Lin Mei unscrewed the threaded brass end-cap of the pneumatic canister.
SKRRR-CLICK.
Her fingers moved with the tight, rhythmic precision of a telegraph operator.
“Forty-two seconds,” Lin Mei said, glancing at her stopwatch mounted on her clipboard. “The dial on the steam riser is passing one hundred and fifty-four degrees. If that parchment is not in the hopper within thirty seconds, the Hubbard tanks will hit the lethal threshold.”
Beside her, Julian Vance pressed the nineteen ninety-eight Underwood Ribbon-Bar number four against the white margin of the Six-Warden Writ.
The dark, oiled silk gleamed under the amber desk lamp. With the blunt steel tip of his pocketknife, Julian rolled the ribbon firmly across the paper, pressing the permanent Anchor Blue ink deep into the linen fibers:
[AMENDMENT TO DIRECTIVE SD-96-FINAL] [THE UNDERSIGNED SIX INPATIENT WARDENS HEREBY EXERCISE STATUTORY SELF-DISCHARGE UNDER RULE SD-07.] [ALL HYDROTHERAPY CONTINUOUS-FLOW CIRCUITS DECLARED NULL, VOID, AND HERMETICALLY SEALED.]
Below the typed line, the original blue-ink signatures of all six actuaries stood unbroken: Beatrice Hahn, Arthur Kroll, Miriam Vance-Sloan, Simon Cho, Ezra Finch, and Helen Vane.
