The Darkfall Switch

by David Lindsley

  Foster knew that much already. He asked, ‘In the offshore industry they use an Emergency Shut Down system, or ESD. Was there anything like that in PPD’s system?’

  Kirkland nodded and thought carefully before replying. ‘I know a bit about ESDs but, no, we’ve got nothing like that here. I should know, I was on the specification team and the tender evaluation panel.’

  Foster knew that when a major investment is being planned, companies bidding for the work would have quoted against very specific, detailed specifications. This procedure ensures that all bidders were working on the same footing, and that all requirements are met. Their bids, or tenders, would have been compared against each other by a panel of engineers and administrators. A power station encompasses all the major branches of engineering: civils for the access roads, buildings and structures; mechanical for the machines, steam plant and steelwork; electrical for the generators and all that they supply; and electronics, for the plant control and monitoring systems. As each part of the contract came up for discussion, engineers from each of these disciplines would have been involved as required. Kirkland would have played a key part in discussions of the computer systems that controlled the machines.

  Foster asked, ‘And you didn’t specify any such thing? They didn’t throw it in as an extra, a freebie?’

  ‘Definitely not. So that makes it even more odd. But the clincher was the problem we had in restarting: nothing worked. We discovered that all the output cards were buggered, every single one of them. We had to replace the lot. We scraped by with the few spare cards we had in the stores, but there were nowhere near enough.’

  The computers controlling the plant produce commands that control things like valves and pumps. The commands are implemented by actuators – the powerful motor-driven muscles of the system – but they are generated by electronic devices, the printed-circuit boards, or cards, that Kirkland mentioned. Each card commands eight or sixteen actuators, and there are literally hundreds of these to be controlled.

  Foster asked, ‘Do you know what was wrong with them? The cards, I mean.’

  ‘No. They looked OK, but they just wouldn’t produce any outputs.’

  ‘All of them the same?’ Foster asked.

  ‘Exactly. After it happened PPD were pretty quick in getting replacements sent out to us, but we were still off line for a few days.’

  Foster could only imagine the chaos and raised tempers at the plant. Apart from the outside world’s desperate need for electricity, every second that such a power station was off line represented a lot of lost revenue to its owners.

  ‘No hope of running without the computers, I suppose?’

  Kirkland gave a bitter laugh. ‘You mean, like in the old days? Not a hope, chum. Not these days. Once, we could have deployed people all round the site, driving things manually. Now we haven’t got the people, and even if we did there are very few things that can be controlled manually at all.’

  Foster nodded. He knew it already, of course. This was called progress.

  He decided the time had come to reach the heart of his enquiries. ‘Have you ever heard of anything called Darkfall Switch?’ he asked. ‘I suspect it could be a subroutine.’ As he spoke, he watched Kirkland’s face carefully for any sign of recognition, but there was none.

  ‘What, in the PPD system?’

  Foster nodded.

  ‘Never heard if it,’ Kirkland said. Then, after a moment’s thought he added, ‘But….’ He hesitated.

  ‘But what?’ Foster urged.

  ‘It may be a coincidence, but there was one strange software block in the system that nobody understood.’

  A software block is a function performed by the control computer. A complete system was made up by combining several such blocks to perform the required tasks.

  ‘You asked PPD about it?’ Foster asked.

  ‘Yes. They said it was an advanced analytical tool, associated with the Remote Diagnostics system.’

  ‘That’s the system that allows them to check on how everything’s working?’

  ‘Yes, from their place in Colorado,’ Kirkland confirmed. ‘It tallied. The strange block certainly seemed to be part of the diagnostics, because it had links to all the control functions.’

  ‘Did it have a name,’ Foster asked, ‘this block?’

  Kirkland’s eyes widened. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘And, now that I think about it…. That subroutine, Dan, what did you call it?’

  ‘Darkfall Switch.’

  ‘Could be shortened to DS?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Foster said. ‘But why do you ask?’

  ‘Because that odd thingy in the system … it was labelled DS.’

