Characters
Xaver Nagl
Young control room operator who reads off the log
Xaver Nagl works in the control room of the Dorn power plant, night shifts included. He is young, tall and thin, a head taller than Lena Voss, with short hair that isn’t really a hairstyle, headphones, and a bandage on his index finger. At shift handover he reads from the shift log what happened during the night: nothing, everything green. He calls the sound when the machine starts up the usual thing, the thing in the ground. For his shift supervisor, Tilda Imhof, green isn’t enough. She tells him that next time he is to write down what he heard himself, with the time. On her report he is listed as one of those who heard it, with a thin, slanted signature.
First encounter
- First noticed: when the sound comes through the rock, he is the only one who lifts his head and glances at the ceiling for a second
- Speaks: briefly, reading off the log; “It was the usual. At startup. The thing in the ground.”
- Object: the headphones; the shift log, with his bandaged finger on the first line
Connected to
- Tilda ImhofShift supervisor inside the mountain, hears what no screen shows
- Lena VossOceanographer at the ICRU in Hamburg, following a falling line
- Dr. Adrian FalkPanel assessor who accepts only what has been measured
- 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.