Hope is a dangerous voltage. If you step it up too high, it burns.
We huddled in the backyard, illuminated only by the weak yellow beam of a battery-powered torch. The air was thick with mosquitoes and the smell of sulfur.
On the plastic sheet in front of us sat the Patient: the single CAT truck battery we had treated with the precious Epsom salts. It was hooked up to two solar panels I had wired in series to force a high-voltage "desulfation pulse" into the plates.
It was bubbling.
Gloop... Hiss... Gloop.
It sounded like a witch's cauldron.
"Weti be that sound? E di cry like witch pikin. You sure say this thing fine?" Tashi whispered. He was squatting in the dirt, wiping sweat from his forehead with a rag.
"It is the sound of chemistry," I said, watching the multimeter. "The high voltage is breaking the lead sulfate crystals. It releases gas."
"What gas?"
"Hydrogen," I said. "And Oxygen. That's why no smoking, Papa."
I tapped the screen of the multimeter.
12.2 Volts.
My heart skipped a beat.
An hour ago, it was 10 Volts. Dead.
Now, it was climbing into the functional range.
"It is taking the charge," I breathed. "The Epsom salt is working."
"We saved it?" Liyen asked, leaning in. She looked exhausted, her Union sash stained with mud from helping us move the heavy units.
"We forced it," I corrected. "It won't be like new. But it might hold enough for the lights."
I watched the numbers climb.
12.3V... 12.4V...
It was seductive. The numbers promised a return to normalcy. They promised that we hadn't lost everything.
"Gemini," I thought. "Internal resistance?"
< Calculation: Indeterminate. > Gemini warned. < Voltage is rising, but thermal output is increasing. Cell #3 is 15 degrees hotter than the others. Risk of separator failure is High. >
I touched the side of the battery casing. It was hot. Uncomfortably hot.
But we needed light. If the shop stayed dark tonight, the rumors would cement into fact: Tashi & Son is finished.
"Disconnect it," Tashi said eagerly. "Let's try the lights."
"Wait," I said. "Let it get to 12.6."
I pushed it. I let greed override physics.
12.5V... 12.6V.
"Now," I said.
We hauled the heavy battery back into the Lab. It was heavy, sloshing with the volatile cocktail of old acid and dissolved salts.
We hooked it up to the main DC bus.
I flipped the breaker.
SNAP.
Hummmmm...
The fluorescent tubes in the ceiling flickered once, twice... and then caught.
White light flooded the shop.
"Ha!" Tashi shouted, clapping his hands. "Light! We have light!"
Liyen let out a breath she seemed to have been holding all day. She slumped against the counter, smiling.
"Open the shutter halfway," Tashi commanded Collins. "Let the street see. Let the Bookman see."
Collins ran to the front. He cranked the shutter up. The white light spilled out onto the dark pavement of Commercial Avenue like a declaration of war.
A few passersby stopped. They pointed.
"You see?" I heard one say. "They are back. The sun is back."
Tashi stood in the center of the shop, basking in the glow. He looked at me with pride.
"You are a wizard, Nkem. You turned trash into gold."
I smiled. But my eyes were on the battery.
It was sitting on the bench.
And it was hissing.
The hiss grew louder. Ssss-POP. Ssss-POP.
"Gemini?"
< Thermal Runaway. > The warning was red. < The internal short in Cell #3 is boiling the electrolyte. Pressure is building behind the vent caps. The sludge from the dirty wash has clogged the vents. >
"Papa, get back!" I shouted.
"What?" Tashi turned.
"It's boiling!"
I ran toward the bench. I needed to pull the main disconnect switch. I needed to cut the load before the heat melted the casing.
I reached for the switch.
But physics is faster than a ten-year-old boy.
The clogged vent on Cell #3 couldn't handle the pressure of the expanding hydrogen gas.
It didn't explode like a bomb. It ruptured like a geyser.
POOF!
The plastic cap shot off.
A jet of boiling, black, sulfuric acid sludge erupted from the hole.
It sprayed across the bench.
It sprayed across the wall.
And it sprayed across my right forearm, which was reached out for the switch.
"AH!"
The scream ripped out of my throat before I even felt the pain.
It felt like a hammer blow, followed instantly by the sensation of a hot iron being pressed into my flesh.
"Nkem!" Liyen screamed.
I stumbled back, clutching my arm. The acid soaked into my denim sleeve instantly. It was wet, hot, and heavy.
"Wash am! E di burn! Water, Papa! Water!"
Tashi moved. He didn't freeze.