  It was dark by the time Foster had returned to Lake Goddess, and he was dog-tired. After pouring out his usual dram he sat at his desk to write up a few notes on his meeting. That done, he turned in.

  The next morning, he woke to see golden sunlight streaming through the porthole across his bunk. He rose and rested on one elbow to look out. The town across the river seemed to be sleeping on a long cushion. There was little or no wind and a shallow bank of mist clung to the surface of the river. The only sounds came from the occasional creak of a mooring warp as the boat lifted and fell in response to the river’s slight movements, the distant cries of waterfowl and the metallic tapping of ducks pecking the algae from his hull. As he lay listening to these peaceful sounds he was reminded of the morning after his first night with Fiona, now so long ago: it had been much like this. The memory was pleasant, but painful too.

  He brushed the thoughts away, swung his legs out of the bunk and put on his track suit. It was a lovely autumn morning outside, but it would be cold.

  His regular morning jog was upstream to Hampton Court, through Bushy Park and back; a six-mile circuit. At that time of day he was the only jogger on the track, and he had ample opportunity to take in the sights and scents of the wild flowers bordering the river, and the occasional flash of colour and movement as a bird flew off, or a rabbit scuttled for cover, startled by his arrival. As he ran, the last vestiges of river-mist disappeared, burned off by the rising sun.

  He came back to Lake Goddess feeling relaxed and ready to take on the day. After his shower he took a leisurely breakfast of freshly squeezed orange juice, bacon and eggs, toast – with dark marmalade – and coffee. He was reading the paper when his mobile rang. Picking it up, he looked at the display but it was a number that he didn’t recognize, a mobile. He checked the time on the display: it was just after nine.

  It was Janet Coleman, the girl he had met at the Crabtrees’ home. ‘I’m sorry to call so early,’ she said.

  He watched a swan across the river, lazily floating downstream, its eyes searching the water for food. Janet’s voice reminded him of the night at the Crabtrees’. ‘It’s all right,’ he replied eventually.

  ‘It’s just … well, I wanted to apologize.’

  ‘No need to. I flew off the handle.’

  ‘You had every right. I was intruding.’

  There was a long pause before she continued, ‘Anyway, I wanted to make it up to you. Can I buy you dinner?’

  He thought for a moment. He had been churlish and petty with this woman on their first meeting, and that wasn’t something he was proud of. Perhaps a quiet dinner would put things right. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘That’d be nice. When were you thinking?’

  ‘Could be tonight. If you’re free.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go out soon and I won’t be back until very late.’

  ‘What about tomorrow, then?’

  ‘Yes, that’s clear. Will you come down here – to the boat – or shall we meet somewhere?’

  ‘After what Tina told me about your boat, I’d like to see it. Can I come down there? I’m sure there are plenty of good restaurants in Kingston.’

  ‘A few. And more upriver. But come down anyway, and we’ll go from here.’

  ‘OK. Seven-thirty all right for you?’
r />   He agreed and then reminded her of the boat’s name and location before hanging up.

  He stared out of the window thoughtfully. The swan had turned and was again swimming upstream. Then he took a deep breath before turning on his computer. He had an update to send to Grant.

  The drive to Birdlip was uneventful. He had left Kingston after the worst of the rush hour had passed, and the M4 had been mercifully quiet. He dropped down the steep hill and arrived at Powerplant Dynamics’ modest offices at noon and was soon ushered into the office of the Managing Director, Hugh Burnett.

  The MD looked a cheerful sort. He was stocky and grey-haired, and was wearing bifocal spectacles. As his secretary brought Foster into his small but comfortable office he stood to come round his desk, his hand outstretched.

  ‘I’ve heard a lot about you, Foster,’ Burnett said, after they had shaken hands, gesturing to a couple of chairs facing each other across a small table.

  Foster selected one of the chairs, sat down and smiled. ‘Suddenly it seems that everybody’s heard of me,’ he said.

