Chapter 19 Chapter Nineteen

Emilia Sachs followed Charlie Somers to his office on the other side of the Algonquin company's firebox, and she could feel the temperature rising palpably along the intricate route they were taking.With each additional step, the rumble that filled the hallway became louder and louder. She was completely lost.Up the stairs, down the stairs.She sent and received several text messages on her BlackBerry as she followed Somers, but as they descended the lower part, she had to concentrate on observing where she was passing; the corridor became more and more crowded with visitors. Feel timid.The phone eventually failed to receive any signal, and Sachs had to put the phone away.

The temperature becomes higher. Somers stopped at a massive door with a shelf for hard hats next to it. "Are you worried about your hair?" asked Somers directly, raising his voice, for the rumbling from the inside of the door was already very loud now. "I don't want to lose my hair," Sachs yelled, "but if there was another way, I wouldn't take this one." "Just a little hair mess. It's the shortest way to my office." "The shorter the better. I'm pressed for time." She grabbed a hard hat and put it on her head. "Are you ready?"

"Okay. What the hell is going through the door?" Somers thought for a moment, said, "Hell," and nodded to her to move on. She recalled the cauterized polka dot wounds on Louise Martin.Her breathing became rapid, and she felt her hand slow down as she reached for the doorknob.She grabbed the doorknob and pulled open the heavy steel door. Indeed, it was like hell.Flames, bright with brimstone, were everywhere. The temperature in the combustion chamber was about to burn people into a coma, and it must have exceeded one hundred degrees Fahrenheit.On the one hand, Sachs felt tingling in her skin; on the other hand, the pain in her joints was strangely relieved as the heat numb the inflamed joints.

It was late—it was almost eight o'clock in the evening—but there were still many workers working in the combustion chamber.The demand for electricity may fall and rise during the day, but it never completely subsides. The combustion chamber is two hundred feet high and filled with supporting structures and hundreds of pieces of equipment.The core equipment is a group of large light green machines.One of the largest machines is long and has a dome, like a huge dome-shaped metal roof, from which many high-pressure pipes, low-pressure air pipes and cables extend. "That's MOM," Somers said loudly, pointing at the machine. "MOM. That's Midwest Operational Machine Works, in Gary, Indiana. They built this machine in the 1960s." Somers said this When speaking, there is always a certain respect.Somers added that it is the largest of five generating units at the Queens power plant.He went on to explain that when MOM was installed, it was the largest generating set in the United States.In addition to several other generating sets—they had numbers but no names—there were four sets of machines used to supply superheated steam to the New York City area.

Emilia Sachs was indeed fascinated by the huge machine in front of her.As she stared at the large piece, trying to figure out what it was, she found herself slowing down.She was fascinated by the machines that the human mind could assemble, the machines that the human hands could build. "Those are boilers," said Somers, pointing ahead, and to Sachs it was another building within a building, and they must have been ten or twelve stories high. Pressure over three thousand pounds per square inch." He took a breath. "The steam then goes to two turbines, one high pressure, one low pressure." He pointed to the MOM generator set. — Thirty-four thousand amperes, eighteen thousand volts, but as soon as the current comes out of the generator, it is boosted to more than three hundred thousand volts, ready to be sent out."

Although Sachs was in a hot environment, he still felt the chills in his heart. Listening to those huge numbers, Louis Martin's battered corpse flashed in his mind, and he recalled the time when his skin was pierced by hot metal particles. appearance. Sommers went on to add, proudly (in Sacks' opinion), that the total generating capacity of the entire Queens plant—MOM plus other turbines—approximately 2.5 million kilowatts, about 100 percent of New York City's total power consumption. a quarter of the power. He pointed to a set of tanks and said, "Here the steam is compressed into the water, pumped back into the boiler, and the whole process starts all over again." Proudly going on, he continued loudly, "Here are three hundred and sixty miles of pipes of all kinds. , a million feet of cable."

By this time, though, Sachs was still finding herself claustrophobic and sick to her stomach, though she still reveled in the mammoth machinery.The noise is endless and the heat is undiminished. Somers seemed to understand Sachs' situation, "Hurry up and go." He motioned for Sachs to follow him.Five minutes later, they stepped out the door and put the hard hat back on the rack.Sachs took a deep breath.Even though it was hot in the corridors, it felt cool after spending a few minutes in "hell". "It scares you in there, doesn't it?" "yes." "are you OK?"

A line of sweat dripped down her face, and she nodded.Somers handed over a tissue, and there was a roll of tissues by the door, which seemed to be used to wipe the sweat off his face and neck, so Sachs wiped. "Go this way." Somers led Sachs through several corridors and into another building.After many flights of stairs, they finally arrived at Somers' office.When she saw the mess of the room, she almost laughed out loud.The office was filled with computers and instruments she didn't recognize, hundreds of pieces of equipment and tools, cables, computer parts, keyboards, metal, plastic, and wooden objects of every shape and color.

