The world Froze that April. The rapidly cooling world brought Antarctic winds containing layers of snow towards the Australian and New Zealand mainlands. Soon enough the entirety of New Zealand was covered in snow. Tasmania was also affected with layers of snow piling up along shore line. It hadn’t yet reached the Australian mainland but it wouldn’t be long until it did. The only bit of good news from this was that it temporarily dispersed low lying layers of ash, despite it not reaching the upper atmosphere where the majority of the ash was concentrated.
It did however mean that the residents of the Australian mainland could breathe easily for the time being, knowing that the air pollutants had temporarily been pushed further out. Following this however Australia decreased the available food being given out and taxed any food transactions so that they could stockpile it and move the remaining food towards the New Zealand mainland. This meant that it was now or never that Charlotte got her food up and running.
To start she grabbed large amounts of plant nutrients and fertilisers for hydroponics, along with a collection of large plastic boxes, seeds for various other vegetables and most crucially of all the hydroponic LEDs. It went quickly as the “local” hardware store had everything needed except for the seed potatoes. To make seed potatoes Charlotte had to prepare actual potatoes. This involved a series of washing, cleaning and waiting for the eyes to grow.. The potatoes were then cut in to pieces that would be the seed potatoes. From there it was all about getting the potatoes to sprout and preparing the hydroponic boxes. This involved painstakingly purifying water constantly untl she had enough to fill up the entire half a meter long box.
Holes were then cut into the top of the box and cups were placed inside the cutouts. These cups would hold the plant up and would have various holes in them for the roots to grow out of. The problem was that if she didn’t allow enough room the potatoes would grow inside of the cup destroying any chance at getting a harvest. So to avoid this the cups were made really short and a large hole was made in the bottom to allow the main root to exit. Then to stabilise the seed potatoe and stop it falling in she put two toothpicks through the sides of the seed potatoe which kept it upright.
The leafy greens were installed in a similar fashion except the seeds themselves were allowed to grow out and a growing medium was used. This meant that they were all first of all grown in the cups with dirt in them. This was done under the artificial LEDs until they had roots all through the cup. Then the bottom of the cup was cut off allowing the roots to slowly drop down into the hydroponic boxes. The LEDs were all installed without a hassle on the shelves and the growing stage could begin without a fuss. All in all the final stage of construction when Charlotte would actually start planting was rather anticlimactic. Now it was time to play the waiting game.
After getting up from monitoring her crops however Charlotte heard an alien sound. It was eerie, a long drawn out knock. One knock, two knocks, three knocks, four. Hesitantly Charlotte approached the door, making sure her cricket bat was where it needed to be just in case.
“Hello?” she called
“Hello” she heard back. The tone was masculine, though it sounded like whoever it was didn’t particularly have any reverberation to their voice. That’s not to say that she was an expert. she’d picked up a bit here and there from the occasional trans voice lessons video and reddit post, as she could hardly afford her meds without having to pay for voice lessons too.
She partially opened the door to see a man standing there. He had long flowing blond hair along with striking blue eyes. Oh and he was tall, very tall dwarfing Charlotte he looked to be at least 2 meters tall if not slightly over. Not to mention he was the very epitome of a European “ubermensch.” It was more than slightly unnerving…
“Um hello miss…. ummm.”
“You’re staring.”
“Oh umm sorry miss I’m ma… Morris and I’ve just moved in recently so I wanted to see if there was anyone else in the neighborhood and to give my greetings.”
“Huhhh. You moved in here?”
“YES just three houses down the road .” He partially stuttered there and the first word obviously came out a lot louder and possibly deeper then he intended.
“Ok but why here? There’s literally no one else on this entire street besides me.”
“Ahh the place was cheap so I got the first house I could get, which just so happened to be on this street.”
“Umm well come in then. Just take your shoes off at the door. I really don’t want any dust getting in.”
“Ok then.” He said, whilst taking off his shoes. Then waited in the doorway.
