S2W34: “Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire”

© 2022 Phylicia Joannis

Chuck placed his hand gingerly on the space below his eye as he stared at the wall. It was still tender to the touch, but the swelling had gone down, and the fire in his cheek had dulled to a simmer. The bars to his cell slid open with a bang and a guard called his number.

“Inmate number 7158621. You posted bail. Congratulations.”

Chuck lifted his head in surprise as the guard walked up to him and secured his wrists in handcuffs.

“Is this really necessary?” Chuck asked.

“It’s protocol. Let’s go.”

Chuck ambled past the other cells, drowning out the sounds of clanging metal and shouts. After filling out paperwork and collecting his personal items, he was led to a private room to change. Without handcuffs, thankfully. A bottle of water and a bag of chips waited for him there. He downed them both before changing, then left the room and followed a different guard to the gates leading outside.

The air felt crisp and cool as the wind blew at his back. Light from the sun warmed his face. It felt good to be out.

“Charles?”

Chuck’s head snapped up, and he stared at Penny, who stood beside a small sedan outside the gate. A young girl sat in the passenger seat. Her face was familiar, but he couldn’t remember her name.

“Penny.” He spoke her name with a desperate croak. He’d missed her. She smiled at him and opened the door to the backseat.

“Hop in. I’ll take you home.”

***

Charles Jameson’s apartment wasn’t much to look at. His couch was old, the rest of the place sparsely furnished. I don’t know what I’d expected, but it was a bit of a letdown. He’d gone to great lengths to save his own skin. Maybe I’d expected a wife, or kids, or some grand existence, not coffee stained furniture and dirty mugs in the sink.

“Make yourself at home.” He began grabbing papers and clothes from the couch, clearing a space for me and Penny to sit. I made a face and stared at the walls.

“Hey Jameson, how come you don’t have any pictures up?” I asked. He looked in my direction, but his eyes skittered away from my face. He’d been like that in the car, too. Never making eye contact.

“I haven’t had a chance to put any up yet,” was his reply. “You can call me Chuck.”

I raised my eyebrows at his friendly tone. Circumstance had made us allies, but I couldn’t help the resentment that burned just at the surface. My time in the tunnels was too fresh a wound to be on friendly terms.

He and Penny seemed pretty close, but she called him Charles. What I wanted to call him might seem rude in front of Penny. For her sake, I stuck with Jameson. “Is this apartment new?” I stared at a brown puddle in the corner of the kitchen.

“No, I’ve been here a few years. Just busy with work.” Jameson gave a short laugh, then cleared his throat. “I appreciate you getting me out of there. If there’s anything I can do to help you, just say the word.”

“Actually, there is something.” I nodded at Penny and she handed him a file filled with old articles. I pointed to the first one. “What do you know about this transportation initiative? Mitchell Blume sponsored it before he became mayor.”

He scratched his head as he read through it. “I remember this. I had just started out at dispatch. That was a rough first year.” He tapered off and cleared his throat. “It started off as a cleanup effort, to get all the circuits rewired from the old routes and prevent grid issues in the future. After about six months, it was scrapped though.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Funding issues, I think. This was about ten years ago, so they didn’t have the same technology. They had to use a lot of expensive equipment, and by then Mitchell Blume had started campaigning. He claimed he’d find a better way when he became mayor. Anyway, by the time he was elected everyone had forgotten about it, anyway. No one ever cares about stuff like that until something bad happens.”

“What exactly did they do?” Penny asked. “Do you know?”

He wiped sweat from his brow and skimmed through another article. “It’s a little complicated, but I’ll try to explain it for you.” He grabbed a piece of paper and began drawing boxes and lines.

“Imagine that these lines are tunnel routes, and these boxes are power sources. Each of the old routes is connected to these boxes here, right? As new routes were added over the years, these new routes were also connected to these old boxes.

“About thirty years ago, they started building new routes on this side of the city. The boxes on this side are too far and don’t generate enough power, so they created new boxes here.” Charles drew several new boxes. “Since the new boxes were much better at generating power than the old ones, they connected some of the older routes to the new boxes here, here, and here. At the time, the earlier routes were still in service, and some of the old routes were connected to both the old power boxes and the new at different points on the route.”

“What does this have to do with Mitchell Blume’s initiative?” I asked.

Jameson coughed. “I’m getting to that. The initiative was supposed to disconnect the active routes from the old power boxes and replace them with new ones to keep all these boxes from overloading the grid. Some of the old boxes weren’t just connected to the routes, but they were connected to whole neighborhoods. So if there was a power outage in the neighborhood, it would shut down some of the active routes at certain points and cause a chain reaction.”

“What kind of chain reaction?” I asked.

“Ever had a sudden power outage and it makes one of your light bulbs blow out? You can get the power back on after a while, but the bulb is dead. It was like that. You’d have electrical malfunctions that required replacing whole train cars at times.”

“So have there been more malfunctions like that since the initiative was scrapped?”

“No.” He coughed again. “Nothing serious, to my knowledge.”

“So does that mean they fixed everything in six months?

“No.” His cough grew more agitated and Penny rubbed his shoulder.

“I’ll get you some water.” She smiled at him.

“Thanks.” He nodded in between coughs. “As far as I know, they were only able to shut down one power box.”

“So maybe that one box was causing all the trouble?” I remembered something and grabbed the files in his hand. “There was an article here about an apartment complex that burned down. They’d had a lot of electrical problems in the building.”

“Oh, that’s right.” He snapped his fingers. “The Bordertown Apartment Fire. I think that’s what started the whole initiative in the first place.”

Penny handed him a cup of water. “Mitchell Blume doesn’t do anything out of the goodness of his heart. Do you remember who owned the building?”

Jameson took a sip of water and nodded. “Yeah. It was–” His coughing fit began in earnest, and he dropped the cup.

“Charles, are you okay?” Penny asked. He pressed his face against his sleeve, turning beet red as his coughing fit worsened. I yelped when he slipped from the couch, writhing on his side.

Blood stained his shirt where his mouth had been.