“We’ll cross the road one at a time,” he whispered. “If you so much as see the glint of a vehicle, wait for it. We don’t want to be seen, and we’re in no real hurry to arrive. Better to take our time than to lose it all by rushing.”
“Is this a restricted area then?” Blake asked.
“Officially, no,” Gerard replied, “but that won’t stop them from taking us in. Remember that they know about this, so they won’t take the chance of someone even getting close.”
“Does this road lead to this power plant?” Perry asked. Gerard nodded. Perry continued, “Then why are we crossing if we’re so close? Why don’t we just go right along here?”
“This road reaches the plant on the north side,” Gerard told him. “Most of the plant security along with the entrance is on this side. Any hope we have of getting in will be doing so from the south. That’s why. Understand?”
Blake and Perry nodded as Gerard turned back to the road. Moments later, he ran across to the opposite side and waited. Blake gestured for Perry to go first since Dorin was not leaving them alone. A quick glance both ways and Perry crossed over. Blake leaned out to check, and catching some movement down the road, he quickly ducked back. He spotted Perry and Gerard disappearing as well. They remained silent as a vehicle that looked like a small pick-up truck passed them without slowing. Blake moved to check again, but Dorin held him back and mouthed, “Wait.”
Blake waited for Dorin to give him the go ahead, and once Dorin felt it was safe, Blake checked the road again. Verifying it was clear, he ran across. Dorin followed soon thereafter, and they were on their way again.
The trees grew denser as they progressed, and Blake could feel the air thicken as the plant life increased and closed in overhead like a roof. No one had gone this way for so long that the plants had taken over the area completely which made their trek even slower. Fortunately, the ground remained fairly level so they did not have to contend with valleys or even ankle twisting holes in the ground.
After perhaps thirty minutes of this, Gerard knelt again at the edge of the wood where the ground opened up once more, and they could see the massive power plant before them. It was no wonder that Gerard wanted to reach this end of it as the road they had crossed was nearly a half mile away and they could just see it at the far end of the twelve-foot high fence topped with barbed wire that surrounded the plant. To make the fence even more menacing, posted at regular intervals along its perimeter were yellow signs with red lettering indicating high voltage.
The plant beyond the fence was a sprawling two story building topped with arrays of solar panels, wide antennae, and wires leading out of it in nearly every direction atop tall metal towers. On the ground inside the fence were armed soldiers, pacing. Blake sighed and shook his head.
“I see why you say it’ll be difficult,” Perry remarked quietly.
“Well, the more work they go to on security, the easier it tends to be to get in,” Blake commented.
“Why do you say that?” Dorin asked in a tone that almost sounded offended.
“Because they don’t think anyone can,” Blake smiled.
“Do you really think you can get in there?” Gerard asked. It sounded like through all the research Gerard had conducted, this was the one variable he could never get past – actually getting in. Blake looked over the building and its borders and soldiers. He glanced to the main gate where a vehicle exited through what appeared to be a checkpoint on the outside.
“The main gate is obviously out,” Blake said. “I think you already knew that, which is why we avoided it entirely. They guard it the heaviest, since it would be the most obvious way in. No riding on the underside of vehicles or anything since they check it.”
“Around back then?” Perry asked.
“Precisely,” Blake nodded.
“Around back is Carburast,” Dorin said intently. “Are you crazy?”
Blake shook his head and pointed down the fenceline toward Carburast. “Around back is the fence around Carburast, which if it is constructed similarly all the way around, has about a six foot buffer between it and the phasing zone. Their security looks a little lighter back there, probably because no one wants to get too close.”
“Can you blame them?” Gerard asked.
“Not at all,” Blake replied. “There’s no coming back from that at the moment.”
“We’re going to change that,” Gerard said.
“You trust their fence?” Dorin asked, eyeballing the fence around the empty city.
“I trust that they don’t want to get phased either,” Blake nodded, “so if it were me, I would make sure my fenceline was infallible.”
“Makes sense,” Gerard said. Dorin did not look as confident.
“Do you trust me?” Blake asked Dorin. If they wanted him to do this, he needed some assurance that they would do what he said without persistent questions. He had some ideas as to how they might get past this, but he could not have Dorin dogging his every step. Dorin only shrugged, which was not a “no,” at the very least. He glanced to Gerard who nodded enthusiastically. Dorin rolled his eyes.
Blake glanced at the ground to find the fence’s shadow elongating toward them. There would be no way they could get in while the sun was out.
“We have a few hours yet till nightfall,” Blake said. “Can you tell me anything about what’s inside?”
“I’m afraid not,” Gerard said sheepishly. Blake stared at him, surprised that they had come this far, and Gerard had no idea what awaited them.
“We can’t exactly just walk in and ask directions, now, can we?” Blake said. “How can you be certain this is even the right place if you don’t know what’s inside?”
“I’ve read about it,” Gerard insisted. “I’ve talked to Velata himself, and he thought it might be possible depending on how the shield was powered.”
“Might be possible?” Perry said. “You aren’t sure?”
