The Orion Plan

by Mark Alpert

  “But even if every hot dog vendor in New York was stealing electricity, it wouldn’t add up to thirty megawatts, right?”

  Torelli stood up straight and walked back to his truck. “No, this is nickel-and-dime stuff.” He reached into the truck bed, pulled out a tool chest and carried it to the traffic light. “So unless I find a bigger tap somewhere in the neighborhood, I’m gonna keep up the pressure on your friends in the Air Force. I like you, Sarah, but I know you’re not being straight with me.”

  He crouched again beside the base of the pole and opened his tool chest. Then he removed a pair of wire cutters and began to fix the tampered lines inside the pedestal.

  While Torelli did his repair work, Sarah turned west and gazed at Inwood Hill Park. A four-foot-high stone wall ran along the park’s edge, and beyond it the ground sloped sharply upward. Oaks and dogwoods crowded the hillside, their leaves drooping in the hot, humid air. It was a sweltering but peaceful morning in an utterly ordinary neighborhood, and for a moment Sarah wondered what the hell she was doing here. She should be helping General Hanson find Object 2016X instead of chasing down electricity-thieving hot dog vendors.

  But then something occurred to her, something that might connect 2016X to the power lines.

  Three months ago she’d gone to Vandenberg Air Force Base to view the launch of the InSight probe, an unmanned NASA spacecraft bound for Mars. Sarah had participated in the prelaunch planning meetings for the probe, which was going to investigate the Red Planet’s interior. One of its scientific instruments was nicknamed the Mole, a long steel rod designed to burrow into the ground and analyze the soil. Inside it was an electric motor that pushed and pulled the rod’s sharp tip, enabling it to punch through the Martian dirt. It was a relatively simple technology—the whole thing weighed less than five pounds—but it was powerful enough to tunnel almost twenty feet below the surface.

  Sarah closed her eyes and tried to picture it. If the InSight probe’s Mole could work on Mars, couldn’t a similar device do the same thing on Earth? Couldn’t it burrow into the soil of Inwood Hill Park? She imagined a long steel rod punching its way through the dirt, threading between the roots of the oaks and dogwoods. At the same time, she recalled what Torelli had said about the manholes, about the cracks in the walls of the concrete boxes.

  Opening her eyes, she reached into her back pocket. She pulled out her map, the one that showed the impact zone of Object 2016X, and focused on the eastern end of the ellipse. The intersection closest to that point was where Payson Avenue converged with Seaman Avenue. That junction was less than a hundred yards away.

  She waited as patiently as she could until Torelli finished his repairs and fastened the steel lid onto the pedestal of the traffic light. Then, as he picked up his tool chest, she rushed over to him.

  “I want to look inside one of the manholes,” she blurted. “Can you open it for me?”

  * * *

  Their deliberations went on for almost ten minutes. Torelli brought up safety concerns and Con Edison regulations. Sarah countered his arguments by swearing herself to secrecy and promising not to sue him. He laughed again, and the battle was half won. She sealed the deal by gripping his forearm and telling him how grateful she’d be. She saw no crime in using a little flirtation to get what she wanted.

  Torelli parked his truck beside the manhole cover and placed traffic cones around the area. He also forced Sarah to put on a hard hat and a fire-retardant jumpsuit. He used a crowbarlike tool to lift the steel cover from the manhole and set it aside on the asphalt. Then he reached into the bed of his truck and pulled out a yellow ladder. He unfolded it to its full length and slid it into the manhole, bracing it against the curved edge. Last, he reached into the truck bed again and removed a fireman’s ax with a long wooden handle.

  Sarah stepped backward when she saw the ax. It was intimidating, the kind of thing a psycho would carry in a slasher movie. “What do you need that for?”

  Torelli grinned. “Ever seen a sewer rat?”

  She had, unfortunately, seen plenty of rats. Before she moved from Texas to California she’d lived in a neighborhood that was plagued with them. “Yeah, they used to invade my backyard in Houston.”

