The Rain (Part III of the Runner Series)

Chapter 33

Red makes it near-impossible to measure the passage of time.

In the earliest days Babel is fairly bursting with people. Word of my victory reaches all corners of the desert and soon, Wasters, Miners, nomads, mercenaries and countless others are arriving in droves, eager to share in the spoils of our war. I see to it that the dome's roof is dismantled and for the first time in more than thirty years, Babel is exposed to the sky. Raindrops conjured by my Vane fall only in short bursts but it is enough to coax some greenery back into the fields and turn the miles of canals into shallow puddles. When the herds return and the oasis' begin to replenish my old companions depart one-by-one, bidding their goodbyes and either returning to the City or breaking out on their own. An undeniably seedy atmosphere settles around my Tower as the posh buildings surrounding it fall into disrepair and are reopened as dens and taverns, most-often occupied by a steady rotation of rough characters.

I'm told that while it is by no means thriving, the City is holding strong. Through a combination of the odd rain shower and my gifts of airships stuffed with provisions, my old home has managed to weather the famine. Day after day I wait to hear word from the Queen but Meg remains coldly indifferent to everything I've done for her. A perpetual fog keeps my thoughts from settling and I burn away many long nights pacing the barren chamber above the bell tower, tense and restless as I wait to feel justified for having broken ties with my once-closest friend.

Jaron left Babel almost the instant I abdicated my chiefhood. Noah and a portion of our former tribe followed the eldest Waster brother back into the desert but the youngest chose to remain behind.

Luca makes an appearance on occasion, always unannounced and always with the same message. I made the foolish mistake of getting used to having him around and now I'd have to be blind not to realize that the Wastelands are gradually reclaiming my hunter. Luca is slipping away but I'm too preoccupied with my own work to stop him.

Standing at my Tower window, I watch the watery trails form on the pane of glass and scowl at the Vane's meagre offering.

"Are you sure that we can't make more rain?" I ask the question without bothering to turn around. "The first time I laid eyes on your machine it called a storm large enough to blow apart the hangar. There must be something you can do."

"We'll keep trying." One of the technicians behind me says. "But even at one hundred percent capacity we're still far short of the Vane's potential."

"We're not drawing enough power." Someone else offers.

I rub my forehead, stifling a sigh and turning around. "So, is something wrong with the generator?" I refer to the great, noisy mass of machinery housed at the heart of my laboratories.

"No. We've checked over every last screw; everything appears to be in order. Which leads us to believe that something...or someone else is drawing from the grid."

A headache forms where the demons once clustered. With substantial effort I try and recall the schematics that show how Babel's electrical system works. Turbines and motors and a thousand other words that existed far beyond the reach of my father's library crowd my mind and worsen the ache. The fog fights me the more I try to concentrate and I pinch the bridge of my nose, fairly growling the demand.

"Show me."

A roll of parchment is produced and I wait as an illustration of Babel's extensive power grid is laid out atop my banged-up desk and stretched to it's edges. Stepping forward I trace the path, beginning with the farm full of turbines out in the salt flats and ending at the dome. The exact details of how the Madam's complicated system functions are beyond me but I understand that the turbines steal from the wind and store it in the batteries beneath the farm. The batteries deliver their earnings via a network of tubes to Babel's generator, which does the lion's share of the work. The generator is responsible for converting the wind's power to electricity: the wonder that keeps our lights turned on.