Free Unchained: A Biker Erotic Romance by A. L. Summers Page B

demand peaks this afternoon.”
     
    With that, he gave his wife a quick kiss on the cheek and said, “Won’t be home for lunch, and if anything else goes sour I might not be here for dinner.” Then he hurried out to his car and headed for his office.
     
    Raina quickly finished her eggs and went upstairs to get ready for the day.
     
    When Raina got to CPE headquarters, she was surprised to see the huge parking lot totally empty. All of the line trucks and even all of the heavy crane and pole carriers were gone. She had never seen that before.
     
    She could hear her father’s raised voice as she entered the office. “Why the hell can’t you bring line four onto the grid? The maintenance cycle is completed. It’s on reserve status. It should be ready to go!”
     
    Miles came storming out of his office. “God-damned federal government and their mandatory control encryption. Someday they’re going to make us all so safe that nothing will work.” Then he yelled at the dispatcher, “Who do we have available to take a replacement encrypter to switch node one-dash-four?”
     
    The dispatcher looked back at him with eyes open wide in fear. “I’m sorry, sir. Everyone’s out in the field, even all the engineers. We’ve got a lot of wire down on lines six, seven, and nine, and at least two substations are out of service. The only vehicle in the yard is the old security jeep, but there’s nobody here to send.”
     
    “I’ll go,” said Raina suddenly. The sound of her voice startled even her. Daddy almost never let her go out into the field, especially not alone. “It’s just a thumbdrive, Daddy. It’s not like I’m going to be climbing a tower.”
     
    “I don’t know, Princess,” he said.
     
    “I have a name, Father. It’s Raina,” she answered, somewhat surprised at her own tone of voice.
     
    Miles looked around the office at the desks totally empty of engineers and field supervisors. “OK,” he finally said. Holding up a small object he explained, “We’ve got to get this out to the switch node. There are two techs out there trying to get the line on the grid but something’s wrong with the control encryption.”
     
    He handed her what looked like a cell phone and said, “This is a specially modified smartphone. It works as my personal control remote. The techs can use it to check that the encryption is working and then put the line on the grid.” He pressed an icon on the screen. “This app will open the gates for you. They will close automatically after a few minutes.” He gave her a peck on the forehead and said, “Hurry. I’m counting on you.”
     
    A few minutes later, Raina was headed north out of town on the maintenance road. The gates all opened for her just as her father had said, and about 45 minutes later she was at a white metal shed alongside a huge switch assembly. A man in a gray CPE work outfit ran out to meet her and accepted the gadget from her hands. As she was entering the shed, loud bangs from outside told her that the switches were activating to connect the line to the power grid.
     
    “Don’t you need this?” she asked, holding up the cell phone-like device her father had given her.
     
    “That’s his spare,” the man replied. “We tried to activate from headquarters, but nothing happened. We thought it was a control line problem, so we brought the boss’s remote on-site. It wasn’t until we got out here that we realized the key hadn’t been updated. You can leave it with us and we’ll get both of them back to Mr. Chaplin.”
     
    “Don’t I need it for the gates?” Raina asked.
     
    “Oh, yeah,” one of the techs answered. “Just get it back to your dad eventually. With everything else going to hell, he probably doesn’t even realize he gave you the secondary.”
     
    ***
     
    The conclusion to all that hustle and bother seemed rather anti-climactic to Raina as she walked back to the jeep. Everything had taken only a few minutes once she