Undertow: The Night the River Talked Back
A short Infrastructure Guard story for readers of every age. The pumps go quiet, the water starts talking, and one careful engineer listens.
The Night the River Talked Back
The pumps under Halsted went quiet at 2 a.m.
Tomás Vale pressed his visor to the tunnel wall and listened. Water talks if you let it. This water said: someone closed a valve that no map shows.
He followed the gauges into the dark. The needle climbed.
Behind him, very softly, a door he hadn’t opened clicked shut.
Pressure
No power means no pumps. Tomás found the station flooding, gauges spinning red, the big brass wheel rusted tight.
He pulled until his suit groaned. The wheel turned an inch.
Then the radio crackled: “Tomás, it’s not the grid. It’s a schedule. And the next stop is the hospital.”
TO BE CONTINUED.
The Lantern
The hospital went dark at 4:12.
At 4:13 a thousand flashlights came on in the street. Ray had knocked on every door. Neighbors carried generators, fuel, extension cords.
By dawn the lights were back, and the schedule had a name on it nobody expected.
NEXT ARC: THREE TOWERS.
Meet Undertow
Tomás Vale, called Undertow
A water-plant engineer in his 40s. Quiet, careful, thinks in gallons. He wears a deep-blue armored diving suit with brass pressure gauges on both wrists and a brass helmet whose porthole glows a low amber.
Flow Read
He can feel every pipe, intake and aquifer under the city, and hear where the water is being pushed around.
The lake is shared
Every gallon has a neighbor. He can read the water and move a valve, but he can’t make more of it.
“Gallons don’t argue. Count them twice, then move the valve.”
Keep reading
More Undertow: the comic
Undertow stars in Infrastructure Guard Issue #1, Hidden Pipes, a comic about how water reaches the tap in Chicago.
Fictional characters. The Infrastructure Guard and all of its characters, places and events are original GOTB creations. Any resemblance to real persons, companies or facilities is coincidental. Real-world facts in each episode link to public sources.
The illustrations are painted-style digital art. Undertow (Tomás Vale), Ray (Commons) and every other character are fictional, and no real people are depicted.
About
Meet Michael E. Brown
President and Managing Partner, GOTB Consulting, LLC · Chicago
Michael E. Brown is Lead Contract Negotiator on the $8.5 Billion O’Hare 21 project. He was also lead contract negotiator on the $800M O’Hare rail extension, and lead lobbyist and contract negotiator on the $400M Chicago Department of Water Management lateral redevelopment. (Dollar figures are program sizes, not GOTB fees.)
He has worked with the Illinois legislature and public officials on public-private partnership (P3) policy, and has consulted to the Cook County Commission on reducing duplicative administrative offices. He is a frequent speaker at governmental and municipal functions, focuses on good government and healthier social and economic solutions for safe, successful neighborhoods, lives in Chicago, and serves on the Board of the March of Dimes.
- M.S., Psychology (1997), University of Iowa
- B.S., Psychology (1995), University of Iowa
About
Meet Richard Butler
Partner, GOTB Consulting, LLC · Chicago
Richard (Rich) Butler is a partner at GOTB Consulting and a 38-year veteran of Chicago city government. From August 2019 to February 2020 he served as First Deputy Commissioner and Chief Administrative Officer of the Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA), responsible for day-to-day administration and operations of O’Hare and Midway, including finance, contracts, operations, legal, human resources, workforce development, concessions, real estate and vehicle services. CDA manages the two airports with a federally funded budget of $8.5 billion. (Dollar figures are budget and program sizes, not GOTB fees.)
Before that, Rich was First Deputy Procurement Officer at the City’s Department of Procurement Services and Chief Administrative Officer of the Chicago Park District, where he oversaw procurement, audit, finance, warehousing and general administrative services on an estimated annual budget of $385 million and established district-wide policies and procedures. His City career began at the Department of Aviation as Director of Contracts Administration, and he also served as General Superintendent of the Department of Streets and Sanitation.
He completed the Chicago Accounting and Purchasing System Training Program and the City of Chicago Executive Management Program, was a key team member on the design and implementation plan for the City’s new eProcurement system, and is a member of the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing and the Purchasing Management Association of Chicago. He has served on the board of the Chicago Municipal Employees Credit Union and on the US Communities board, representing the City of Chicago, and traveled to South Korea to represent Chicago in the Kotra Alliance to bridge contracting opportunities. A native of Englewood, he attended De La Salle High School.
- B.S., Northern Illinois University
About
Meet David Campbell
Of Counsel, GOTB Consulting, LLC · Michigan
M. David Campbell, II is Of Counsel to GOTB Consulting, bringing more than 40 years in public sector solutions, business development and alliances. He began in Michigan's non-partisan House Fiscal Agency, where, as a Senior Fiscal Analyst from 1983 to 1994, he worked on multi-billion-dollar budgets for Capital Outlay, Public Health, Transportation and General Government.
Appointed and re-appointed by Governor John Engler, he served from 2000 to 2006 as one of six Trustees of the Michigan Municipal Bond Authority, which finances infrastructure for local governments, and oversaw its $1 billion-plus clean water bond program. At Oracle USA (2006-2018) he helped close more than $100 million in business and earned the President's Cup for Customer Satisfaction. As Account General Manager for Iowa and Michigan at Gainwell Technologies until 2026, he grew the Michigan business 47%.
A National Kidney Foundation of Michigan board member since 1997 and Chairman Emeritus, he is honored by the foundation's M. David Campbell Leadership Award. He studied at Michigan State University and The College of Wooster.