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## The Hands of Time. Part 3

Dark, dank and cavernous. Lisa sloshed through the mire pushing the trolley with its heavy equipment ahead of her. Sound magnified in the pipes, the slightest splash sent a wave of echoes burrowing deeply into the labyrinth's bowels. The distinctive odor of wet, fermenting grass assaulted her nostrils. She pulled down her oxygen mask, just in case. Hydrogen sulfide liked to hide in pockets across the sewer waters, a single whiff could kill. 

Lisa tried to focus on her strategy, but distaste for her surroundings mixed with the terror of discovery, made her mind numb. Things had fallen into place so smoothly after her fall. She had the maps for the sewer, her old uniform, oxygen tanks and various other useful tools in a storage unit. She’d meant to sell her equipment that she’d used for her job at the wastewater department, but she’d never got around to it. She realized how lucky she was that it hadn’t been stored at the house, because the Nobel Caste’s agents had taken or smashed everything in their house when they kidnapped Gabriel. 

A vision of Gabriel’s face swam eerily on the surface of the murky water. She had to shake her head to regain her reality. She reflected on the luck that she’d had to pull herself back to her task. The maps had been such an invaluable windfall; the location of the Caste’s underground prison was not public knowledge. Everyone knew it existed and that a handful of high profile prisoners were incarcerated there, but only the sewer maps gave exact coordinates and offered insight into the size of the rooms within, based on separation of the plumbing pipes. The maps, in turn, were only available to a few people, like those who worked in the waterworks department. It had been a Yippee moment. 

“Be strong!” She heard herself eject without warning. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she felt her terror expound. But even as her fear brought lumps to her throat, she realised that no one could hear her; no one could possibly know she was there with her plans and her love and her determination.

“Crazy plans, my girl. Crazy!” She tried to keep the volume of her voice down, despite the inexplicable need that she had to vocalise; to say something in the silent, loneliness. 

Slosh, slosh…slosh…

And then she was square up against the underground walls that held Gabriel. She was facing his pain. 

The odds of finding Gabriel. The odds…

She reckoned that she had about a fifty percent chance, but fifty percent of something was better than nothing she reckoned. She took in the camera equipment she’d wheeled in from the sewer overflow that gapped at the beach, which spilled into the Pacific Ocean; an advantageous entry point that required neither ladders nor ropes to access.

Lisa unfurled her equipment, set the CCD camera up and pierced the Caste’s pipe system, in three easy steps.

“Now, chance has me.” Her voice echoed resoundingly. 

Moments later she had a view of a cell in the underground prison on her display. The camera image was fuzzy, but she could see enough to know she hadn’t hit bullseye on her first try.

So, she tried, again and again…

Then.

She had it; there was no doubt about it. They had Gabriel encoded in a high-tech lab. 

“Go figure.” She laughed into her sewer cave. “Of course they do!”

“imagine a camera on a stick coming up and peering over the rim of your toilet. Imagine that.” She laughed out loud without thinking. But the moment was pivotal and she knew that if she acted with precision and watched her timing, she’d have Gabriel out of his hellhole in less than an hour. 

Lisa heaved the stone-filled plastic damming equipment that she brought with her on her trolley, into the foul water beyond Gabriel’s chamber. She waited a few moments to ensure that the water was damming up; that the water had nowhere to go, but into the pipe system of the Caste’s underground prison. She’d initiated a targeted flood.

Lisa scrambled, she inflated her rubber boat and sailed as fast as her oars would allow back to the overflow at the lip of the sewer. She boarded her hired car. She’d affixed official-looking seals to the sides and roof of the car. The vehicle could definitely pass for a waterworks car, she decided, as she took in its authority.

She changed her clothes; she pulled on her old uniform and felt instantly better as the stink of the sewers receded from her nostrils. Then she was up and into the driver seat and moving, with speed to the security gate that fronted her husband’s prison. 

“Here’s my card.” She offered the security guard who scanned her information with dubious eyes. “There’s a problem inside your facility. A serious problem. The sewer waters are flooding and the damage could be…well, it could be unthinkable.” She delivered her diatribe with a straight face. At the mention of “sewer waters”, the guard’s face paled and he waved her through with no more than a perfunctory glance at her credentials.

Inside the gates, the security guards were far more suspicious. They made her wait. She held her breath, while they checked out her story. They found water seeping into the facility. A slow, steady trickle that would soon turn into a surge.

Then, it was all stations Go! Guards were screaming into speakers, alarms were sounding, people were scurrying about. 

Lisa wheeled her waterworks trolley with its man-sized steel equipment box affixed, into the facility with a gesticulating guard in her wake.

She headed straight for her husband’s cell. She headed straight there at a clip.

The guard stood behind her, so she made a play of inspecting the walls.

“Oh, my God.” She shouted at the top of her voice.

The nervous guard eyed her; fear in his orbs.

“What?” His voice was a low whisper. 

“Open this door. Call for backup from my department. Get everyone out of here as fast as you can. This place is going to flood so fast, we’d better get moving.” She gave him a card with a number on it to phone. The number was one digit short of the real thing.

The guard spat her instructions into his radio. He opened the door. 

He opened the door.

Pandemonium exploded. People screaming, water flowing. Guards raced to release the prisoners into the outer, gated enclosure. 

Gabriel stood, open-mouthed, at the threshold of his cell; quiet knowledge in his eyes. He didn’t make a sound. The guard raced away to round up the prisoners.

She opened the box on her trolley. He looked at her briefly and folded himself safely inside. 

Lisa was breathless, terrified and mesmerized at what she’d just done. 

“Get everyone out.” She bellowed into the confusion as she wheeled her husband to safety. “Call for backup. I can’t handle this alone.” Her voice was a screech into the insanity of the moment.

At the outside gate. She begged the guard to act quickly.

“I need extra equipment. It’s in the car. Can you help me? I need to be fast.”

*****************************

Lisa stood with Gabriel on the cliffs overlooking the overflow that led from the sewers into the ocean. From their vantage point, the outlet looked remarkably calm. The power of the tide looked innocuous, nothing at all similar to the broiling flood that had leveled the Caste’s high-security facility only days before.

Gabriel was talking to her in an animated tone. She couldn’t make out the words; the sound of the sea drowned his efforts.

She took his chin in her hand, she turned into him and kissed him.

She kissed him.

********************************************

Image Source 

https://pixabay.com/id/illustrations/steampunk-pintu-roda-gigi-jam-pipa-3222894/

Research 



https://saleak.co.za/push-rod-camera-inspection-system-the-cam-cam-100m/

https://www.stwater.co.uk/content/dam/stw/my-water/document/your-guide-to-sewer-flooding.pdf

https://www.xylem.com/en-us/making-waves/water-utilities-news/how-to-protect-against-hydrogen-sulfide-when-entering-a-sewer/


https://www.kqed.org/news/11782405/tunnels-under-san-francisco-inside-the-dark-dangerous-world-of-the-sewers




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## Part 1 and 2

https://ecency.com/hive-199275/@itsostylish/the-hands-of-time-part

https://ecency.com/hive-199275/@itsostylish/the-hands-of-time-part-22f526edb3eaa