The Burning Wire

people would be injured or even lose their lives. Nine-one-one calls wouldn’t get through. Ambulances and police cars would be stuck in traffic, with stoplights out. Elevators would be frozen. There’d be panic. Muggings and looting and rapes invariably rose during a blackout, even in daylight.
    Electricity keeps people honest.
    “Sir?” the technician asked desperately.
    The supervisor stared at the moving voltage indicator bars. He grabbed his own phone and called his superior, a senior vice president at Algonquin. “Herb, we have a situation.” He briefed the man.
    “How’d this happen?”
    “We don’t know. I’m thinking terrorists.”
    “God. You called Homeland Security?”
    “Yeah, just now. Mostly we’re trying to get more power into the affected areas. We’re not having much luck.”
    His boss thought for a moment. “There’s a second transmission line running through Manhattan-Ten, right?”
    The supervisor looked up at the board. A high-voltage cable went through the substation and headed west to deliver juice to parts of New Jersey. “Yes, but it’s not online. It’s just running through a duct there.”
    “But could you splice into it and use that for supply to the diverted lines?”
    “Manually? . . . I suppose, but . . . but that would mean getting people inside MH-Ten. And if we can’t hold the juice back until they’re finished, it’ll flash. That’ll kill ’em all. Or give ’em third-degrees over their entire bodies.”
    A pause. “Hold on. I’m calling Jessen.”
    Algonquin Consolidated’s CEO. Also known, privately, as “The All-Powerful.”
    As he waited, the supervisor stared at the techs surrounding him. He kept staring at the board too. The glowing red dots.
    Critical failure . .  .
    Finally the supervisor’s boss came back on. His voice cracked. He cleared his throat and after a moment said, “You’re supposed to send some people in. Manually splice into the line.”
    “That’s what Jessen said?”
    Another pause. “Yes.”
    The supervisor whispered, “I can’t order anybody in there. It’s suicide.”
    “Then find some volunteers. Jessen said you are not, understand me, not to shed load under any circumstances.”

Chapter 2
    THE DRIVER EASED the M70 bus through traffic toward the stop on Fifty-seventh Street near where Tenth Avenue blended into Amsterdam. He was in a pretty good mood. The new bus was a kneeling model, which lowered to the sidewalk to make stepping aboard easier, and featured a handicapped ramp, great steering and, most important, a rump-friendly driver’s seat.
    Lord knew he needed that, spending eight hours a day in it.
    No interest in subways, the Long Island Railroad or Metro North. No, he loved buses, despite the crazy traffic, the hostility, attitudes and anger. He liked how democratic it was to travel by bus; you saw everybody from lawyers to struggling musicians to delivery boys. Cabs were expensive and stank; subways didn’t always go where you wanted to. And walking? Well, this was Manhattan. Great if you had the time but who did? Besides, he liked people and he liked the fact that he could nod orsmile or say hello to every single person who got on his vehicle. New Yorkers weren’t, like some people said, unfriendly at all. Just sometimes shy, insecure, cautious, preoccupied.
    But often all it took was a grin, a nod, a single word . . . and they were your new friend.
    And he was happy to be one.
    If only for six or seven blocks.
    The personal greeting also gave him a chance to spot the wackos, the drunks, the cluck-heads and tweakers and decide if he needed to hit the distress button.
    This was , after all, Manhattan.
    Today was beautiful, clear and cool. April. One of his favorite months. It was about 11:30 a.m. and the bus was crowded as people were heading east for lunch dates or errands on their hour off. Traffic was moving slowly as he nosed the huge vehicle closer to the stop, where four or five people stood beside a bus stop sign pole.
    He was approaching the stop and happened to look past the people waiting to get on board, his eyes taking in the old brown building behind the stop. An early twentieth-century structure, it had several gridded windows but was always dark inside; he’d never seen anybody going in or out. A spooky place, like a prison. On the front was a flaking sign in white paint on a blue background.
    ALGONQUIN CONSOLIDATED POWER
AND LIGHT COMPANY
SUBSTATION MH-10
PRIVATE