The silence in the stateroom was broken only by the rhythmic sixty-cycle hum of the IBM mainframes.
Around the black obsidian table, the six Secured Receivers remained seated in their high-backed oxblood chairs, their telemetry cables trailing down into the flooded floor. Inside the curved viewing port of the diving bell, Silas Thorne stared at Julian Vance with an expression that hovered between incredulity and simmering fury.
“A landlord scam?” Thorne’s hydrophone speaker sputtered, the sound distorted by electrical static.
“You are standing on the deck of an admiralty flagship, boy, addressing the Supreme Chairman of the Eternal Shift! Do not test my patience with colloquial street nonsense!”
“It isn’t street nonsense, Silas,” Julian said calmly. “It’s black-letter commercial law.”
Julian stepped closer to the head of the obsidian table.
His boots splashed through the oily water, his yellow grease pencil resting in the crook of his thumb. He set his Contradiction Ledger flat against the polished volcanic stone, right next to the raised brass plaque of Bylaw 07-L.
With his right hand, Julian reached into his canvas bag and pulled out his Dixon Phano #77 Red China-Marker.
