Durand Coal Thermal Plant #26

[snurri]

Durand Coal Thermal Plant #26
Originally uploaded by Snurri

"Almost from the beginning, the single power plant standing within the city limits has been struggled over. While a fear-fueled mob marched on the home of Tammy Todd, a battle was being fought within the chambers and halls of the Durand Coal Thermal Plant #26 (now known to many simply as the northeast power plant). The plant's managers--apparently acting according to Durand company contingency plans--had armed their employees (those who had not already deserted) with AR-15 rifles and divided them into squadrons commanded by their foremen. Over the course of the next eleven days, Durand employees managed to repel a combined force of agents from the FBI and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division (ATTD) until lack of supplies and a breakdown of inter-agency cooperation ended the attack. By that time the plant had run through its fuel reserves and was standing idle. The Durand employees began to slip away from their posts and into the city, seeking their families and friends. Soon only the plant's administrators remained, barricaded in their dark offices. . . . When next the plant was occupied, the administrators were found slumped near their windows, rifles still clutched in their bony fingers. . . . The discoverers of this grisly sight were the Boot Scrapers and their then-ally Cyril de Saavedra. The Boot Scrapers were former sanitation workers, one of the earliest of the city's Garbage Gangs; de Saavedra was an unstable pyromancer recently displaced from his native Asunción for transgressions unrevealed. Considering subsequent events, however, one might easily imagine the reasons for his exile. . . . Marcus Eggert, the chief of the Boot Scrapers, had the idea that the plant might be fueled with flammable unrecyclables--perhaps an admirable thought, if one disregards the tendency of the city's shell to hold smoke and fumes within. Unfortunately the venture was doomed to failure, and worse. . . . After weeks of study and repair the Boot Scrapers felt ready to attempt operation of the plant. Eggert asked de Saavedra to provide a small test fire, and at first all seemed to go as planned. The steam produced was enough to power the single turbine intended for testing, but de Saavedra was not satisfied with this. He asked for more fuel, and when Eggert denied him, the pyromancer hurled the chief himself into the flames. . . . The ensuing rampage claimed all but two of the Boot Scrapers--who were forced to escape through the coal pulverizer while it was in operation--and De Saavedra himself, who escaped into the city to further satisfy his pyromaniacal urges. (see p.402) . . . After that the Northeast lay mostly unused for many years. Groups of squatters occupied its halls from time to time, but these itinerant kingdoms inevitably fell either to internal or external violence. A large portion of the city came to believe that the plant was cursed. . . . The case of Mouth Breather and her gang did little to dispel this belief. Mouth Breather (the nickname was apparently one she gave to herself) was a street wizard of some ability who decided to seize power by giving it to the city. Her plan was to summon and bind an air elemental and force it to power the plant's turbines. (It is worth noting that the Gemini Society's chief aeromancer, Denys Bulgakov, had once proposed the same plan, but been voted down by the rest of the Gemini council.) . . . It is not known whether the magics involved were beyond Mouth Breather's ability, whether something in the Northeast's industrial aura caused the binding to go awry, or whether other agencies were at work. Whatever the cause, the elemental forces were not contained; they destroyed all those within the plant, and moved into the city proper, propagating a swarm of windstorms which kept most of the citizenry indoors for the next four days. (Bulgakov himself was a casualty of the outbreak, dashed against the Black Tower during a duel with a particularly fierce cyclone.) . . . Since that time the plant has been declared off-limits by Mayor Faldbakken III. It is rumored, however, that the recently formed Mayor's Committee To Bring Back the Streetlights is in fact a splinter group of the Mayor's Department of Uncanny Activity, charged with bringing the plant back into operation via magical means, curse or no curse." (p.44-45)

Comments

[the-flea-king.livejournal.com]

Lovely as usual.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Jer.