The heavy steel security bar across the rear loading bay door vibrated with every blow from the alley.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
The impacts sounded like wet sledgehammers hitting an iron boiler plate. Dust, dried cobwebs, and grey cement crumbs flaked off the poured concrete lintel, raining down onto the cold floor of the stockroom in steady grey showers.
Marcus “Mac” Cole walked with slow, deliberate strides past the towering wooden pallets of bottled soda, bagged rock salt, and boxed paper towels.
He did not run. A threshold inspector who hurried to a locked door was an inspector who ended up on a meat hook.
In his right hand, Mac carried a heavy eighteen-inch steel tire iron. The knurled handle was stained with black machine oil from thirty years of city bus maintenance. His left prosthetic arm was locked at a rigid ninety-degree angle, the triangular teeth of his Route 04 Fare-Box Ticket-Punch glinting under the dim yellow glare of the overhead sodium bulb.
Every step he took produced a rhythmic, mechanical click from the steel gear-train inside his wrist housing.
Behind him, Julian Vance followed with quiet, balanced steps, his boots avoiding the white hazard line painted around the floor drain where Dr. Corvo stood watching beside his dissection table. Julian held the black rubber cylinder of his 365nm ultraviolet lamp in his right hand.