  His grin grew wider. Torelli seemed to sense her disgust. “Well, that’s nothing compared with the rats we got here in New York. They’re bigger than dachshunds. And they’ll bite anything that moves.”

  She furrowed her brow and frowned. “So there are rats in the manholes?”

  “Oh, yeah. They get in through the holes in the concrete walls. Even the biggest rats can squeeze through a hole the size of a quarter.” He pointed the ax at the open manhole. The ax head was dull crimson and the cutting edge bright silver, new and sharp. “But this thing scares them off. Those animals are smart as hell. They know exactly what this is.” Approaching the manhole, he grasped the top of the ladder and set his feet on the rungs. “I’ll go down first. If everything looks safe, I’ll give you the okay.”

  She nodded. “Just watch your step. I don’t want you to fall and break your back again.”

  “Yeah, once was enough.”

  Moving slowly and carefully, Torelli descended into the manhole while Sarah watched from above. He didn’t have to go very far. When he was about ten feet down he stepped off the ladder, and Sarah heard splashing noises. Then he pulled a flashlight out of his jumpsuit and turned it on. The beam of light reflected off a pool of water at the bottom of the manhole.

  Torelli pointed the flashlight to the left and right, but all Sarah could see was the top of his hard hat. After a few seconds he looked up at her. “All right, everything’s good here. You can come down.”

  “What about all the water?”

  “It isn’t that much. Just a few inches. And you’re wearing your boots, right?”

  He steadied the ladder until she reached the bottom and stepped into the shallow muck. After a few seconds her eyes adjusted to the dark and she could see the manhole’s concrete walls around her. The space was rectangular and as big as a walk-in closet—about fifteen feet long and six feet wide and seven feet high. The air was warm and stuffy and fetid. The walls and ceiling were cracked and chipped, but it was impossible to see the full extent of the damage because of all the power lines. Dozens of cables lay on L-shaped plastic brackets jutting from the walls to the left and right. The cables extended across the length of the manhole, emerging from gaping holes at one end of the room and disappearing into similar holes at the other end.

  Sarah wanted to take a closer look at the power lines but was afraid to take a step. The floor felt slick and spongy under her boots. At any moment she expected one of New York City’s sewer rats to spring out of the muck and scrabble up her leg. To keep her balance, she reached into the darkness and grabbed Torelli’s arm. His face looked ghostly, mottled with shadows.

  “So where do you want to start?” he asked.

  “Where’s the primary line? The thirteen-thousand-volt cable, I mean?”

  He pointed his flashlight at the wall to their right. The beam illuminated a massive black cable, at least six inches thick, resting on the highest brackets, which were slightly below eye level. Whereas the other cables in the room sagged between their brackets, the primary line ran straight and rigid. Torelli swept the flashlight beam along the whole length of the cable, following it from one end of the manhole to the other. “That’s the feeder line. I need to check the map to see what it connects to. Here, can you hold this for a second?”

  He passed the handle of the fireman’s ax to Sarah. Then he pulled a map of the local power grid out of his jumpsuit and pointed his flashlight at it. “Yeah, I was right. This feeder goes west from the Inwood substation, then runs north through the conduit under Payson Avenue. It connects to several transformers near the park.” He put the map back in his pocket and aimed his flashlight at the thinner cables resting on the lower brackets. “The lines below the feeder are secondary cables. They carry the hundred-and-twenty-volt cur
rent from the transformers to the apartment buildings.” He looked over his shoulder at Sarah. “I don’t see anything wrong with the feeder line. You want me to inspect the secondary lines too?”

  Holding on to Torelli with one hand and the ax with the other, she stepped toward the 13,000-volt line. That was the obvious target. She thought of Physics 101 again and everything she knew about electromagnetism. The higher the voltage in the circuit, the greater the push behind the electric current. And that meant you could tap a lot more power from a high-voltage line than from a secondary cable. “I want to get a closer look at the primary line. Are there any cracks in the wall behind it?”

  Torelli shrugged. “Could be. Let’s take a look.”

