Lin Mei watched the red-inked parchment slide toward the rollers.
Her pocket stopwatch read four-forty-two in the morning. Seven point two inches per minute. At that speed, six feet of heavy parchment took exactly ten minutes to travel from the feeding belt to the hydraulic stamping die at the far end of the machine.
“Four hundred and eighty seconds,” Lin Mei said aloud, her fingers clicking the brass reset plunger. “At four-fifty-two AM, the trailing edge hits the Master Seal. The moment the die strikes the black border, our offshore timecards are legally abolished.”
“And the blue-gold shield drops,” Mac Cole said, leaning over the catwalk railing. “The second that seal comes down, that seven-foot scrap-heap down there can use his crimping iron on us.”
Down in the flooded basement, Captain Laminate stood waist-deep in the churning black water.
The liquidator’s brass helmet tilted back, his twin exhaust pipes puffing black diesel soot against the granite ceiling. “SEVEN HUNDRED INCHES OF HIGH-TENSILE POLYESTER,” his spliced voice boomed, rattling the catwalk mesh beneath Lin Mei’s shoes.
“YOU HAVE SURVIVED THE DERELICT RIG, CLERK NUMBER ZERO-FOUR-FOUR. BUT NO WORKER HAS EVER SURVIVED A CERTIFIED REDUCTION IN FORCE.”
Julian Vance didn’t look at the giant in the water. He was already moving toward the side of the Titan-84 press, his leather soles gripping the wet catwalk steps.
