The Missing Year

Written and illustrated by Pauli Kohberger

Meanwhile, in Electricopolis...

The lights of the subway train disappeared, gradually, into the darkness. Margaret stood there on the platform for another long moment, looking into the black, and then she turned and raced back up the stairs to Top Tier HQ. Jam followed behind her, stammering. "Margie!" he shouted. "Wait!"

"I can't wait," she responded, her jaw set tight. "I have work to do."

In the company headquarters, most of the white-collar workforce--the executives, the middle managers and so on--cowered in the lobby in a state of utter confusion. Beyond the doors and windows, there was a throng of people that pressed against the glass, demanding to know what was going on.

"Miss King!" said the execs, huddling around her. "Where's your father? No one can get in touch with him!"

Margaret raised her voice. "Where my father is isn't important right now," she said, swallowing her fear and anxiety. "In his absence, I'm the acting head of the Top Tier Electric Company." Before they could protest, she continued: "What's the situation regarding our main workforce?"

"They're still in the tunnels," said one mousy-looking man, adjusting his glasses. "At least, a good eighty percent of them must be."

"Still? Get them out of there," Margaret ordered. "We need them up here, not down there! We'll need them to carry the HQ's backup generators to the hospitals and the farms, primarily, then distribute the rest among the populace. Get going!"

A host of the executives hurriedly broke off from the main group to follow her orders. Margaret pivoted to talk to another set of worried faces. "What's the damage regarding the riots?"

"The riots seem to be kept to the top tier," came the response from a tall, thin man who was mopping his brow with a handkerchief. "The worst of it was about an hour ago--it's calmed down a lot since then. The fire crews are on the scene in Diamond Plaza, putting out the fires among the commercial district."

Margaret breathed a sigh of half-relief. "Okay, good. If they're hitting their limit, contact the Volunteer Fire Departments down below and see if they can divert any people. Meanwhile, tell the cops to stop looking for Bob Sparker and start doing their real jobs instead," she said, trying not to let her annoyance show. "Control traffic, make sure the emergency vehicles have a clear path to do their thing. Infrastructure is the most important thing right now."

The remaining group of middle managers nodded and scattered off to do their jobs. Finally, she turned to Jam. "Jam," she said quietly. "When you're able to, I've got something I need you to do. You remember Miss Information?"

"I was just thinking that," he said. "I'll get a generator over to her and keep her running. Between the two of us, we'll keep tabs on the lower tiers."

"Thank you." She heaved a sigh and turned towards the doors.

Jam looked from her to the glass doors. "What are you gonna do about them?"

Beyond the glass doors was a horde of people, pressing up against the glass, pounding on it and shouting in muffled voices. Margaret swallowed."I'll do what I have to," she said.

A few security guards went outside and pressed back the crowd enough for Margaret and Jam to emerge. They were immediately confronted by a nearly incomprehensible wall of voices, each person demanding answers. "What's going on here?" asked one. "Where's Mr. King?" said another. "And what about that Bob Sparker?"

Margaret stepped forward and stared, square and seemingly unafraid, into the crowd. "Everyone just calm down a second," Jam said, holding his hands up. "Margaret--that is, Miss King--has something to tell you."

Margaret swallowed and steeled herself. "I know you all have a million questions, so let's get started," she said. "First, forget what you've heard about Bob Sparker. He isn't to blame for any of this."

"Then who is?" asked a man in the front of the crowd.

Margaret swallowed, unsure of how to proceed. "I..."

Jam stepped to the side, closer to her, and squeezed her hand out of the view of the crowd.

"I am," she said loudly. "My father, Percy King, oversaw the welfare of the electric company and the town itself. But he's...gone," she said simply. "I'm here instead."

A silence settled on the crowd for a second or two, and then it erupted into confusion. "What do you mean he's gone?" shouted a member of the crowd, pressing forward against one of the security guards. "We want some answers from him, damn it!"

