The brass bell of Arthur Pendelton’s Casio pocket-register rang out across the wet asphalt.
Ding.
It wasn’t a loud sound. It was the plain, cheerful chime of a small shopkeeper welcoming someone through the front door. Yet the clear note sliced straight through the roar of the diesel generators and the hiss of the storm.
Then the rain stopped.
It didn’t taper off. It didn’t drift away with the wind. The greasy, charcoal-colored drops simply froze in mid-air, hovering two inches above the flooded pavement like millions of suspended lead pellets.
The harsh 120-hertz buzz of the violet vapor lamps cut out at the same instant.
Across the four-way crossroads of Old Ferry Road and District 9, the heavy mechanical grind of the city vanished. In its place rose a single, clean tone. It vibrated right inside Julian’s right ear at exactly 4,200 hertz. It was the pure, steady pitch of an uncorrupted anchor rule.
Julian lowered his arm. The thermal voucher in his fingers -- Store Credit Slip #00 -- felt like a wafer of solid dry ice against his skin. Frost feathered outward from the printed letters, turning the grease on his knuckles white.
