Seven:

Blackout Condition

(Preview)

Tiny shards of ice ripped through the night air as they trudged through the snow. Wint's boots crunched with every step as they broke through the crust of ice and sank into the powder underneath. Toby's footsteps also crunched as he followed close behind, but his lesser weight allowed him to shuffle along on top of the ice without breaking through. It was noticeably more difficult to make headway now, without the protection of the buildings and they could hear the sound of the cables overhead as the wind whistled through them. An eerie sensation was crackling through Toby's circuits as he timidly glanced in all directions. He could see very little despite having eyes sensitive to the infrared spectrum. He looked up at Wint, who had slung the shotgun across his back to free up both hands.

The man had one arm outstretched, no doubt aiming one of the countless instruments packed into his suit into the darkness, and the other curled up to his face where he could more easily see the little screen built into his forearm. He stopped suddenly, and fiddled with some controls before throwing his hands up in a muted show of defeat. He looked at Toby without speaking a word, and then up to the massive overhead lines they were following. The lines drifted in and out of sight as the flurries of snow above them ebbed and flowed. Another moment of silence passed before Wint just shook his head and resumed the trudge.

They moved like this for quite some time, with Wint occasionally stopping to rest for a few seconds, and Toby diligently following behind. It seemed like an age before something happened, and Toby had become so disinterested that he bumped into the back of Wint's legs and fell down before noticing that the man had stopped again. He looked up from the hole in the snow where his circular metal butt had broken through the ice crust and could see Wint staring fixedly into the darkness. He continued to stare for a short time before looking down at the little drone sitting in the snow next him. Wint shook his head slowly and reached down to pull Toby back onto his feet.

Wint scoffed silently at the drone. Not because he had fallen down, mind you, but because he found it so damned amusing how expressive these machines were. Toby just looked so…tired.

The narrowed white eyes displayed on his visor were jittering slightly as Wint had pulled him up, and the dull white light was so dim that he could only just see the multitude of little lines bunched up underneath them.

'Poor guy' Wint thought, before turning back to the darkness. He Squinted again through the shifting shapeless blizzard, and strained to catch another glimpse of what he thought he had seen. He lowered a hand and gently slapped Toby in the shoulder before pointing into the distance and setting off.

The overhead lines took a sharp turn in that directon and began to descend from their massive truss-framed towers.

Soon the distinct outline of a chain link fence emerged out of the darkness, and the vague shapes of very large, indiscernable pieces of electrical equipment could be seen sitting quietly inside the substation yard.

Wint stopped just short of the fence and peered in. While he was sure that there was some kind of order to the array of cables, pipes, and oversized metal shapes on the other side, he was damned if he could see it. The whole yard looked like a messy scrapyard that was home to an enormous mechanical spider with a housekeeping problem. He stepped back from the fence and took a quick look at the nearest batch of signage that was posted at regular intervals as far as he could see in either direction.

One sign had the words:

"DANGER:"

"EXTREMELY HIGH VOLTAGE"

Plastered crudely on a red and white background, with an accompanying pictogram of a figure being violently electrocuted.

Another read:

"UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS PROHIBITED"

"TRESPASSERS SUBJECT TO FINES OR IMPRISONMENT"

A third sign simply had a phone number and the logo of "Jensen Transmission And Energy ltd." stamped on it.

Wint scoffed at the last message. He briefly thought about entering the number into the HEP suit's communications system and shook his head at the idea. Even if it did work, he had no interest in speaking to whomever was supposed to be on the receiving end of that call.

He looked over to Toby, who was standing nearby and looking impatient with his arms crossed tightly over his little plastic chest.

"Well? See a way in?" He said, raising his voice over the wind.

The drone looked up at him with narrowed eyes and shook his head.

A sudden crash from inside the yard made Wint jump. He looked over to where the sound had come from, but could see nothing of note through the fence. An angry grunt punctuated almost a minute of otherwise silent observation before he pulled the shotgun off of his back and quickly began stomping along the fenceline. Toby quietly followed him, too absorbed in his own thoughts to notice the shaking of the gun in Wint's hands.

Inside the fence, but out of sight of the two newcomers, a large chunk of icicle slowly rolled away from the spot where it had landed and shattered. It came to rest a short distance from the massive piece of electronic equipment that it had impacted when it fell from the still lukewarm transmission lines swaying in the wind up above. Almost immediately the fragments began to disappear under the snow, and before long a large crinkled dent on the otherwise smooth surface of a large metal dome was the only evidence that the icicle had ever existed...