Chapter 4 - Breaking the Locks
I slammed the truck to a halt right across the entrance of the secondary control bunker, leaving the headlights blazing against the reinforced steel door.
I threw open the door, leaped out into the freezing deluge, and fought my way through the wind to the heavy metal portal. Rain lashed across my face like tiny whips, soaking my jacket and freezing my fingers as I fumbled with the heavy brass keys.
The first key didn't fit.
The second key jammed in the rusted tumbler.
"Come on... come on!" I muttered, my heart hammering against my ribs as a massive crack of thunder shook the gorge, illuminating the churning, frothing surface of the swollen reservoir sixty yards away.
I pulled the key out, blew the water from the lock, and slid the third brass key into the cylinder.
Click.
The heavy deadbolt turned. I threw my shoulder against the steel door, and it swung inward with a heavy, metallic groan.
I stepped inside into the dim, amber-lit emergency interior of the bunker. The room smelled of ozone, warm hydraulic fluid, and damp concrete. Along the back wall stood the master manual control console—a massive, industrial-grade steel panel featuring three heavy lever arms designated for Spillway Gates One, Two, and Three.
Above the console, the digital telemetry screens blinked frantically in amber and red:
RESERVOIR CAPACITY: 104% (CRITICAL OVERFLOW).
NORTH RETAINING WALL PRESSURE: 82 PSI (STRUCTURAL COMPROMISE DETECTED).
VALVE STATUS: LOCKED (MANUAL OVERRIDE ENGAGED BY REMOTE ADMINISTRATIVE RELAY).
They had locked the valves from the main office. If I tried to pull the levers without releasing the remote digital lockout, the internal hydraulic pins would sheer off, permanently sealing the gates shut forever.
"Damnit!" I slammed my fist against the steel console.
I didn't have time to re-wire the digital terminal. The water pressure was building exponentially behind the concrete dam face. I could hear it—a deep, terrifying, groaning vibration that rattled the dust from the concrete ceiling of the bunker.
I dropped to my knees, wrenched open the metal maintenance panel beneath the control console, and exposed the tangled nest of colored wires, electrical relays, and manual pneumatic bypass valves.
In my first life, I had spent two years designing this exact fail-safe mechanism before Arthur Vance stripped my name from the patent filings. I knew every wire, every fuse, and every emergency release valve in this box better than I knew my own mother's face.
I grabbed a pair of insulated wire-cutters from my tool pouch, gripped the heavy blue master telemetry cable that carried the corrupt digital lockout signal from the administration building, and squeezed.
SNAP.
A shower of blue electrical sparks showered over my knuckles.
The digital warning screens blinked off for a fraction of a second, then rebooted, flashing a bright, pulsing green text:
REMOTE LOCKOUT TERMINATED.
MANUAL HYDRAULIC OVERRIDE ENGAGED.
I scrambled back to my feet, grabbed the heavy iron lever for Spillway Gate One with both hands, and threw my entire body weight into pulling it downward.
The metal groaned in protest. The hydraulic pistons hissed, releasing a deafening plume of high-pressure steam as the massive steel gate slowly, agonizingly began to slide upward into the concrete housing.
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Outside, a tremendous, roaring WHOOSH shook the ground beneath the bunker as millions of gallons of black water surged through the opening, dropping the reservoir level just enough to pull the straining dam back from total, catastrophic collapse.
"Gate one is open," I gasped, wiping sweat and rain from my eyes. "Two and three... let's go!"
