The radiant heat off the brass roller hit Julian’s face like an open blast furnace.
The moisture on his eyelashes dried in seconds. Four feet wide and eighteen inches thick, the lower calender cylinder glowed with a dull, cherry-red heat that shimmered in the damp air of the sub-basement. Above it, the heavy black silicone compression roller groaned as it spun in reverse at fifty revolutions per minute.
The sound in the refinery had completely changed.
For thirteen hours, every motor, generator, and light bulb on the rig and the island had vibrated with Captain Laminate’s sick, dragging fifty-eight hertz pulse. It was a frequency that rattled human teeth, sickened the stomach, and blurred peripheral vision.
Now, the clean, deep sixty-hertz roar of Tugboat Marrow-Zero-Nine’s twelve-cylinder diesel filled the cavern. The sixty-hertz wave washed through the steel floor plates, canceling out the static in Julian’s right ear. The high-pitched ringing that had plagued him since midnight dropped into a calm, steady hum.
“Mainland power,” Mac shouted, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his right sleeve. “God, that sounds sweet. Like a freight train running on time.”
“Keep your eyes on the overhead chain, Mac!” Julian yelled over the din. “The reverse clutch is engaging!”
