Julian stopped running.
He planted his leather work boots firmly on the waterlogged runner of the eighth-floor hallway.
Thirty feet ahead, Bellhop Number 805 knelt beside the galvanized sheet-metal crawlspace hatch, its heavy Klein cable-shears clamped over the bronze drop-wire.
The tool-steel blades were biting into the vulcanized neoprene insulation.
Tiny black shavings of synthetic rubber peeled away from the wire under immense hydraulic pressure.
In another second, the sharpened cutting jaws would slice through the inner cotton wrap and shear both nineteen-gauge conductors.
Elena was lunging forward with her surgical scalpel, her boots churning through the soaked carpet pile.
“Julian, he’s closing the shears!” Elena screamed over her shoulder. “We can’t reach him in time!”
