The Tempest

by A. J. Scudiere

  Dr. Murasawa stood silent at the front of the room . Then she turned to Radnor and shrugged, her demeanor changing instantly from teacher-mode to more conversational. She must be going off script. For a moment, she looked out over the crowd and Cage thought she might have caught his eye. Then she started into a story. “But point number two is something I overheard. A week ago, I was having dinner at Los Jalapenos.”

  The crowd laughed. It was one of two wonderfully authentic Mexican restaurants, and the solar site sat directly between them. Everyone had eaten there. Cage could imagine the scene as she continued.

  “I overheard the local news station meteorologist at the table behind me.” They’d all seen the over-tanned and over-coifed Jason Wilcox on the news. “He said he was concerned about the upcoming rainy season and whoever was with him—his wife, I don't know—said ‘but we have one every year.’ He said he was concerned about flash flooding this year and listed several key times during the fall season that he thought these things might occur. He told her that she should mark his predictions down…”

  Dr. Murasawa looked around the room. “I don’t know if she marked it down, but you can bet I did.”

  This time the tent erupted in small laughter, and Cage realized he wasn’t the only one who felt he knew Dr. Chithra Murasawa. They all did.

  “It was no big deal, I thought, but it did make me go home and pull the data and re-crunch the numbers. As Radnor said, we crunched everything before we chose this location to build, but that was two years ago.”

  This time, the entire tent fell silent, and Cage felt something ominous bloom in his chest. If there was anything he didn’t like talking about, it was floods.

  “This last year’s data does change things, and not in a good way.”

  12

  “Not high enough,” Joule called out to her team members, her tape measure in hand.

  She raised the end well overhead until it bumped the bottom side of the top lip of the pylon they’d just installed. It had been exactly eight days since Radnor and Murasawa had made the big announcement that everything was changing yet again.

  Joule had told Cage the night before, “We were hired for a year, but I’m beginning to think we'll be here longer.”

  The year had been estimated as enough time to install the array, get it working, and for the Helio Systems team to monitor it before handing it over to a more permanent crew. Now, it seemed they might never make it to the part where they monitored a working solar array.

  She simply didn’t know if all the setbacks were normal or not. She looked up at the top of the pylon and shook her head at Mitch, as the wind whipped her hair around and the back of her neck prickled.

  Turning, she scanned the open space behind her. The trees seemed to creep closer at the edge of the field as the sky slowly grew darker. It should have been bright and sunny, but Joule knew the storm was rolling in—not just because she could see the light fading, but because she felt it in her bones.

  Though she couldn’t pinpoint anything specifically suspicious, the wind offered the sensation of fingers walking along her spine, as well as the feeling of being watched. Joule narrowed her eyes and swept her gaze through the forest with a glare, as if to say, I see you.

  Honestly, she suspected it was Jerry out there, searching for something to turn the protesters against them again. Though Sarah had had many kind things to say about “old Jerry,” “new Jerry” wasn't proving to be the kind of person Joule would want to hang with.

  Luckily, the protesters had left after Dr. Murasawa had, in one fell swoop, both threatened them with arrest and informed them that Jerry was holding out on them. They hadn’t returned.

  Tomorrow was Saturday, and though technically they were all supposed to have the day off, the town hall was scheduled for two p.m. Everyone was invited to come and ask their questions. Most of the tiny town and some people from the surrounding, bigger townships were expected to show as well.

  Though neither Joule nor Cage—nor anyone that she knew closely, really—was scheduled to be on the panel that would answer questions, the project workers were all intending to go. She wanted to hear the answers for herself.

  “But how much height does the solar array add?” Mitch was asking, bringing her thoughts firmly back to the matter at hand. She lowered her tape measure and noted the height.

  “And what about the hydraulics?” Dev asked.

  Radnor had cycled them back around to being in the same group this week. It was an odd arrangement, but what did Joule know? For a moment, she wondered if that's why she and her brother had been hired—because they would go along easily with anything asked of them, not knowing any better.

  “If we have hydraulics at the top,” Dev said, “we actually have to go higher. We don't want to risk water getting into the system.”

  “Dirty water,” Joule added without thinking. They all looked at her. Shit.

  She shouldn't have opened her mouth. This was not her favorite topic, but five pairs of eyes were on her. “Floodwater. It's dirty. Look around.”

  She waved her hand toward the ground. “All the leaves will be in the water. Twigs and more—”

  “Which will be far worse in the fall,” Mitch interrupted, and she nodded along, glad to turn the conversation over to him. She didn’t want anyone asking how she knew so much about devastating floods.

  “How exactly does the water get here?” She was trying to push the topic of flooding onto the others. So she looked around but couldn’t tell whether she was standing in the bottom of the bowl or at the top of the mesa. None of that was visibly available information.

  “Probably directly.” Mitch looked up then to each side as they all tried to ascertain what might direct water to this particular spot. It was Leslie who pulled out her tablet and began tapping until she had a topo map of the area where they stood.

  Holding it out toward the rest of them, she pointed. “Here, here, and here.”

