Utterly Mad

If Catnip had to give a grade to L's performance over the next few days, she would have given her a C- at most. She was a fantastic book keeper, a solid A+. When it came to hugs and encouragement though, L lost marks. Mostly because Hugs was an "N/A" and L seemed to lost in herself to encourage. Tool knowledge as well was lacking. In all, Catnip thought that when it came to being an assistant, L would never stack up to Kathrines pure usefulness and appeal. If Catnip knew what "bias" was, she probably would have reconsidered her judgement a little. Still, there was the regrettable fact of L's complicity in her current state and it was that which held the feelings behind her treatment by Catnip.

"I need a clampy thingy for this part here, if this isn't held in place while I work it's not going to be straight. Are you taking this down?" Catnip said. L was jotting down Catnip's desired tool and what it was needed for with her shorthand, perfected by years of bookkeeping and gambling. For the time being, Catnip and L were relegated to examination work. Looking and seeing what would be needed. The works below and around them went ahead steadily as cleanup proceeded as planned. Somewhere, Felicia and Tenny were puzzling over the plants security computer while the architects did about the same work as Catnip, checking and rechecking.

By the end of the fourth day, the workers had cleared out the entire top floor and began on the second. On the first floor was discovered something of interest to the job site. A short term storage room marked with a simple sign reading "Wind Cell." Inside, the room had been devastated by some kind of explosions, and contained very little besides the ruins of several storage shelves, and some kind of cannisters that some angry good had decided to rip apart and twist back together again.

"What kind of cell is this?" Tenny had asked, examining the cannisters. Felicia took the hunk of metal and looked it over before passing it to Catnip. "I think it's a wind battery. The plant mainframe has whole files on them, some big energy initiative. A single one of these could power Pricetown for generations."

"What make it work?" Catnip wondered aloud, "I could use something like that." She turned the piece of metal over and an odd pinkish sand came out, which she examined very carefully.

Patrick snickered, "For what? Power your vibrator?" Catnip glared at him, and so to for that matter did L.

"Enough Pat. Some kind of stone, but without proper precautions the stones have a habit of destroying the area around them. I guess they aren't exactly made of stern stuff themselves because they usually get broken up in the process."

The room seemed to support the guesses Felicia was making about the batteries destructive potential. The walls were crumbling and seemed to even bough outward slightly. Patrick examined the walls and gave an assessment surprisingly free of insult.

"It's reinforced concrete, cept it looks like something other than steel for the rails. They're thick too, I think it's that experimental super alloy stuff." He said, prying out a loose bar. To everyone's surprise, he handed it not to Felicia, but to Catnip, "Tell us what you know, oh mechanic of vermin."

Again Catnip glared while L bristled. She took the bar though, and looked closely. Catnip had not seen the bars make before except as sheets Floyd brought her. Back on the farm, she had four of them. Small three foot by three foot panels her grandfather figure had brought back. Catnip struck the bar one of her screwdrivers and the sound it made was heavy but sonorous, sending a shiver down her spine and into the tip of her tail.

"I love that sound. It's the good stuff alright, super alloy. If I could get my hands on more of it back home..." She let the statement hang, simply appreciating the heavy material in her hands.

"If that's the case," Patrick put in, "then despite the shape of the room, it should be perfectly fine to leave it as is. I'm willing to bet that peice is just a fluke when it comes to the damages here." He took the bar from Catnip, and she was almost loath to give it up.

Felicia examined the peice of metal carefully, turning it over as Catnip had. "If there are more of these down below somewhere, we are going to need them. I suppose the worst we could find is that most of them will be busted up. If it comes to that, hopefully the backup generators can make this tower sing." She said, then had a thought, "what if this place wasn't bombed like we were told? Nothing sinister or anything like that, but no one was actually here when the shit went down right?"

They stood around in silence, the walls around them punctuating the danger. L broke the silence.

"What if there are more wind cells down there?"

"We will deal with that when we get to it."