  They approached the wall, their boots squishing with each step. Torelli pointed his flashlight at the concrete, giving it a thorough inspection. There were several cracks in the wall, but none ran close to the 13,000-volt cable. “If there was a tap on the feeder we’d see it right away, you know. There’d be a splice in the line and another cable branching off it.”

  “What about over there?” She let go of Torelli and pointed at the other end of the manhole, where the high-voltage line emerged from a hole in the wall.

  He aimed his flashlight at the hole. The concrete around it was chipped and crumbling. “That’s the mouth of the primary conduit, the tube that runs beneath Payson Avenue. There’s no splice there either.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe you can’t see it from this angle. Maybe it’s deeper inside the conduit.”

  Torelli let out a sigh, then headed for the other end of the manhole. Sarah followed him, her eyes fixed on the chipped concrete.

  Halfway there she heard a noise to her right, the sound of something skittering along the cables. She turned her head but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. “Shit! Did you hear that? Was that a rat?”

  “Whoa, calm down. Remember what I said? They’re afraid of the ax.”

  “Should I swing it at them?”

  “No, no, that would be bad. You might hit one of the cables and get us both electrocuted. Just keep the ax in your hands. As long as you’re holding it, the critters won’t come close.”

  He kept his flashlight aimed at the feeder line and the conduit. That was a wise move, Sarah supposed; if she actually saw one of the rodents she’d get even more freaked out. Tightening her grip on the ax’s handle, she followed Torelli to the far end of the manhole.

  He held his flashlight parallel to the feeder line so he could shine it into the conduit. Then, craning his neck, he peered inside the tube. “Well, I can’t see very far, only ten feet or so. But I don’t see any splices in there.” He lowered the flashlight and turned to Sarah. “You want to see for yourself?”

  Before she could respond she heard another skittering noise, coming from behind her this time. She spun around and saw two yellow points in the shadows, a pair of tiny eyes reflecting the flashlight’s beam. Worse, the eyes were less than three feet away and looking right at her. The rat had followed her across the manhole, scurrying on of top of the feeder line, and now it perched on one of the L-shaped brackets supporting the cable.

  Sarah went into a defensive crouch, bending her knees and raising the ax with both hands. And as she ducked below the feeder cable she saw something she’d missed before. An inch below the bracket, half-hidden by the jutting horizontal arm of the L, was a small, perfectly round hole in the concrete wall. Strung through that hole was a black cable that was much thinner and shinier than any other cable in the room. It was less than a centimeter in diameter and gleamed like polished metal.

  “Jesus!” she shouted. “There it is!”

  “Put down the ax! I told you, you can’t swing it at them.” He aimed his flashlight at the rat and yelled “Shoo!” The animal turned around and retreated atop the feeder line to the other end of the manhole. “You see? That’s the way to scare them off.”

  Torelli couldn’t see the tap. It was impossible to see it unless you ducked your head. The thin, gleaming cable extended upward from the hole in the concrete and ran through an equally perfect hole in the bracket’s horizontal arm. This second hole was directly below where the feeder line rested. The thin cable ran straight up into the thick one. They were connected.

  Sarah took her left hand off the ax and reached for the collar of Torelli’s jumpsuit. She pulled his head down so he could see the hole in the concrete and the gleaming cable. “That’s it,” she whispered. “There’s where your power’s being drained.”

  He said nothing at first. He just pointed his flashlight at the thing and stared. Sarah stared at it too, awestruck and terrified. This was what she’d come to New York to find. She had no idea what it was, but she knew it was definitely worth the price of the plane ticket.

  After a few seconds Torelli grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the tap. “This is dangerous. If that thing nicked the feeder’s insulation—”

  “It did more than nick the insulation. It punched right through it. Just like it punched through the concrete wall. It’s connected to the conducting wire at the center of the cable.”

  Torelli shook his head. “No, that’s ridiculous. The current would fry that little thing to a crisp.”

  “It’s not an ordinary conductor. Just look at it. Have you ever seen anything like it?”

