ARISEN, Book Ten - The Flood by Michael Stephen Fuchs

Author:Michael Stephen Fuchs [Fuchs, Michael Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Complete & Total Asskicking Books
Published: 2015-10-19T07:00:00+00:00

Bingo

Jizan Economic City - Outside the Electrical Plant

And in closing the door behind him, Wesley plunged the hallway beyond, which had no windows, into total blackness.

Everyone there had either a flashlight or, in the case of Wesley and Sarah, weapon-mounted lights. But not one of them knew how to get to them or turn them on by touch. Everyone fumbled. While they were doing so, the overhead halogen lights came on – revealing Jenson standing there with his hand on a wall switch.

“Didn’t think that would work!” he said. He was smiling big, thinking he’d done good by finding the light switch in the dark.

But then there was an extremely loud pop – and the overhead lights sparked and sizzled and went out again. They had been on just long enough for some of the others to find their own lights and those came on now, illuminating the corridor, albeit starkly and unevenly.

“How does this place even have power?” Browning asked.

Burns said, “It’s an oil-fired power station – which means this city is its own grid.”

Sarah nodded. “Which also means it would have had grid storage against peak demand – battery arrays or hydrogen storage – so the plant wouldn’t have to surge every time usage did. There might be power hiding out in this place for years.”

“Either way,” Wesley said, “it’s out again now, and it’s not our problem.” He turned and moved out, leading the group down the corridor by the light spilling from underneath his rifle barrel.

Burns, at the rear of the column, sniffed once at the air before leaving. He was pretty sure he could detect a burning smell, but that could be accounted for by the fluorescent lights popping from the power surge. He considered saying something to Wesley and the others. But in a long career of doing this kind of thing – namely sneaking into places he wasn’t supposed to be – he’d learned that the really important thing was to get in, move fast, and get the hell out again.

He exited the door at corridor’s end and shut it behind him.

*

Ten minutes later they were in another corridor, one on the desalination-plant side of the complex. It was darker here. Much darker.

Now that everyone had more or less worked out their flashlights and weapon-mounted lights, they were using them. Their narrow cones of lonely illumination lit up the long stretches of dark and cramped corridor ahead.

Soon the team emerged into another cavernous open area – but one more complex, elaborate, and filled with hazards and hiding places. Wesley figured this was the desalination plant itself. Trying to make it out through the small cone of his light, one tiny patch at a time, was like a blind man trying to identify an elephant by touch.

But he could vaguely work out that it consisted of three extremely large pipelines running down the center of the room, two of them green and one gray. Somewhat smaller pipes led off these at intervals, disappearing into either large boxy machines, or else arrays of vertical tubes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.