  Burnett sat in the other chair and said, ‘Well, you were in the news a while back. Then there was the call from Westminster yesterday, setting up this meeting.’ He looked carefully at his visitor and raised his eyebrows as he added, ‘Westminster, mind you!’

  The secretary re-entered the room with a tray with two cups of coffee and a small plate of biscuits. She put the tray down on the glass-topped table between the two men and left. Foster took one of the cups but waved away the biscuits that Burnett offered.

  ‘They probably told you what I wanted to talk about,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I gather it’s about the shutdowns in the summer.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’m not sure what I can tell you,’ Burnett said apologetically. ‘We’ve all been grilled by the consultants who’re looking into it. I’ve already told them all I know. They’ve interviewed my key staff too.’

  ‘I know. But something new’s come up in the past few days.’ He watched Burnett’s face carefully as he asked, ‘Tell me, do you know anything about something called a Darkfall Switch?’

  Burnett frowned, but he showed no telltale signs of alarm. In fact he seemed genuinely puzzled. ‘Never heard of it,’ he said. ‘Is it something in our system?’

  ‘Yes it is. A subroutine, I think.’

  ‘Well,’ Burnett’s frown changed to a smile. ‘Perhaps I’m not the best one to ask. Although I was a software engineer once, and I’ve tried to keep up with these things, I’m mostly an administrator these days. For my sins! Trying to keep the company afloat in difficult times.’

  ‘You’ve been doing very well, by all accounts,’ Foster said. ‘I understand that virtually all the big contracts have gone to you recently.’

  Burnett gave a brief, self-effacing smile. ‘Yes, we’ve been lucky. But only by paring things down to the bone. There are no comfortable financial margins any more. Not in this business.’

  ‘Possibly not. But your competitors face the same pressures, pare down their systems just the same, and you still undercut them. How?’

  Burnett sipped his coffee, looking across the rim of the cup at Foster. ‘There’s no trick to it,’ he said. ‘The hardware’s priced straight out of our American parent-company’s manual. And they price the software. All we have to do is to add in the installation, cabling and commissioning. That’s a big chunk of the final price – as I’m sure you’ll know – but all our competitors work on the same bases; we all buy cable from the same suppliers and we all know how many man-hours are needed for commissioning. Well, pretty much all.’

  ‘What about the transducers?’

  Every control system depends on measurements of pressures, temperatures and flows that are sent to it. It then makes calculations about the status of the plant and produces output commands to drive the actuators controlling it. These measuring and actuating devices are called transducers.

  ‘Well,’ Burnett answered, ‘again, we and our competitors all buy these from the same small bunch of manufacturers.’

  ‘Then how come you’ve been able to consistently offer lower prices than your competitors?’ Foster asked. He had seen the tender documents in Bill Kirkland’s office at Queensborough. He also learned there that the jungle drums in the industrial forest had beaten out a consistent message: when it came to power-plant control systems, PPD would always come in under the other competing companies. Well under.

  ‘We’re lucky,’ Burnett replied, shrugging his shoulders. ‘The prices we get from the States are very good.’

  ‘Low?’

  ‘Fantastically! They virtually give it to us.’

  Foster stared at him in disbelief All that electronic equipment? All the computing power? All the elaborate bespoke software? The Americans were virtually giving it away? How could they do that – and still manage to survive?

  ‘Frankly,’ Burnett continued. ‘Between you and me, Foster, I just don’t see how they can do it.’

  The room fell silent for a long while. Foster was taken aback by Burnett’s frankness. He had expected some sort of denial.

  ‘So you’ve no idea at all what that subroutine, or whatever it is, could be doing? The thing called Darkfall Switch.’

  ‘Nope! None at all.’

  ‘What about your engineers?’

  ‘I doubt it. They’re all hardware people. Every time we start on the software, the Americans send over their own people. They handle it all.’

  ‘Really? Any of them here at the moment? In the UK?’

  Burnett shook his head. ‘Unfortunately not. We’re between jobs at the moment and they’ve all gone back to the States.’

