B Farmer - Descent

Jack, who was by all appearances already drunk, asked, “What’s going on?”

“Damn generators. All of them.”

Jack laughed. “More time to drink.”

Whether it was drugs, women, or insert vice here, he didn’t have a stop button. I grabbed the bottle away from him. “I’m serious, guys. Titouan is going to go ape shit if we don’t get things figured out.”

Tom stood up, adjusted his ball cap, and said, “What do you need us to do?”

We ran through options. Since the generators were out, there was no heat. Even though it was relatively warm by Arctic standards, it was still very cold. The only space at the Patch large enough to accommodate everyone was the Commons. We decided the best option would be to round up what kerosene heaters we had and place them inside the Commons in case the power couldn’t be brought up as quickly as we hoped. Cold people are angry people. I had one angry bastard to deal with, and that was enough for me. Speaking of which, it was time for me to pay the piper. I had to find Titouan.

Before I left, we quickly ran over the plans for a second time. Jack and Tom were going to help Avery. Sam was going to ready the Commons for the worst-case scenario, while also taking inventory on the things we would likely need in case of such an event. I was going to talk to Titouan. I got the shit end of the deal, by far.

It didn’t take long to find him. He told me he had lapped the Patch a few times looking for me, and how he had just come from the generators, but no one was there. He, of course, berated me because Avery wasn’t working on them. I told him we must’ve left shortly before he got there. I also told him what I knew at that point, and exactly none of it pleased him. What infuriated him even more was when he saw Sam placing kerosene heaters inside the Commons. He asked me what the hell was going on. I told him I was taking precautions in case the power couldn’t be restored – it was mostly a precautionary thing.

“What the hell do you mean the power can’t be restored? And you know you’re not in charge here. Why are you making these calls behind my back?” he yelled.

I ground my teeth as I quickly formulated what not to say. “I said in case. We have three generators not working right now, but that doesn’t mean—”

“I guess Avery’s blaming me?”

“He didn’t say anything. Why would it be your fault?”

Ignoring my question, he said, “Avery isn’t cut out for this, William. It’s too much for him. I knew it the entire time.”

Through gritted teeth, I said, “We’ve had one damn instance, besides today, when the power had completely gone out, and that was for, what, a half hour or a little longer?”

“That’s only the case because I’ve spent eighteen-thousand dollars on new controller boards for those generators. He repairs nothing. All he does is replace parts, and that is expensive. You know this.”

“Look, Titouan, I trust Avery with this stuff. He knows a hell of a lot more about these things than either of us could dream of knowing. If he says something has to be replaced, I trust he knows what he’s talking about. If anything, blame Miley for buying crappy generators.”

“He doesn’t know more than the makers of those so-called crappy generators. The engineer I talked to said the boards should be functioning perfectly well in the cold.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’d happily tell you how well they would operate in the Marianas Trench, too, if that’s where you needed them.”

Titouan angrily shook his head. “Let’s just go to the generators. It’s pretty clear you can’t separate your emotions where he is concerned.”

One of these days , I thought. One of these fucking days . “Lead the way.”

“Somebody has to, which is why I am, and you aren’t.”

Ten years prior I would’ve punched him right in his pussy ass little face. Instead, I forced a smile and said, “Yeah, sure.”

He angrily stomped off in the direction of the generators.

Essentially things had gone from bad to worse. We found Avery well into the process of working on the generators. He had two control boxes completely taken apart, and Jack and Tom were nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Jack and Tom, Avery?” I asked.

“Looking at the transformer,” he mumbled to himself, not bothering to look at either of us or translate his mumblese.

“Why would they be looking at the transformer?” Titouan asked.

“Because I told them to.”

“Is it too damn much to want a short update on what the hell is going on here?” Titouan continued.

Ignoring him, he focused on me. “Can you shine the flashlight into this box, William?”

Here we go again .

I reluctantly grabbed the flashlight and shined it where he asked. He used what looked like a tiny pick to push a recessed yellow button two times. He went through the exact same process on the other board with exactly the same results. This time, however, after what he tried didn’t bring about the desired result, he heaved the tiny pick, nearly falling to the ground for his effort.

After cursing under his breath and flailing angry hands in the air like a demented conductor, he blurted, “Just as I thought. Both boards are bad. We will be down until I can replace them.”

“What the hell do you mean they’re dead?” Titouan asked.

“I meant that colloquially. They are inanimate objects—”

“I know what the fuck you meant. Why would you need to change the boards? You changed one last week.”

“I changed one last week because it stopped working correctly.”

“That’s six boards in eight weeks. Eighteen thousand dollars I’ve spent so far.”

“We need two more.”

Titouan paced. He started to say something but hesitated. He looked at me before settling his glare on Avery. “You fucking suck at your job. My ass is going to be in a sling because William caudles your ass—”

Sensing Titouan rapidly increasing anger, I positioned myself between the two of them. “Calm the fuck down. We’ll change the boards, and when we’re not half frozen, we can talk about this.”

Avery gave me this odd look, like I was late to the party and everyone else but me knew the secret. “We do not have backup boards.”

Titouan shook but not from the cold. “Don’t you put this on me, you weasel fuck. This is you. This is your fault. There’s a whole goddamn pile of them around here that you could use if you knew what the leaping fuck you were doing.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Wait… wait a minute. We don’t have backup parts?”

They both answered no, but both had different arguments as to why there weren’t replacements. Avery told Titouan he needed more boards because they were malfunctioning because of hot and cold cycling. He said something about the manufacturer using PCB boards that were too thin to function properly in the Arctic. Because of the nature of the control boxes, the internal temperature was either hot or cold, which caused the already too thin board to warp over time. It was this warping that caused the microcontrollers to unseat themselves from their sockets, resulting in the unit’s failure.

Titouan made the same argument he made to me a few minutes prior. The manufacturer said they should be working great. They shouldn’t warp or do any of the things Avery complained about. After talking to the manufacture, Titouan refused to order more. He told Avery he better repair the boards, but Avery remained firm that what he wanted was impossible.

“If you had hired someone who knew what they were doing instead of dragging along Gilbert Grape, here, we wouldn’t be dealing with this.”