Boring Machines Disturbs Sleep

[Brian]

From Chapter Two -- for Tim

You find yourself lying on a steel grate, and there's probably a wrench beneath your back.  Not comfortable.

Looking up is a seemingly endless tangle of pipes, wires, cables, clanking and rotating gears, and pumping pistons.  The entire place looks like some Victorian/steam-punk designer's wet dream.  There's a ladder nearby, not far from where you're lying, leading up into a maze of tubing.

Below is more tubing ... to the point where no floors or walls are in sight.  After climbing to your feet, you find that it was, in fact, a wrench beneath you.  A sizable one, too.  The grate is some suspended pathway, hanging from various of the pipes, and with other support cables extending up into darkness.  Light is shed by a lantern hanging not far overhead, and the grate pathway extends in two directions, as well as the ladder continuing down.

"Tim!" a distant voice roars.  "Is that valve sealed yet?"

[Halbarad]

"Uh...." Tim takes a moment to come to the realization of where he is. Where is he? Where the hell is the floor, for that matter - or more pointedly, how far away is it?

Finding no answers - and someone else waiting on one - he calls back. "Uh... not yet?"

Valve. There's a ton of pipes here, there should be at least ONE valve nearby. Right?

[Brian]

Looking closely, only one is immediately visible.  It's pretty big, solid red, steel, and could be reached from the walkway.  A tiny jet of steam escapes from the side of the valve in a continual, lazy plume.

"Well hurry it up!" the distant voice shouts from ... above?  It seems like above.  "Three full rotations clockwise, and then hurry back up here!  We're about to restart the anabaric siphon."

[Halbarad]

"I'm on it," Tim calls back up, grabbing the wrench before heading over to close the valve as indicated.

Anabaric? he wonders briefly. Something to do with low pressure? Low pressure what?

[Brian]

The valve turns, at first reluctantly, but then a bit more easily, and the plume of escaping steam vanishes at the end of the third rotation.  A notch is made into the otherwise circular handle to indicate where rotation began, so it's simple enough.

"Good!" the distant voice booms.  "Worthington, I need the shutters secured -- Smith, tell me what boiler pressure is at!"

Ringing through the machinery at odd angles, 'Worthington' says, "Done, Sir!"

"Pressure's two degrees shy of red, Sir!" the more anxious Smith adds.

[Halbarad]

Job finished, Tim heads for the ladder, scaling it quickly to join the other voices he can hear above. Two degrees short of red doesn't sound good, whatever it is.

[Brian]

After scaling the ladder, it becomes dark -- but only for a bit.  The lantern below provides a sphere of illumination, and before it vanishes from range, another appears overhead, swinging slowly back and forth.

At the top of the ladder is another mesh grating to stand on, much wider than the last.  Paths wind in all directions, crazily, though the tangle of tubes and machinery.  A large brass control panel covered with switches, dials, and pressure gauges.  Before it stands a man of average height, with a width equal to that.  He's not quite spherical, but he looks like he's working on it.

His right leg is missing below the knee, replaced with an iron stump, and a kind of bowl-shaped foot, slotted to fit into ladders.  It's big enough to stand comfortably on the mesh grating, and he shoots a look over his shoulder as Tim comes into sight.

His face is smudged with grease, and he's got a full beard of stained red hair.  He flashes a grin, and yells, "Smith!  Pull the release, and report.  Worthington, secure those shutters and check in!"

"Sir!" both reply, one from somewhere behind Tim, another from somewhere beyond the control panel.  Sighing, the huge man flips some switches, watches a gauge for a bit, then tightens a valve with a judicious nod.

Very shortly, two other men appear from the direction their voices came from.  Both are dressed as Tim is -- work pants, white shirt with no pockets, suspenders, and a tool-belt.  Sturdy leather-soled shoes.

The large man is dressed the same, but also wearing a stained white smock.  He reaches beneath it and pulls out a large golden chronometer (or at least, that's what it looks like).  "Perfect," he announces.  "Now, let's get something to eat, and get to rest, eh lads?"

Smith and Worthington nod eagerly, then begin trooping down one of the pathways.

[Halbarad]

Feels like I'm stuck inside a giant steam engine, Tim thinks wryly.

"Sounds good to me, sir," he replies with a grin. Taking a few moments while the others assemble, he studies the board full of gauges, trying to make some sense of what exactly this place DOES.

[Brian]

The board seems to control and connect multiple systems.  The machinery probably helps regulate the piping, automatically opening and closing valves to keep pressure flowing in pulses instead of a constant stream.  Then another switching station routs the surges of ... whatever it is they're piping ... through different nodes.  The gauges all seem to be winding down, with the exception of the bank furthest to the right.

All of them are labeled, though some of the names seem odd and arcane at first glance.  At a guess, 'anabaric' means 'power', to these people, and the gearworks and everything else are designed to pull energy from something.  Maybe a subterranean vault?  Geothermal energy seems plausible.  Most likely it's a power-station of some kind.

"Good," the large man says, before frowning.  "Tim, you forgot your lamp."  Smith and Worthington troop away, though the reverberations of their footsteps echo.  "Just as well," he says with a sigh, undoing his smock, and putting away the golden chronometer.  "Fetch it, there's an important matter we should discuss in private anyway."

