The Culture Battle In Full Storm
The German staff were leaning back into the old, dark green swivel chairs of the sound room, depleted and lost for ideas. "The only thing I can see worth trying is erecting a fence around the perimeter of the city to break the wind. That's what we should have done long ago and been done with this misery!" Hubert pounded his fist down on the table.
Dietz had his feet up on a table and stretched out as far as his chair would let him. He spoke in a childish sarcastic tone, "It's too late for that."
Before Hubert came up with an angry retort, Joeli came in the room again and Hubert looked at him with the fierocity of a mother bear watching her cub being spray-painted honey brown and forced into the leading role of a Winnie the Pooh movie.
"Mayor Grossman, there's a call for you in the building manager's office. They say its kind of urgent." said Joeli.
"Kind of urgent? What is that supposed to mean?" Hubert let out a long sigh and followed Joeli out of the sound room, all the while wondering what possible good it could do to be told any more bad news.
"Yes, Grossman here... right... well... we're trapped here in the cultural building so I wish I could do something about it but I really can't. Yes... yes I've heard about the Sistine Chapel being built I just wasn't sure when they'd be done. Look dear, we're done for as it so all I can say is good luck to you. I'm sorry." Hubert hung up and went limp in the chair letting his arms hang down each side, exhausted from all the stress.
Ah, yeah... the fence idea. I suppose it might be worth giving Dirk a call... and pray he's still there.
After waiting on hold for almost 10 minutes, Dirk finally answered, "Hello Hube is that you? I've been trying to reach ya, old fellow."
Dirk was the controversial engineering department head of staff. He had gained both fame for consistently outdoing all the requirements of public works projects put before him, and the animosity of the military ministry for 2 glaring failures: the war materials annual production output had dropped somewhat under his leadership and the aborted nuclear program. As for the latter, although he wasn't actually on the team of scientists trying to develop a nuclear weapon, the program was apparently botched due to errors in his planning.
Although the chancellor and pretty much any other fed harbored a deep distrust for Dirk and refused to put him in charge of any more major works, Hubert still knew he was a gifted engineer who earnestly believed in the motto, 'There is a solution to any problem.' And hearing his forever calm and friendly voice on the phone already helped to start soothing Hubert's frayed nerves.
"Yes Dirk, I'm in the Cultural Building. Listen I know its quite late for this but I want you and your team to try and put up a wall around the western side of the city, even if only around the downtown area."
"Hube, there's no need to panic yet."
"Dirk, this is no time for sweet talk. This is a crisis which may not only mean the loss of this city, but the survivability of our nation as a whole. I hate to be rude, but you will do what I say. If I say jump, you will ask 'how high?' Are we understood?"
"Uh, yeah sure. You know Hube..."
"You will put up that fence now."
"We'll be right on it. You know, we'd really appreciate if you could come down to the engineering department and have a look at what we got. We could really use your input as to where exactly to put up that fence."
"Dirk, there is no way I'm going back out into that storm."
"Hey now, no need to sweat. We'll get you over here no problem. We are engineers after all. " Dirk's confident patient tone gave Hubert an image of him winking and smiling while talking into the phone.
Hubert, Irina, Fritz and Dietz waited in the first floor lobby. Although a metallic storm curtain blocked their view from outside, they knew the street was completely blocked with abandoned vehicles. How could the engineers possible transport them out of there?
Then came the horrible sound of metal being crushed and ripped apart and the shattering of glass. Figuring it was the engineers, they wheeled open the medieval prison door just enough for them to crawl outside through the opening. The incoming airflow made the task almost impossible. They could feel the hairs on their heads being dragged out by their roots in the clinging wind.
Seeing what awaited them outside, Irina screamed. And Fritz joined her with a somewhat feminine shriek of his own.
Infront of the building was a monstrous metallic vehicle which looked like something out of a science fiction movie. Two gigantic 2.5 metre tall wheels made up of 8 blocks of revolving steel blocks held the cabin, also a solid block of steel with a couple of slits to see out of, suspended above the ground. Upon closer inspection, one could see it was an after hours shop job - probably one of kind. The metal had been casted in big simple blocks, and in some areas, bubbles of metal where it had oozed out of the casting block could be seen. The makers obviously didn't consider it worth the bother to arc weld the imperfections off.
Miraculously, everyone made it up the tiny metal steps and into the machine without being 'turned'. After an ear-shattering and dark ride which felt like being inside a pepper shaker, they were relieved to exit the machine in the shelter of a big warehouse. The warehouse itself groaned from corrugated metal sheets rubbing against each other in the terrific wind. No one spoke. There was no point with the cacophony of the storm making even yelling inaudible.
Dirk led them to an elevator and deep down underground to some sort of control room with countless dials, switches and all kinds of electronic paraphernalia incomprehensible to the non-technically inclined. It confirmed a nagging suspicion in Hubert that he had been duped on the phone. He had fallen for one of the most basic of negotiation tricks: bait and switch. Dirk had no intention whatsoever of engaging in the pointless and likely impossible task of putting up a fence in the middle of a raging windstorm. However Hubert said nothing. All he really wanted now was to see what miracle Dirk could come up with to fight back against the French wind storm. He'd do anything not to see another city, a vital organ of Germany, lost for nothing to the pompously successful French.