  Foster picked up his cup and drained it. ‘Then I think I’ll have to talk to your parent company,’ he said. ‘There seem to be more questions here than you can answer.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Burnett said. ‘But I think you’re right. Only they can explain how they manage it.’

  ‘Yes.’ Foster thought briefly and then asked, ‘There’s one more thing. I’ve been told that after the shutdowns at Queensborough and Grandford, all the output cards were found to be faulty.’

  ‘Yes,’ Burnett said, with a snort of annoyance. ‘We had to replace them all. Gratis too! They were still under guarantee.’

  Foster winced. It must have hurt them financially. This was the sort of eventuality for which financial margins were needed; margins that Burnett had just said were nonexistent. ‘Didn’t it seem strange?’ he asked. ‘All of them going wrong? All the same way, and in the same circumstances?’

  ‘Yes, it was certainly odd. But the Americans took a look at the dead bodies and said that somebody had probably blown them up. They claim they found evidence that somebody’d fiddled about with them in a clumsy, bungled effort to get the systems working again. And in their panic damaged them.’

  Foster stared at him. ‘What, the whole lot? At two separate sites?’ he asked.

  Burnett raised his eyebrows and shrugged. ‘I know,’ he admitted, shrugging. ‘But the Americans say they’re used to having to clear up after gorillas working on their systems overseas. They think that all engineers outside the US of A are somewhat less than competent.’

  ‘But we know different, don’t we?’ Foster growled. ‘In general, the instrument engineers here are among the best, even if they are in short supply.’

  ‘Agreed! But try telling that to our American cousins.’

  There was little more to discuss, so after a few more minutes, Foster left.

  He was preparing his breakfast the next day when his phone rang. It was Grant asking about progress and after Foster filled him in Grant asked if he had managed to gain any understanding of what the Darkfall reference had been.

  ‘They couldn’t tell me much at Birdlip,’ Foster replied. ‘At least, nothing that I didn’t know already. As I suspected, they’re a bunch of administrators and sales people, with a thin scattering of commissioning engineers. No design s
taff. That’s why I need to visit the PPD headquarters. I’ll need to talk to them and get some detailed technical information about the system out of them.’

  ‘All right.’ Grant’s voice sounded resigned.

  ‘Actually,’ Foster said, ‘I’ll need your help. Somehow, I suspect that they’ll be less than willing to discuss the inner workings of their system with a complete stranger, and a foreigner to boot. I’d appreciate it if you could arrange for them to be asked to co-operate – and for the request to come from the highest possible level.’

  ‘Aye. I’ll see what I can do. When will you be able to go?’

  Foster considered his dinner-date for that evening with Janet Coleman and told Grant that he would be free to leave in two days. Grant concurred and said that the tickets would be delivered to him by courier the next day.

  He hung up, turned on his computer and looked up a number. It was the direct-dial line for Carol Lopez, the technical director at Universal Digital Systems, the control-system company that he’d worked for many years before. She had taken over his job there when he left and had helped him while he was investigating the incident in China. They had kept in touch intermittently since then. When news of Fiona’s death had reached her she had immediately telephoned him to offer her condolences. She had even sent flowers and attended the funeral.

  ‘Dan!’ she exclaimed now, when he got through. ‘How nice to hear from you. Everything OK?’

  ‘Yes thanks, Carol. Well, as OK as it could be. But I need some information.’

  ‘Happy to oblige. What is it?’

  ‘I’ve been asked to look into the blackout.’ There was no need to say which one, or when; it had been the single most important topic in the power industry ever since it happened. ‘And I’m curious about Powerplant Dynamics—’

  ‘Them!’ The venom behind that single word came through clearly. ‘They’re killing us, Dan.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘They’ve consistently taken all the big jobs from us over the past few years.’

  ‘On price or performance?’ Foster asked. In the intense competition for large contracts, companies lost the bidding battle either because their price was too high or because they were unable to meet some aspect of the extremely rigid technical specification.