The Rescuer Ch. 03

"... Bank Four is FULL and in the red... Bank Four tipping over... stage crew get down... get down NOW!.... "

The same viscous rogue lightning bolt that had scared everyone so badly earlier... leapt out again from a single one of the frozen monster's arms... to burn again the accidentally exposed bit of rooftop drain flashing high above half of the orchestra's musicians.

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The sudden crash of what seemed to be real lightning seemed to shock most of the audience, but for Carissa the echoes of the odd thunder as it vanished was a welcome relief.

The last of her dazed nightmare state ended, and she sat all the way up and threw her arms around Ellie's neck. More of her normally careful self now, Carissa was able to control her voice better and make sure that only one person could hear the tone of her whispers.

"He's okay! The figure still burning in the fire? It's not Drake! I have no idea how they did it though! I know that I SAW his face as he fell into the flames! I looked right into his eyes as he hit the ground! He was in pain! He was hurt! That's why I reacted so badly when his left arm crashed into the pyre! But look at that tux! It's all covered in small tears! There's grease spots everywhere on it!"

The soft skin on Ellie's neck turned against her own cheek, and after a confirming glance, a slow nod let Carissa know that her own mind was no longer playing tricks on her.

"I personally saw Drake change out of that old bunch of rags only a few hours ago! That tux was what he must have been wearing during rehearsals all week! And again today, while he helped the Artist change out something about her monster's design at the last minute. He was already so bruised and battered from that effort alone! There is no telling how badly Lowell is banged up, too! He's been helping the Artist out for much longer than that!"

Ellie shook in her arms a little, apparently at the thought of her only other very close friend getting hurt.

Surprisingly there still wasn't a real panic going on in the audience. The voice coming thru the speakers was calmly directing a full team of the gray robed personnel. They were assisting the half of the orchestra, nearest the warehouse, into a side entrance to the main complex she hadn't noticed before. Two of the senior students were holding open the thick canvas sheets that had concealed the door. After everyone had passed thru, they too slipped inside, and the portal vanished again behind the thick protective barrier.

Once again the buildings and audience were being well shielded and protected from harm.

Except in that one spot high above them all.

"Lowell never said a word to me about ANY of this! I noticed him limping on his left leg the other day, but he just said he'd hurt it working on the new surveillance cameras, over the Twilight Gates and the Bridge. When I get my hands on that sneaky rat, I'll kill him! People were laughing, earlier, but this whole event is just too fucking dangerous!"

Carissa couldn't agree more, but her mind kept going back to the horrible sadness behind Drake's wonderful blue eyes, as he had talked about tonight's performance finally having made his life more interesting again.

Did he really need such wild and perilous things in his life? Or had his despair over the sudden unexplained loss, of having Shelly as his lover for so many years, just been that overwhelming? Just who was Drake these days, away from the crowds and worries that had swept over him tonight? How much of the man, she had sort of obsessed over in her teenage dreams, was still left in there?

Or was he actually now even more special than she'd ever thought he could be?

The constant buzz of the back and forth speaker traffic just couldn't reach her, but Ellie seemed to be paying very close attention to it. How much better of a girlfriend she would make for Lowell than she ever could! The brilliant dark haired young man would've abhorred every single second of the spotlight she herself craved on occasions. The speech her once rival had given to the entire company tonight? It was new and startling proof, that when needed, Ellie could step out front for them both.

"Carissa! Pay attention! At least a little? Please? They might have figured out what's going wrong! They think there will be at least one, maybe two more of those rogue lightning strikes, before they can fully lock down our own companies prototypes! There are still five people, living ones, out there on the lawn stage! I saw them all jump and cringe on the grass, after the roof got hit again! That wasn't supposed to be part of the performance! I can barely see the outlines of a trap door, next to the pyre closest to us. That's how they made the switch! Drake must have slide out that way, down into the basement, then put his own dummy back into the fire! Was that what his message to you meant? With all the lightning, flames and thunder? And that mad man charging the statue with a giant glowing sword? And all that extra smoke swirling around at the base of the pyre? No one, not even you, had a moment to spare to notice the substitution. It would have taken only a few seconds!"

It was hard to pull away her cheek from the surprisingly soft skin of Ellie's neck. The girl had even worn a subtle perfume there, as if she had actually believed Lowell was going to have been in the Garden seat reserved for him tonight. No matter how many times the seating chart for the first three rows got rearranged, it had always been edited back to have Lowell between them both.

Ellie was fair, if nothing else, even when she had absolute control over such things in their old contest.

The faint grassy outline of the trap door was indeed there, flickering in the wavering flames and heat of the pyre. How the bare hand she had seen crash, into the heart of the furnace like interior, could have escaped all damage was beyond her experience. The calm and expert voice on the speakers seemed to be recapping a desperate plan, even as a few more rows of guests near that corner of the building were being scurried to safety.

