NOVEL WEB Chapter 1: 1. Ability to wait: check
In an endless cold universe the stars are not only bodies with heat. It's just that their heat has a tendency to escape, so it spreads all over the space, easily noticed.
But seemingly cold objects, called planets, such as the one called the Earth, inside their cold exterior hide a heart full of heat. This heat is called geothermal energy.
Lots of geothermal energy can be found in the "Ring of Fire," a horseshoe–shaped area around the Pacific Ocean, and thus there is also a lot of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Because hot magma is very close to the Earth's surface, it would be unreasonable to expect it to be peaceful.
People and animals of the Earth have used geothermal energy for thousands of years. Ancient Romans, Chinese, and Native American cultures used natural hot mineral springs for bathing, cooking, and drinking. Baboons, for example, are observed to do it as well. Except cooking.
People took it further, and later they learned how to capture that geothermal energy. They made geothermal power plants, which use heat from deep inside the Earth to generate steam to make electricity. And also, geothermal heat pumps, which tap into heat close to the Earth's surface to heat water or provide heat for buildings.
At this specific station, where we are currently standing, both of those technologies were used.
Geothermal heat pumps were installed throughout outside walls, they transferred heat by pumping water through pipes just below the Earth's surface, where the temperature is a constant 10 to 15°C.
In that way, outside walls were kept at the same temperature regardless of outside conditions. Be it summer or winter or anything in between, people inside would feel no difference.
For a geothermal power plant, placed in the basement of the station, wells were drilled about 2 km deep into the Earth to pump hot water to the surface. That water would turn to steam, turn the turbine and make electricity which would then be send out via wireless transmission from top of the station. After that, steam was used to heat inside of the station, then cooled and pumped back down, into Earth, for reheating.
It was meant to function for a long time, but not as long as it actually did. So a bit of a rust here, and a bit of a tremor there, and water started to leak from the system. Minor thing to fix, but by the time it happened, those who knew how it works were not here anymore to fix it.
And those that are here? Well to be fair, it's not their fault they had zero engineering knowledge, they were never given opportunity to get it.
So how are they going to handle this unfortunate circumstance? Let's wait and see.
***
Mani thought that today will be a good day. It should have been a good day. He woke up on time, had a breakfast, arrived to his basement office without a hitch, and even got that best first cup of coffee fresh out of the pot in the break room without having to chat.
Then he started daily assessment and data comparison. Which was what he was supposed to do as it was his job for past ten years. And he did it daily, except on weekends of course. And official holidays. And that one time he got down with a flu so Blaise did it instead. And it was always fine, every single time. Even if he was sleep deprived, hungry, or irritated by mindless chitchat he had to endure to get his coffee.
He sighed and scowled at his calculations. Then squinted. Numbers were still the same. Perhaps he should go back to break room for a dose of chitchat with Blaise? If he gets properly annoyed by whatever topic gets hurled at him, perhaps it could tip the scales and fix whatever happened to his numbers. Or not.
Despite everything else, Mani was very confident in the level of his precision while calculating. Equations used might seem hard or even impossible to untrained eye, but for him they were more than a job. He just loved to play with numbers, more complicated the problem, more fun for him.
He closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. There would be no point in delaying the inevitable. With determination, he resolutely pressed that One Big Red Button his predecessor said never to touch unless quote calculations show shitfuck is gonna happen end quote.
At that time he thought that using a word like shitfuck in a professional setting was a sure sign that old codger is ripe for retirement. Even feeling lucky that he managed to slither his way through all the hoops and land himself at the right place and a right time to get this easy, monotonous, safe, non exciting post at the bottom of the pyramid. And now...
He leaned back and slumped in his chair with a sigh. All he can do now is wait for those managers from above to come down and bring the key to open isolation chamber where measuring instruments were placed in strictly regulated environment. Perhaps its just some tear and wear in the wires. Perhaps it's due the world spinning wildly through the night. Perhaps its just normal consequence of time passing by.
He sighed again, which established his new record on sighs, and picked up his mug. At least he got his coffee. He can wait. All he can do, anyway, is to wait.