When You Had Power by Susan Kaye Quinn

Author:Susan Kaye Quinn [Quinn, Susan Kaye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Twisted Space LLC

Seven

“There are no maps of fusion labs in the Island records.”

Lucía was sharing her display with Joe, so he could see it for himself.

“Fusion was shut down a decade ago,” he prompted. “Maybe they purged the records?”

“They’ve got drawings for every piece of tech, every building, even the power lilies and windmills floating a couple miles out, all the way back to the first plans for constructing the Island itself. No way they’d purge. There has to be a hidden file system.”

“I can’t help wondering why.” Joe was just a voice in her ear as she sat in her garden-shack pseudo-underwater room, paging through the records. A cloud of brilliant blue tangs with their vivid yellow tails floated by on the wall display. “Why go to all this trouble to hide whatever’s behind those doors? Why pretend the VIV never broke? They could just as easily have invented some innocuous explanation. Something that would have made you shrug and move along.”

“You’re a writer.” She smirked even though he couldn’t see her.

“And that’s relevant how?”

“You’re much better at thinking up ways to be sneaky.”

“Ms. Ramirez, you really shouldn’t flatter me so much.”

She laughed lightly. They’d been at this half the evening, once she’d finished her work for the day, grabbed a quick dinner, and could get down to the business of sleuthing.

“Let’s look at it from their point of view, then, shall we?” Joe’s tone was serious. “That pesky new engineer Ramirez has stumbled upon our diabolical scheme. We could make up some story, but what if she doesn’t buy it? She’s wily, that one. What if she keeps looking into it? No, if we deny everything 100% from the start, either she’ll think she’s hallucinating and give up trying to figure out what’s real and what’s our carefully constructed lie or…” He just stopped.

“Or?” She prompted, a laugh still bubbling in her chest.

Joe’s voice was softer. “Or… we’ll say she’s mentally unbalanced and have medical grounds for putting her on forced disability. Mandated therapy. A medical coverup.”

A chill ran through her. Because that was one of the few ways you could remove a power engineer. Employment protections were very strong.

“Will you come visit me in the psych ward?” She couldn’t disguise the weakness in her voice.

“Yes,” he said quickly, then, “No! We’re not letting that happen. I’ll go full whistleblower at that point.”

“I think you have to be an employee to be a whistleblower.” But the smile was back on her face.

“Whatever.” His voice was rough. “Okay, maybe no hacking into the secret records. Too dangerous.”

“Agreed.” She zoomed out to a visual representation of the Island’s massive record structure. It looked like a tree with a thousand thin-fingered roots and even more branches and leaves above. “The Island is a rabbit’s warren of physical things. Half is under water, air ballasts, water cisterns, plumbing—all the normal workings required for what’s basically a sparsely populated city. Those are the bones and arteries that hold it up and keep it alive. But

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