Julian’s work boots splashed into four inches of oily gravel water as he stepped off the hydraulic lift.
Behind him, Clara Vance held the insulated push-bar of Mobile Register Annex #04-B. Together, brother and sister guided the heavy steel cart down the corrugated aluminum ramp, its four solid-rubber hospital casters cutting two clean, dark ruts through the flooded gravel of the access road. Above their heads, the portable emerald-and-gold neon sign buzzed with steady warmth:
OPEN 24 HOURS
The six-foot spherical sanctuary field pushed the freezing downpour aside, creating a dry pocket of clean air around the register cart. Inside that bubble, the air smelled of Clara’s hot cocoa, zinc oxide burn salve, and fresh print ribbon. Outside the bubble, the world was a freezing nightmare of acid rain and howling wind.
Across the access road, the twelve-foot chain-link fence of the District 4 Central Substation crackled with deadly energy.
Every six seconds, blue corona sparks leaped between the galvanized steel mesh and the wet iron fence posts, hissing like spitting vipers as they vaporized the raindrops. High overhead, the massive step-down transformers hummed at a chest-shaking one-hundred-and-twenty-hertz rumble that made Julian’s teeth vibrate in his jaw.
Perched atop the porcelain bushings of Transformer Bank #1, twenty feet above the crushed gravel, two figures in heavy rubberized yellow slickers stood watch.
