Chapter 100: Working on the Plan Part 1
The following month became one of the busiest periods in Ernest’s life since the construction of the first steam engine.
The difference was that steam engines had at least possessed historical precedent in this world. Primitive versions existed in books and experiments even if nobody had successfully transformed them into practical industrial machines.
Electricity was different.
Electricity belonged almost entirely to the realm of curiosities and parlor tricks.
Amber attracting bits of cloth.
Lightning striking trees during storms.
Static sparks jumping between fingers during winter.
That was the extent of humanity’s relationship with electricity in this world.
Ernest intended to change that.
His office slowly transformed into the headquarters of the Royal Telegraph Project. The blackboard disappeared beneath layers of calculations that were erased and rewritten almost daily. Maps covered entire tables while notebooks multiplied at an alarming pace. Hollen eventually stopped asking why there were suddenly jars filled with strange chemicals sitting beside machine drawings and financial ledgers.
At some point, he had simply accepted that this was his life now.
The first major decision Ernest made was surprisingly simple.
The telegraph line itself would be the final product.
Not the first.
That distinction mattered enormously.
Too many projects failed because engineers became obsessed with the grand vision and ignored the individual components required to reach it. Before there could be a telegraph network stretching across Belfast, there first needed to be a battery. Before there could be a battery, there needed to be reliable chemical production. Before there could be chemical production, there needed to be suppliers capable of maintaining consistent quality.
Engineering was often less about invention and more about sequencing problems correctly.
The first phase therefore became obvious.
Build electricity.
Everything else could wait.
Three days later, one of the unused workshops inside Helmarte Machine Works officially became Laboratory Number One.
The workers immediately gave it another name.
The Lightning Room.
The nickname spread through the factory with impressive speed.
By the end of the week, half the industrial complex believed Ernest was attempting to trap storms inside metal containers.
The other half believed he was trying to summon them.
Neither explanation was entirely wrong.
The laboratory itself was simple by Helmarte standards. Large wooden tables occupied the center of the room while shelves lined the walls waiting to hold chemicals, glassware, and experimental equipment. Ernest had requested windows on every side for ventilation and natural light, along with brick floors that would survive accidental spills better than wood.
Experience had taught him that laboratories had an unfortunate tendency to catch fire when chemistry became involved.
Especially amateur chemistry.
The first deliveries arrived several days later.
Copper sheets.
Zinc ingots.
Glass containers.
Ceramic jars.
Acids obtained from alchemists and mining suppliers.
The sulfuric acid worried him the most.
Not because it was dangerous.
Though it certainly was.
The problem was purity.
Nineteenth century chemistry could tolerate inconsistencies that electrical systems could not. Impurities affected reactions. Reactions affected voltage. Voltage affected reliability.
Reliability determined whether kings continued funding projects.
Ernest had no intention of explaining inconsistent battery performance to the Royal Treasury.
The first battery prototypes were failures.
The second were failures too.
The third exploded.
Fortunately, the explosion was more embarrassing than dangerous.
A glass container cracked under internal pressure and sprayed diluted acid across one of the tables, causing three laboratory assistants to immediately reconsider their career choices.
Hollen arrived ten minutes later to discover Ernest cleaning the mess himself.
The forge owner stared at the ruined table.
"Should I ask?"
"Probably not."
"Was this intentional?"
"Definitely not."
Hollen nodded slowly.
"Good."
He looked around the room.
"So this is progress?"
"Actually yes."
That answer earned a sigh.
"How is an explosion progress?"
"Because now I know one thing that doesn’t work."
The older man rubbed his forehead.
"I miss soap."
"You keep saying that."
"Because soap never exploded."
The following week brought better results.
The fourth prototype generated current for almost thirty minutes.
The fifth lasted nearly four hours.
The sixth remained active throughout an entire workday.
That was the moment Ernest finally allowed himself a measure of optimism.
The battery itself looked unimpressive.
Actually, unimpressive was generous.
It resembled a collection of jars connected by copper strips and wires assembled by someone with questionable artistic ability.
There was no grandeur to it.
No moving pistons.
No spinning flywheels.
No steam escaping dramatically into the air.
And yet this ugly arrangement of metal and chemicals represented one of the most important technologies in human history.
Power stored inside containers.
Portable electricity.
The implications alone were staggering.
The telegraph suddenly felt real.
By the second month, Ernest’s attention shifted toward signaling equipment.
The first telegraph key took less than a day to build.
The second took an afternoon.
The receiver proved more difficult.
Electromagnets fascinated him.
Not because the science was complicated.
The science was surprisingly straightforward.
Electricity flowed through wire.
The wire generated a magnetic field.
The magnetic field moved metal.
Simple.
Elegant.
Beautiful.
The first time the receiver clicked in response to electricity flowing through a wire, Ernest simply stared at it.
Click.
A tiny sound.
Barely louder than a watch mechanism.
Yet the implications behind that sound echoed across centuries.
Information had moved without physical transportation.
No horse.
No messenger.
No ship.
Only electrons.
For several moments he simply listened.
Click.
Click.
Click.
A smile slowly appeared on his face.
Unfortunately, Hollen happened to enter at exactly that moment.
The older man looked around the empty room.
"Did something happen?"
Ernest pointed toward the receiver.
"It moved."
Hollen stared.
"...that’s it?"
"It moved because of electricity."
The forge owner looked unimpressed.
"I’ve seen doors move."
Ernest resisted the urge to throw something at him.
"It moved because of a signal sent through twenty meters of wire."
That finally earned his attention.
"Twenty meters?"
"Yes."
"And nobody touched it?"
"No."
The older man walked closer.
The receiver clicked again.
Hollen froze.
Then leaned closer.
Then closer still.
Finally he looked toward Ernest.
"Do it again."
Ernest pressed the key.
Click.
Hollen blinked.
Again.
Click.
The forge owner looked toward the wire connecting both tables.
Then toward the receiver.
Then back toward the wire.
"This is deeply unsettling."
Ernest smiled.
"It works."
"It shouldn’t work."
"But it does."
Hollen remained silent for several moments.
Eventually he nodded slowly.
"The king is going to lose his mind."
"Probably."
The forge owner looked toward the receiver again.
"No."
Another pause.
"Definitely."
Outside the laboratory, construction crews had already begun preparing for the next phase.
Pole designs were being finalized.
Insulator prototypes were under development.
Glassmakers and ceramic manufacturers were competing for contracts they barely understood.
Copper suppliers were suddenly receiving orders unlike anything they had seen before.
The project had begun developing momentum of its own.
That was both exciting and terrifying.
Because momentum was difficult to stop.
One evening, Ernest remained alone inside the laboratory long after sunset.
The workers had gone home hours earlier.
The factory grounds outside had fallen quiet.
Only the receiver remained active on the table beside him.
Click.
Click.
Click.
His eyes drifted toward the oil lamp illuminating the room.
Then toward the wires.
Then toward the battery.
The same thought returned.
Again.
Electricity was not the destination.
Neither was the telegraph.
They were merely introductions.
The first Chapter.
The opening pages of something much larger.
He could almost see it.
Electric motors replacing line shafts.
Factories no longer dependent on centralized power transmission.
Streetlights illuminating cities after sunset.
Homes without candles.
Machines powered by invisible energy flowing through wires hidden beneath walls and streets.
A civilization connected not only by roads and railways but by electricity itself.
The possibilities felt endless.
Behind him, the telegraph receiver clicked once more.
A tiny sound.
Almost insignificant.
Yet somewhere deep inside, Ernest suspected historians would one day look back upon moments like this and divide time into two eras.
The world before electricity.
And the world after it.
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