"So we are all agreed? No matter who's fault it is that we weren't told about it? There must ancient buried high power line running underneath the old alley, and one not on either the city's or the power company's official maps. It's leaking power, somehow, and getting into our new ground wire that we specifically installed for bank number four. We are going to let it overload us again, but with all of our generators switched on this time. That will trip the city's street light breaker again. Then we'll have at least two full minutes to safely remove bank four's individual ground, and attach it to our main safety line out front instead. That one was built to withstand a real lightning strike from the sky! The city and power company guys say we actually have five minutes to do that, but I want it done it two! I'll leave the family joker here on the speakers, and go down into the basement myself! Agreed? We are already back at twenty percent, but still in the green. Using all the generator trucks, it will take just three full minutes to build up full power across the entire system. Then we will wait until we see the next surge, and initiate the first strike ourselves! That will totally drain the entire system, and trip the main breaker protecting this entire section of the city. That will make it safe enough to try and do the disconnect. As soon as the ground lines are switched, we will clear all the rooms in the basement and dump every bit of power we have left into the main tower. It ought to be a real show, but wait until I give the signal to do that! Start up generator truck number four first, then the rest of them! Counting down, NOW!"

Carissa's head swam again, for a moment. Just how long had she been daydreaming? Could the event team have actually discovered the real problem and come up with an emergency plan that fast? Or at least the fastest possible solution, even if the cause for the dangerous malfunction was still a mystery? Was she really feeling that out of sorts? When was the last time since she had eaten anything? Or had been this emotional? About anything? She had been working out in the company gym so hard, all week, to lose another few pounds to be able to look her best in her new dress. Did she even eat breakfast this morning, let alone lunch? The two glasses of champagne she had nursed, while in the receiving line, hadn't helped either.

"Look! Look up there! You can see there is a crane tower swinging back into place! There aren't any artificially made clouds to hide it this time! Look!"

Luckily Ellie wasn't the only one who had noticed it. During the performance, the sounds of the moving metal had partly been masked. The wind noises and orchestra playing earlier, had also helped disguise the low generator hum of the technology behind the extreme special effects.

The Master's carefully timed requests during the show, for more volume, now clearly had more than just theatrical and emotional reasons behind them.

This time Carissa saw the slight movement of the five men still trapped out on the lawn herself. Alastair was the closest to the corner of the building about to be struck again, and he was busy squirming a bit lower down into the thick grass. The other men appeared to be handling their thoughts of danger a little better, but then who knew what Drake's four strangely confident friends were actually used to in their daily lives?

Lynette reached across the row of seats, and patted her shoulder again, and this time Carissa made sure to return the kind gesture before it pulled back away. Carissa wasn't sure which of their situations was worse. Drake was off stage and out of immediate danger, but his injuries were still a mystery that threatened to break her heart. Alastair looked fine laying down on the lawn, but was the closest person to the corner of the building still under electrical threat.

Drake's personal assistant was clearly a special person, and a very determined one. Having just met Lynette's mother before the performance had started, it was easy to see why Alastair was having so much trouble getting close to the kind girl. With plenty of relatives of her own almost as bitter as that old crone, Carissa knew that it was a wonder that the talented young lawyer had stayed as interested in his fellow student for so long.

The prospect of having such a mother-in-law would have certainly driven away any less dedicated suitor.

But the look right now in Lynette's clear blue eyes said it all... and that she had already easily recognized the quick covert glances between her and Drake... and knew that what they already felt between them was a lot more than just a casual mutual attraction.

Tonight, if they all survived it, was going to change a lot of things for a lot of people.

But even as Carissa looked at the young female lawyer's face, a sudden change came over it.

It was the thought that Alastair could get seriously hurt, right before her eyes, that was finally sparking a bit of real determination and rebellion in Lynette. The normally submissive manner she displayed around her shrewish mother had just completely vanished. Even just a few feet away from parental domination, the sweet girl now had a totally different personality.

Carissa gave the caring hand another firm squeeze, then watched Lynette settle nervously back into her chair in the second row. A wave of tense anticipation rippled thru the entire audience.

The noise over the radio began a fast countdown, forcing her to turn back towards the stage, as it called out percentages and colors rather than seconds. Then the overtaxed speakers crackled noisily and went silent, as the source of the interloping power build up began to hum and almost came alive in everyone's minds.

Now that the entire garden was so deathly quiet, they could all hear faint shouting coming from underneath the once pristine turf.

A last loud yell signalled the throwing of a switch... and only a single wedge of blue electric flames swept away from the same upraised arm of the monster... and it fanned out wide high overhead where the orchestra leader had been earlier.

Suddenly an odd sort of laughing echoed around the garden walls.

All four of Drake's friend's had finally dared to turn over, and were staring right up at the seething electrical current. Their amusement seemed so out of place, given that at any time the artificial lightning could kill them in a fraction of a second, if it suddenly decided to use them as a more convenient grounding point.

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Alastair could hear Drake's poker buddies... who had been lured and badgered into taking the places of the injured stunt men and actors... cavort around and sound like madmen!

Laughing certainly wasn't the reaction he had expected of them! Especially not now! But there was an odd sort of comfort in their camaraderie. What difference would it make to their safety at this point? Why not go out, looking straight at what might kill them all, if the coming power surge slipped totally free of it's fanatically over engineered restraints?

