Chapter 84 - The Broken Winch
The small explosive charge on the overhead winch detonated with a sharp crack that sounded like a whip snapping in the cavernous room.
The thick steel cable sheared instantly. The industrial cage carrying Lily plummeted twenty feet toward the frothing river before the secondary emergency brake clamped down with a screech of shredding metal, catching the cage by a single, frayed wire rope. The cage swung violently in the spray, tilting at a forty-five-degree angle directly over the spinning maw of Turbine Number Two.
Lily’s terrified wail pierced through the mechanical thunder. "Daddy!"
"Hold on, sweetheart!" I screamed.
Marcus turned toward the waiting funicular car, laughing with manic triumph as the pneumatic doors hissed open. "A clean break, Julian! The past stays in the dark!"
"Not today!" Clara’s voice rang out from the shadows above him.
She dropped from the conduit rail straight onto Marcus's shoulders, bringing both of them crashing down onto the concrete platform. The infant flew from Marcus's grip, rolling toward the edge of the pit, wrapped securely in the padded silver survival shell.
I didn't hesitate. I couldn't run to Clara; my daughter was suspended over the abyss by a cable that was unraveling strand by strand. I bolted along the narrow catwalk, my eyes locked on the winch housing. The manual hand-crank was locked in the overhead gantry.
Leaping across a four-foot gap where the flooring had buckled, I landed hard on the rusted maintenance platform. Grabbing the grease-covered emergency cable with my bare hands, I felt the rough steel burrs bite deep into my palms, tearing open the skin. I threw my entire weight backward, wrapping the cable around an iron cleat.
Below me, the cage lurched. The canvas duffel had shifted, sliding toward the open mesh gate of the cage.
"Julian! Catch!" Clara screamed.
I glanced back. Clara had pinned Marcus against the funicular housing, but the old man had drawn a ceramic blade from his sleeve, slashing wildly at her arm. Blood sprayed across the white paint of the train, but Clara didn't give an inch. With a vicious knee to his midsection, she knocked him back, swept up the silver pod containing the infant, and kicked the master emergency cutoff on the platform control board.
A massive klaxon sounded. The turbine intake gates began to slam shut with earth-shattering thuds. The churning whirlpool beneath Lily’s cage began to rise rapidly as millions of gallons of backed-up water filled the concrete pit.
"Daddy, the water is coming up!" Lily cried, her tiny hands reaching out through the mesh.
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The water level was surging at three feet per second. If the intake was blocked, the entire turbine floor would be submerged within two minutes.
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