The tiny click of the tuned brass needle sliding into the pilot port was swallowed instantly by the vast, cavernous silence of Valve Station Delta.
Lin Tao didn’t blink. His test left eye tracked the heartbeat countdown burning across his field of vision in sharp amber numerals:
The air inside the pilot housing hissed with a sharp, high-pitched squeal that made the hairs on the back of Lin Tao’s forearms stand erect. Small motes of blue static clung to the tuned brass shaft, dancing along the tiny fraction of an inch etchings like restless fireflies. Every heartbeat stretched into an eternity. He could hear the steady, clockwork drip of cooled water hitting the jade floor. He could feel the cold draft of Precursor air-flow air grazing his neck. He could trace the exact path of the blasting blast wave traveling up the iron stairs toward the outer mountain.
Inside the star-copper valve body, a delicate Precursor chest muscle bent under negative crushing pressure. The sudden entry of the brass needle choked the pilot bleed orifice, preventing the internal pilot chamber from equalizing.
To the self-running controller, this sudden pressure differential mimicked a total blocked path in the main channel.
At twelve split seconds, a sharp, metal screech ripped through the brass pipe hub as the internal bypass shuttles slammed backward against their stops.