“I can’t be sure, can I?” Gerard said impatiently. “They don’t advertise these things. They don’t even want to fix it. I’m doing the best I can.”
“Do you know the layout or anything about the inside of that place?” Blake asked.
“I knew where it was, and I figured if I could ever get in, I’d have to figure it out from there.”
Blake looked back at the plant with a sigh, his job now that much more difficult. “An atmospheric solar power plant is the sort of thing that is made to never shut down,” he said. “If we’re lucky, it’s a switch. If we’re not, then it could have a failsafe in a completely different location.”
“Let’s assume we’re lucky,” Gerard said. Blake nodded.
“Assuming that, I’ll need to actually have a look at that fence to see how electrified it is,” Blake said, reaching into his pocket.
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Dorin asked.
“Nonsense,” Blake assured him. “I have a scanner I can use to determine the voltage.”
From his pocket, he produced a device that looked like a smartphone, and like a smartphone, he never left home without it. As useful as the electronic lockpick was, the scanner was infinitely more useful as it could tell him any number of things. In this case, he needed to scan the fence to determine the actual voltage output and locations without getting near it. He tapped the voltage icon on the main screen, which pulled up an image and a few readouts. He held the scanner up to view the fence and portions of it appeared on the screen like an infrared image with some sections looking “hotter” than others. The red sections showed voltage readings in the thousands with a very high amp reading.
“So what about the voltage?” Gerard asked.
“Well, it’s definitely electrified in some places, but fences are electrified in different ways. In part, once you find the live section, you’ll not wake up from it anytime soon. In most cases, though, a portion of the fence is not electrified, and the sign simply serves as a deterrent.”
“I’ve known people to be killed by that fe
nce,” Dorin said coldly. Blake was not sure how to respond to that, since his prior statement seemed to cast a shallow light over the sacrifices of Dorin’s friends. All he could do was go on.
“It looks like it’s all in where you touch it,” Blake said. He slid a setting on the screen which clarified the fence and showed its electrified sections clearly on the top and bottom areas with dark portions in the middle where there was no current at all. He locked the screen of the scanner and put it back in his pocket.
“As long as we keep ourselves to the middle of the fence, we’ll be fine,” he assured them.
“Why would someone make a fence electrified in such a manner?” Perry asked.
“Probably to make people think it is safe when it isn’t,” Gerard remarked.
“You’re probably right,” Blake agreed. “After all, if someone were to test a fence for voltage, they’ll generally go for the middle. If they feel like it is safe, then they just might touch the electrified sections, and never come back.”
“That’s horrible,” Perry commented.
“That’s who we’re dealing with,” Gerard said.
“Or it could just be a malfunction of the fence electrifier that they haven’t fixed yet,” Blake noted. “They might not even know it’s broken.”
“Can we cut it?” Dorin asked unexpectedly. Blake shrugged.
“If you have wire cutters,” he suggested. Dorin and Gerard exchanged an unspoken conversation where it appeared that Dorin and Gerard shared the same idea, and he was asking permission to carry it out. Gerard nodded, and Dorin disappeared into the brush. Blake and Perry looked expectantly at Gerard as he turned back to them.
“We had a very full complement of tools back at Point Light,” Gerard explained. “Provided Halloway’s troops didn’t raid our tool box, we’ll have some wire cutters to get through that fence.”
“Might have been a good idea to bring those with us ahead of time,” Perry noted.
“You know how unpredictable things can be, Perry,” Blake said. “Can’t plan for everything.”
“Still,” Perry said, “they knew about the fence.”
“We also had no idea how to cross it,” Gerard said. “We weren’t about to touch it, with or without cutters. The last thing I expected was to be able to just cut through the fence.”
Perry nodded, uncertain of how to respond. “We’ll just wait here then?”
“I imagine that’s all we can do at the moment,” Blake answered. “Once we’re in the fence, then what?”
“Then we find an entrance to the plant,” Gerard answered.
“Do you know where the closest one is?” Blake asked. Gerard answered by looking at the building, apparently studying it. Blake sighed and looked with him. This was easily as bad as going in blind.
“There,” Perry said, pointing to a single door on the side of the building near Carburast that appeared to be little more than a fire exit. The door had a handle, but no sidewalk leading to it, and without the sun, it would be buried in darkness.
“What if it’s locked?” Gerard asked.
“It almost certainly is,” Blake replied, since it would be foolish to assume that this out of the way back door would be unlocked. “However, I have a way around that.”
“You do?” Gerard asked.
“Trust me on this one,” Blake assured him. “We get to that back door, and I can get us in it. No problem.” Blake eyed the door again, hoping that this would not be one of those doors where the makers neglected to put an exterior lock on it. Without that access, they would be looking for another door, and he would certainly have egg on his face.
“When it’s time to go,” Gerard said, drawing Blake’s attention, “I want you to lead us.”
“Why?” Blake asked. “This is your operation, and Dorin certainly won’t pay any attention to me.”
“I know,” Gerard said, “but you seem like you know what you’re doing. You have a plan.” Gerard chuckled. “I’m depending on you to fix it, and I don’t even know you. I know how desperate I sound, but you seem to have it all under control.”