"He's gone!" Margaret repeated. "He's somewhere far away where he can't do any more damage!" She blinked back the tears that were starting to brim at the corners of her eyes. "I'm here to take responsibility..."

"Take responsibility?" spat the man in the front of the crowd. "How do you plan to do that? We've been stuck without power for hours!"

"I know. As heiress--and now the CEO--of Top Tier, it's my duty to keep the city safe. My father failed you, and I've failed you," Margaret admitted, casting her gaze downwards. "I can't speak for him, but I was...naïve. I didn't think about what was really going on inside the city. I just trusted him to make everything better. So if you want to hate me, hate me," she insisted, looking back up at the crowd. "If you want to take it out on someone, take it out on me!"

There was a hollow, tinny sound as a soda can hit her shoulder and bounced away. "Hey!" Jam shouted, stepping forward, but Margaret raised her arm to keep him back.

"It's okay," she mouthed. A second can hit her chest. The crowd roared. Someone threw a small chunk of brick that hit her in the forehead, causing her to stumble backwards, the cut bleeding. Jam caught her, and pulled her to her feet. "I'm fine," she said dazedly. "It's okay, I can take it--"

"No!" Jam admonished, to her and to the crowd. "Stop it, all of you! You think any of this helps anyone?" he said, gesturing around them. "You think doing this is going to solve anything?" He shook his head. "Listen to me. Go home," he advised. "Be with your families. Take care of each other."

"My partners are still down in the tunnels," said a woman, raising her hand. "When will the workers be back?"

"We're...we're extracting them as we speak," Margaret said, mopping the blood from her brow. "Some of them will still be working to distribute generators to high-priority areas, but the rest can return home. Jam's right," she said. "Please, take care of each other. We'll have a lot of work to do, but...give us another chance. Let Top Tier take care of it. Keep your radios on, okay? We'll draft up some guidance and broadcast it as soon as we can."

The crowd calmed down, and finally dispersed. "Thanks," Margaret sighed, pulling out her compact mirror and checking the cut on her face. "That could have gotten way worse."

"It almost did," Jam said firmly. "You've gotta take care of yourself, Margie." He put a hand on her shoulder as the two of them went back into the headquarters. "Come on. Let's regroup with the execs. You got anything to eat around here?"

Work continued late into the night. Margaret and Jam sat in the conference room with the rest of the highest-level executives. The room was lit by oil lamps, and in the middle of the table was a camp stove that heated a pot of instant noodle soup. "I remember pulling all-nighters, but nothing this bad," remarked one of the mousy-looking men. "Your father would always tell me to go home and take it easy... that he would take care of everything."

"Yeah?" Margaret said, looking up from her ramen. "That sounds like him, all right. He always..." She hesitated, swallowing nervously. "He always wanted people to go home happy."

"For better or for worse, yes." The man pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and blinked at her. "Miss King, you might consider taking the same advice. I think we've got things locked down over here."

Margaret shook her head, then noticed Jam's piercing gaze. He normally wore his shades all the time, but in the dim light, he'd had to take them off. "I...guess you're right," she sighed. "But I don't want to go to the penthouse. Can't I just rest on the couch over there?"

"Miss King," said the man, "you can rest anywhere you want."

Margaret sat down on the couch, Jam next to her. Within moments she was deep asleep, her head resting on Jam's shoulder, and he found himself nodding off after not much longer.

What a nightmare, he thought to himself. I wonder how Bob's doing. I hope he's okay...and Mr. King, too, I guess. He closed his eyes. I hope they haven't killed each other.

As the days and nights passed in inky darkness, Margaret and Jam--and the executives, the middle managers, the foremen, all the way down to the lowest position in the company--worked together to keep the city from falling apart. Without electricity derived from the hydrocarbon fuel under the town, they were forced to generate their own using their own power. Generators, and the remaining fuel that could be used to power them, were reserved for areas like the hospitals and farms, so modified bicycles and treadmills were set up across the city to function as charging stations. Margaret spent quite some time on the local charging cycle herself, both to assuage her own guilt and to work off some stress. Jam considered telling her to take it easy, but there were worse coping mechanisms.

