The ultraviolet beam ignited with a sharp, silent spark.
Three hundred and sixty-five nanometers of pure, filtered blacklight cut through the cold courtroom air.
The beam did not glow purple.
True ultraviolet light is completely invisible to the naked human eye until it strikes fluorescent dyes, security threads, or un-spliced municipal paper.
Julian Vance held the steel barrel of his counterfeit pen steady with both hands.
His boots were planted firmly on the mahogany floorboards of the witness box, sixty feet out over the flooded dry-dock shaft.
Three inches ahead of the brass lens, clamped between two stainless-steel binder clips from his tool roll, was 1996 HR Microfiche Card #004.
The blue gelatin film was cold, rescued from the bottom of Kardex Aisle 44 in Sub-Level 3.
