The rest of the building was up to full speed by the time Gromph arrived at the office floor again. His secretary, a young gold elf, greeted him, handed over some papers, and poured him a cup of coffee. Coffee in hand, he walked into his office and set the papers on his desk. He went over to a locked safe in the corner of the room, entered the digital combination, and opened it, grabbing the black briefcase inside before closing the door again.
"Irene," he said to his secretary as he exited, "call the reactor complex and let them know I'm on my way down."
"Yes Mr. Baenre."
Gromph looked out the window at a growing cover of darkening clouds, then turned and walked towards the elevator.
The reactor complex was located on the other side of the canyon, and could only be accessed via a secure transport system. Gromph took the elevator down to the transport level, which was actually below ground, and consisting of a large asphalt floor with four-hundred parking spaces available, and twelve transport tubes, six in and six out. The tubes were thick bluish plexi-glass structures striped with metal bands that ran out of the building and into the city, and across the canyon to the reactor complex. They were similarly designed for the vehicle that had replaced the four-wheeled automobile. The new "car" was a twelve-foot long cylinder with six wheels, two on top and two branching downwards diagonally on either side, which kept the machine centered in the tubing, while a series of electromagnets on the sides pulsed on and off to move it forward or backward. A secure fusion battery had been developed by Gromph himself to power the vehicle.
He pulled out his keychain as he neared his car and hit the top button on a remote, causing the top cover of the car to unlock and slide back, revealing the driver's seat and a holographic console. He climbed in and hit a button on the dashboard, which slid the cover back into place. Producing a digitally encrypted key, he inserted it into a slot in the dashboard and was immediately rewarded with a flash of lights as the holographic console came online. He waited for the software to load, then tapped a portion of the holo-display to activate the fusion battery.
Commandeering his vehicle out of the parking space, he turned and drove down the parking lane, then turned right and stopped in front of a large metal door. His holo-display beeped and a message appeared. He tapped a portion of the display, then entered a ten-digit code. The message disappeared and the door covering the exit tube slid smoothly aside.
-----
The warehouse was dark when Zeryk returned carrying a couple paper bags of Chinese food. "Hey Nimor!" he yelled as he closed the door, relying on his heat sensitive eyes to see into the darkness. "I got your shit here, chow down!" He carried the bags down a row of stacked pallets where Nimor had set up office. "Nimor?" He called again, warily. A single hanging light above Nimor's desk flickered dimly, casting shadows onto the floor, as it swung gently from side to side. Wait, it's swinging? That was his last thought as someone grabbed him from behind. The bags fell to the floor as the attacker drove a needle into Zeryk's right forearm and depressed the plunger. Blackness followed shortly after.
Ysandro stepped out of the shadows and approached Nimor, who was supporting the limp form of Zeryk. "Is he dead?" he asked.
"No," Nimor replied, "but he'll wish he was. All the others went insane. Let's get him to the operating table."
-----
"What do you mean they haven't docked yet?" Gromph asked quizzically as he stared down the youth in front of him.
"Sir, we got a call from the Horizon about three hours ago. Apparently their reactor tripped an alarm and they had to dock in Quenak to get it analyzed."
Gromph shifted weight to his right foot. "Any idea when they will arrive?"
The young technician flipped through some papers on a clipboard. "The ships' log states that they checked out an hour ago. ETA is two hours."
"Fine," Gromph replied. "Get those freight doors shut then and have Katzig shut the reactor down in…" he glanced at his watch, "thirty minutes. In the meantime, get the Endalia power station on the phone and have them send an up-link to the guys in Power Management. We need backup power from them the moment that machine shuts down. They know what to do."
"Right away sir." The technician made a brief salute with his clipboard, then walked off.
A rumble of thunder drew Gromphs' attention to the open freight doors where the sky was filled with black, split occasionally with bolts of lightning. A thunderclap boomed through the canyon beyond, releasing the inevitable torrent of rain. "Yeah, shut the doors…" he said to nobody in particular.
He turned away as the door motors whined, slowly bringing the steel slabs together until they slammed shut. He was halfway to the Controller Office when his cell phone rang. Glancing at the screen, it revealed the caller as someone in the Sys-Op lab.
The voice on the other end wasted no time in getting the message across. "The Horizon is down sir! Their reactor redlined and they were forced to initiate an emergency lockdown. Sensors show many dead, some just barely alive."
Gromph swore harshly. "Where is the crash site?"
"The captain managed to bring it down on the eastern shore of Ss'ilhet Dorim island."
Gromph snapped his phone shut.
-----
Grison stood on the edge of a cliff under the pouring rain, leaning on a rake and watching the steel portal that was set into the opposing canyon wall three-hundred feet below his home. A steady banging issued from the portal, followed by grinding sounds and the noise of machinery. He turned at the sound of a familiar voice and watched his father limp towards him, stooped over in old age and relying heavily on a cane for support.
"You got them garden rows fixed yet?" the old man shouted through the weather. He came and stood beside his son.
"They're starting something," Grison replied as he motioned to the portal.
Another grinding noise sounded, then something turned over and began to whine.
"What the hell'r they doin' in there?" the old man inquired to nobody in particular.
The whining increased in pitch, then the portal boomed as the steel doors slammed outward and a convoy of hovercraft sped out the opening, followed by a larger flying vehicle. They dropped twenty feet to the rising water below and sped down the canyon.
"Looks like old Baenre got a bit o' trouble," the old man chuckled. "Goddamn corporate ass!"
Grison shook his head, then turned and walked back to the garden.
-----
Nimor sat quietly on a stool, observing a digital readout on his laptop as Ysandro bent over the operating table, carefully touching a pair of metal electrodes to various contacts on a rectangular ceramic plate. When he was finished, Nimor closed the laptop screen and said, "That's close enough, lets try it again."
Ysandro nodded and turned a switch on the machine next to him. Nimor moved to the other side of the table and stuck a screwdriver into the mess of wires underneath the plate. Finding a slotted knob, he turned it causing the contacts on the plate to move within a millimeter of each other. Withdrawing the screwdriver, he positioned it on another knob and turned it.
A series of sharp snaps split the silence as blue bolts of electricity bridged the contacts in a synchronized rhythm. Nimor nodded to Ysandro, who grabbed a 9/16" wrench and cautiously prodded the hand of their patient. Half a second passed before the limb twitched in response. Nimor wrote something down, then turned his screwdriver half a turn. The arcing electrical bolts became more frequent. "Again," he said.
Ysandro touched the first knuckle on the middle finger, invoking an immediate reaction with enough force to fling the wrench across the room. "Lloth be damned!" he whispered as he pulled his hand away.
"Good, good," Nimor murmured to himself as he jotted another note. He casually reached over and twisted the screwdriver once again. The snapping became a continuous stream of electrical noise and the room was filled with brilliant blue light.
Ysandro retrieved the wrench and returned to the table. "You want to do this one?" he asked.
"No," was the only reply he received as Nimor remained focused on his notes.
"Fuck." Looking around the room for a longer item, Ysandro had no luck and resigned himself to stretching his arm to the limits with the wrench held between his forefinger and thumb. He slowly approached the table, and held as steady as possible while he reached and gently grazed the top of the hand with the wrench. There was a rustle of clothing, a cry of pain, then a thud as Ysandro hit the floor.
Nimor wore a gaze of amusement as he observed Ysandro at his feet, clutching a broken finger, then he shifted his gaze to the patient, and to the 9/16" wrench still clutched tightly in the hand.