Thursday, February 24, 2005
The Array - Chapter 4 - Hidden Tomes
The phone on the wall beside Jensen suddenly shattered the meditative hum of the electrical lifeblood of the control centre. Jensen, having verified that the amplifier was in a ready state quickly locked the cabinet and turned his attention to the telephone that was impatiently summoning him.
"Hello"
"Jensen, what's the status?"
"I've just finished the checks and the main trunk contactor is fried. It looks like the breaker shut down before the amp was damaged. It's sitting there waiting for a signal."
"Well, that's something I guess. Get yourself back over here. We need to get out and find out if there's a problem with the cable."
"OK, Give me a minute to lock up."
Jensen double checked the cabinets to ensure that they locked and left the control centre through the same door that he entered by. Pausing on the top step, he turned and locked the door, before ambling back across the courtyard to the main office.
Again he used his security key to open the locked door and wound his way through the maze of control cabinets to his control terminal. He glanced up to Charles desk on the elevated platform and noted Charles hunched over the light table, presumably studying the maps.
Jensen walked around the shoulder high partition that separated his space from the small stairway that led to Charles desk, and the drawing cabinets, and mounted the steps. Turning to his left at the top of the stairs Jensen approached the light table from the opposite side to where Charles stood, silhouetted by the wall of plan cabinets.
Charles glanced up from his studies and motioned for Jensen to check the map. "The main trunk runs along the Francis Street here", motioning to the map.
As Jensen leant across the table to see the indicated crossing, his thigh activated the push button that controlled the light table. Suddenly the fluorescent tubes inside the table leapt to life and illuminated the drawings from below with a slightly purplish light. The paper below Charles fingers suddenly danced with iridescent hieroglyphs as the slight ultraviolet light from the fluorescent tubes activated a hitherto hidden fluorescent ink on the surface of the paper.
Charles' jaw dropped, as though some demon from the past had suddenly leapt from the page and seized hold of it. Immediately he was silenced as his attention was drawn from the red line that bisected the page, to the hazy yellow glow emanating from the page.
The fluorescent tubes only gave off a small amount of near UV light, so the lines and lettering hidden on the page remained elusive, and illegible, but the sheer mass of lines on the page made an impressive display nonetheless.
Jensen was the first to break the silence.
"That's new" was all that he could manage as he stood mesmerized by the discovery.
"Yeah" was the only reply that Charles could manage, equally baffled by the emergence of a hidden drawing. "We'd better take a closer look at this," he continued after allowing the silence to linger a little longer.
Shaking off the shroud of mystery that had suddenly descended on the room, Charles refocused on the problems at hand. "Later, though," he eventually added. "We've got to find out why we lost the main trunk first."
"OK" agreed Jensen, as he reluctantly reached down to reset the power switch to the table. Delaying, in case the miracle before him was a fleeting, once off occurrence, he finally worked up the courage to kill the lights, and the hidden text vanished, leaving the streetscape of the surrounding city naked on the page.
Charles and Jensen glanced into each others eyes, silently acknowledging that this event that they had just witnessed was to stay a privately shared experience, at least for now.
Again they looked down at the drawing, and Charles continued. "Follow the cable's path out of the city and do a quick recon. Look for anything obvious. I'll set up a pulse on the cable under the control centre and you can follow it with the hand held cable locator. Do a check at each of the manholes along the route to check for continuity. Hopefully we can narrow down the problem to a short section of the cable."
Jensen, still shrouded in disbelief, absently acknowledged the request, and like a zombie turned and collected his car keys from his desk, as he headed across the floor to the large wooden cupboard that contained the maintenance kit.
"Hello"
"Jensen, what's the status?"
"I've just finished the checks and the main trunk contactor is fried. It looks like the breaker shut down before the amp was damaged. It's sitting there waiting for a signal."
"Well, that's something I guess. Get yourself back over here. We need to get out and find out if there's a problem with the cable."
"OK, Give me a minute to lock up."
Jensen double checked the cabinets to ensure that they locked and left the control centre through the same door that he entered by. Pausing on the top step, he turned and locked the door, before ambling back across the courtyard to the main office.
Again he used his security key to open the locked door and wound his way through the maze of control cabinets to his control terminal. He glanced up to Charles desk on the elevated platform and noted Charles hunched over the light table, presumably studying the maps.
Jensen walked around the shoulder high partition that separated his space from the small stairway that led to Charles desk, and the drawing cabinets, and mounted the steps. Turning to his left at the top of the stairs Jensen approached the light table from the opposite side to where Charles stood, silhouetted by the wall of plan cabinets.
Charles glanced up from his studies and motioned for Jensen to check the map. "The main trunk runs along the Francis Street here", motioning to the map.
As Jensen leant across the table to see the indicated crossing, his thigh activated the push button that controlled the light table. Suddenly the fluorescent tubes inside the table leapt to life and illuminated the drawings from below with a slightly purplish light. The paper below Charles fingers suddenly danced with iridescent hieroglyphs as the slight ultraviolet light from the fluorescent tubes activated a hitherto hidden fluorescent ink on the surface of the paper.
Charles' jaw dropped, as though some demon from the past had suddenly leapt from the page and seized hold of it. Immediately he was silenced as his attention was drawn from the red line that bisected the page, to the hazy yellow glow emanating from the page.
The fluorescent tubes only gave off a small amount of near UV light, so the lines and lettering hidden on the page remained elusive, and illegible, but the sheer mass of lines on the page made an impressive display nonetheless.
Jensen was the first to break the silence.
"That's new" was all that he could manage as he stood mesmerized by the discovery.
"Yeah" was the only reply that Charles could manage, equally baffled by the emergence of a hidden drawing. "We'd better take a closer look at this," he continued after allowing the silence to linger a little longer.
Shaking off the shroud of mystery that had suddenly descended on the room, Charles refocused on the problems at hand. "Later, though," he eventually added. "We've got to find out why we lost the main trunk first."
"OK" agreed Jensen, as he reluctantly reached down to reset the power switch to the table. Delaying, in case the miracle before him was a fleeting, once off occurrence, he finally worked up the courage to kill the lights, and the hidden text vanished, leaving the streetscape of the surrounding city naked on the page.
Charles and Jensen glanced into each others eyes, silently acknowledging that this event that they had just witnessed was to stay a privately shared experience, at least for now.
Again they looked down at the drawing, and Charles continued. "Follow the cable's path out of the city and do a quick recon. Look for anything obvious. I'll set up a pulse on the cable under the control centre and you can follow it with the hand held cable locator. Do a check at each of the manholes along the route to check for continuity. Hopefully we can narrow down the problem to a short section of the cable."
Jensen, still shrouded in disbelief, absently acknowledged the request, and like a zombie turned and collected his car keys from his desk, as he headed across the floor to the large wooden cupboard that contained the maintenance kit.
# posted by The Puppeteer : 3:28 pm
