part 2 proper gauge

17

the generator room was unusually crowded and eerily silent. mechanics in worn overalls stood three

deep behind the railing and watched the first-shift crew work. juliette was only dimly aware of them;

she was more keenly aware of the silence.

she leaned over a device of her own making, a tall platform welded to the metal floor and arrayed

with mirrors and tiny slits that bounced light across the room. this light shined on mirrors attached to

the generator and its large dynamo, helping her get them in perfect alignment. it was the shaft

between the two of them that she cared about, that long steel rod the size of a man’s waist where the

power of combusting fuel was transformed into the spark of electricity. she was hoping to have the

machines on either end of this rod aligned to within a thousandth of an inch. but everything they

were doing was without precedent. the procedures had been hurriedly planned in all-night sessions

while the backup generator was put online. now she could only concentrate, could only hope the

eighteen-hour shifts had been good for something and trust in plans made back when she’d had some

decent rest and could think soundly.

while she guided the final placement, the chamber around her stood deathly quiet. she gave a

sign, and marck and his team tightened several of the massive bolts on the new rubber floor mounts.

they were four days into the power holiday. the generator needed to be up and running by morning

and at full power that next evening. with so much done to it—the new gaskets and seals, the

polishing of cylinder shafts that had required young shadows to crawl down into the heart of the beast

—juliette was worried about it even starting up. the generator had never been fully powered down

during her lifetime. old knox could remember it shutting itself down in an emergency once, back

when he was a mere shadow, but for everyone else the rumble had been as constant and close as their

own heartbeats. juliette felt inordinate pressure for everything to work. she was the one who had

come up with the idea to do a refit. she calmed herself with reassurances that it was the right thing to

do and that the worst that could happen now was that the holiday would be extended until they sorted

out all the kinks. that was much better than a catastrophic failure years from now.

marck signaled that the bolts were secure, the lock nuts tightened down. juliette jumped off her

homemade platform and strolled over to the generator to join him. it was difficult to walk casually

with so many eyes on her. she couldn’t believe this rowdy crew, this extended and dysfunctional

family of hers, could be so perfectly silent. it was like they were all holding their breath, wondering if

the crushing schedule of the last few days was going to be for naught.

“you ready?” she asked marck.

he nodded, wiping his hands on a filthy rag that always seemed to be draped over his shoulder.

juliette checked her watch. the sight of its second hand ticking around in its constant path comforted

her. whenever she had doubts about something working, she looked at her wrist. not to see the time,

but to see a thing she had fixed. a repair so intricate and impossible—one that had taken years of

cleaning and setting parts almost too small to see—that it made her current task, whatever it was, feel

small by comparison.

“we on schedule?” marck asked, grinning.

“we’re doing fine.” she nodded to the control room. whispers began to stir through the crowd as

they realized the restart was imminent. dozens of them pulled sound protection from their necks and

settled the muffs over their ears. juliette and marck joined shirly in the control room.

“how’s it going?” juliette asked the second-shift foreman, a young woman, small and spirited.

“golden,” shirly said as she continued to make adjustments, zeroing out all the corrections that

had built up over the years. they were starting from the ground up, none of the patches and fixes of

old to disguise any new symptoms. a fresh start. “we’re good to go,” she said.

she backed away from the controls and moved to stand near her husband. the gesture was

transparent: this was juliette’s project, perhaps the last thing she would ever try to fix in the down

deep of mechanical. she would have the honor, and the full responsibility, of firing the generator up.

juliette stood over the control board, looking down at knobs and dials that she could locate in utter

darkness. it was hard to believe that this phase of her life was over, that some new one was about to

begin. the thought of traveling to the up top frightened her more than this project could. the idea of

leaving her friends and family, of dealing with politics, did not taste as sweet to her as the sweat and

grease on her lips. but at least she had allies up there. if people like jahns and marnes were able to

get by, to survive, she figured she’d be okay.

with a trembling hand, more from exhaustion than nerves, juliette engaged the starter motor.

there was a loud whine as a small electrical engine tried to get the massive diesel generator moving.

it seemed to be taking forever, but juliette had no idea what normal sounded like. marck stood by the

door, propping it open so they could better hear any shouts to abort. he glanced over at juliette as she

continued to hold the ignition, creases of worry in his brow as the starter whined and groaned in the

next room.

someone outside waved both arms, trying to signal her through the glass.

“shut it off, shut it off,” marck said. shirly hurried toward the control panel to help.

juliette let go of the ignition and reached for the kill switch, but she stopped herself from pressing

it. there was a noise outside. a powerful hum. she thought she could feel it through the floor, but not

like the vibration of old.

“it’s already running!” someone yelled.

“it was already running,” marck said, laughing.

the mechanics outside were cheering. someone pulled off their ear protection and hurled the

muffs up into the air. juliette realized the starter motor was louder than the rebuilt generator, that

she’d been holding the ignition even as it had already started and continued to run.

shirly and marck hugged one another. juliette checked the temps and pressures on all the zeroed

gauges and saw little to adjust, but she wouldn’t be sure until it warmed up. her throat constricted

with emotion, the release of so much pressure. work crews were leaping over the railing to crowd

around the rebuilt beast. some who rarely visited the generator room were reaching out to touch it,

almost with reverent awe.

juliette left the control room to watch them, to listen to the sound of a perfectly working machine,

of gears in alignment. she stood behind the railing, hands on a steel bar that used to rattle and dance

while the generator labored, and watched an unlikely celebration take place in a normally avoided

workspace. the hum was magnificent. power without dread, the culmination of so much hurried

labor and planning.

the success gave her a new confidence for what lay ahead, for what lay above. she was in such

fine spirits and so fixated on the powerful and improved machines that she didn’t notice the young

porter hurry into the room, his face ashen, his chest swelling with the deep gulps of a long and frantic

run. she barely noticed the way the news traveled from mouth to mouth throughout the room,

spreading among the mechanics until fear and sadness registered in their eyes. it wasn’t until the

celebration died completely, the room falling into a different sort of quiet, one studded with sobs and

gasps of disbelief, of grown men wailing, that juliette knew something was amiss.

something had happened. a great and powerful thing had fallen out of alignment.

and it had nothing to do with her generator.