A blast of dry, sub-zero air hissed through the open bronze drain collar.
The gale carried the reek of petrified river-silt, rotting oak timbers, and decaying kelp straight into Station 12-B.
Julian Vance knelt on the cold steel deck plates, his fingers hooked into the rim of the unbolted eighteen-inch aperture.
“Keep your eyes angled down into the shaft,” Julian ordered. “Don’t glance up at the ceiling glass.”
“How much time do we have left?” Mac Cole asked, resting his heavy knee on the diamond plate.
“Six minutes and twelve seconds,” Doctor Victor Corvo said, checking his stopwatch. “The atmospheric inversion commenced at twelve-zero-four, and this window never exceeds fourteen minutes.”
Mac adjusted his prosthetic brass clamp against his thigh.
“Fourteen minutes of dry mud at the bottom of the world,” Mac grunted. “God help anyone caught outside when that ceiling gives out.”