When he had time, he made that trip to Miss Information to give her a generator and ask her the situation in the lower tiers. Amazingly enough, the riots that had occurred in the top tiers were largely absent from the bottom, probably because they were used to being without power due to the brownouts in recent days. "Probably also because we're not sick in the head like you rich guys," Miss Information laughed, and Jam only nodded grimly.

Margaret, in the meantime, combed through the paperwork from Research & Development. Apparently, one of the scientists had been spearheading research on using underground water channels to power the city, but hadn't been able to secure funding. "I guess we could go with something like this," Margaret mused, flipping through the schematics. "It would require reworking a lot of our infrastructure, though..."

"That's probably why it never went anywhere," Jam remarked. "Besides, would the Underground Sea be enough to power the entire town?"

"I guess we've got no choice but to..."

There was a knock at the penthouse door, and before either Margaret or Jam could get up to answer it, the visitor had let himself in. He was unfamiliar to Jam, but Margaret's eyes widened: their guest was gaunt and willowy, with an ethereal beauty and long, golden hair that swept past his shoulders. He walked with a cane and wore a white suit, and upon his chest was a small, firefly-shaped, battery-powered brooch that gave off a warm glow.

"Excuse me," he said primly, bowing slightly. "Miss King?"

"Who are you?" Jam asked, slightly annoyed. "You always let yourself in like this?"

"It's fine," Margaret said quickly, standing up and brushing off her shirt and skirt. She reached forward to shake the man's hand. "It's, uh, a pleasure to see you--President Amar."

Jam looked from Margaret to President Amar and back again. "Amar? The head of Rubyred Networks?" he asked, blinking.

"The very same," said the mysterious man, smiling a thin, suspicious smile. "I believe I have something you'd be very, very interested in... perhaps a way to save our precious city."

Jam pulled his lips back in a grimace and glanced over at Margaret, giving her an Is this guy for real? kind of look. Margaret shushed him, and turned back to Mr. Amar. "Of course I'm interested!" she said, and reached over to clear off the nearby table of its various papers and coffee cups. "Please, have a seat!"

"Thank you." Mr. Amar sat down, sighing. "Forgive me. Is that an oil lamp there? Do you mind if I turn it up?"

"Not at all," Margaret said. She reached over to twist the knob on it, brightening the light. "Can you see all right?"

"Much better. My eyesight's not the best," Amar sighed. "Anyway..." He reached into his suit jacket and produced a thickly stuffed envelope. "Please, take a look."

Margaret opened the envelope and pulled out the papers inside. She looked over them, her brow furrowing. "These are...schematics for wind turbines!"

"That's right. While your father was happily running the town into the ground, I contracted scientists to come up with a system that utilizes windpower. Constructed and placed carefully on the wall of the city, each turbine should be enough to power over a thousand households apiece," Amar stated proudly. "Impressive, isn't it?"

"It is," Jam said. "Why are you coming to us with it?"

"Why, because I need Miss King's help." Amar's eyes gleamed. "As you can imagine, this would require the use of already existing infrastructure if we want to get it up and running as quickly as possible..."

"You want access to the power grid?" Margaret asked.

"And funding," Amar pointed out. "Both of which you have in abundance, my dear."

Margaret considered this. "Um, could you give us a day or two?" she asked. "My, uh, associate here and I should talk this over."

"Ah. Of course." Amar's eyes gleamed in the light. "However, time is ticking, Miss King. We wouldn't want the city to be without power any longer than absolutely necessary, would we?"

