Chapter 115
Chapter 115:
“Li, what’s the status on the junction box rewiring?” Hannah asked, not looking up from the circuit board she was inspecting through a magnifying glass.
Li, a thin man with wire-rimmed glasses, didn’t pause his typing. “Schematics are complete. We’ve isolated all fourteen tampered triggers and recalibrated them to the correct specs.”
Hannah nodded, marking something on her tablet. “Good. Park, how about the emergency shutdown protocol?”
Across the room, a woman with short-cropped hair shook her head. “It’s worse than we thought. They didn’t just modify the temperature sensors. They rigged the entire backup system to fail simultaneously instead of in sequence.”
Hannah’s stomach tightened. The sabotage was more alarming the deeper they dug. This wasn’t just an attempt to cause the Grid to fail; it was designed to make it fail catastrophically, with maximum damage and danger.
A voice spoke from the doorway. “How bad is it?”
Hannah turned to see Camille standing there. Despite the late hour, she looked perfectly put together in a tailored pantsuit, though exhaustion shadowed her eyes.
“Ms. Kane,” Hannah straightened. “We didn’t expect you tonight.”
“I couldn’t sleep.” Camille crossed to the main workstation. “Show me what you’ve found.”
Hannah pulled up the master diagram on the main screen. Red marks highlighted each sabotaged component, dozens of them scattered throughout the Grid’s main systems.
“They were… thorough,” Hannah said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Every critical safety system has been compromised in some way. Temperature sensors set too high. Circuit breakers modified to allow power surges. Backup systems designed to fail.”
Camille’s face remained composed, but Hannah noticed her hands clenching at her sides. “And the result?”
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“If the Grid went online with these modifications…” Hannah paused, the words sticking in her throat. “The main junction boxes would overheat within seventy-two hours. The safety systems would report everything functioning normally, even as temperatures reached dangerous levels. When the system finally failed, it would trigger a cascading power surge through the entire grid.”
“Explosions?” Camille asked softly.
Hannah nodded. “Multiple sites. Simultaneous. The downtown power grid would go down completely. And the public record would show that Kane Industries knowingly implemented a flawed system.”
A muscle twitched in Camille’s jaw, the only sign of the anger she must be feeling.
“But we’re fixing it,” Hannah added quickly. “We’ve already corrected the blueprint modifications. We’re now implementing physical changes to counteract any hardware that’s already been installed according to the sabotaged plans.”
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