The Condenser Nexus of Sector Four was known among the foundry miners as the Iron Lung.
It occupied a natural dark rock tiered arena ninety feet high, located beneath the intersection of the main chimney pipe arteries. Suspended from the ceiling on heavy iron heavy beams were eight tube-shaped steam cooler vessels, each fifty feet long and clad in riveted red-copper plating. Thousands of copper tiny blood vessel tubes branched outward from the vessels like the exposed blood-flow system of a giant statue, carrying white-hot steam from the blast furnaces above, condensing it into boiling water, and pumping the high-pressure return back to the Bellows of Hephaestus-Khorat.
The sound inside the chamber was an ear-splitting, wet roar—the hiss of twelve thousand gallons of steam cycling through cold water jackets every minute.
Ren Vale crouched behind a pile of cast-iron pipe rim rings on the lower upkeep overhead frame, his boots cold and wet from the water drops dripping from the pipes. His fingers were stiff with soot, but his grip on his mammoth bone awl never loosened.
Beside him, Ren-the-Cinder was on his knees before a heavy bronze security door marked Sector Four Main Pipe system.
The Last Coward’s hands were blurred with motion. In his fingers, two bent brass tension-wrenches and a flattened steel pick danced inside the four-tumbler royal wood slot lock. His bloodshot eyes were wide, twitching toward the narrow high walkway shadows every three seconds. His jaw was clenched so hard his cheekbones stood out pale…
