The five main trunk lines leaving Power yard 404 were not thin copper wires.
They were four-inch-thick braided cables of electrolytic copper and refined silver, jacketed in thick hardened rubber and suspended fifty feet in the air by star-steel signal towers that stretched across the mountain ridges into the five cardinal directions of the Jiuzhou Continent.
Each tower was anchored into bedrock with high-pulling spreading bolts and crowned with tiered fine china bell insulators designed to withstand three million volts of sky discharge.
For three years, the Five Students had led construction crews across three billion square miles of mortal territory, raising signal lines across swamps, deserts, mountain ranges, and frozen tundras.
Fighters had mocked the project as a madman’s folly—a teacher forcing peasants to string heavy metal ropes from mountain to mountain.
Now, the lines were humming.
Frank stood before the outdoor main spreading panel bolted to the stone wall of Power yard 404.
The panelboard was carved from a single slab of non-current-carrying slate, six feet wide and eight feet tall.