“I’ve learned to take every situation as it’s thrown at me,” Blake said. “I won’t step on your authority, however.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Gerard assured. “Dorin will do as I ask. I’ll defer to you when the time comes, and he’ll go with it.”
Blake nodded. He looked over the path ahead of them down the line of the fence and over to the door in the side of the plant. Once Dorin returned, it would only be a matter of waiting until nightfall, and then they would begin.
With some hours ahead of him in a place of relative safety, he could finally have a chance to check on Michelle. He did not dare use the communicator, but there was more to the logos on their clothes than that. They measured the biometrics of the wearer which he could see on his scanner as well as how far away the wearer happened to be. It was not much, but it would let him know that she was both alive and her rough location.
The scanner automatically tied into the tiny tech on their shirts so he just had to open that app on his scanner to use it. There was an icon for each of them and he tapped on Michelle’s to see what he could. Perry had spotted what he was doing and moved closer to join in the look.
“She’s alive,” Blake said with a sigh of relief. “Everything looks fine there.”
“Do you know where she’s being held?” Perry asked. Blake tapped the screen a couple of times and nodded.
“Based on this distance, she’s most likely at the base,” Blake replied. “I didn’t think he would let her out of his sight.”
“You’re able to see where people are on that thing?” Gerard asked without moving towards them.
“To a degree,” Blake said putting the scanner away as Perry sat back down to wait. “It’s nothing that can help us here.”
Gerard nodded and went back to looking at the power plant before them as they waited on Dorin. It was a comfort to know that Michelle was being kept alive so far, and that she was where they expected her to be. That she had not made contact was expected since she was not likely to be left alone. He hoped that this part would go quickly, and they could get back to tracking her down, but part of him feared this would go just as bad as it felt.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dorin returned several hours later as the sun was dropping below the horizon with the same sort of oversized, scissor-style wire cutters used on Earth. They would make short work of the chain link fence that stood between them and the power plant once they had the opportunity to sneak past the sentries. Dorin did not speak a word upon his arrival and kept the cutters to himself, which was fine with Blake. He understood that Dorin only trusted them as long as they did what Gerard had asked of them, and since they were strangers, his caution was justifiable.
“We should be able to go soon,” Blake suggested.
“We will follow you,” Gerard said. Dorin shot him a look of protest, but Gerard met his glance with one of his own that requested no arguments. Dorin pursed his lips in disagreement, but nodded all the same.
Once the sun was low enough that they could start moving without being noticed, Blake glanced out from their hiding place to ensure the way was clear. The sentry that had been patrolling the Southern side of the plant was a good distance away, so he gestured for everyone to follow him as he darted out of the brush and ran along the edge of the fence. His plan was to go as close to the Carburast fence as possible to take advantage of the fact that most people did not wish to get too close to the deadly city.
The plant was huge, so with every step, it felt like their destination kept getting further away. The sound of the grass breaking under their shoes sounded ever louder the longer they were exposed. He looked over his shoulder repeatedly, every time expecting to see a platoon of soldiers approaching them, but each time, it remained quiet. Still, he ran faster, and the others kept up.
Out of breath, he reached as far west as he dared go, which was within a few yar
ds of the Carburast fence that connected to the plant’s. The building, itself, did not cross the Carburast boundary and Carburast’s fence served as the rear fence for the plant with a gate that looked like it could be opened to allow passage into the town from within the power plant’s grounds. Since there was a road that led into Carburast through that fence, he suspected it had always been there, and they just connected the protection fence to it. He also hoped that the shield limits were well on the other side of the fence, and that it was not simply connected out of convenience.
Dorin held his cutters at the ready, and Blake pulled his scanner out of this pocket and accessed the application to find the fence’s electrified hot spots. As with the section he had scanned earlier, the fence was electrified for about two feet at the top and another two feet at the bottom, but had a dead spot in the middle four feet. He lowered the scanner and took a close look at the fence. It had three distinct sections, each insulated from the other, which explained how the outer fence could be hot while the inner was safe. It would certainly give someone a false sense of security if they tested the center of the fence before trying to climb it and getting electrocuted at the top or trying to crawl under the bottom and meeting the same fate.
He gestured to Dorin the safe zones, and Dorin nodded his understanding. Dorin stepped in and started cutting the necessary links to open a large enough hole for them to jump through. Each snip of the cutters on the fence, though fairly quiet in reality, felt as loud as a gunshot. Again, their nerves were on edge as they watched for anyone to take notice of the sounds issuing from this side of the complex.
The sentry who had been walking away from them along the eastern side was now walking back. Blake touched Dorin’s shoulder. He stopped and the four of them knelt by the fence, waiting and hoping the guard would simply walk away without looking down this side. The sentry walked around the corner, but rather than walk down the southern side of the fence, he just stood at the corner, looking south. He turned his head to the left and right, but never turned far enough to notice four people huddled as close as they dared to the fence without touching it. Not a breath was heard among them.
City Of Phase Page 11