The nickel coin-ejectors on Comptroller Lydia Vane’s fingertips clicked in rapid, rhythmic spasms.
Clink-clank-click. Clink-clank-click.
With each twitch of her tendons, spring-loaded cylinders shifted inside her mechanical palms. Silver and nickel tokens rattled in the tubular magazines bolted along her forearms.
She leaned down toward the bronze teller wicket, her black silk gown whispering against the counter. Her face was as pale as bleached tallow, her lips drawn back from rows of square, chrome-capped teeth. Her unblinking eyes stared out from beneath the green celluloid eyeshade sewn into her brow with black suture cord.
Julian didn’t step back. He stood squarely on the marble floor in front of Teller Window #04, his boots planted on the blue carbon paper.
“Store policy requires an itemized statement before settling any drawer shortage, Comptroller,” Julian said, his retail deadpan steady as bedrock. “We don’t pay lump-sum estimates.”
Ten mechanical coin-ejectors on an eight-foot auditor, Julian thought, measuring the reach of her brass arms. Human resources really outdid themselves in nineteen twenty-four.
“Look at the counter trough,” Elena whispered, her nurse’s eyes scanning the mahogany wood. “That’s surgical stainless steel.”
