Category: Serialised

Chapter 9 Red in the Face069

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herds of camels roaming free. Until the desert turned to sea when climate change became worse. East Anglia Sands in the North Sea was once habitable land you know!”

“And the first SlenderWolf?” asks NutJob, “the one with a copper coloured eye and a blue eye?”

“That’s all we have time for now. I have things to do,” says Franklin. She gestures towards the clock on the far wall, “and you two should be at work!”

A little intoxicated by Franklin’s talk of wolves, NutJob spends the whole evening chatting about it whilst he and Faraday are assembling custom made alternators. By 21:00 Faraday is happy to show him out and say good night. Stepping through the door he waves good bye and says “must dash”, then gleefully turns for home.

As he joyfully bounces along the cobbled streets he scans every side street, and every doorway, imagining that there’s a wolf watching him.

NutJob soon reaches the crossroads where King Street becomes Broadland High Street. This is where Willowdene Road branches off to the south west, leading to the popular residential corner of Lancaster. If NutJob waits here, looking north west towards the River Lune and the Garrison, there’s a fifty fifty chance that KristalClear will be on her way home about now.

He sees her as she’s approaching Broadland Park High School. Eager to tell her what he’s learnt about Ulverston, he sets off down the hill as she’s walking up.

“Franklin explained,” he exclaims excitedly, “all about the name, and how the wolves came back, and everything!”

Their route home overlaps from here, but only for a few hundred metres. NutJob is trying to make the best use of the short time available, and is effectively dominating the chat.

“You’re very lively tonight,” she says, “did they put too much sugar in your tea?”

Slightly puzzled he says, “I don’t take sugar!”

Instinctively, KristalClear begins to reach out with her right hand intending to place it on NutJob’s left shoulder and

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Chapter 9 Red in the Face068

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Which means that Wolves Here Town is not too far from the truth.”

Fascinated, NutJob wants to know more, “and when did the wolves disappear? And when did they come back? And how did they come back?”

“I could talk about this for hours,” says Franklin, “but it’s nearly 18:00 and you two have work to do! All you’re getting right now is a snapshot!”

She goes on to explain that in about 1400AD the last wolf in the British Isles was cornered on a spit of land near Grange Over Sands at the southern tip of the Lake District. Trapped on Humphrey Head, with the sea on three sides, the wolf was killed by a man called John Harrington.

“For thousands of years,” explains Franklin, “ this country had no Eurasian Grey Wolves. Until they were reintroduced into the Scottish Highlands in small numbers, as a carefully controlled scientific experiment. Then the world changed. The Decimation meant that many science projects were abandoned, forgotten, or neglected. The wolves spread out in all directions.”

“At the same time, places known as ‘zoos’ and ‘safari parks’ could no longer care for their animals. Many of them were put down. Some of them were turned into food. And a few were released into the wild.”

“If the species were native to these islands then they were to be set free in a controlled and staged release. And, of course, by 2162 that included wolves. So that led to the wild wolves from Scotland mingling with the newly released captive wolves from everywhere else, and the population slowly increased. The first part of the journey was the controlled release from the animal parks. The initial release worked as planned, but then when staffing levels collapsed, the final batches of animals were all released at the same time, including some non native species. Now, there are more black panthers than ever before in Dorset. There are colonies of wallabies all over Mannin and throughout Dartmoor. And all over the Peak District! Across the nine deserts of East Anglia there were

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Chapter 9 Red in the Face067

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Chapter 9
Red in the Face

The next Friday afternoon, just after school has finished,  KristalClear and NutJob are catching up on the latest gossip as they hurry home to get ready for work. NutJob seems unusually exuberant, “some of the lads have bought wolves’ teeth! Or to be more precise, one wolf’s tooth on a thin leather necklace.”

“Yes, I know, I saw one! You’re not getting one are you?”

“No way! Far too outrageous for me! Smacks of some kind of rebel symbolism!”

Then, trying to think of something more sensible to say, he adds, “when did the wolves come back? Actually, when did the wolves die out?”

“Not really sure. You should ask Faraday. Didn’t he work over by Ulverston once? Ulverston means Wolves Here Town doesn’t it? I’m sure he’ll know more.”

“Sure, must dash, have to grab some scoff now and better head in to work early.”

Wanting to chat about Ulverston, NutJob arrives at work at about 17:30 when his start time is actually 18:00. Franklin has just made a large pot of Manx tea for herself and Faraday, and tells NutJob to go and fetch his mug. In a corner of the PrintWorks, Faraday’s desk is messy as usual. Several half used note books lying open. More pens and pencils than he needs, and one old text book, open at a page showing a diagram of an electric motor, or a solenoid, or something. There are several small tools scattered on the desk, but there’s nothing electrical!

