Third on the right past the canteen, a massive door of metal with complex locks and bolting systems, eye scanners, fingerprint pad, security card swipe and voice recognition. There was also a guard with a blunderbuss, who looked fierce.
Let these two in, said the White Coat, they’ve come to put the climate back in sync.
OK, said the guard and opened the door……
It took a while, the door moved like a glacier, Sphinx getting bored, Shall I? she asked Vivainne.
Show a little Sphinx-like patience, said Vivainne.
The massive multilayered door, big on the outside, smaller on the inside, to withstand severe blasts, finally achieved open and clunked against the wall.
In the middle of the vault stood up a huge machine as high as five horses standing on each other’s shoulders.
This is not something that has ever happened, and horses should not try this at home, horses are not designed to stand on top of each other, their hooves would dig in and cause pain. I suppose one could invent special shoes, but it’s probably easier to just avoid it.
Massive pipes, controlled by massive wheel valves, criss-crossed each other in a towering tower of metal. Inside the pipes, the magma flow sounded as loud as a train rushing through a tunnel.
The manual says open the pressure valve to release the excess heat into space, shouted Vivainne,
What, shouted Sphinx cupping her ear with her paw, I can’t hear a word.
Vivainne climbed the metal diamond grid steps, onto the upper gantry and peered at a row of switches and buttons beside a row of sliding gauges which were all slowly moving either up or strangely, down.
I’ve got it, she bellowed, it is this button here. She pushed something and all hell let lose. Steam or hot gas started venting from various points on the pipes and the gauges went ape. Lights of various colours either blinked, turned on, changed colour or turned off.
The sound of the magma flow shifted into overdrive and a sound like a boiling gas kettle with a whistle started up. An orange light in a glass dome on the very top of the machine woke up and started flashing and revolving. Looking everywhere in orange.
Vivainne referred to the manual whilst checking the controls again and again. Book, switches, book, switches, etc.
Now this one, she shouted, and flicked a switch marked ‘Spatial Heat Ejection’, I might have known that the solution would be designated SHE, she muttered.
Somewhere deep under the machine a quantum refrigerator moaned into action, sucking heat in, and energising its paired particles. Far away across the solar system, matching paired particles heated up to super nova and dispersed their energy into the sun.
Slowly the roaring of the magma flow began to reduce and the gauges which had been wobbling into the red section, marked Don’t Go There, began to wobble (oscillate), downwards into the zone marked, Ideal.
Phew, said the White Coat, scribbling furiously at his clip board, wonderful, you have bought us some time.
Vivainne, still high on the metal grid walkway, consulted the manual.
Next, she called over the swiftly reducing racket, the White Coats must take control of the world, Reset the Coefficients and Recalibrate the Guiding Principles. So, it’s over to you Mr Whitecoat.
But I need help, he said, where are my White Coat team? I cannot do this alone.
I spy with my little eye a Quest, said the Sphinx, leave it with us.
The Guardians of the Cave 