  He went silent again. He let go of her arm but stayed bent over so he could scrutinize the tap. Although his flashlight was trained on the cables, Sarah could see him frowning. He was pissed. “So is this your big secret? Some new technology the Air Force is working on?”

  She shook her head. “No, I never—”

  “Why the hell did you bring it to New York? You’re screwing around with a power grid that millions of people depend on.”

  “I’m telling you, I’ve never seen a conductor like this before! And neither has anyone else! It’s totally new!”

  His frown deepened. Torelli didn’t believe her. He reached into the pocket of his jumpsuit again and pulled out his handheld voltage detector, the one he’d used on the tampered traffic light pole. First, he waved the wandlike device near the feeder line. Then he lowered the detector, bringing it close to the thin, gleaming cable.

  This made Sarah nervous, although she didn’t know exactly why. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to see if the current from the feeder is actually going through that little—”

  White light suddenly flashed across the manhole, accompanied by a tremendously loud pop. Torelli fell backward into the muck, his hands over his eyes. “Fuck!” he screamed. “The current’s arcing!”

  Because Sarah had been looking at Torelli, not the cables, the flash hadn’t blinded her. She smelled smoke and turned to see what was burning, and in that moment she realized what had caused the electricity to arc through the air. The thin cable was pulling away from the 13,000-volt line, breaking the connection. The tip of the gleaming black strand withdrew from the feeder line and the bracket underneath it. It slid down the wall, slowly but surely, as if someone on the other side of the concrete was tugging the cable through the perfectly round hole. Within a second or two it would disappear.

  Sarah couldn’t let that happen. She needed this evidence. Desperate, she lifted the ax and swung it at the retreating tip of the cable.

  It was a good strong swing, and her aim was true. The ax head swished below the horizontal arm of the bracket and slammed into the wall just above the round hole. The blade hit something hard, harder than concrete, and then bounced right off it. The handle of the ax vibrated in Sarah’s palms, and a moment later she saw the black strand again. It was undamaged, hardly a scratch on it. The tip of the cable withdrew into the hole and vanished from sight.

  Meanwhile, Torelli sat in the muck and rubbed his eyes. He blinked several times, slowly recovering his vision. “Jesus,” he muttered. “I hate manholes.” Still blinking, he looked up at Sarah. “Just give me a second, okay? Then we’ll get the hell out of here.”


  His flashlight had also fallen into the muck, but luckily it was waterproof. Sarah picked it up and shook it, flinging drops of filthy water across the room. Then she pointed its beam at the ax blade.

  She smiled. On the blade’s cutting edge was a small black smudge.

  TWELVE

  In his nightmare Joe ran down an endless hallway. It stretched as far as the eye could see, dark and deserted. There were wooden doors on both sides of the hall and they all looked the same: no signs on them, no numbers, not even any doorknobs. Joe ran past them, sick with guilt and grief. He was looking for his daughter.

  He couldn’t remember how he’d lost Annabelle. He’d forgotten her, neglected her, looked away for a moment when he should’ve been paying attention. Now she was trapped behind one of those countless doors, but he didn’t know which one. He screamed her name but heard no answer.

  Frantic, he chose a door at random and threw his shoulder against it. He barged into a brightly lit hospital room, one of the private rooms at St. Luke’s where he used to work. His daughter lay on the hospital bed, face up, eyes closed. She was motionless and very pale. He screamed “Annabelle!” again and rushed toward her. At the same time, she sat up in bed and opened her eyes.

  He bent over her, panting, relieved but still frightened. He quickly examined her to see where she was hurt. She had no visible wounds or other signs of trauma, but when he asked her what had happened she just looked at him blankly. She recognized him but didn’t seem to understand what he was saying. She opened her mouth and moved her lips but no words came out. It was as if she’d forgotten how to speak English.

  He pointed at her. “Annabelle. You’re Annabelle.” Then he pointed at himself. “And I’m your dad. Come on, I know you can say it. Say ‘Daddy.’”