“Come on then.” She said gesturing towards the kitchen. She walked to the table before taking a seat.
“Ugh yes. Ok“ he said whilst he awkwardly caught up and took a seat.
“So what’s the story. It’s really not that hard to see you’re at least from a well off background. And before you ask it was your clothes and your watch. Your clothes are obviously from a large brand, they’re not designer but it’s close. Meanwhile your watch certainly is a designer brand. that isn’t to say it’s real, it could be fake, but only China had cheap knockoffs that looked that expensive, which would be hard to find.”
“Ahhh yes… ummm…”
“I’m usually very patient but your umming and ahhhing is getting annoying.”
“Yes sorry. I worked for a stock broking company, which my family owned. I was as you’ve seen pulling in a large allowance despite being a small company but well you know 2044 happened and The company shut down and cut off everyone with their severance pay and told them good luck.”
“Sounds about right, but didn’t you say your family owned the company. Why aren’t you staying with them. I’m sure they’d have gathered up enough to keep them all living in high class accommodation for the next decade at least.”
“We weren’t that well off but you are right in that I would have been able to live modestly enough in the city. But we’ve had our disagreements and as a result they used this as an excuse to sever me from the family. I’m sure my brother and sister are still living off of their money though.”
“So what they just left you out to die with only your severance pay, what the hell did you do?”
“I’d rather not say… but as a result I no longer had a job meaning I couldn’t continue to rent the place I was and the likelihood that I could find an apartment cheap enough would be unlikely due to the amount of people rushing into the cities.”
“So it was cheaper to just rent out here? Because no one lives here, and they all want to get a small amount of cash?”
“Well yes and no. Yes people want cash but no I didn’t rent it I bought it out right because it was cheaper in the long run. “
“So what are you doing now”
“Well right now I’m visiting the only neighbour on my street, though it appears as though the ones who sold the house were lying when they said it was a crazy ‘man’ clearly they were wrong or were just being bigots.”
“Haaaaa!”
“Ummm should I not have said that….” He said looking slightly nervous. He thought that maybe he shouldn’t have said that. Maybe she still identified as a male or maybe she was transitioning the other way. Oh god if he said something that wrong he’d look like a total ass. Forget getting along with his one neighbour she’d … they’d probably kill him for such a mistake. In fact he thought he’d deserve it, why would he do such a thing.
“What no I’m female you’re right there, I just wasn’t expecting you to say something like that.”
“Phew…… Yeah you’re right that came a bit out of the left field there but Contrary to the stereotype not all well off white men are bigots. Though I suppose they don’t stay well off for too long if they make their opinions known.”
“Yeah I guess you’re right. Here let me get you a drink of water.
“No thank you I know how exorbitant water prices have gotten so I won’t make you pay for a glass of water. I’d rather not have you spend half an hour’s minimum wage on a single glass of water for me.”
“What! It’s that expensive! It wasn’t even half that price 4 months ago! But don’t worry about it as the water is free. It was taken from the nearby creek and distilled.”
“Oh then if it’s not too much of a bother I’ll have one then. Who’d you get to do that then. I know a few companies have started selling large quantities of distilled and purified water to the general populace but I thought it was still largely inflated.”
“I do it all myself using a homemade distillery. From the prices you just said it’s obviously worth its weight in gold. But why has the price of water gone up so much?”
“You made it yourself! Wow that’s pretty amazing. As for why water prices have skyrocketed recently, it’s because a large group of millionaires and billionaires got together recently and started building a bunker. They’re expending an already built structure back from world war 2.”
“What’s that got to do with the water problem.”
“Well they’re installing two huge 10,000,000 litre tanks not to mention two Olympic sized swimming pools so they’re buying up all the water. I even heard that the state government is giving it to them for half the going price on the condition that the senior officials get to stay there. To make back the money that was discounted they’re then charging everyone more. ”
“What the hell! How can the government let this happen.”
