Chapter 20

Naabeehó Bináhásdzo – The Navajo Reservation

Astrid Little Feather

January 12 (the morning of January 13 in China)

Astrid checked the reports again. According to Major Robert Waldspeil, the southern power substation was finished and could be activated after testing. The northern substation would be finished by the 15^th. That was fully two weeks ahead of the original schedule. Ms Lenti would be very pleased. The Nevada National Guard was a big help in getting them built, even though the southern substation was mostly in Arizona.

Though, to be honest, she couldn't see what possible need the NPS (Navajo Power System) had for an interface with the Hoover Dam. Or, for that matter, substations with connections to Colorado Electric or NV Energy. But it was a nice series of projects to have under one's belt. The Colorado and Nevada substations would go live in another week, about the 20^th of January.

She sent a memo to Ms Lenti and asked if she had any other special projects she wanted the workforce for.

In her reply, Ms Lenti casually mentioned that her workforce might want to do a little disaster prep. Terrorists or earthquakes or something.

Astrid sat up straight in her chair; she had had quite a few electronic conversations with Ms Lenti. She never 'hinted' about something, and her predictions and suggestions had an uncanny way of working out. Nothing could be done about earthquakes. Terrorists!? She looked at the regional map again. She saw that she had just created an alternate route to direct power to Phoenix, Denver and Las Vegas. And if Las Vegas had power, Southern California could have it too. The main draw in that scenario would come through the northern substation.

She wrote back to Ms Lenti demanding to know if there were any terrorist threats to the Hoover Dam. She told her that she could have redundant, heavier circuit breakers installed in hardened buildings within a month. At some delay in the circuit breaker project, she could activate some extra power relays to take on additional load within a week; the equipment was already there and in place – it was just a question of making the connections, or she could have hardened security posts constructed. The answer from Ms Lenti:

To: A.Little Feather

From: Lenti

Re: Disaster planning

I have no hard information that anything untoward will be directed at the Hoover Dam site. There is a lot of chatter that there will be an attack or attacks on hydroelectric facilities in the US or Canada. As you know there are many of them. The thinking is that the attack(s) will take place within two weeks. Delay the hardened redundant circuit breakers; concentrate on building any extra capacity you can, if you have the construction capability, do the security installations. Ignore anything not planned to be complete by 28 Jan. Sorry I could not give you greater lead time.

Lenti

Shitfuck! Two weeks! This doesn't sound like doing it for practice, thought the manager of NPS – the smallest and newest of the electric power utilities in the Southwest. Terrorists! What can I do, now?

She could contact someone higher up the grid's food chain. Nah, they certainly would have the information that Ms Lenti had. She could activate the partially installed extra relays. Maybe she could manage to string a pair of extra high tension, high voltage lines over existing electric stanchions. With the proper equipment at the various substations along the way, she could have two lines of four circuit, dual bundled lines. The problem would be to get the heavy ACSR (Aluminum Conductor Steel Reinforced) cables.

Let's see what we can finagle, she mumbled to herself. She didn't have much in the way of extra ASCR cables herself. She thought for a moment. If it's an attack on Hoover, the goal will be to cut off Southern California, Las Vegas and Phoenix. Nothing to be done if they attack the dam itself. It would take a shitload of explosives to damage the dam. But somebody could damage the electrical generators easily. On the other hand, if I'm the only substations still online, the load demand will come through the northern substations. What if...

She came out of her trance long enough to send emergency requests to NV Energy, the folks in Colorado, and AZGT (the Arizona Electric Power Co-op), where she had good friends.

Then she started re-ordering her work crews. She rented extra linemen from NV Energy and AZGT; they could start from the other end. Then she had another thought and emailed a message to Major Waldspeil, the officer in charge of the Nevada Guard units on this project.

Midnight

January 12 (the morning of January 13 in China)

Xavier Delamore, a.k.a. Midnight, put down the mini-soldering gun, and pushed up the magnifying headpiece from his eyes. It was a strange looking thing. About the size of your palm; it was smaller than that with its wings retracted; and even smaller still with its solar collectors folded away. In its rest mode – that's what Midnight called it – it was about the size and shape of a cigarette – except for its thickness. It had a short, sharp needle for a 'nose', with a micro-camera mounted above and behind it. The bulk of its body was the cylinder that fed the needle.

He named it Ali – because it could 'float like a butterfly and sting like a bee'. He jostled the controls on the black box that had two joysticks and six on off toggles. It took off and hovered. He made Ali do several fancy maneuvers in the air and then it landed.

Midnight activated the ITE that Io had provided. It was, in fact, a duplicate of the ITE that Zeus had been using before she'd upgraded his for overseas / satellite use.

"Io," he said, "Ali is ready for you." He didn't bother with a greeting or waiting to see if she was online listening. Io was always present and always ready to listen.

He knew what he'd do, if he were Io. So, he pushed the black box away from his workstation and took his hands off the controls. She'd had the specs for Ali's controls and there was a pause of several seconds before she had Ali take off.

Midnight grinned to himself. She was double checking her programming before the first flight. That was good, he thought. It had taken him nearly a month of working on the tiny thing, a month of eighteen hour days. He knew what it was for: he was going to kill somebody. Or rather Ali was. He'd been working in very tight latex gloves for longer than he wanted to admit. No sense having any fingerprints on it if it was going to be used for a murder.

But he had no qualms about it. If Io was going to all this trouble to kill one person, Midnight was sure that he or she deserved it.