I proceed at a cautious pace to Station Four. It is one of the further away power stations from my home, and the travel ways are filled with people at this time of day. Even with a clear center lane for vehicular traffic, I must use caution. It slows the trip further. 

By the time we arrive an hour later, I am fairly snarling at the general populace. I manage to keep invectives from bubbling forth by sheer determination. But my mood is foul. I grab that emotion by the throat and shove it down hard, letting it ferment. I can feed it into my work if I need to.

Kellen practically launches himself from the back of the scooter as I shut off the engine. I hold out the stack of meal trays to him wordlessly, and he takes them with trepidation as I stalk toward the door of the station. His sour fear roils like a living creature, dark and waiting, festering, ready to make a lurch into outright terror if anything should surprise him. It is an effort to ignore it, and I am not as successful as I could be as I find myself watching him in the same way a feral cat watches a lizard.

As I pass into the station, two figures appear and close upon me. "Jakara, this is Kellen. Get him fitted and equipped. Amissa, attend. Take notes." I do not stop walking as I speak, and expect both to follow my instructions precisely. They are hard eyed veterans in the sub-city's war against failing machinery, and both know how this repair will proceed. If either of them are disconcerted by the inclusion of an outsider on this repair, and a runner at that, they at least have the sense to keep that to themselves in front of me.

Both women instead reply with a crisp, "Sir!". Jakara, the lead of Team One, peels off and motions to Kellen. She leads him through a secondary door to our equipment room to brief the lad further on what will be expected of him. Amissa is the head of Team Three. Inwardly, I am surprised to see both of them on site. It concerns me; why would two separate leads be onsite already, especially when neither of them was the shift commander for this particular station? But Amissa merely scoops a clipboard off a desk as we stride past, readying herself to attend.

I make my way without interruption down the back hallways to the main turbine shaft. It is a huge beast of a machine: the turbine shaft alone stands three stories in height, surrounded by an external casing, and perched like a predator over the egress of a natural thermal vent. A series of walkways hang in suspension at various heights along the turbine core, allowing access for repairs and monitoring stations. 

"Darkwalker on the floor!" The ringing shout from Amissa precedes me as I sweep imperiously into the room, and I hear it echoed to all corners of the chamber. Work stops immediately and everyone isolates themself into a spot; my teams all know what they are about. 

I have no trouble determining the problem at a glance. A large section of the main turbine cover is ripped open like a gory wound. The nearest portion of the walkway hangs precariously intertwined with the mess, and a second walkway is sheared completely in half. Directly across, an enormous sheet of debris is impaled into the very rock of the chamber.

One of the turbine fins has partially sheared off and launched itself through the casing with enough force to remain embedded in the stone. 

"Well," I comment drily into the silence. "That is something you do not see every day. Amissa, full cage protocol for our extra. How many hands on deck?"

"Three full teams, One, Three, and Four, plus Team Six on standby, sir." Her reply is crisp, and I nod.

"Switch to red light for personal use. I need full outage."  I give her a few moments to comply, then bellow, "Lights out!"

The room plunges into sudden complete darkness. Amissa remains directly behind me as I gaze upon the huge turbine and carefully draw my goggles down to hang about my neck. In the pure dark, the shapes are clearly delineated to my odd vision. I turn my gaze upon the enormous fragment of turbine blade lodged in the wall first. "Anger and ennui, counterpounded. No wonder it sheared. That will not do. Replacement should be one or the other, meshed." My voice is the only sound, and it rebounds strangely in the cavernous room. There is no need for me to speak loud and so I simply murmur to Amissa behind me. A faint scritching reaches me as she notes my observations and instructions. The sounds all carry to the far reaches nonetheless due to acoustics. 