He grabbed me by the back of my shirt and dragged me toward the back door.
"Collins! The hose! Turn on the tap!"
We hit the dirt yard. Collins twisted the tap.
The water pressure was low the municipal supply was weak tonight but a stream of cold water trickled out.
Tashi shoved my arm under the water.
He ripped my sleeve. The fabric hissed as it tore.
"Wash it!" Tashi yelled. "Scrub it!"
I gritted my teeth. The water hit the burn.
The reaction of water and concentrated acid is exothermic it generates more heat initially.
For three seconds, the pain spiked to a blinding white intensity. I saw stars. I think I bit my tongue; I tasted copper.
"Keep it there!" Liyen was there now, holding a bar of blue laundry soap.
Tashi held my arm in a vice grip. His face was pale, his eyes wide with terror. He wasn't the Manager now. He was a father watching his son melt.
"E don stop? Nkem, talk to me! The thing still dey chop you?" Tashi demanded.
"It... it still burns," I gasped, leaning my head against Tashi's chest. "Deep. It feels deep."
We flushed it for ten minutes. The water turned the black sludge into a grey wash that disappeared into the mud.
When Tashi finally pulled my arm back, we saw the damage.
The skin from my wrist to my elbow was angry red. But in three spots where the "sludge" had stuck the skin was gone. White, raw patches of dermis were exposed, surrounded by blistering rings.
It looked like a map of islands in a red sea.
Liyen covered her mouth.
Tashi stared at it. His hands were shaking violently now.
Inside the shop, the lights flickered.
Buzz...
Pop.
The battery, finally dry and destroyed, died.
The shop plunged back into darkness.
We sat in the Lab, illuminated by a single kerosene lamp. The smell of sulfur was replaced by the nutty, earthy smell of Shea Butter.
Liyen was dressing the wound. We couldn't afford a hospital. We couldn't afford burn cream.
We used the "village way."
She applied a thick layer of raw Shea Butter to the burn. It cooled the skin, sealing it from the air. Then she wrapped it gently in a strip of clean white cotton cut from one of the few unsold spools of thread.
"Does it hurt?" she whispered.
"It throbs," I said. My voice was small. I felt small. "Like a heartbeat."
Tashi sat on a crate in the corner. He wasn't looking at us. He was looking at the dead battery on the bench.
He stood up.
He picked up the battery. It was still hot.
He walked to the back door and threw it into the yard.
CRASH.
He turned to me.
"No more," Tashi said. His voice was low and dangerous. "No more chemistry. No more scavenged poison."
"Papa, we needed the light..."
"We needed a son!" Tashi shouted. The echo bounced off the concrete walls. "Look at your arm, Nkem! You are ten years old! You are supposed to have scrapes from football, not... not this!"
He ran his hands over his face.
"I am the father," he whispered. "I am supposed to bring the food. I am supposed to bring the money. Why are you the one bleeding?"
"Because we are at war, Papa," I said. "And in war, soldiers bleed.
Liyen placed a metal bowl on the floor between us.
Dinner.
She had made Fufu. But the soup was watery. It was little more than boiled water with palm oil and salt. Floating in it was a single dried fish, broken into three tiny pieces.
"Rice don finish. Na only dry fish remain. Manage am." Liyen said softly.
We stared at the bowl.
Outside, we could hear the Chug-Chug-Chug of the Bookman's generator down the street. It was loud, rhythmic, and mocking. He had power. We had fufu and water.
Tashi picked up his piece of fish.
He looked at it. He looked at my bandaged arm.
He reached over and put his fish in my bowl.
"Papa, no..." I started.
"Chop," Tashi commanded. " Man wey di bleed must chop meat. No ask me plenty question."
"I said eat!"
He dipped his fufu in the oily water and swallowed it without chewing.
"He wants us to starve," Tashi said to the darkness. "He thinks that if he breaks the lights, he breaks the men."
He looked at Liyen.
"How much money is left?"
"200 francs," Liyen said. "And the rent is due on the 1st."
Tashi nodded.
"Tomorrow," he said, looking at me, "we do not do chemistry. Tomorrow, we get money."
"How?" I asked. "We have nothing to sell."
Tashi looked at the pile of melted jumper cables in the corner the ruin of the Eclipse.
"We have scrap," Tashi said. "We go to the Boneyard. If we are to be rats, Nkem... then let us be the kings of the rats."
I touched my bandaged arm. The pain was sharp, a constant reminder of my failure.
I had tried to force the technology. I had tried to cheat the constraints.
Physics had slapped me back.
Now, we had to go lower. Into the trash.