The Coal Smoke Problem

After being in the City of Connaissance for a few months, Emily realized that there was a fatal flaw with the city of tomorrow. It was perpetually dirty. The air was dirty. The water was dirty. the ground was dirty. The culprit was the industrial sector. Each day from her ninth-story office window she watched as the plants pumped out an endless stream of dark black smoke that rose into the air and stayed over the city eventually falling back down to Hanston and turning into black dust. Emily finally just couldn't stand it anymore and walked out, "Edmonds, please call the Future Art of War Company officers to my office. All of them need to be here, so no excuses."

Her butler Edmonds smiled and nodded, "Yes, Lady Connaissance."

A few hours later they all gathered in her office. Emily had prepared two chalkboards in the room the group all stood looking at the boards and the skyline behind them. Emily started, "Gentlemen. This is going to be our most important task. Our city sits in a bowl where the air blows in through the main gate area but is trapped here in the valley. Our reliance on steam power for our new technologies means that we will have to burn something, with coal being our best answer so far. The result of burning that coal is that smoke. She pointed out the window. The smoke has nowhere to go, not to mention, we seriously have to consider a future for the planet where every nation is dumping that much soot into the air. I need solutions and I need them yesterday. Give me any ideas you have, from the most outrageous to the most expensive."

"Thomas and I have been talking about this very issue because we wanted to think of a way to make a Rhinoceros that could sneak up on an enemy force during the daylight hours. At first, we toyed with the idea of creating a reservoir where the smoke could be gathered. We built a tank and pumped the smoke inside of it, however, after just a few minutes all of the breathable air was choked out putting out the fire." James scribbled on the chalkboard.

The Professor nodded and said, "One thing we could try, is a system of filters to remove the particulates from the gases, I can't imagine how often we would need to clean such a filtration system and what the effects on the workers tasked with such a duty might be subjected to healthwise. "

Winston Murray looked at the drawings and said, "I wonder if we could use a steam filter, again we would have an issue with buildup and needing to subject workers to the eventual or continuous cleanup."

Emily took the second chalkboard and listed all of the ideas that were being discussed not jumping in with any kind of opinions.

Another one of the inventors asked, "Can we bring in pressurized fresh air to the fire while pushing the dirty air through a steam filter that has a groundwater filter in a cistern. Basically we blast the dirty smoke with a steam filter, the sooty water is then filtered through a mix of sand, charcoal, and gravel before clean water is produced. It can be a closed system where that water would only be reused again and not allowed back out into the air at all."

Winston Murray snapped his fingers, "That is absolutely brilliant!"

Emily circled that answer and said, "Gentleman, I want to see a small scale test running by the end of the week. All other projects are on hold until I see something that works. Get to it!"

*****

Two weeks later they all gathered together in Emily's office once again. Winston Murray stepped forward and handed each of them the test results from the experiment. He cleared his throat, "Our small scale test worked beautifully. We scaled it up and tried it on a full-sized boiler and again it worked beautifully. The problem we have now is... Do we install the scaled-up version on the existing plants knowing that we are going to be entering phase three within three years?"

Emily nodded and said, "I'll speak with Mr. Duke and the others. This is a problem that will come out of their budgets. What kind of costs are we going to see with each filtration system?"

Winston smiled and said, "We built the full-scale single boiler system for five thousand Sprite in total. If we mass produce them the cost will drop to around three thousand Sprite per unit. We won't be able to use this system on the Dirigible Aircraft, but we are thinking it might work on the Rhinoceros on a smaller scale if we sacrifice a car for it. The largest cost we have is the space needed. Once we get to Phase four, that cost goes away as we will have the concentrated large boiler system and a much larger centrally located filtration system."

Emily opened the office door and called out, "Edmonds, I need to see Mr. Duke in my office." She closed the door and started to pace around, "Mr. Murray, give me a status update on our projects."

He gave her a winning smile and said, "Small scale tests on the Dirigibles show dramatic improvements. We have been working with the Duke Company Metallurgists and have designed a much lighter, stronger material to use for the airframe then steel or wood." He then walked over to her chalkboard and started to scribble, "Steam Catapult idea was a success, although we feel that this ancient technology will be worthless once we have the Dirigible fleet and can simply ignore all walls." He wrote another line, "We came up with a steam-powered troop carrier that is much lighter than a Rhinoceros, but so far we are unable to come up with a way to eliminate the smoke from it. We solved the problem of the track by equipping it with a built-in track system. The track goes around the wheels continuously laying the track down as it goes. It's not nearly as effective as the static tracks, but small scale testing showed incredible potential."

