The five-foot cast-iron blade of the breaker-pike vibrated in the oak doorframe with a high-pitched, metallic whine.
Thirteen thousand eight hundred volts of violet lightning crawled along the heavy iron spearhead, scorching the thirty-year-old varnish into bubbling black blister-pitch. The heat from the blade was so intense that Elena Rostova’s wool coat collar began to smolder, singeing the wool with the sharp scent of burned hair.
Mac Cole didn’t hesitate.
With a roar that came from the bottom of his belly, Mac dropped his three-foot pipe wrench and seized Elena by the back of her leather harness. Using the full pneumatic leverage of his mechanical left arm, Mac yanked Elena three feet backward into the dark threshold of the Master Control Room just as a second shower of white-hot molten slag erupted from the doorpost.
“Get inside!” Mac bellowed, kicking the heavy steel door half-shut behind them. “The Iron Meter-Maid is dropping out of the sky!”
Julian and Clara shoved Mobile Register Annex #04-B across the red quarry tile floor.
Behind them, Dr. Victor Corvo and Lin Mei backed through the doorway, dragging the emergency CO2 fire extinguisher and their hazmat kits. The heavy steel door shuddered on its hinges as something massive slammed against the outside iron plating -- a blow with the crushing force of a five-ton wrecking ball.