The five of them were all alone now out on the lawn of the stage. The whispering underneath each of their own emergency trapdoors, still well hidden by the grass, had initially made sure that they were all physically ok. Then the kind support staff in the basement had kept them company, chatting inanely during the long wait.

But those people were long gone.

If a real life threatening emergency had occurred in the finale, all five of them could have been pulled out of harm's way into the basement. But one or more of Drake's friends had been pretty seriously banged up in their terrified flight across the lawn. Alastair's own right foot had wandered off the safe path, and gotten a toe snagged on either a fog or fan nozzle. The lush overly thick blades of grass hid a literal minefield of buried low and high tech gadgets.

Worse, the basement ceiling beneath them was a surprisingly high full twenty feet off the hard concrete floor. No one wanted to fall off the strong but tricky steel ladders in an unnecessary escape in that direction. It had always been the plan for them to simply walk off the stage, under their own power, once the electrical generating trucks had been fully disconnected.

The discovery of a rogue power line running either beside or underneath the basement had ended that avenue to safety. They were trapped in place, from both the threats above and below. Until the erratic surges were physically disconnected and permanently isolated from the special effect system, another out of control lightning strike could happen at any time.

Except for the shielded control room, the entire basement might be an even more dangerous place than the stage.

Drake's own escape route had been deemed so important, and even more dangerous due to the proximity of seeringly hot flames and burning coals, that an enormous wooden platform had been built directly underneath it. Four people had been up there standing by, to help extricate his boss out of the pyre, if need be. But their primary task was to hand up the huge heavy dummy, dressed in the old tux, that his employer hated so much for some reason.

Finally unable to resist it any longer, Alastair felt that he too just had to worm his body over in place, and see what was making the other much braver men laugh.

Even thru his squinted eyes, from this angle the continuous sheets of deadly eldritch electrical flames were impressive, and so unbelievably beautiful!

Since all the golden strings of lights had been left turned on this time, even those above the stage lawn, it was easy to see the complicated webs of wires securely guiding the special effects. Above each one of their own carefully preplanned positions in the grass, was a modified arrangement of a different kind of electrical cable, that acted as some sort of the technical equivalent of a Faraday cage.

As long as they stayed low on the ground... and didn't try to move from their modern day arcane circles of protection... they should be safe enough.

To attempt to crawl over all the buried metal devices in the lawn, or even along the carefully prepared escape routes, was tempting fate far too much. Alastair felt his back itch, until he squirmed around again, and got the special harness connection underneath his clothes to wallow out a deep enough hole in the grass.

Only the fact that he'd had attached a virtually invisible trailing electrical lead to the back of his suit? Before he had run away from the occult chalk diagram in all the carefully staged confusion? Had allowed his own specially created lightning bolt to appear to hit his body.

The protective gear underneath his tux had worked beautifully. The electrically pre-charged doubled up loop of grounding wire, that he'd dragged all the way across the lawn, had both attracted then carried away the full force of the bolt. It had come down from above, thru the hole in his personal Faraday cage, via the charged tip of the effects crane. The path of least resistance was the other end of the wire, deep within the ground where the hungry Bank Number Three was buried in the basement.

The actual sensation of being struck by the lightning... and having it safely shunted away... was something he still couldn't quite come to grips with.

Most people in the audience either probably hadn't notice the direction of the strike, or cared, unless they were one of the engineers or other geeks.

All he had to do after that bolt had finished with him was lie perfectly still, as the doubled up loop of the line was drawn out of his harness, and back into the safety of the basement. Once effects crane hidden by the artificial clouds had moved away, he knew that he was electrically isolated inside his own bubble of protection again.

Alastair had felt so much safer than anyone in the poor orchestra section. They'd had to practically leap down onto the grass besides their padded plastic chairs, when that rogue strike hit the accidentally exposed copper gutter on the roof above them.

That was just more proof of the fact that no one in the audience had even figured out yet, that just by sitting in the old fashion replicas of wooden deck chairs, they were safer than any of the actors standing upright on stage! The heavy plastic framework and all natural leather padding weren't conductive in the slightest. Even the special chair's fittings and hinges weren't made of metal, but of hardened ceramics. The huge stunt man playing the Giant, and Drake himself of course, had been the two highest potential points of lightning contact for most of the entire performance.

Excepting the complicated maze of wires above the golden string of lights, that had so successfully drawn away all the deliberate strikes up or down into the effects crane arm.

Alastair's eyes finally adjusted enough, but still the constant flashes and arcs were too bright to let him see past the main pyre, and learn how Lynette was handling all of this.

He had lied, a lot, about how potentially dangerous tonight's performance was going to be. Nor the fact that he had even agreed to be part of the backup team. Getting down the electronic, mechanical and human timing had been a miserable and brutal task all week.

The actors and stunt men could only take so much, trapped day after day in that huge remote shiny new warehouse. It had been the only location big and tall enough to do the low level testing. To give the tired performers a break, Drake had started them all being practice dummies for the software programmers and effects designers. It had been totally safe. When they played stand-ins, the electrical trucks had all been totally disconnected, while changes in timing for the wind, fog, cloud and temperature effects all got hashed out.