(eng) Niall Teasdale - Thaumatology 09 by Dragonfall

Author:Dragonfall [Dragonfall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Part Five: Power Politics

Battersea, London, September 19th, 2012

The engineers working on the power plant had been busy little beavers. Part of the roof over the B station had been removed so that the old equipment could be taken out via heavy-lifting blimps, and they were already resurfacing the area once occupied by the A station for the generator and bringing in new equipment to bolt to the floor.

Supervising Engineer Horace Torpen was a rotund man with a moustache he could use for straining tea. ‘That’s the grid-tie inverter being brought in now,’ he rumbled, pointing at some sort of machine being lowered slowly onto the floor of the building. ‘It’s responsible for…’

‘Converting the DC power from the transducers into AC,’ Cheryl said, ‘and synchronising it with the national power grid.’ Ceri could tell that her boss was getting a little irritated with the man’s somewhat patronising tone. He was showing them around the facility with the look of a man who had been pressed into leading the school tour.

Torpen grunted. ‘We’ll have all the control systems finished by the end of the month. Engineering should be finished with the… more traditional systems by the end of next week. According to our schedule, these transducer pylons of yours will be delivered and installed by the fifth of next month, and the central pylon will be in place by the tenth.’

‘And on the fifteenth,’ Ceri said, ‘I’ll be placing the last node and initiating the tunnel.’

The engineer nodded. ‘This thing’s safe, is it?’

‘The prototype in Holland has been running for several months without trouble,’ Cheryl told him. ‘No instability in the tunnel, constant power output from both the generators at Groningen and Bremen.’

Torpen did not look entirely convinced. ‘We’ll be ready when you are.’

‘If I were being honest,’ Ceri said once they were outside and away from the ears of engineers, ‘I’d be happier if we had been able to recheck the maths.’

‘You’ve got several weeks yet,’ Cheryl replied.

‘Okay, I’d be happier if you had rechecked the maths.’

Cheryl chuckled. ‘I haven’t found anything wrong yet. I’m still working through it. I think I’ll have it wrapped before we go live. Don’t worry, I have faith in you.’

‘Thanks, Boss.’

‘Are you heading back home?’

‘No,’ Ceri said, looking down the road toward the park. ‘It’s a pack night and since I’m here already…’

Cheryl nodded, turning toward Vauxhall. ‘Have a good time and give Michael one for me.’

‘Give him one what?’

Cheryl laughed as she walked away. ‘You know damn well what.’

~~~

Actually, only a few days after the new moon, Michael was not particularly excited about “you know what.” Ceri decided to owe him one until the weekend when his funk would have fully worn off. Instead they ran the boundary of the pack’s territory because running always cheered Michael up almost as much as it did Ceri.

And that was working fine right up until the last part of the loop. Ceri was looking up at the huge smokestacks of the power station again when the scent hit her and she came to a grinding stop just after Michael.

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.