 4,196-Hertz lie-pulse -- not yet -- because the machine itself was not lying. The IBM reader was simply doing what dumb machines always did: following an algorithm without asking who wrote the program.
