EPISODE 9 It’s 3:30 am and I’m at work, having been woken up by numerous outage
notifications. The Boss – as useful as Jason Statham’s
method acting coach – is also on site, presumably to offer moral
support.
The Building Manager – who’s so old that his CV likely includes the construction of a
vessel for the shipping of pairs of animals – is nowhere to be seen.
The PFY is also
absent. His excuse will likely be that he “accidentally” put his
phone into silent mode. Had any of the alerts been from his rack of
Bitcoin mining machines, however, he’d have been in the office in a
flash.
Security appears to
be hard at work protecting the couches in the foyer of the building
from being stolen.
The rest of the
building is in darkness – save for the shining beacon that is Mission
Control.
“What’s
happened?” the Boss asks.
“Power outage,”
I reply.
“Do we get
someone in for that?”
“Only if we
want to wait till 9am to call our electrical contractors, who’ll
agree to turn up between 9 and 5 sometime in the next two weeks.”
“So what do we
do?”
“We go to the
basement!” I reply, “but first we need THE KEYS”.
“The keys?”
“No. THE
KEYS.”
“What are THE
KEYS?” he asks.
“THE KEYS
are what ex-local government buildings like this have for access to
places you’re not supposed to go. They’re for the rooms you
‘accidentally’ show people if you think they’re planning a hostile
takeover of the company. You open the door and say something like
‘I’m pretty sure that’s not asbestos’ or ‘Why would we have
needed all those leaky drums of 2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic acid ?'”
“Are the rooms
dangerous?”
“Not if you
keep the doors closed.”
“So what are
you going to do?”
“I’ll open a
couple of the doors.”
…Five minutes
later in the basement…
“Oooh, there’s a
clue,” I say to the Boss, pointing. “A Bakelite – or, to be
specific, phenolic – label. Circa 1970s. There’s bound to be
something horrible behind that door.”
>creak<
…
>slam<
“Moving on,”
I say.
“What was
behind the door?”
“Something
horrible. We’re not talking ‘three-hour Richard Stallman monologue’
horrible, but it was pretty bad. Anyway, let’s try door number two.”
>creeeeeeak<
“Ah, now this
is promising. Cables from the ceiling. Unless they’re snakes.”
“SNAKES!”
the Boss gasps.
“Nah, just
cables. And, look, ALL METAL service breakers – and not a speck of
safety-oriented insulation to be seen!”
“What does that
mean?”
“It means life
was cheap back in the ’70s. Now, see those four massive breakers, all
pointing to the Bakelite ON position, and one ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE
breaker over there, in the OFF position?”
“Yes. Do we
just turn it on?” the Boss asks.
“Only if you
want to save your loved ones the cremation fees.”
“?”
“The smaller
breakers are three-phase 1,000-amp units, but that big one’s a 5,000-amp
unit. Designed for the days when offices were crammed with people
and bar heaters.”
“So what do we
do?” the Boss asks.
“We get a
broom. A wooden broom. A DRY wooden broom. Then we turn OFF all
the massive breakers, then turn ON the REALLY massive breaker.”
…Two minutes
later…
“Is this safe?”
the Boss asks nervously.
“Not even
slightly,” I say, brandishing the broom.
>CLACK!<
>CLACK!<
>CLACK!<
>CLACK!<
“That wasn’t so
bad,” the Boss sighs.
“We’re not to
the good part yet. But maybe you want to move away a little bit.”
“How far?”
“The third
floor would be wise, but the doorway will do.”
….
>CLUNK!<
…
“So we’re… OK then?” the Boss asks.
“In the words
of Karen Carpenter, we’ve only just begun. Now we have to turn all
of those smaller breakers on again, one of which will likely trip the
massive breaker.”
“Is that a
problem?”
“The really massive breaker’s over 50 years old, covered in rust, and has probably only ever tripped from a fault once. The miracle here is that it did
so without exploding.”
“So?”
“So, sometimes
you’ve just got to spin the potato,” I say, raising the broom
again.
>CLACK!<
…
>CLACK!<
…
>CLACK!<
…
…
>CLACK!<
“It worked!”
the Boss gasps happily, as light returns to the building.
“Yeeeessss,”
I say, leading the Boss out of the room and shutting the door as
quickly as I can.
“You… don’t
seem happy?”
“No. There’s
a fair chance that whatever tripped the big breaker will trip it
again the next time whatever it is star-“
>FZZZZZ< >CLUNK<
“Oh,” the
Boss says, disappointed. “Do we switch it back on again?”
“Did you hear
that buzzing sound before the lights went out?”
“Uhhh, yes. What does that mean?”
“It means we
need to (a) go upstairs, (b) turn off the power to a rack of very
noisy machines, and (c) switch our phones to silent and pretend we’ve
never been here…”