And junk food.Piles of junk food.There are cornflakes, butterfly shortbread, soda drinks, chocolate cakes, and yellow cream cakes.Hostess bagels hung with powdered sugar, which would explain the food crumbs on Somers' clothes. "Sorry, that's how we work in Special Projects," he said, pushing aside a piece of paper on an office chair and letting Sachs sit down. "Well, at least that's how I work." "What exactly do you do?" Somers, a little ashamed, explained that he was an inventor. "I know, it sounds like something from the nineteenth century, or something from a shopping commercial. But I just invent. I The luckiest man in the world. I make a living doing what I wanted to do as a kid, building generators, motors, lightbulbs—"

"You still make your own light bulbs?" "My bedroom caught fire twice. Well, three times, but we only called the fire twice." Sachs looked at the picture of Edison on the wall. "My idol," said Somers, "Edison was a fascinating man." "Andy Jason has the same thing about Edison on the wall. A picture of the electrical grid." "It's the original signed photo of Thomas Alva...but in my opinion, Jason admires Samuel Insar more." "Who?" "Edison was a scientist and Insar was a businessman. He led the Con Edison Company, created the first large monopoly electric company. Powered the Chicago streetcar system, distributed the first electrical appliances—such as electric irons— Make people unable to live without electricity. Insar was a genius. But he ended up in disgrace. Does it sound familiar? He was over-indebted, and when the Great Depression hit, the company went bankrupt and hundreds of thousands of stockholders Bankruptcy. Similar to Enron. Do you want some gossip: Arthur Andersen was involved in both Insar and Enron.

"But what about me? I leave the commercial part to someone else. I just make stuff. There's a ninety-nine percent chance of nothing. But... let's just say I have twenty-eight patents to my name, and I'm The Algonquin Corporation has created about ninety processes or products. Some people watch TV or play video games for fun. I... I invent things." He pointed to a large cardboard box filled with rectangular or square Positive head of paper, "Those are the 'Napkin Files.'" "What the hell?" “When I eat at Starbucks or fast food restaurants, if I have an idea, I scribble it on a napkin, and when I get back here, I copy it all over. But I keep the original, and it’s there.” "So, if there's ever a museum about you, there's going to be a room for napkins." "I've thought of it a long time ago." Somers flushed from forehead to thick chin. "What the hell did you invent?" "I think my expertise is the opposite of Edison's. He wants people to use electricity, and I want people not to use electricity." "Does your boss know that's your goal?" He laughed. "I should probably say that I want people to use electricity more efficiently. I'm the Negative Watt Specialist for Algonquin Corporation." "Never heard that word." "A lot of people haven't heard of negative watts, and it's terrible. The concept originated from a brilliant scientist and environmentalist, Amory Lawwins. The idea was to create incentives to reduce electricity demand, Use electricity more efficiently, instead of building new power plants to increase power generation. The average power plant wastes about half of the heat energy - directly out of the chimney. Half! Think about it. But our chimneys here There is a whole set of collectors on the cooling tower. At the Algonquin power plant, the heat loss is only 27 percent. "I also came up with a portable nuclear generator - mounted on a barge, so that it can be moved from one area to another." He leaned forward, his eyes sparkling again, "There is a new big challenge: Storing electricity. Electricity is not like food. You can't generate electricity and let it sit on the shelf for a month. You either use it or lose it immediately - and instantly. I'm creating a whole new way to store electricity Way. Flywheels, compressed air systems, new battery technology... "Oh, and lately I've been spending half of my time traveling the country connecting with small alternative and renewable energy companies so they can connect to major grids like the Northeast Grid -- that's our company's grid -- Sell ​​electricity to us instead of us selling electricity to small communities." "I thought Andy Jason wasn't very pro-renewable and alternative energy." "No, but she's not out of her mind either. That's the wave of the future. I think the difference between us is when that future will come. I think it'll be soon." Weird smile, "Of course, you have noticed that her office is about the same size as my entire department, and her office is on the ninth floor, where you can see Manhattan... I'm in the basement." His expression became serious, "Then , what can I do for you?" "I have a list of Algonquin employees who may be behind this morning's attack," Sachs said. "Employees here?" Somers looked alarmed. "Looks like they are. They're at least working with the perpetrator. Let's be honest, the perpetrator is probably a man, however the person he's working with is probably a woman. He or she was able to get access to the string of computers that gave them access to the grid control software Code. He kept shutting down substations, causing the current to change course, all into the substation on Fifty-seventh Street. He also reset the circuit breakers and increased the allowable load." "That's how it happened." Somers looked troubled. "Computer. I wondered. I didn't know the details before." "Some of them will have an alibi—we'll check. But I need your advice on who has the ability to redirect electricity and cause an arc flashover." Somers seemed amused, "I'm so flattered. I don't know if Andy understands what's going on here." His innocent expression was fleeting, replaced by a wry smile, "Am I a suspect?" Sachs had spotted Somers' name on the list the first time Jason mentioned it.She raised her eyes and said, "You're on the list." "Hmm. Are you sure you want to trust me?" "At the time of today's attack, which is between 10:30am and about noon, you were on a conference call, and you were out of town during the hours when the perpetrators likely had access to the computer code. The key data shows that in any other You have not entered the security file room for a period of time." Somers raised one eyebrow. She tapped her BlackBerry, "On the way here, I sent a message just for this. I asked someone from the New York Police Department to investigate your situation. So, now you are cleared of suspicion." Sachs expected his words to sound like an apology for not trusting him.But Somers' eyes lit up, and he said, "Thomas Edison would approve of you." "What do you mean?" "Edison said that a genius is a talented person who has done his homework seriously."