Jam's eyes darted over to his friend. Margaret swallowed nervously, feeling the pressure slowly start to descend like a weight on her shoulders. Her father had spoken of this man before. "Of course, it's beneath me to disparage the man," Percy King had said diplomatically, "but beware of those like him, my dear." She was starting to realize why.

"We'll just be a minute," she said briskly, trying to hide her anxiety. She grabbed Jam's arm and led him to the adjoining room, closing the door almost all the way behind her.

"I don't trust him," Jam said. "This is way too convenient, right? I'd be surprised if he hasn't been sitting on these plans for years, just waiting for the perfect moment to swoop in and act like a hero."

"You're probably right," Margaret said, "but we don't have much of a choice, right? These turbines aren't that complex, so they can probably go up way sooner than we'd even get to approve funding for the water-powered infrastructure. And if we drag our feet on this and he goes public with it..."

"I know, but..." Jam pinched the bridge of his nose, furrowing his brow. "I don't like it. He's up to something."

"I know." Margaret rubbed at her face. "But I don't know what else to do..."

After a few more moments of hushed speech, Margaret and Jam came back into the parlor. Amar had been checking his watch, and tucked it back into his pocket as they approached.

"We'll do it," Margaret agreed, "but be honest. You want something else out of this, don't you?"

Amar smiled thinly and his eyes acquired that predatory gleam once again. "Why, how astute of you, Miss King. There is something I'd like. Two things, in fact. First, I'd like you to bend the mayor's ear a little bit to get Paulina Sweet released from prison."

Margaret stared. "You want me to what? After what she did to Bob and that poor Sam Gale guy?"

"Free her from prison. Yes." Amar's smile widened. "And as for the second thing...you'll simply owe me a favor, that's all. A favor I may call in down the line, sometime, somewhere." His smile turned into a toothy grin. "Is that adequate, Miss King?"

Margaret felt her hands clench under the table. True, she could probably get Paulina out of prison, loath though she was to do it. It would be a trivial task. But that "favor" didn't sound so good...

But, then again...

I owe it to the town, she thought. If it'll help save the city...if it'll make everything right...

"Okay," she said, nodding. "You've got a deal."

Things moved quickly after that--suspiciously quickly. The turbines were ready to go up almost as soon as the paperwork was signed, which cemented Margaret and Jam's suspicion that Rubyred had already had them constructed and had simply been waiting for the appropriate time to strike. Still, what was done was done, and Margaret was just glad to not have to keep the populace of Electricopolis waiting any longer than necessary.

Her concerns were pragmatic as well as righteous. Top Tier (and undoubtedly Rubyred) had been hemorrhaging money during the blackout and reconstruction, so the sooner they could get up and running, the better. Margaret had voluntarily taken an enormous pay cut, as well as a few of the other executives she had managed to convince, which helped them save face as well as money. Slowly, public opinion about Top Tier managed to swing from negative to neutral, and even began to cautiously approach positive.

But who really benefited from this was Rubyred. As Jam had predicted, Giuseppe Amar was hailed as a hero, and (Margaret felt her stomach turn) a worthy replacement for the absent Percy King. Margaret herself was regarded as a stopgap, an unprepared ingenue who was suddenly, brutally thrust into an unenviable position. Leave it to the real businessmen, people whispered, and Margaret felt frustration curling her hands into fists. Thank God we have a real leader now.

She tried not to pay attention to what people said. Maybe it was for the best, anyway. Amar did seem to know what he was doing. Maybe releasing Paulina Sweet from prison was a fair trade... it's not like Bob Sparker or Percy King were still in town for her to have a grudge against, after all.

The turbines went up. Power was restored to the populace. Slowly, Zap! Entertainment ramped up again, bringing back almost all of their pre-blackout programming, with Bob Sparker's Shock 'Til You Drop noticeably absent. The network never issued a statement, nor did the people in town care to inquire. The show was canceled, and his name was barely ever spoken again.

And quietly, gradually, rays of light began to pierce the cover of the clouds.

Back