At exactly one o’clock in the afternoon, forty-five minutes into the overtime shift, an unforeseen physical event struck the comms network. High above the gorge, an ancient Roman top ledge stone on the corner of the museum roof—loosened by forty years of academy shaking and soaked by twenty-four hours of pouring rain—snapped cleanly from its bed-joint.
The eighty-pound block of carved limestone plunged sixty feet through the howling gale. In its downward flight path, it struck the taut flax tension cord that spanned the gorge between the museum window and the Third Gate control house. The four-strand tarred rope snapped with a sharp, explosive report like a pistol shot, the two cut ends whipping back through the guide-loops and falling into the boiling torrent below.
In the museum gallery, the iron balance weight lever dropped with a loud, metal clatter against the window doorstep. Will Carver sprang forward, his hands catching the slack line. “Pella! The cord has gone dead slack! The line is cut!” Across the gorge, the warning bell on the Third Gate platform gave one uneven, muffled twitch and went fully silent. The main clockwork comms link between the command post and the water stations was cut.
