The wall clock above the dairy cooler read two twelve in the morning.
02:12:50 AM
Seventy seconds remained before the two-fourteen audit minute.
High above the roof of Starlight Mart #04, the sixty-foot municipal document shredder was descending by dead weight. Its four massive pig-iron chains rattled through the overhead crane pulleys with bone-jarring concussions.
The vibration was felt in the marrow of the teeth.
On the retail shelves of Aisle 2, glass jars of instant coffee and cans of evaporated milk rattled against the wire dividers. Microscopic plaster flakes drifted down from the ceiling joints, settling on the shoulders of Julian’s uniform smock.
The downdraft from the spinning diamond drums carried the sickening stench of sulfuric acid, scorched cutting oil, and dead cellulose.
The cutting drums whistled through the red fog, descending toward the roof at twelve feet per minute.