“At this point there’s not much they can do as these businesses run the countries economy and it’s only these companies donating money and leftover food that gives the food drives all that they can get.”
“So the companies are holding the country and the poor as hostage. I’d like to say I’m surprised but I’m really not.”
“I’ve got a question though, how much would it cost to use your distillery?”
“Let me see… hmmm I think it could be arranged for.” She pushes her swivel chair out and turns around. Turning it around again slowly, she put her pinky up to her mouth and said “one billion dollars.”
“Haaaa?”
“Oh come on! I know the meme is 40 years old but it was a classic.” He continued to stare blankly at her. “Ok how about this, I’ll let you borrow the distillery and I’ll even build a bigger one if you help me.”
“Ok, that sounds good but what do you need help with?”
“A lot of things. I’m currently growing plants hydroponically so I need a lot of water so I’ll need to keep making water. I also need to either easily transport water up from the river or I need to collect and store it.”
“You’ve built your own farm? Yikes but yeah that does sound like a good deal so I’ll help you so long as I’m able to get enough water for myself. But just one thing is there enough water for say showers and baths?”
“Well if you want to go through the hassle of hooking your house’s shower up to an external source of water go ahead but I just heat up the water and take a bath most of the time.”
“Ok that’s fine.”
“What do you think I smell!”
“What no! It’s just that I tend to smell really quickly and I hate the smell. I never meant anything bad about you.”
“I was joking. You kinda need to lighten up… wait a second did I get your name? Please tell me I didn’t forget to ask for you name?”
“It was Morris, though I never got your name.”
“Well sorry about that Morris my name is Charlotte.”
“It’s been a pleasure meeting you miss Charlotte.” He extended out his hand to shake.
“Yeah it’s been a pleasure, now here’s your glass of water, sorry about the wait”
“Should we talk about what you need my help for then?”
“Yes I suppose we should.”
From there Charlotte explained her plans, which involved the construction of an even larger and more efficient water distiller. The current one was good but it lacked in certain areas. For instance the current one used a copper heating coil. Whilst copper is a good conductor it needs a larger resistance to properly heat up. That’s why it’s called resistive heating in the first place.
In actual fact Charlotte had gotten resistive heating around the wrong way originally. She had originally thought that the higher the voltage the larger the the heat but it was the other way around as the higher the current the larger the heat was actually true. This was why she had switched the transformer around the other way mid way through February. This showed a dramatic improvement in heating times. It shaved about a minute off each time she distilled the water which meant a lot when every minute was valuable.
The other design leached heat off into the air and ground. This meant that heat which could have gone to boiling the water was wasted on the old
The new design for that reason would have a large transformer designed to increase the current traveling through the grid. In addition it would have 4 wires each plugged into the grid to boil the water quicker. The design for now was this. The boiler would rest on a raised platform. The platform would be supported by concrete pillars placed to avoid having the structure cave in. Then in between there would be mattresses which would form the base and would provide insulation for the boiler. The concrete would then be poured over the top and sides preventing the memory foam from burning or coming into contact with the hot objects.
On top of this a layer of bricks would be placed with the heating coils carved into them. There’d be 4 of them which would each cover a quarter of a circle allowing for it to be rapidly heated up. On top of this a non electrically conductive but thermally conductive material would be placed on top. Then the boiler itself would go on top. It would be made out of metal but with nonflammable insulation on the sides. The boiler lid itself would likely be able to be taken off, but it would have a steam spout to collect all the steam and to convert it back into water. This would be transported through a similarly curved tube to allow for maximum cooling before feeding down into wherever it needed to go. It would hopefully be able to minimise the amount of waiting and would also slightly increase the productivity, by making more water in one batch. If you could combine that with a water tank then you could decrease the amount of time spent going to and from the river to collect the water.
This was going to be a difficult project but with a little help from her new friend she’d be able to make more than enough water for the two of them, if not more. She’d made her first refinery four months ago, I think it’s about time it was upsized.