[Halbarad]

"Sorry about that, sir, I'll be back with it in just a moment." Tim grimaces a bit, hoping this isn't bad news.

A quick trip down the ladder and back finds the now-mechanically-inclined Tim with lantern in tow, looking towards the round gentleman with a slightly worried expression. "Is anything wrong, sir?"

[Brian]

"Tim," the man says with a sigh, once the top of the ladder is regained.  "I have to say, you've learned quite well in your time here, but....  Well, as our contract agreed, this is the last day of your training.  Tomorrow we'll have the official recognition, of course.  Balmer will present you with your certificate of journeyman status, and your own toolkit.  But that also means that we can't keep you on."  He hedges, then smiles weakly.  "I could keep you on for a week or two, and if we had the money, I'd like to bring you on to stay....  But the funding for that, you know...."  He sighs, giving an apologetic shrug.

"Anyway, after the recognition tomorrow, you've a free day.  There's a fair in town, so you take your time to think about it, and the day after I'll start you at five shillings a day, though Balmer won't let it last beyond the month, I'm certain."

[Halbarad]

Tim gives the larger man a weak grin. Always did hate getting laid off, he thinks to himself.

"I understand, sir, and I appreciate all the help you're giving me. I'm sure I'll be able to find something soon."

[Brian]

He claps a meaty paw on Tim's shoulder in response, beaming a bright smile.  "That's the spirit!  Now, let's have at the shepherd's pie, eh?"  With that, he leads a wending path through the crazily sprawling pathway.  It's a good seventy to a hundred feet (the path zigs and zags quite a bit, so it's hard to be sure), before Tim and the boss reach something identifiable as a wall.

More of a bulkhead, really.  It's thick, it's lined with bolts several inches across, and there's a sealing hatchway -- like a military vessel's access hatches -- before opening up into a more comforting steel room.

It's mostly rectangular, and there's a row of hooks along one wall.  Toolbelts are hanging from all of the hooks, along with a few of them sporting smocks.  In addition, there's a name plate, and a shoe locker.

The boss stumps his way over to the nameplate reading, 'Foreman Angus Tavner,' and hangs both his smock and toolbelt from that hook.  Tim's own hook is almost the farthest away, between the 'Journeyman Leroy Smith' and 'Apprentice Nemo Millhouse' hooks.

Mr. Tavner's hook is the closest to the door, next to the other foreman's hook.  Before Tim and Angus can leave, another man enters, followed by two obvious underlings.  The new man nods, saying nothing, merely snatching the smock and toolbelt from 'Foreman Warden Donner's hook.  The other two are journeymen, too -- no apprentice for their shift, apparently.

Donner's a burly man with rolled-up sleeves on his workshirts, almost as though he wants to show off the burn scars covering them from wrist to elbow.  His face is free of hair, but that, too, is a product of scarring, not shaving.

"Oh," Angus says, nodding at Donner.  "The crank shaft for drive three is wobbling a bit -- I'd keep an eye on it, if I were you.  We left the tanks and shutters sealed at two degrees short of red.  Unless the Council decides to do something stupid, you should have a few hours to inspect before there'll be a need to bring it into play."

Donner nods back wordlessly, one half of his mouth (the left) twitching in what could be a smile.

"Thank you, Master Tavner," both of the journeymen say, nodding respectfully to the bearded man.

"Right," Angus says.  "Tomorrow, lads."  Then he gestures Tim to follow him through another submarine-appropriate portal, which opens into a long steel corridor, the doorway being at the head of a 'T' intersection.  He immediately turns right, his stump clanging against the floor rhythmically as he marches.

[Halbarad]

Tim follows along, figuring that if they're off-shift the foreman will be headed out himself. Unless everyone lives on this site as well, which... well, there's no way to know whether it's reasonable or not. Having a second shift tends to make him think not, but getting lost in a maze of corridors doesn't sound like too much fun at the moment.

Better question is "Where's home", though, he thinks to himself with a slight frown.

[Brian]

Angus leads Tim down a few hallways to a larger room that seems to serve as a mess hall.  Smith and Worthington are already at one of the two long tables, and have put settings at the table for Tim and Angus.

The two are chatting about something -- the ratio of a gear system, and it's output, it sounds like, but break off when Angus appears.

"Boss," one of them says with a nod, before indicating the pair of trays sitting next to each of the two.

The trays are identical, each bearing two plates and a mug (currently empty and upside-down).  The larger, central plate has a steaming shepherd's pie on it, and the smaller has what looks like a potato with a bit of butter and some chives.  Between the trays are a pair of capped pitchers, one red, one silver.

"Thanks," Angus says, taking a chair before the closer of the trays, and filling his mug from the red pitcher (looks like it might be wine).  "You lads have plans for the fair, tomorrow?"

One of the two blushes faintly, and says, "Oh, well....  Miss Machree," before trailing off with a lame grin.

The other snorts and shakes his head, pouring from the silver pitcher into Tim's mug without being asked -- looks like milk.  "Smith, if you don't tell her how you feel, or even have the decency to ask her for a dance, nothing can happen, can it?"

"Oh....  Shove off," Smith grumbles.

Worthington smirks, then turns a glance at Tim.  "How about you?  And Catherine?"

Angus snorts, taking his knife and cutting into the shepherd's pie.  "Be nice," he admonishes with mock gruffness.