Chapter 193: Freedom Has a Problem: Nobody Uses the Same Screws

The integration fault consumed the remaining construction weeks.

By the twentieth implementation day, Evelyn had covered Station 50’s main display with the six regional safety schemes. She pointed out four of the worst interactions.

“The capital isolates on overload. The south opens absorption valves and shares the load. The west sends it into reserve lines. The north starts local generation to hold the pressure.”

She tapped the screen with her lollipop stick.

“All reasonable in isolation. Connected like this, the west shoves power south, the south shoves it into the capital, the capital disconnects, and the backfeed blows up the northern generators. In the test. So far.”

Lucian rubbed his temples.

“I owe every international standards committee from my previous life an apology.”

He stood and reached for the marker.

“One Vance safety standard. Every region installs the same switching protocol.”

The regional delegations arrived before he could finish writing it. Thorbjorn dropped a coupling on the table.

“Eisenwald uses sixteen-tooth black-bronze joints.” A royal engineer raised a cable.

“The Solaris military has used twelve-tooth fittings for three hun-dred years.”

The elven representative wrinkled his nose.

“Exposed mechanical joints are an offense against natural magical aesthetics.”

Evelyn stared at the ceiling.

“We’re going to lose a continent over charging cables.” “Earth prepared me for this,” Lucian muttered.

He lifted his hand to bring it down on the table. “Everybody uses one—”

Sylvia slid a note beneath it.

“You’re rebuilding the same dependency one level down.” His hand stopped.

Thirty engineers watched him. Each would have to operate whatever he imposed after he left the room.

He set the marker down.

“Keep your internal designs. Standardize the handshake and emergency isolation at the boundaries. Inside your own network, use twelve teeth, sixteen teeth, or enchanted vines.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Eleanor rose and took the chair at the head of the table.

“Then we’ll negotiate the Solaris Open Grid Standard.” She sounded perfectly prepared to stay there until they had. “We agree on how networks connect, what data they exchange, and when they isolate. The rest remains local.”

She began passing out the draft.

The argument did not stop. It acquired an agenda.

[INTERFACE MODEL COMPARISON]

Mandatory identical internal architecture: High central dependence. Poor local adaptability.

Open interfaces with shared isolation rules: Local adaptation retained. Fault boundaries explicitly defined.

[CURRENT OPPONENT]

Incompatible technical standards.

Recommended weapon: Two hundred pages of specifications.

At the back of the room, Regulus began inching toward the door with his sword.

“Dad.” He froze.

“I can fight dragons, son. Listening to people argue about screws is harder.”

Lucian pointed to the stool. Regulus sat down.

Thorbjorn brought out a heavy cutaway model of a drop breaker. Its full-size lead weight weighed half a ton.

No magical command was needed to release the mechanical catch. If the interregional connection lost synchronization, the weight dropped and opened the physical circuit. A manual trip remained available if the sensing mechanism failed.

“Wastes some reserve energy,” Thorbjorn said. Lucian studied it.

“And a software crash can’t order it to keep the contacts closed.” He turned to Evelyn.

“Mass production.”

“Five thousand already cast,” Thorbjorn said cheerfully. “Forty silver for the standard unit. Sold as the Lucian Safety Breaker. Going like hotcakes.”

“I didn’t invent it.”

“You funded the foundry.”

Lucian considered that. “What’s my cut?” Evelyn covered her eyes. “There he is.”

The revised simulation incorporated the boundary protocols, me-chanical isolation, and the completed regional designs.

[OPEN GRID STRESS-TEST RESULTS]

Catastrophic failure rate in matched scenarios: 0.21%. Permanent living load-bearing operators required: 0.

[INSPECTOR’S CERTIFICATION]

Minimum technical threshold for independent operation met.

Zero point two one.

Still worse than the old model’s 0.04. Low enough to pass the established licensing standard.

Vane studied the result.

“More than five times the old model’s failure rate.” “I know.”

“You’ll lose stations the old system could preserve.” “I know.”

“Then why do you look relieved?”

Lucian looked at the five function slots. The names had been replaced by regional networks, archive institutions, and mainte-nance organizations.

“Because when something breaks, we’ll repair a machine.” He turned back to the inspector.

“We won’t have to repair a person.”

Vane took out his blue stamp and pressed it onto the provisional acceptance certificate.

“You have twenty-four hours.” “For what?”

“Final handover and decommissioning.” The inspector closed the file. “Once the old load-bearing connections are physically severed, there will be no return to the legacy fallback.”