That answer had followed him his whole career.
Kendra sighed.
“Fine.”
“You mad?”
“I’ll be mad if payroll bounces.”
“It won’t.”
“You sound confident.”
“I’m terrified.”
“Good.”
She closed the ledger.
“At least you’re paying attention.”
Four months later, southern Alabama was hit by a storm far worse than the 1983 outage.
Sustained winds.
Heavy rain.
Infrastructure damage across three counties.
Power restoration estimates changed hourly and then stopped meaning much at all.
Boone Reserve Power’s phones began ringing before the worst weather ended.
Poultry farms.
Cold storage.
A nursing home.
A rural clinic.
A food-processing operation.
Warehouses.
Small businesses.
Households with medical needs.
The rental fleet Cedric had almost sold suddenly became the most valuable thing he owned.
Kendra stood beside him in the warehouse.
“People are asking prices.”
“What are we telling them?”
“Normal schedule.”
She looked at him.
“Some said they’d pay double.”
“No.”
“Triple.”
“No.”
“You know what this could do for cash.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Cedric looked at her.
“If we gouge people during the emergency, they remember that longer than they remember the power.”
Kendra nodded.
“I already told them normal schedule.”
Cedric smiled.
“Why ask?”
“I like hearing you agree with me.”
Priority came first.
Nursing home.
Clinic.
Food processing.
Cold storage.
Poultry operations.
Then everyone else according to need and available capacity.
Payment arrangements could wait.
For nearly thirty-six hours, Cedric, Kendra, and the remaining technicians barely slept.
Trucks moved through rain.
Generators were installed.
Loads checked.
Fuel plans organized.
Maintenance schedules adjusted.
Machines acquired from salvage yards, factory closures, and estate sales were suddenly running critical operations across three counties.
Each hour they operated generated income.
More importantly, each hour demonstrated reliability.
The most serious call came near midnight on the second night.
Food-processing plant.
Large-capacity generator.
Unstable voltage.
Cedric drove himself.
The plant manager met him near the unit.
“If this goes down, we lose refrigeration.”
“How long?”
“Depends. Not long enough.”
Cedric opened the panel.
The machine was running.
Output needle moved irregularly.
A younger technician who had arrived first said:
“Regulator?”
“Maybe.”
“You want me to pull it?”
“No.”
Cedric looked at him.
“What’s working?”
The technician hesitated.
Cedric heard Raymond’s voice in his own.
“What’s working?”
“Engine speed stable.”
“Good.”
“Frequency close to normal.”
“Good.”
“Fuel delivery fine.”
“Good.”
Cedric pointed toward the meter.
“So narrow it.”
They checked the functioning systems first.
The fault path shrank.
Cedric found the problem in less than twenty minutes.