They clear enough space to prepare three mugs of black tea, and they all sit around chatting about wolves.

“Wolves Here Town? Almost right,” says Faraday, “Franklin actually did some research on Ulverston, I’m sure she can explain it better than me.”

“It’s a mix of Old Norse and Old English. Úlfarr means wolf army and Tun means farmstead or village,” says Franklin. “So Ulverston actually means the village of the wolf army!

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Chapter 8 As Good as Gold 064

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“Thirty three. I’m not going to make Captain, that’s for sure. Too few positions to be filled.” CandiCrush takes a slow deep breath, “I could try to find a permanent position on shore, or I could leave the Garrison now if I wanted to.”

She turns to look KristalClear directly in the eye, and she summons up a weak smile, “I’m not sure if I’d fit into civvy street, the Garrison has been my life.”

KristalClear wants to be helpful, “what about the Constabulary, or the Ministry of Justice, or the Secret Service? Assuming there is a Secret Service? Doesn’t the Constabulary let you keep your Garrison rank, you could still be Commander Crush, or you could be Chief Superintendent Crush if you wanted!”

CandiCrush just stares into the middle distance. No frown, no smile, just an expressionless face.

After a hesitant pause, KristalClear plays what she thinks is her master stroke, “and the Constabulary has horses!”

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Chapter 8 As Good as Gold 063

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Though she’s slightly taken aback and wonders what’s actually wrong. She looks up, but there’s nothing dangling from the sky.

“That necklace! You can’t wear jewellery like that when you’re riding a horse. You can’t wear jewellery of any sort when you’re in the Garrison!”

Puzzled, and genuinely wanting to know more, KristalClear sheepishly says, “you’re wearing earrings, so am I, isn’t that allowed?”

“OK, simple stud earrings are permitted, and nothing else.”

“And a watch?”

“I have a Garrison issue watch. Not a pocket watch with a dangly chain. And this one has a leather strap. Yours is fine too. Simple and functional. The rule is ‘no dangly things’ which is probably the same one as at school. What exactly did Mr Rafone say?”

“Oh he wasn’t talking to me. One of the weird boys came in wearing a wolf’s tooth on a leather bootlace around his neck. We all thought it was Mr Rafone just being picky.”

“Garrison rule. Engineering rule. Health and safety rule. I’m not surprised if it’s a school rule too! You don’t want weird boys claiming to be Pagan wizards and casting spells with their little dangly things.”

KristalClear giggles, as she carefully removes her new gold necklace.

As they walk down to the stables they start chatting about their earrings. They’re made with Meirionydd gold from the mine in Dolgellau.

“Married personnel can also wear a plain gold wedding ring if they want to.”

KristalClear looks at CandiCrush’s left hand.

“You don’t.”

“I’m not married!”

“No, neither am I!”

“You’re young! Plenty of time. I spend half my life at sea. I just haven’t met the right man yet.”

“How old are you? If you don’t mind me asking?”

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Chapter 8 As Good as Gold 062

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“Wait a minute! Hydroelectric generators? They’re big heavy things aren’t they?”

“No! Not now! Well they’re still big, but we’ve manged to get them down to roughly the size of a wooden chair, like the ones in school. Faraday wheeled one of the generators up to the brook, and I wheeled the other one. We ran the power line 50 metres back to the works, lowered the mill wheels into the stream, and bingo! Electricity!”

Questioning her own sanity, she continues, “OK … and what are … what are load balancers?”

Excited, NutJob’s speech becomes a little faster, and is delivered at a higher pitch.

“One generator was better than the other! We harnessed their output together, but the phases weren’t the same. The presses ran fast, then slow, then fast again. Too fast, and too slow. Faraday said the cycles were out of sync. Sometimes amplifying the current, and sometimes almost cancelling it out. We need to balance them. He knows what a load balancer is. He says there are massive ones in the Leven dam. If we want a smaller one we’re going to have to build it ourselves. From scratch. We just need to get our hands on the right components.”

—o—

By the time the cavalry returns from Ormskirk it’s mid afternoon on Saturday, and all CandiCrush wants to do is have a rest.

KristalClear is keen to get a full update on the news and is disappointed, though not surprised, to learn that nothing much happened.

CandiCrush changes the subject. Raising her right index finger in front of her, pointing at nothing in particular other than the sky, she uses her strictest head teacher voice and says, “no dangly things!”

“That’s what Mr Rafone says!” responds KristalClear.

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Chapter 8 As Good as Gold 061

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gently letting it cascade back into the palm of her hand. She’s too preoccupied with thoughts to notice the time passing.