In the control room there were several other engineers who worked on Dirk's team. Having fallen out of favor with the feds, they worked on their own 'in the dark'. No one really knew how they spent their time. The feds were just happy if they kept themselves busy and out of the way of anything important.
It was quiet in the control room. The only thing interferring with their hearing now was the ringing left in their ears.
"Well you're all probably wondering where I've brought you and what kind of heinous experiment's being going on down here." Dirk gave them a friendly smile to let them know he wasn't too serious.
"Go ahead and explain yourself." replied Hubert.
"What we have here is the ultimate in anti-cultural engineering." Dirk nodded up and down and kept grinning as if he were telling a story to a kindergarten class. "As you may have noticed, there's a bit of a wind occuring outside right now. I hope you brought your laundry in." Hubert's team, except for Hubert himself, managed a nervous smile at that remark, but were intensely curious about exactly what Dirk was getting at. "Current wind speed is 150 mph or 130 knots, direction east."
"Get on with it please. We don't have much time." said Hubert sounding like someone awaiting the outcome of a HIV test after sharing epidermic needles with some of the East Hastings regulars.
"At eight points throughout the city there are massive underground operations like this one. Each one houses a gigantic fan the size of 4 office buildings side by side now being raised up to the outside world for the first time."
"You must be joking. Where did you get the resources to do this and how on earth could that ever stop a storm?" Hubert's word's were negative but for the first time that day he felt a glimmer of hope inside.
"These are no ordinary fans. Hube old friend, you do remember how incompetent I was in handling the armaments production? Nothing was wasted: materials, factories and engineers all put to good use down here."
"You mean you built them underground to hide them? What a sad waste of time excavating all that ground out just to keep the project a secret." said Dietz.
"No, nothing's been wasted. The ground excavations serve a dual purpose." answered Dirk, looking quite pleased with it all. "I'm sure you've all heard about the botched nuclear program."
Hubert's jaw dropped and his previously artery-lined red face had become as pale as a internet surfing junkie, "You don't mean..."
"Yes, we investigated various power sources and found that nothing had even the slightest chance of combating the power of a storm like you experienced today. The only way is to use one tactical nuke to power each fan. Of course a one shot deal only. Now you know where all that 'wasted' uranium went to."
"You maniac! You'll blow the city up and then what?" yelled Fritz.
"Hence the excavations. Underneath each fan is a cylinder containing a piston with the contact surface size of half a football field. One of those can produce enough power with one reaction to run every car in the world for several weeks. The cylinder walls are made up of 1 meter thick steel walls backed up by hard-packed earth and a rubber contained refrigeration system. Most of it will melt but it will hold just enough to contain the explosion. The pistons will provide power to the fans for several minutes, same concept as a children's spinning top which spins many times from a single push down on the handle on top. We don't have time for me to explain it in detail. Let's just say the result could be up to three times the power of a hurricane."
"Alright and so what if it does work? I know enough about physics to know that the air going into those fans has to come from somewhere. So what happens to the people and buildings?"
"The gigantic fan blades are curved to create an eddy between them which will take in objects and spit them back out without mangling them in the blades. This means if someone is caught in the draft they'll simply be shot back out unharmed and they'll glide in the airstream back down to the ground. Buildings however, will be ripped apart. But the storm has already done that to most of them. This is only the last of all resorts."
The visitors stood there silent, finally out of questions and trying to fathom the concept of detonating 8 nukes in one's own city.
"So Hube this is it. I have to ask you: shall we engage the fans? I'm not asking you to sign any waiver or anything. I just want to know if the mayor of Munich will authorize this extreme measure to save his city."
Hubert stared at the floor in intense fascination, his mind paralyzed with indecision.
"Don't do it. This is not culture. It is madness. Dirk, is this building immune to cultural wind too?" asked Fritz.
"For awhile. Nothing is immune forever." answered Dirk.
"I say go for it. I refuse to become a frog." said Dietz.
Dirk said, "You do realize that the backdraft and resulting airblast will destroy one-third or more of the city. The alternative is French control. Take your time with this decision. It will be in the history books whichever way you go."
Hubert took another long deep sigh and said, "Very well then, let's do it."
Dirk nodded. "Myself and my co-worker Ali over there hold the 2 keys to activate the system. The rumble from the blast will be immense and may cause you to panic. If you stay away from the walls and jump upon detonation, you will significantly decrease you chance of incurring broken bones. I'm going to count down from 4 and when I say 'jump' you jump."
"How high?" asked Hubert.
Dirk grinned and chuckled in appreciation at the reversal of roles. "Are we ready? Remember what I said about the rumble being immense. Okay here we go... 4... 3... 2... 1... JUMP!!"
