Characters
The Plant Manager
Dorn power plant manager, clutching his sheet of paper
The plant manager of the Dorn power plant is a man of about fifty with a round, clean-shaven face and a shirt collar that is too tight for him. He almost always holds a sheet of paper in both hands, even in the first video call, as if someone might take it away from him. He explains the plant as if reading it off the page: the reservoir behind the dam, the pressure tunnel, two machines almost 400 meters deeper inside the mountain, the load change. When there’s a sound in the rock, he keeps talking and tells the screen that it’s normal. In meetings he reads out the measurements, slowly and carefully. Lena doesn’t remember his name.
First encounter
- First noticed: in the video frame, gripping a sheet of paper with both hands
- Speaks: to the paper, not to people; “That’s normal.”
- Object: the sheet of paper
Connected to
- Dr. Adrian FalkPanel assessor who accepts only what has been measured
- Tilda ImhofShift supervisor inside the mountain, hears what no screen shows
- Lena VossOceanographer at the ICRU in Hamburg, following a falling line
- Dorn Reservoir (Dam and Power Plant)Reservoir, dam, and a power plant deep in the mountain
Spoiler-free. This describes the starting point of the book named, without its major twists or resolutions.