“Alright,” She nodded, “I can start the sprinklers running from here, but when I do it’ll set off an alarm all through the complex.”
“Can you disable it”
She shook her head, “Only the audible alarms. There are silent alarms that will trip in all the major control areas, especially in the administration sector. When that happens, if they figure out what we’re doing, they’ll send people to take control back.or, failing that, cut the water off at the source.”
“Alright,” Malcolm looked over his shoulder, “Sergeant.”
“Sir!” Teal looked over.
“Take the rest of the team and proceed to the Tower core. We need to secure the water pumps there and hold them.”
Teal nodded, “Yes Sir. What about here”
“After we trip the system,” Malcolm said cooly, “I’m going to disable the controls. We’ll meet you there.”
“Yes Sir,” Teal nodded again, waving to the other three men. “Let’s move, boys.”
The four SAS people vanished through the door, heading into the maw of the tower itself, while Malcolm turned back to Gwen.
“Do it.”
She nodded, tapping in a series of commands. After a moment a red light began to flash, and then an alarm sounded in the distance. She killed it with a stroke of her finger, then nodded, “Alright. The computer now thinks that there is a fire burning about three quarters of the way up the tower.The sprinklers should be activating anytime now.”
Malcolm nodded, “How long until we know if it works”
She hesitated, and then shook her head. “I’m not sure.”
“Understood,” He replied grimly, “Alright. Move. My turn.”
One kilometer over the desert, one kilometer over the factions locked in varying degrees of battle, an automated system roused itself from a long slumber. Installed as a nod to bureaucratic regulations rather than out of any true need, the powerful pumps whirred to life on command from the computers and began to force water through their pipes.
The spray erupted out from the top first, having waited for full pressure to be achieved before opening the nozzles, and hundreds of gallons of cold water filled the warm rising air of the tower. The heat of the air caused some of the water to evaporate quickly, cooling the air quickly and saturating it with moisture.
Above the tower, outside, a cloud of mist began to form almost immediately, much to the confusion of the terrorists stationed on the observation ring, the cool, clammy mist rolling in on them from above as the momentum of the tower pushed the cooling air up and out. They looked around, trying to locate the source of the mist, but were soon enveloped in it and lost in the clammy grip of the artificial cloud, unable to see more than a few feet around them.
Then the mist seemed to pause, no longer thickening around them and even starting to blow away in places.
Inside the tower the rising plume of air slowly came to a halt, reaching a moment of equilibrium as the weight of the cold, moist air sitting on top held in the warm dryer air below.
And then the equilibrium broke, and the cold air began to fall.
The mist that crowned the tower shuddered unnaturally for a moment, and then was sucked back into the maw that had birthed it, leaving the men standing on the observation ring even more confused and lost than when they couldn’t see.
The warm wind was at its apex here, where Sergeant Teal led his squad, the huge inner section of the tower open like an enormous amphitheater. The wind made them sweat, and sucked up the moisture from their faces and open skin greedily as they moved, but the SAS men ignored it. They moved quickly to where the schematics they had told them their target was located.
“Got it Sarge.”
Teal nodded, watching as one of the men pulled open the access panel to where the large pumps were already purring with a powerful sound. “Sounds like they got ‘em kick started.”
“For sure,” The man said, looking around curiously. “How long do you figure it’ll take”
“Don’t know.” Teal looked up, trying to see the actions he knew were taking place above him, but all he could see were the constantly turning blades of the tower’s multiple wind mills.
They quickly set themselves up, unpacking a pair of heavier weapons that they had shared the job of humping to this very spot, and setup defensive placements while they waited. After a few minutes a shudder seemed to pass through all of them, and they looked around nervously.
“You feel that, Sarge”
“Yeah.” Teal whispered, “What was it”
“Dunno.”
Teal shook it off, wondering if the sudden chill was his imagination or not, only to have his question answered when the water struck. It was light, at first, a few droplets against the wind, spattering their faces and lifting the oppressive heat from them. Then the droplets became honest rain, striking down like a summer storm around their position. The wind was still blowing upward, though, so the balance was refreshing for the soldiers.
When the wind began to calm out, an oppressive weight rested on them and the men looked around a little nervously. It felt like the weight before a thunder storm broke right over your position, the heavy feel of the clouds above them pushing them down into the ground with a tangible force.
The weight broke after several minutes, with a suddenness that left them breathless. With it came the cascading water from above, and the sudden drop of mist landing on them like a bomb from above. It hit the floor of the tower and spread out in all directions like a living thing, cutting visibility down to almost nothing.
And, finally, just as quickly as the mist enveloped them, it was blown away by a chill wind from above and the soldiers began to shiver in their desert fatigues, soaking through to the skin in short order as they finished setting up their position.
“This is the damndest weather I’ve ever seen,” one of them joked half heartedly.
Teal and the others could only nod in agreement as the cool wind and cold rain crashed down around them inside the four hundred meter diameter chamber they now had to hold and defend.
Abdallah Amir was reading a report sent up from the teams he had watching the `hostages’ below when it happened.
The lights flickered, almost imperceptibly, and then the computer displays around him and his men jumped. The moment was brief, but it cast shadows and light around in a distracting manner that brought him up short. He looked up, frowning, “What was that”
“We’re not certain, Amir.”
Abdallah scowled, pushing himself to his feet, and walked around the desk that made up the centerpiece of the back wall of their converted command center. He walked over to the closest man, standing watch over the radar display, and looked over his shoulder.
“What was that” he ground out again, punctuating each word with a rap of his knuckles on the back of the man’s head.
The technician winced, but didn’t move. He stared straight ahead at his display and took a few seconds before replying, “It was a power fluctuation, Amir.”
“Are we not protected against such”
“Here, yes Sir. The fluctuation was at the phased array radar equipment.”
Abdallah’s eyes widened, “Is it working”
“Yes Amir,” The technician said quickly, “Perfectly.”
“Good.” Abdallahe turned away, something nagging at him. He looked over to another man, this one was one of the Engineers hired to maintain the tower’s power generation systems. He wasn’t someone that Amir was inclined to trust, because the weasely little man wasn’t here for a cause, he was here because Abdallah had paid him. Paid him well and generously, in Abdallah’s opinion, for very little gain other than having one more man on the inside when the time came.