The deep-freeze sirens in the ceiling dome wailed with the low, grinding pitch of a foghorn.
Every wall in the ten-story rotunda trembled. The heavy blast doors of Condemned Deep-Freeze Vault Ninety-Nine, set high in the concrete ceiling, were grinding shut against their bronze guide tracks.
Inside the iron collar of the hoist rig, Magistrate Silt thrashed against four minus-forty-degree cryonic meat hooks.
“THIS IS A PROCEDURAL BREACH!” Silt’s voice shrieked down through the steam. The mechanical drum in his neck sputtered sparks of yellow phosphor. “I AM AN ACCREDITED OFFICER OF THE MUNICIPAL COURTS! YOU CANNOT ESCHEAT A PRESIDING OFFICER!”
Down on the marble landing, Julian Vance stood with his boots planted shoulder-width apart.
“The Shift Covenant doesn’t care about your accreditation, Silt,” Julian said, his voice cutting through the roar of the exhaust blowers. “You wrote Directive Ninety-Nine. You set the penalty. A clerk who shorts his till has to settle with the house.”
High above, the final hydraulic locking pins drove home into the vault frame.
CLANG-THUMP.
