“Not always, Barley.” Connor lifted a dead intake line, moving it toward the 1,000-amp strand. “A fast current will travel a straight line if it can. And if the current comes in one hand and goes out the other hand, the current goes through your heart. That's what kills you. But if the current comes in a hand and goes out a foot, then it doesn't go through your heart. It'll probably blow your leg off or set you on fire or something, but there's a good chance you'll live.”
Barley pointed. “This line right here?” he pointed. “This line right here will blow your whole leg off?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No.”
Barley stared wide-eyed at the line, and Connor sat back on the wooden sawhorse, grabbing the insulated section of the 1,000-amp line with his bare hand. He jerked hard.
Barley leaped back. “What are you doing!”
Connor pulled three feet of line from the box. Then he grabbed the dead intake line and brought the ends close together, but not too close. He knew that a 1,000-amp line could throw an electrical bolt as far as three inches to connect with a grounded source.
Half-turning, he pointed to a thick plastic roll lying on the ground. It looked like non-adhesive electrical tape, but it was simply a four-inch thick band of plastic. It wouldn't stick to any surface without tape holding it down. But Connor knew that, in this situation, he wouldn't need any tape. The residual heat coming off the electrical line would do the job by itself.
“Give me that roll of plastic,” he said.
Barley picked up the plastic roll and cautiously handed it to him. Connor leaned forward, grabbing both ends of the wires and slowly pushing them together until the 1,000-amp line was close to the intake line. And even though Connor was expecting it, had even braced himself for it, the shock almost killed him.
When the ends were four inches apart a bolt of electricity leaped at the speed of light to instantly hit the intake line, liquid fire, deep and pure and blazing green that flashed into a bright white flow, blinding as a welding torch, to burn a path from one exposed wire to the other.
Connor's heart skipped a beat. He couldn't breathe, couldn't find the strength to catch a breath as a solid and terrifying power charged the atmosphere with static. The skin on his chest tightened at the touch, hair standing all over his body. And although he hadn't seen it happen, he saw now that the copper endings of the wires had already melted together.
The overhead lights were glowing.
Connor sensed that Barley hadn't moved and was watching with rapt attention. Moving slowly, Connor slid his hands farther away from the exposed copper and pushed, solidifying the weld. The power continued. Then he undid the thick roll of electrical plastic and picked up a small wooden stick. With sweat sliding off face, he cast a glance at Barley.
“You'd better step back,” he whispered.
Without shame Barley stepped back.
With the plastic held lightly on the stick, Connor threw the dangling end over the bare 1,000-amp meld. Instantly the plastic melted, disintegrating to the invisible heat. With infinite caution Connor meticulously turned the plastic on the line, feeling the hairs on his arm and head raise straight up at the immeasurably faint margin of power charging the air and traveling through the plastic strand and stick, the current trying unsuccessfully to connect with the ground through the sawhorse's wooden legs.
Heavy beads of perspiration dripped from Connor's arms, his chin. He used his free hand to carefully wipe sweat from his eyes, focusing with absolute concentration on the bare copper line in front of him.
In five careful minutes Connor had wrapped the entire roll of non-adhesive plastic around the section, the plastic melting less and less as it turned, coating the wires. Then Connor took a large roll of wide black electrical tape, feeling less and less of the current as he wrapped the tape generously around the melted plastic. And finally, after an additional ten minutes of agonizing, patient work, the connecting electrical lines were covered by a large black lump of insulated plastic. No bare wire could be seen.
Sweat soaked his shirt as Connor leaned back. It dripped from his nose, his chin. His shoulders were cramping badly as he wearily tossed the empty paper core of electrical tape to the side.
He stood on the ground, turned to Barley.
“We're hot.”
***
Hand locked hard on the last foot of wire, Thor swung out from the wall, staring down the shaft. He angled the flashlight downward but it was absorbed by the dark. But he knew, if Blankenship was correct, that there were only a hundred feet remaining.
Cables and grease-slick steel girders lined the sides and front of the shaft, but Thor knew trying to maintain a solid handhold on any of them would be even more difficult than holding the wall.