Utterly Mad

Catnip didn't hear the sound of the electric generator belching electric fire as it's innards fried and circuits fused, as the sabotaged starter did it's hellish task. What she heard instead, was George shouting over the roaring driveshaft and howling wind as he explained how to set up the remaining terminals to automatically manage the system after everything was in it's place and squared away. They'd discovered the miraculously intact and operable terminal around the same time L was dismissing the men who helped her get the generator where it needed to be.

"You know," Catnip shouted back, "If this thing is able to maintain itself, we could probably set it up to manage it's own coupling procedure. My friend Dee was really good at that sort of thing. You think we could do it?"

"Oh yes, certainly." George responded over the noise, "just input the command here and hit this key here." He jabbed at the screen with one well kept finger, then down at the enter key. "It's risky though if the dish above isn't up to speed and active. If the shaft tries to couple with a dish that isn't in sync with it, or even stopped entirely, it could damage the structure."

"It would rip the top of the tower off." Catnip said too low to hear. She could see it in her mind, her mechanical acumen taking over and simulating it for her brain to work out. The coupling would try to engage, the entire edifice would begin to rattle as the spokes slipped and stripped themselves against one another, and then the shaft would catch. When it did, it would simply twist the top off the tower and fling it away in so many useless pieces.

"I'm going to check the other terminals, maybe our luck will hold out and we can get this place a little more stable. Stay right there, and don't fiddle with anything." George shouted, putting a little emphasis on that last. Whatever trust there had been was gone, and Catnip didn't miss the way he glanced back at her as he crossed the walkway. How he never let her out of his sight. She watched him carefully, keeping a likewise careful eye on the man, and tucked her hands in her pockets. It wasn't until then that she felt the vibration of her radio receiving a transmission. It was so hard to hear it, the sound was being drowned out by the wind chamber, and so Catnip cranked the volume as high as it would go and held it up to her ear.

"-DESTROYED! ITS ON FIRE! CATNIP PLEASE ANSWER, PLEASE ANSWER!" The radio shrieked. It sounded like L, and her message...

"L?! What happened? What's going on?!" She shouted into the radio. Catnip had gone cold, seeing the ghost of an image floating up into the murky dark of her darkest fears. One of the workers dropped the generator and broke it, or maybe one of them had done it intentionally. Maybe all of them. Or... Or maybe it wasn't that bad, maybe L was just having trouble getting it started or-

"THE GENERATOR IS ON FIRE! CATNIP, IT JUST..." There was a long pause, and Catnip could imagine L suddenly stopping to get ahold of herself. Then, "God Nip, it just exploded..."

"Are you hurt L? What happened?" Catnip asked, going cold now. If the generator was down, then they were sunk.

"No... Er... Yeah, my arms all burnt and I... I can't stop twitching. My body feels all tight and..."

"Alright," Catnip said, trying to sound reassuring. Catnip knew the feeling L was describing. She had electrocuted herself more times than she could remember, but probably not nearly as bad as L had. While L had been speaking, Catnip had happened to glance around to where she'd been working the night before and spotted the empty wind cell. In an instant, she had an idea. A dangerous, stupid idea. "I'm coming up L, George and I are going to set the thing down here to couple automatically, but we've gotta be quick. George just go through explaining to me why this is gonna be risky, but it should work. Getting that dish moving is going to be the hard part I think." She said. Catnip didn't hear what L asked next. The radio was already back in it's cradle on her belt and the empty cell tucked under one arm.

"George, somethings gone wrong up top, we need to... George?" Catnip began, then looked around silently and with a rising uneasiness. She'd only been on the radio for a moment but in that time, George had gone.