Down Deep

Chapter Seventeen

Frustration was no stranger to her. She had been frustrated as she was stuck for two years recovering from being crippled. She had been frustrated when she could not keep up with the other kids. Never, had she reached this level of frustration however.

They were back at the camp, and Zdana had been digging through Citynet trying to find anything on operating or starting a reactor. A growl escaped her as she hit another dead end.

'Stop girl.' Grady advised. 'Come eat. Your head be so wrapped around it, you not going to see the answer till you be step'n away.'

'He is right.' Grant agreed as he took the terminal from her and replaced it with a bowl of brown substance. 'Sorry, we are hitting the rations tonight.' She shrugged and ate it not tasting the goo. 'No one in the Fens that was sent down worked on the reactor Uptop?'

'No.' She sighed. 'There was one that had been caught stealing from the power plant, but he was made to take the long walk.'

'Kind of harsh.' Grady said surprised.

'Aye, I looked and it is policy anyone convicted of a crime that is connected with the power plant and reactor are to take the long walk. One of the councilmen decided it would not be safe to have secrets about their power down in the Fens.' She sighed again thinking of the reactor.

According to the files on the terminal, without power being restored, they would not be able to open any of the doors of the buildings. They were all in lock down mode. She and Grant had given it a try, but even the door on the smallest building would not open. The only alternative would be to try to dig through a wall, but who knew what kind of defenses would be activated.

'We sleep tonight.' Grant said. 'In the morning, we will try to figure it out.' She knew he was right, however it did not mean it would be easy. She finished her food and shut down the terminal. As the two men settled into sleep, she could not seem to close her eyes.

She knew the very basic principle of how a reactor worked. According to the terminal, a Dr. Horten had been in charge of the shutdown. An idea came to her and she glanced to see both men sound asleep. Turning the terminal on, she searched for Horten. He had died at the age of ninety three and had been the head of the Capital Power Station. His son was an advance classes professor in power generation. She found his information, then with some digging, she unearthed his personal files. This included his entire course laid out for those who could not come to the Capital and had to learn through Citynet. It included videos of his lectures and even his own personal notes on a new type of reactor to replace the old ones.

'What the hell Zdana?' She jumped and looked up to see Grant watching her with blood shot eyes. 'Have you been at that all night?' He got up and went to her looking at what she had been reading. 'What is that? Another language?'

'No, it is a class on how to build and work a core reactor.' She chuckled yawning. 'I did not realize I had been at it all night.'

'How did you find this?' He asked amazed. 'I would not think the council would allow something like this to be left for anyone to see.'

'They do not know about it.' She said getting up and going to the stream. Once she washed her face and had her fill of water, she told him how she had found it. 'Apparently, once something is on Citynet, it stays there forever unless it is deleted from the server. I can access the advanced classes for the last two hundred plus years.' She motioned to the terminal. 'With this, we can start to educate our children.' Grant grinned shaking his head.

'Get some sleep.' He advised. 'This will still be here when you wake up. I am going to head back to town and set up the mayor's second terminal to teach everyone how to read.' She nodded.