“Hello!” says NutJob, with a genuine note of surprise.

“Oh! Dave! Hello!”

“I didn’t expect to see you here.”

KristalClear quickly puts the necklace into the pocket of her jeans. Switching into softly softly mode, she says, “I was able to finish early after the cavalry left. I was telling Franklin about the news. How was your day?”

His face beams as they start to slowly walk along Common Garden Street, and NutJob launches into full geek mode.

“You know that side project, those standby generators that Faraday and I have been working on?”

“Uh huh,” she says politely, wondering if she could have chosen a simpler topic of conversation.

“Well they work! Not the mini turbines on the roof, there wasn’t enough wind for them to produce any viable electricity. But the portable hydroelectric generators. They work! We had power. We used two of them and we had the presses running on electricity. Last time there was a power cut we had to crank the presses by hand. We worked until midnight, did half the print run, missed the distribution deadline and it was Monday before any of the outlying towns had their copies.”

KristalClear knew all about last time. The distribution network relies on horses so she’s aware of who does what. This time around she’s interested to know how NutJob and Faraday managed to move hydroelectric power generators. The last time she saw the prototypes, they were the size of household stoves!

At the same time she’s wondering about the wisdom of pursuing this line of enquiry, because she really doesn’t want to have a science lecture in the middle of the street, late on a Friday evening!

“Tell me more,” she says cautiously.

“Load balancers,” says NutJob “we have to figure out how to balance things!”

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Chapter 8 As Good as Gold 060

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“Not exactly. On one of the trips, I was on a Garrison ship. I asked Major Hastings about Boot and Wally. That was a long time ago, he was a lieutenant back then! He kindly persuaded the Commander to let us leave Fflint really early one morning, take a little detour, and see the docks in Wally and Boot. From a distance mind! I couldn’t make out much, but I know where they are, and I know what the ships look like!”

“And they look like?”

“Ships! Same as ours! Some of them are ours! Stolen Allied ships! The BlackCircle paint theirs black, and the RedCircle … ?”

“Red?”

“Precisely! Listen, we’ll have to wrap up now. Before you leave though, let me show you this. Actually you have this one, I brought several of these back from Fflint.”

Franklin hands her a modest, thin necklace, like the one she’s currently wearing.

“This is real gold?”

“It’s Meirionydd gold, it matches your earrings. It’s a little thank you from me for always taking good care of the horses, and for spontaneously bringing me today’s news story.”

“Oh thank you, thank you so much!”

“You were scanning the works for NutJob weren’t you? Do you want me to take you into the print room, or shall we slip out quietly through the Penny Street entrance?”

“Yes … I should wait … outside.”

“Yes. Don’t appear too keen. Wait for the right moment and you’ll bond more firmly. Play your cards carefully with this one. He’s as good as gold!”

—o—

            Outside, the sun has already set, though the evening is comfortably warm. KristalClear walks as far as the corner of the building and stands there, examining the necklace. Delicately twisting it around her finger, picking it up and

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Chapter 8 As Good as Gold 059

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Chapter 8
As Good as Gold

With the troops and horses gone, there’s really not much else to do. Having started earlier than usual, KristalClear reasons that it’s OK to finish earlier, and to head off to catch up with NutJob. But he might still have to work until 21:00 as usual, and she doesn’t want to make it too obvious that she fancies him. Neither does she want to miss their normal chat on the way home, along the short section of the route where their walk home coincides. So she’s not going home just yet. She decides that she needs to visit the PrintWorks in order to discuss the news with Franklin.

“Hello Kristal! I wasn’t expecting you,” she says, “ I think NutJob’s probably going to be busy for a while yet.”

“No, don’t let him know I’m here, I came to see you! With news from the Garrison.”

Over a cup of tea in the office they end up chatting more about horses than conflict, though KristalClear’s keen to learn more about Franklin’s adventures over the years. She’s seen the Ormskirk incident happen before, and she’s not surprised  hearing Handsome’s version of the story. The novelty is having the news on the same day, and having it almost directly from the horse’s mouth!

Not for the first time during the conversation, KristalClear is looking through the window of the editor’s office towards the print floor. She strokes her neck gently whilst trying to spot NutJob. She can’t see him, and wonders if being here was really such a good idea after all. What if he sees her in the office?

“Have you ever been to Worringfolk?” asks KristalClear.

“When I was a journalist I went to Fflint many times. Fflint’s in Meirionydd, though it’s not far from Chester. I think there’s some informal line of communication into Worringfolk, but it’s all hush hush and even I wasn’t able to find out what’s going on.”

“Have you ever seen the pirates?”

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