Chapter 191: Free People Can Still Plug In the Wrong Wire

Cold rain battered the Lapis relay station on the southern coast.

Han, twenty-one and newly qualified from the accelerated train-ing course, held an insulated wrench beneath the flickering control-room lights.

He checked the rough-paper manual against two brass plates on the parallel conduits.

Khar-Vael-01. Capacitor pressure relief.

Khar-Vael-Null. Main ley-line isolation.

In Ancient Titan, the labels differed by one tiny mark. The pressure alarm screamed.

Han fitted the wrench onto the right-hand control and pulled.

A blue arc burst against the wall. The pressure gauge dropped to zero.

Across three coastal towns, streetlights, lighthouses, and heaters went dark. The hospital’s emergency crystals took over in a thin wash of yellow light.

* * *

The field report reached Lucian while he was still in Frostwind. By the time the control room at Station 50 had the live feeds open, he was already there.

[SOUTHERN COAST CIRCUIT BREACH]

BLACKOUT IN PROGRESS.

Silver spatial mana gathered around his fingers. Evelyn put a greasy hand on his shoulder.

“Sit down.”

“Three towns have lost power.”

“The local response team is moving.”

“The locals are the ones who pulled the wrong switch.” “Yes.”

He sat. Then stood and began pacing around the console. “How long?”

“Six minutes.”

He checked the clock again. “Now?”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Six minutes, eleven seconds.” “Why another eleven seconds?” “Because eleven seconds passed.” “I hate your attitude.”

The System displayed the incoming station and hospital telemetry.

[SOUTHERN COAST INCIDENT]

Preliminary cause: Operator misidentified control labels. Hospital and cold-storage backup supplies: Operational. Immediate life-safety escalation threshold: Not reached. Local repair capability: Available.

[HOST INTERVENTION]

OPTIONAL, SUBJECT TO CONTINUED SAFETY MONITORING.

Estimated local repair: Approximately forty-seven minutes. Host could stabilize the immediate fault faster.

Independent repair experience if Host takes over: Significantly reduced.

“‘Optional’ is a cruel word.”

He kept his hands away from the controls.

The backup supply was holding. The crew had the right equip-ment. He watched the critical readings and kept a spatial route ready in case either of those facts changed.

Eleanor touched his sleeve. “Let them work, Lucian.”

“What if they get it wrong again?” “Then we reassess.”

“Could you sound more certain?” “No.”

An orange flash flared on the Lapis camera feed.

The crew had brought up a bypass with its phase alignment wrong. A surge passed through the old residential district. Rooftop transformers burst in a line of sparks and smoke.

Lucian reached for the intervention control. The district isolators had already cut the surge off from the hospital lines. The residen-tial fire crews reported that they were responding.

On the feed, Han was already moving. Coughing in the smoke, he carried a meter toward the phase-isolation bay. The senior technician killed the bypass while Han checked the readings and pointed out the mismatch.

They isolated the damaged section, corrected the alignment, and replaced the blown protection fuse. A second technician checked the meter before anyone closed the circuit.

The containment readings held.

Lucian stopped with his hand above the console.

At forty-two minutes, the streetlights came back on. The light-houses followed. Three towns’ heating systems began drawing power again.

His pencil snapped.

The casualty and damage report arrived.

[LAPIS INCIDENT SUMMARY]

Deaths: 0.

Minor electrical burns: 4.

Destroyed household transformers: 480. Estimated equipment losses: 12,000 gold.

Lucian leaned back and let out the breath he had been holding.

Then he read the twelve thousand gold again and broke the remaining piece of pencil.

There were now four broken pencils on his desk. This was becoming a separate budget item.

Sylvia reviewed the photographs of the labels.

“These are too similar. We’ll replace the ancient abbreviations with plain-language instructions. Clear words, different symbols, and color coding. Nobody should have to distinguish a dot while an alarm is screaming.”

She added the change to the incident record.

The room’s next alarm came from somewhere much closer.

A violet warning flashed over the Tower’s energy-core display.

[ENERGY KEYSTONE OVERLOAD]

Astra: 141% of agreed operating load.

Delayed backfeed from the southern circuit interruption. SAFETY THRESHOLD EXCEEDED.

Lucian vanished from the chair in a streak of silver light.