Clara Vance pressed her palms against the vibrating marble floor.
Her ears did not hear the world the way other people did. To Clara, sound was texture, weight, and blood.
Right now, the marble floor of Sub-Level 2 was screaming in four hundred different keys.
“Look at the floor,” Clara whispered, her voice trembling. “The canisters are splitting open everywhere.”
“They’re made of vellum,” Lin Mei said, stepping back. “Thin as rice paper.”
“They’re breathing,” Elena said, kneeling down. “Listen to them.”
“Register two is jammed,” one face whispered from the cold stone. “The thermal tape ran out at three in the morning.”
“Room four twelve needs an IV bag,” another murmured from beneath an iron bench. “The saline drip is empty. Where is the head nurse?”
