Clara Vance braced her bruised forearms against the walnut writing shelf as the fifty-thousand-watt reflection hit.
Behind the mahogany Front Desk rail, the air stayed completely calm.
Not a single spark touched Julian’s coat, Elena’s gloved hands, or Lin Mei’s typewriter.
Out on the black-and-white marble lobby floor, all hell broke loose.
KRA-BOOOOOOM!
Caught squarely in her own forged circuit between Room 808 and Trunk Jack #14, Miss Dial-Tone convulsed in a blinding corona of blue-white -48V DC talking battery and 90V AC ringing flashes.
She couldn’t pull her twelve brass-plug fingers out of the pillar house phones.
The fifty thousand watts of reflected RF carrier power had spot-welded her quarter-inch brass fingertips directly into the bronze jacks of Extensions #01 through #12.
