The sixty-split-second blackout was an eternity to an engineer who saw the world in twenty-four snapshots a second.
Lin Tao vaulted over the ruined low roof wall. His boots struck the slate flags with the precise moving rhythm of a sprinting cat. His balance was perfect, grounded through the thick leather soles of his work boots. Beside him, Tie Shan moved not with feline agility, but with the terrifying, unstoppable heavy rush of a mountain landslide.
The twenty-one-ton star-iron totem cut through the crimson air with a low, whistling shriek that parted the dust.
The two fine china guards standing at the lip of the impact crater were just beginning to recover from their internal exact timing reset. The right-hand guard unit detected the incoming moving mass at forty split seconds into the cycle. Its bronze faceplate snapped toward Tie Shan, its jade sickle arm blurring upward in a high-speed defensive block.
“Don’t hit the blade,” Lin Tao shouted, his left eye tracing the crash shape. “Drop low! Sweep the left knee actuator!”
Tie Shan didn’t hesitate. Obeying the command with total clockwork trust, the giant dropped his balance point six inches, shifting the path of the massive iron pillar from a downward smash into a brutal, level ankle sweep.
