//------------------------------//
// July 14-15 
// Story: The Last Phoenician 
// by Razzle Dazzle 
//------------------------------//

Tuesday, July 14

Dear Journal,

We did a thing! A very good thing! We have power now!

Yes, there are solar panels on this house, but you can only have two rooms’ worth of lights on at a time. To open the garage door, you have to unplug everything. We should be glad for even that much electricity, but now we have a whole lot more.

We started on the first and most important item on our list: securing the area. Al and Miranda drove out to find fences, and the rest of us worked on getting power. Levi, Ben, Nina, and Dana drove out to grab as many solar panels as possible. After five minutes, they radioed in. “Guys, drive out a block east. There’s something you need to see.” Levi told us.

“What is it?” Jessica asked.

“Just get out here,” Dana said. We drove out and saw a massive solar array. It was easily a quarter of a square mile large, perfectly intact, just shut off.

Levi walked over to the gated entrance. “I know about electrical stuff. If we can get in here I might be able to get it back up.” We forced the gate open, and all the doors were unlocked, and old coffee sat in cups on the control panels.

After a few minutes of looking around, Levi spoke again. “I can definitely get this running. After everybody disappeared, the thing went into emergency mode because nothing was being used. It shut off after a few days. It won’t take much to turn it back on. Is there an emergency generator somewhere?”

Dana trotted off to look for one, and returned a few minutes later. “Yeah. It runs on gas.”

“Great. Can someone siphon some from the cars in the parking lot?”

“Wait, our cars?”

“No, Jessica, the other ones. I’m not being sarcastic, there are two or three sitting there. The gas might still be good.” Ben went to get it and after a while he filled up the generator and brought it to life. The lights flickered on in the dusty buildings, and the computer systems came to life.

Levi went over to the main control panel. A few warnings were flashing on the screens. “I can fix this,” he said. It took half the day, but he finally pulled the lever and sent power to the grid. “It’s working! This thing can power anything we want it to. It’s wired to control about ten blocks or so on its own if there’s no feedback from other stations in case of a blackout, and because no other plant is running, that’s what it’s doing right now. Ladies and gentlemen, we have power.”

We sped back home and spent the next hour flipping lights on and off. We changed the times on the appliances, and turned on the air. The house cooled down instantly. Before, we only ran it at the hottest part of the day because it took up all of the solar panels’ output, but now we can have it on all the time. Al and Miranda came home to a nice, cool house, and were more than surprised. After we told them what we did, we all sat down and relaxed.

But then Jessica had an idea. “What if we put a searchlight in front of the house so people could find us easier?”

“That’s…  actually a great idea. I can go out and grab one.” Dana said. Levi went with her, and they were back by the time the sun set. We set it up in the backyard, and promptly moved it a street over because it was way too bright. This thing will make sure anyone can find us.

After dinner, I drove out with Jessica to grab a few DVDs and some popcorn from the store nearby. We had an awesome late-night movie party to celebrate the leap forward. It was so good to see humans again, even if it wasn just on a screen. At least we’re managing as ponies.

-Scott

Wednesday, July 15

Dear Journal,

Today we put up the fences Al and Miranda grabbed yesterday. We only needed to block the streets, though, because the backyards all have these huge cinder block walls. Put a few gates in, and it was perfect! Secure the colony? Check.

That brought us to the next item: water. We all sat in the living room as we discussed what to do. Rainwater was out, and the canals had run dry. But there was still the Salt River.

“What I’m thinking is that we use the drainage canal nearby. We hook it up to a working one and go from there.” Jessica said. “We’d have to move the water main, but it’d be worth it.”

“The problem is that there are five systems that are blocking the water from the river,” Ben said. “There are four dams and a series of filtration systems under every street designed to purify the water and send it through the mains. All of those shut off without human regulation. If we want water, we’ll have to bring all of those back and regularly maintain them. And we’d need an engineer.”

Jessica sighed. “So we don’t have the manpower for running water yet.”

“Yet. Maybe things will change.”

After that, we split off to do various things. I decided to try magic again; specifically, construction. There was something about those houses sitting unfinished that called to me. It sounds crazy, yeah. Maybe it has something to do with this picture of a house that appeared on me?

I walked over to a nearby group of them, my mind racing. How was I going to do this? What was I going to do? I had no idea except that this just felt like what I was meant to do. There was a set of plans close by. I levitated that over to me and matched up the walls that were there with the ones that I’d try to build. I picked up a few beams one at a time and arranged them in the dirt. I measured them and somehow all the spaces were exact, even though I was using a method so imperfect.

After a few more hours I had framed most of the house and was exhausted. I walked the short distance home and fell asleep.

-Scott