White-hot sparks hissed off the brass roller of the Master Lamination Seal and stung Julian Vance’s knuckles.
Above the entrance doors of Starlight Twenty-Four-Hour Mart, Store Number Four, the synchronous wall clock remained welded at 02:14:00 AM. On the green vacuum-fluorescent display of Register 1, the internal Zero-Hour counter clicked forward to TICK 017/050. Across the scarred wood-grain laminate counter, framed by the jagged aluminum channels where the acrylic sneeze-guard had shattered minutes ago, the Actuary of Zero-Hour stood pinned in place.
Ninety-eight percent of the entity’s stolen face was gone.
Hundreds of shifts of skimmed reflections from Aisle 4’s convex security mirror had already been peeled from its cranium in curling, smoking ribbons of celluloid. Where Julian’s grey eyes, pale cheekbones, and tired mouth had been seconds earlier, only raw, steaming grey-white Clause-Pulp remained. Yet right above the creature’s right brow ridge, a single one-inch square of translucent mirror-laminate refused to budge.
It was the reversed reflection of Julian’s childhood scar--the white crescent mark he had earned at age six when his father pushed him clear of a falling census cabinet.
Pinned straight through the center of that one-inch patch of synthetic skin was a barbed, three-inch metal staple forged from the golden nib of the 1996 Actuarial Fountain Pen and hardened Executive Red Ink.