  She was noting the higher peaks near them. “They might drain this way.”

  “Drainage is bad,” Joule said as she realized she was too dumb to keep her mouth shut. “Drainage picks up everything it runs over—mud, dirt, sometimes gravel. Anyway, it's not clean water. It's usually too dirty to even see through if you put your foot in it.”

  “So, anything we do, we need to calculate well above the floodwaters.” Mitch nodded along as he spoke.

  “How far above?” Leslie asked the group at large.

  “It's a good question.” Mitch took the lead. “How long is the array supposed to stay in place and function?”

  Joule didn't know the answer to that. In fact, she would have thought Mitch did.

  “We have to calculate for the growing likelihood of problem,” Mitch continued. “Flooding now is worse than it was a decade ago, which was worse than it was twenty years ago. If our array is to stay on for ten years, then we have to calculate for how bad a decade from now could be. If the array is supposed to continue working for twenty or thirty years, the floodlines could be much higher.”

  “But the flooding could also be something we get under control,” Leslie countered. “In which case, we would have over-calculated.”

  “True. So what's the error if we over-calculate?”

  They all looked to each other, and Joule would have felt put on the spot, but she was growing used to it. Mitch, she’d learned, enjoyed spitball answers—even the stupid ones—so she blurted out, “Extra supplies.”

  “More money invested than needed,” Deveron said at the same time.

  “Whatever environmental damage the extra height causes,” Lindsey added, and Dev ran with that.

  “We would have to sink the pylons lower to counterbalance the height. And it might require different materials to make them stronger, taller.”

  “So it's not negligible.” Mitch nodded, once again looking up toward the top of their test system. “But if we under-calculate….” He left it hanging.

  “We lose the
whole array,” Lindsay filled in, saying what they were all thinking.

  Once again, the winds picked up.

  “I don't know how much longer we can stay out today.” Mitch looked away from the pylon and off toward the edge of the sky. “Storm’s coming in.”

  13

  “Oh, that was painful.” Cage watched as Sarah moved to shove her hands into pockets that weren't there. Maybe she thought she was wearing overalls again.

  “That hurt me in my cold little heart,” Joule replied, tossing and catching her keys almost casually as the wind whipped her curls to Medusa-like life.

  The four of them were some of the last to leave the squat, tan building that housed the local Lions Club and today, the big meeting. The parking lot was almost empty, the day as gray as dusk. Not a good feeling for four in the afternoon.

  A storm had been threatening for almost twenty-four hours now, the winds and gray skies lingering since early yesterday. Radnor said it was a good test of the equipment. Though on the drive home last night, Dev had commented, “The only real test is an F6 tornado—”

  “Bite your tongue!” Sarah interrupted with the quick reprimand, though Cage was already countering that they only needed an F3 or F4.

  “That’s right,” Sarah pointed out. “That’s about the worst that comes through this section of Alabama. And again, that’s why we built the array here.”

  But though he’d been ready to quip about running a tornado test yesterday, now—with the weather growing stranger by the second—Cage was wishing they hadn’t even mentioned it.

  The parking lot was almost empty. The only other cars left were those owned by the Helio Systems Tech employees who still lingered inside to clean up after the verbal carnage. A few other clusters of his coworkers were trailing out behind them or already pulling out of the lot.

  “Hey,” he commented with concern. “We should check the car. That didn’t go well in there, and I’m wondering if someone might have keyed it.”

  “How would they know which one we were in?”

  “All they need to do is recognize the cars we drive in every day. They came often enough to know…” Sarah approached Cage and Joule’s car and, instead of reaching for the door handle, she wandered around the back. She motioned the others to circle around.

  “What?” Sarah asked when Deveron leaned down as if to look under the car.

  “Check everything. Key marks, dented bumper, slashed tires.” But he quickly backpedaled. “I don't see them! I'm just checking everything.”

  “Will we even know if they dented the bumper?” Sarah asked.

  “Rude!” came almost immediately from Joule.

  But Sarah’s question wasn’t out of line. Their car was older and a bit dinged up, but it had been with them through college. They'd bought it after the last one had been damaged by the flood. The longer it stayed with them, the more Cage felt a kinship for it—as if the machine itself were a living creature, ferrying them back and forth to work. As though he'd failed by letting the last one get flooded and totaled.

  When the car checked out, they climbed in, closing the doors against the wind as Cage breathed a little easier. Nothing in the town hall had gone smoothly. He’d expected a meeting of the minds, that the Helio people would see how they’d misframed their message or failed to get the necessary information to the public. He’d believed the public would hear that the crew wasn’t poisoning the well water or ruining their deer-hunting season. He’d expected to feel better now.

  He didn’t.

  Joule started the engine as Sarah turned to face the middle of the car and said, “I was considering getting a cat.” The words hung for just a moment before she added, “Is anyone opposed?”

  The other three looked to each other, Joule shrugging while keeping her eyes in front of her as she pulled the car out of the spot and headed toward the lot exit.

  Sarah spoke again, maybe trying to clear up a very lackluster response. Had she expected them to be excited? “I guess maybe more importantly: is anyone allergic?”

