The whole damn iron bridge shook like a tin roof in a hailstorm.
Mac Cole didn’t need to look at Julian to know what was coming up those stairs. He could feel it in the soles of his work boots. Every time that seven-foot diving suit dropped a lead boot onto a steel tread, the iron groaned like a dying mule.
“Span B!” Julian yelled again, grabbing the handles of Dr. Hahn’s wheelchair. “Mac, move!”
Mac glanced down at the mid-level landing.
Captain Laminate was ten feet away and closing fast. The giant diver was seven feet of waterlogged canvas, rusted brass ballast, and three hundred layers of black polyester armor. In his massive gauntlets, he held the four-hundred-pound heated brass calender-roller across his chest, the polished metal glowing with dull red heat.
“Why can he climb up here?” Mac barked, backpedaling along the narrow walkway. “I thought the employee sanctuary zone covered the whole upper deck!”
“He completed one-twelfth of his production quota!” Lin Mei shouted, sprinting past him with her slide rule tucked under her arm.
“When District One dropped into the output cradle, the press registered partial delivery! Under the nineteen twenty-four charter, that grants the Admiralty supervisor active inspection access to the upper gantry!”