I turn my gaze to the turbine itself next, peering in from a distance through the gaping rent in the outer casing of the generator. Ordinarily, I would take a much closer look at the damage. But with the nearest walkway a mangled disaster, I must content myself with an observation from afar. The torn open side of the generator is enough to let me peer past the housing and observe the internal workings directly. "Casing: double walled, pride and triumph. Welds are standard fare fear helix counter spiral, bound to a central shaft of obsession. Acceptable." I pull my goggles back up over my eyes and settle them in place carefully, then raise my voice to carry clearly throughout the room. "Team One, secure the walks and strip the damaged casing. Three, pull the shrapnel. Four, bring up replacement casing sections, then cut out the damaged blade once you can get to it. Get Six to find a new blade and deliver it, then they are to assist One with getting the walks secure enough to access that damaged blade. Optimal replacement blade should be anger/fear countermesh with a concern fade, but we will take what we can get. Full lighting during strip out, red light only during repair phase. All teams allocated for today will be present during repair. Dismissed!"

Even behind the goggles, I squeeze my eyes tightly shut as the lights come back on. A chorus of "Sir!" acknowledges my instructions with a unified voice, and the room bursts into activity. I turn on my heel once I feel it safe to open my eyes and stalk out, heading for the equipping room.

Jakara has gotten Kellen into a mud colored jumpsuit that is only one size too large for him and is speaking to him, briefing him more thoroughly. I ignore them for the most part. Instead, I move with surety past them, where the tool shop takes up fully two thirds of the room. There, I cinch on my equipment belt and begin to load it up with the hand tools I may need. Some of them are recognizable: several box wrenches, a small torque wrench, a pair of screwdrivers, and a rubber mallet. Others are not so standard fare; they are specialized crafting implements of Denzai make. These I take more care in selecting. They have no names outside the liquid language of the Denzai, but it matters not what I would call them. Some look like fine brushes for paint. Others, a simple hollow tube with assorted openings. Each is precisely calibrated and irreplaceable. I also select the rolled bundle of tuning forks and slip it into one of the pouches. Only then do I turn to Jakara and Kellen.

Jakara finishes speaking as I approach them. "Full cage protocol," I tell her. "This will be a long repair. Feed the teams as soon as strip out is complete, and again immediately after completion. Put it on Merrick's billing. Send a runner to him that I will be taking a 24 hour personal leave tonight, as soon as repairs are effected and complete. Have him call in Five and Reserve One for duty tonight, so no duty team takes a double shift. Tell the teams to anticipate extreme intensity during repairs."

She nods, snapping a crisp "Sir!" in acknowledgement, then leaves me alone with Kellen.

"We eat first," I tell the lad, trying very hard to keep inflection from my voice. "Fetch the meal stack."

"Y-yes, sir," he manages, and scrambles to obey. He moves with quick, mildly disjointed actions, and I can see he remains on edge. Good. Just where I need him.

I open the bundle he hands me and pass him the top tray, keep the second for myself, and tie the remaining two back into a smaller bundle. We eat in silence, seated on the bench that faces the free standing equipment lockers; I am lost in thought of what is needed for the repair, running scenarios in my mind. 

Twice his profile catches the corner of my eye and I pause in thought the second time to examine the slow morphing of the emotional shapes he brings. Kellen is raw, his reactions pure and unfiltered. The second time, he flicks his gaze to me and realizes I regard him. I read his surprise as it blooms green and fuschia with sickly yellow edges. He tries to pretend he was not looking.

"This will be unlike anything you have experienced before," I say quietly into the oppressive silence of his discomfiture. I can see in my periphery as his gaze snaps to me, but I have already turned away and pointedly stare at the far wall. "Know this: whatever may happen, I will not lay hands upon you. I recognize I am asking for a lot of trust from you. This is confusing and frightening. Trust anyone else on my teams; they will keep you safe. But trust me at your own risk. The job comes first. Anything else is a far distant second."

The silence I am met with is a tremulous thing. I return to eating as though I never spoke, finishing the exquisite meal, and leave Kellen to finish his alone. He looks as though his food has turned to ash in his mouth, but continues to mechanically consume it one halting bite at a time.