  Both of the twins shook their heads. Cage, in the backseat with Dev, waited for his roommate, who also shook his head but still managed a protest. “I'm not cleaning the litter box, though. And I don't want to smell it.”

  “Agreed,” came from Joule as she wheeled out over the curb and onto the main road. Behind them, the last three cars were starting up and pulling out, leaving the lot and his hopes empty.

  At least a conversation about a cat would help him shake off some of the irritation from the meeting. Though there had been people who asked questions about things like water pollution, Radnor had clearly told them no.

  “There's no water pollution from the array. No more than when you paint your house and less than when you wash your car in the driveway.” He’d answered the question of whether they would have to look at “the eyesore of that ugly solar field,” with “You’re more than welcome to grow bushes or trees at the edge of your property, so you don't have to see it.”

  That hadn’t been very tactful, but he’d followed that right up with, “You will also, regardless of that, get a much lower power bill.” Radnor hadn't been the best person to put in charge, Cage realized. He’d answered many of the questions, but not with the soft touch that might have gone over better.

  Though a good number of the locals seemed to understand and take the information for what it was, in the end, Jerry—no surprise there—had led a charge accusing Helio systems tech of stealing jobs.

  It was Dr. Chithra Murasawa who'd stood up and looked around the room, the frown on her face asking if all of those attending were stupid. But the words that followed made Cage understand. “You are aware that there's an application system?”

  Some had nodded their heads, but others hadn’t. Murasawa filled everyone in, even Cage and Joule. “If anyone loses a job because of us, we will hire you, and we will provide all the training for that job.”

  “But how will it pay?” One of the angry workers had shot off the words as an accusation.

  Murasawa handled it as though he’d asked in a kind and inquisitive tone. “We've done salary comparisons. We pay for training and at each level, and we pay better than the local power plant is paying.”

  She’d been ready to sit down, her information dispensed, everyone educated.

  But Jerry protested. “I work at the power plant. It’s what I do. This is my job, and it's what I'm trained for. I shouldn't have to get trained for anything else.”

  All the Helio Systems workers could see Dr. Murasawa’s tight smile as she fought to keep from barking out a laugh. “No one is guaranteed a job forever. Not me. Not any of us at this table. But we're offering you a job with less physical impact to your body and a better outcome for your neighbors.”

  It was a good, if subtle hit, but Jerry missed it or didn’t care. He barked out a laugh, as though his power plant job was perfectly safe.

  “And at a higher salary,” Dr. Murasawa had repeated, pushing the words through her teeth. Radnor had tugged on her sleeve, suddenly the voice of tact.

  “Well, I don't want to work for you,” Jerry shot back as though it was an insult.

  Cage thought working with Jerry would be a punishment in itself, and he wanted to stand up and say, “Good!” But Dr. Murasawa managed to keep her calm. “Okay. However, the offer still stands.”

  She’d looked out at the rest of the crowd, made up of some of their own workers and many locals who were apparently afraid of disrupting a life built on less than steady systems. They weren’t anxious to change anything that wasn’t actively hurting them. “We are offering jobs for anyone who loses a power systems job because of our arrival. We will need ongoing support for the array, and we want to put local people into those jobs. We’ll train.”

  Cage thought it was a more than equitable solution, but the meeting had devolved into yelling and complaints. No one was happy. The mayor had to stand up and tell everyone to be quiet and orderly. And even after s
he did that, the questions still sounded more like accusations. He wanted to believe it could have gone better, but he hadn’t been prepared for the entrenched anger that the company faced.

  Now he looked out the window as Joule came up to the turn that would take them home. As they pulled up to the blinking red light, he saw the intersection looked the same as so many others—a Dollar General store sat on one side of the road. Opposite that, a Marathon gas station and a Jack’s fast food straddled the pavement.

  Joule didn’t move when it was her turn, but as the last ones at the intersection, she wasn’t holding anyone up. She turned her head toward the back seat. “Drive thru for milkshakes?”

  “Oh God, yes!” Next to him, Dev looked as though the day’s first decent offer had finally come through.

  Putting the car in motion again, Joule went straight instead of taking the right- hand turn that would have taken them home. The wind buffeted the small car as she pulled into the long line, which was probably populated by others leaving the meeting.

  While they waited, the wind kicked up higher. This time, when she returned to the intersection, she was facing the other direction. Taking a left, she headed for home.

  But when Joule jerked her hand on the steering wheel, the whole car jolted with her.

  And all four of them felt and heard something smack the side.

  14

  “Drive!”

  Sarah’s harsh command from the backseat shot through Joule like a jolt of electricity. Even though she didn’t quite know what was happening, her hands clenched the steering wheel and she pushed back into the bucket seat.

  Her jaw clenched and her vision narrowed.

  She was approaching a stop sign.

  “Drive!” Sarah yelled again from the back seat. “Run the sign.”

  Joule’s eyes frantically scoured the roads, but from the left, the pavement turned sharply, the trees obscuring her view of oncoming traffic. She slowed so as not to get slammed by a surprise truck barreling around the corner.