Emily nodded and then asked, "What does Captain Alexander say that he needs?"

Mr. Murray laughed, "Captain Alexander... He said to me, war is where you protect your population from being killed by getting to their leadership before they get to yours." He shook his head and then said, "He said you win battles by killing their soldiers and you win wars by forcing their leaders to die and be replaced by people who agree with you."

Emily laughed, "Was Jon saying that all we need to do is skip over all of that battle part and go straight to their leadership?"

Mr. Murray smiled sheepishly, "I think you should ask him that yourself Lady Connaissance, what I asked him was, what weapons of war that don't exist now, should we make for your soldiers to be safer and winning the war easier? He told me that what he really needed was longer range weapons for battles and faster transportation for wars."

Emily scrunched up her face, "That's really all isn't it. We need to be able to hit them before they hit us and we need to get to them before they can get to us."

Mr. Murray nodded, "Dirigible Aircraft solves the one and powered weapons the other. We can already do both well, I think we just need to make them easier to use on a large scale."

The door suddenly opened with Edmonds saying, "Princess please, they are in a meeting..."

Teslaimia walked in the door carrying a basket she spoke up in her beautiful voice, "Alright dirty things, it's time for lunch, go on, shoo now, shoo." She made dismissive motions with her free hand while she gave them all a smile that would cause any man with even a passing interest in women to melt with desire. "Come my beautiful sister, I have brought lunch for us to share. Go wash your hands and let us enjoy a good meal and gossip."

Emily nodded and headed into her restroom to wash up. Thomas frowned and asked, "Why do you always call us dirty things? I took a bath just this morning."

Teslaimia made a cute face as she scrunched up her nose saying, "Look at you all, chalk on your sleeves, coal dirt and soot all over your suit jackets and shoes. Your faces are wiped clean, yes, but you always have soot around your ears. So dirty. When will you all fix my air? Huh? Do you know how often we have to clean our clothes because of your stinky air? Go on now, go eat your lunch and get back to fixing my air."

The men reluctantly left after some minor arguing mostly to regain their dignity. Emily came and sat down on the recently added couch together with Teslaimia who handed her a pita sandwich and poured her a glass of red wine. "The fat man from the newspaper has been following me again, I think I must be helping them sell their papers. Did you have a chance to read today's paper? They have us in a love triangle with Jon this time." She giggled happily.

Emily took a sip of the wine and then had a bite of the sandwich, "Who made this, it's incredible?"

Teslaimia smiled and said, "I made it. Unlike you, I have only ever been taught such things. Art, poetry, cooking, dancing, the things that make a man happy. In many ways I envy that you can do so much, I feel like the things I have learned serve no real purpose. I am a pretty flower, while you are a true Queen."

Emily blushed softly brushing a stray strand of her hair behind her ear, "To me, the things you can do are equally amazing. I tried to learn cooking before, I followed the recipes I was given precisely each time, but it never truly tasted right and it would always look terrible. Too much of cooking is like art. You need to have the ability to trust your instincts and not just follow a chart."

Teslaimia chuckled, "I wonder, can you break away from all of this for a few weeks?"

Emily frowned, "I can, but I don't really have anything else to do. I work so hard because aside from my work my life is empty."

"Then we will go together on your balloon's maiden voyage." She sighed and said, "Polo's father has passed away. I received word from their embassy this morning."

Emily looked at Teslaimia with a surprised expression, "We haven't been invited though, is it right to go?"

"Didn't Polo attend your father's funeral?"

Emily shook her head, "I Don't really remember, I was alone the entire time. They kept me at the small guest residence until the funeral and then I was only brought in to see them one final time before being taken back to the residence. I wasn't allowed to speak with anyone."

Teslaimia looked saddened, "Well, he was, as was I. Although much like you, I wasn't allowed to speak with much of anyone. I met King Alexander and that was it. I didn't get to meet Polo there or even see him, but my father told me that he was there."

Emily thought for a moment, "Yes, we could use this trip as a way to test the Dirigible aircraft. I will speak to Mr. Murray and see if they can make it ready in time."

Teslaimia nodded, "Speaking of Winston, there was a story in the gossip section saying that you were spending more time with him now because your ex-lover Jon was now seeing me. I wonder what they would say if I told them they had it all wrong about you?" She gently caressed the back of Emily's neck and then softly bit Emily's earlobe.

Emily blushed furiously, "Teslaimia! Don't even joke about things like that, it's bad enough that they are printing these fairy tales about us!"