Free The Darkfall Switch by David Lindsley Page B

started. He flung his arms over his head and rocked back and forth. His mother stood up and reached out to him, but at her first touch he scrambled to his feet and ran from the room. She called after him but it was no use.
    Foster broke the silence. ‘Mr and Mrs Proctor,’ he said, ‘I’m so sorry. That really wasn’t meant to happen. I lost control….’
    Cyrus Procter’s head shook slowly. ‘No. Luke’s attitude there was unforgivable.’ He looked at his wife and said, ‘Honey, will you go and speak with Luke?’
    She nodded and left the room.
    The two men sat in silence. It was a lengthy silence. Eventually Proctor said, ‘How did it happen, Dan? I mean, your fiancée….’ His words tailed off in embarrassment.
    Proctor stared at him in horrified silence as he recounted what had apparently happened at Oxford Circus.
    When he had finished there was a brief silence and then Proctor blurted out the first thing that came to his mind, and he felt it was quitetrite even as he spoke the words. ‘What was her name?’
    But Foster was glad of the break. ‘Fiona,’ he replied. ‘We were going to get married next month.’ He paused before continuing on another tack. He had to steer the conversation away from his personal loss. ‘Who can say who’s to blame when these things happen?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Well, Luke undoubtedly had a part in it, but then there’s a big argument going on about the cable fire. Somebody should have spent some money on dealing with known problems with the power distribution system. People had been worried about the cooling system for years—’
    ‘Cooling system?’ Proctor interjected.
    ‘Yes. The cable was meant to be cooled by a flow of water. When that failed the cable overheated. It’s not the first time it happened, but it was the worst. It blacked out the city. And there was a precedent for that.’
    ‘Precedent?’
    ‘Yes, in New Zealand – Auckland.’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘Similar thing. Cables feeding a city where the demand for power had soared over the years. Air conditioning demands in a hot, dry summer, in a city where once upon a time everybody would have simply gone away to escape the heat. A cable overheating. Yes, if anything, that should have rung alarm bells. If somebody cut a budget somewhere, they were just as much to blame. And then there’s whoever started the panic on the underground. In fact, the blame could be pinned on many people’s actions and inactions, and on other factors, or on a combination of them.’
    Just then Hilary Proctor came back into the room. She was shaking her head sadly and, from her red-rimmed eyes it looked, like her son beforehand, she too, had been crying.
    She made a visible effort to compose herself, took a deep breath and said, ‘He’s locked himself in his room. I can’t get him to say anything. But I think I can hear him crying.’ The thought was too much for her and a tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of a hand and shook her head. ‘I can’t help him’ she sobbed. ‘My boy. I can’t do anything … and just when he needs the most help.’
    ‘Should I go to him?’ her husband asked, but she shook her head and took another deep breath while she dried her eyes with a tissue. ‘Leaveit a bit, honey. I’ll try again later.’
    Silence settled on the room again. Uncomfortable silence.
    Foster wondered about them. They seemed to be a nice couple: close, warm, caring. A teenage son who was difficult to control was something they would take in their stride with trust and good humour. In a few years he would settle down to a career, marriage and possibly children. They’d be delighted by that; they bore all the marks of becoming wonderful grandparents.
    They all started to speak together and just as suddenly stopped. Foster took the lead in breaking the impasse. ‘Look, I’m really sorry.’
    ‘No, no!’ Cyrus Proctor said. ‘I don’t blame you at all. Luke’s been an