They all jumped up except for Dirk and Ali who had to turn the keys. Despite Hubert jumping as high as his delapitated old body would launch him, the floor bucked up so hard that it met his feet and knocked him at an awkward angle through the air and into a wall. Pain exploded through his left arm, back, leg and wherever else connected with the wall.
But that was nothing compared the deep deep feeling of fear going down into his stomach. He instantly regretted his decision. It seemed the very core of the earth itself was being ripped asunder. The way the ground bounced around again and again, it horrified Hubert at how fragile the ground they lived on actually was. It was beyond them to resist being knocked around like bowling pins during a strike. Fritz had an expression of pure terror locked on his face and spasmodically flailed his limbs about as if he were swimming in a pool of burning oil. Dietz wrestled with an invisible troll and Irina was being tossed about like a rag doll in a drying machine.
And they were the lucky ones. They had no chance to think about the hundreds of people on top who, without the luxury of foreknowledge, had not jumped and thus had broken ankles, arms or worse, particularly those with calcium deficiencies and the elderly. Or the way the suction of the fans instantly ripped apart buildings and fed the parts through the blades and spat them all over the other side of the city. The resulting blast of air sending some people spinning head over heels like tumbleweed in a sandstorm and others kept their cool and floated like supermen through the current to land relatively unhurt. Crashing into infrastructure was probably the worst way to get it.
But it could have been worse. Most of the weaker people had already been claimed by the French culture storm so the remaining ones generally came out with only cuts and bruises.
After about 30 seconds the rumbling ground finally settled down. In the control room, everyone took stock of the damage to themselves and were fairly well off except for Hubert who lay face down on the floor. Dirk checked him and looked up at the others, "He's okay. Just knocked out with minor injuries." Dirk himself had a goosebump forming on his forehead from when he had hit the wall just after turning the key.
Dirk looked over the many dials and monitoring equipment on the wall. "Wind speed 295 mph, down from a high of 360. Direction west. YAH!!!" Aside from the cheer, Dirk's talked as calmly as if he were enjoying a drink with friends on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon on the patio. The others breathed deeply, relieved that the world was still intact.
Then the ground started rumbling again, though much milder than before.
"Um... why is it shaking again." asked Fritz.
Dirk had another look at the monitors. One showed a map with circles emerging and expanding from several points. "Interesting." He started to smile. "We have 3 earthquakes in progress: one in some insignificant German countryside, one in the Ardennes, and one in Dijon." Dietz and Irina wondered if Dirk's smile wasn't the knowing smile of 'a job well done.' Surely when designing the system, Germany's best engineer would have not only studied the German terrain plates for stability but perhaps also those of France for
instablity?
The Final Moments of the Struggle
Pierre de Luc was still working the crowd's cultural frenzy, having reached such a frenzied state himself that he was talking with religious zeal. The crowd was responding with anti-German slogans and general rowdiness. Pierre went on, "And behold the time is near I say! The heathen will be struck down by the righteous hand of French artistry! Good people, I've just been told that the Pope that has just arrived by limosine and is making his way here now. So tell me, do you want to send a storm to Germany? C'mon, let me hear it!"
Pierre was answered by a jolt through the ground, instantly silencing both his gloating and the rowdy crowd. Then it felt like a hammer from the gods pounded the ground causing it to crack open like a piece of wood split by an axe. Into fell most of 'the righteous' led by Pierre himself into the endless blackness. The Sistine Chapel sat on a angle along the edge of the rift. And then like an ungracious kid's Lego house falling off the side of a table to crash into pieces, so did the chapel go forth to be struck down by 'the heathen lack of culture'. For decades after, this act of 'sabotage' was considered by many, both French and not, to be the lowest of blows, the pinnacle of contemptible misdeeds, to destroy France's greatest work of wonder in history only moments before official completion.
The tidal wave of air pushed out by the nuclear warhead powered fans headed on through the French territory. This time it was Nancy and Dijon's turn to have people picked up and thrown through the air and into walls, trees broken off and sent flipping dangerously about, panicked motorists rammed into each other not knowing what was happening, and many roofs on small structures were ripped off and sent hurling through the air, to say nothing of the debris kicked up by the storm. Although it was short-lived, it gave the French an adequate taste of what the people in Munich had been going through.
Hubert awoke in a hospital bed. He groaned from the pain all down his left side. The windows along the side of the room were all boarded up with rough cut plywood. A kind-looking whiteclad nurse glanced at him while attending another patient in the next bed. "Awake are you? You just had a nasty knock on the head which knocked you out for quite awhile. But you'll be fine with a little rest." She walked off.
A little while later, an energetic happy looking middle-aged man who looked like a mountain guide with his bushy hair, tanned skin and a simple collared shirt with jeans came in. "Hello there Mayor Hubert Grossman. I'd like to congratulate you." He held out a hand for Hubert to shake, which he did.
Hubert sat up and said, "We did it? Yes! It worked!"
"Yes, I'd like to congratulate a new French citizen. Welcome to Nancy, Hubert."
The End
Looking forward to seeing more from you. 
A superb ending Scratch, well worth waiting for 
