Gerald Kelley sat at his desk in the machinery spaces of the basement, thumbing through work orders. He had a day crew of eight men, and he tried to distribute the work according to need and capability. Any work on the power plant itself, though, Kelley did himself. The work orders in front of him were all routine, including the drain in the nurses’ station on the fourteenth floor. That plugged up on schedule, once per week. Placing the work orders in the sequence he felt they should be done, Kelley began to match them up with his crew.
Although the general din in the machinery spaces was at a relatively high level, especially for people unaccustomed to the area, Kelley’s ears were sensitive to the character of the mixed sounds. Thus when the clank of metal on metal reached his ears from the direction of the main electrical panel, he turned his head. Most people would not have heard the sound amid all the other mechanical noises. However, it did not repeat itself and Kelley returned to his administrative job at hand. He did not like the paperwork attached to his position; he would have preferred to fix the sink on the fourteenth floor himself. Yet he also understood that organization was a necessity if he were to keep things running. There was no way he could attend to every repair himself.
The clank recurred, louder than before. Kelley turned again and surveyed the area near the electrical panel, behind the main boilers. He returned to his papers but found himself staring ahead, trying to understand what could have caused the kind of sound he had heard. It had a sharp, brief metallic resonance foreign to the indigenous sounds of the area. Finally curiosity got the best of him and he wandered over to the main boiler. To get near to the electrical panel situated next to the main chase, which contained all the piping rising up in the building, he had to go around the boiler in either direction. He chose to go right, which gave him an opportunity to check the gauges on the boiler. This was an unnecessary maneuver because the system had been fully automated with backup safety devices and automatic cutoff switches. But it was an instinctive move for Kelley, having originated in the days when the boiler had to be watched minute by minute. So as he rounded the boiler his eyes were on the system, his mind appreciating its marvelous compactness compared to the system when he had started at the Memorial. When he looked ahead toward the electrical panel, he froze in his tracks, his right arm lifted involuntarily in self-defense.
“God, you scared the life out of me,” said Kelley, catching his breath and allowing his arm to come back to his side.
“I could say the same,” said a slim man dressed in a khaki uniform. The shirt was open at the neck, and the man wore a white crew neck t-shirt which reminded Kelley of navy chiefs during his wartime duty. The man’s left breast pocket bulged with pens, small screwdrivers, and a ruler. Above the pocket was embroidered “Liquid Oxygen, Inc.”
“I had no idea anyone else was in here,” said Kelley.
“Same with me,” said the man in khaki.
The two men looked at each other for a moment. The man in khaki was carrying a small green cylinder of compressed gas. A flow meter was attached to the cylinder head. “Oxygen” was stenciled plainly on the side.
“My name is Darell,” said the man in khaki. “John Darell. Sorry to have scared you. I’ve been checking the oxygen lines out to the central storage tank. Everything seems fine. In fact, I’m on my way out Could you tell me the shortest route?”
“Sure. Through those swinging doors, up the stairway to the main hall. Then you have a choice. Nashua Street is to the right, Causeway Street to the left.”
“Thanks a million,” said Darell, heading for the door.
Kelley watched him leave, and then looked around in disbelief. He couldn’t figure how Darell had managed to get where he had been without being noticed. Kelley had no idea he could get so absorbed in his Goddamn paperwork.