The Wandering Island Factory by TR Nowry Read Free Book Online Page A

stopped building island components and shifted to tidal generators, and the dials reflected it. Tidal generators seemed to be misnamed. They didn't generate anything from tides, they generated power from the waves. But water parks already had 'wave' generators that made waves in giant pools, so to avoid confusion, it received a less accurate name.
    The tidal generators were dozens of six-foot long slabs that were later connected into what resembled a hundred-foot floating pier. The 'piers', assembled locally, consisted of joining the slabs with hydraulic rams acting like joints that allowed each segment to rise and fall independent of each other while holding rigidly against lateral movement. Acting like compressors, the rams drove a generator that pumped electricity to the mainland via marine cables. Any excesses or insufficiencies due to the irregularity of the waves were stored pneumatically in a large pressurized tank at the end of the pier.
    The amount of power delivered by such tidal 'piers to nowhere' was insignificant compared to what a single thermal generator could produce (with a fraction of the footprint). But environmentalists preferred the 'piers to nowhere', much like they preferred hundreds of thousands of unsightly windmills over a single nuclear plant.
    The protests and controversy revolving around the first floating island had put future island orders in limbo, hence the change in construction.
    The thousands of unhappy construction workers that were laid off somehow translated into anger toward the few unaffected workers at the behemoth, like it was their fault instead of the fault of spineless politicians.
    By late summer, they switched to making a new kind of generic slabs that could be used for tidal generators, or for a new use pioneered by the construction industry in Florida, floating foundations for coastal homes. The floating foundations, reinforced by steel, provided both a secure hurricane/tornado proof basement and the ability to float the entire house to keep it from suffering flood damage. It was becoming one of their most lucrative products while the legalities of the island concept were still being disputed.
    They were also the most amusing to watch as they were being shipped. Two tugboats pulled several miles-long strings of floating slabs tied by steel cables off into the distance like a giant strand of floating pearls. It reminded him of the cans tied behind 'just married' cars. Or single file ducklings.

    By fall, one of the Tonga islands had built a smaller land-based factory for making generic tidal-block-sized slabs in direct competition with the behemoth. The overhead of a ship this size, plus the backroom dealings they had to make with the government of Hawaii, put them at a huge disadvantage to the simple Tonga design.
    Fortunately, with a few well-placed campaign contributions (the legalized version of bribes), the resistance to the construction of floating islands was finally dropped in the form of a bill, signed into law, and the behemoth went back to what it, and only it, did best. Huge, aircraft carrier-sized slabs started to pile up behind the ship again. And thousands of locals were hired back to their well paying jobs.
    Shifts tightened when new software and injector heads were installed. He only had one week off for every month of solid, twelve-hour shifts, but the money was great.

    He woke on the mainland with Gina in his bed.
    They had talked about getting married about a month ago. His job required strange hours, and it left him with the feeling that he was always just visiting. They hadn't fought over anything yet.
    He kissed her on the cheek, then on the lips when she woke with a smile. "Elope with me," he whispered. "Come back to the states with me next year, at the end of my contract. Let's find real jobs where we get to spend every day together. I love you, but this feels like we are always on vacation with each other. Hawaii is awesome, but it is a hundred times