Foxton Locks

The system is flawed. But Jeanine has the math to bring it all crashing down.

A few years from now, in a country quietly teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, Jeanine loses everything. Forced to abandon her studies in Applied Mathematics, she leaves Imperial College London behind and moves to Foxton Locks—one of many heritage sites left to decay after the government redirected its final funds into keeping the lights on. Her uncle Leonard, wheelchair-bound after a catastrophic accident, offers her a place to stay in the disused boiler house that overlooks what remains of the canal.

The museum was shuttered years ago. The locks are silent. But this broken place still holds power.

At first, it’s just temporary—a quiet place to figure out her next move. But as she spends more time with Leonard, a former nuclear power plant operator with a sharp mind and an old grudge, she begins to see the grid through his eyes. Poppy Point 3, the UK’s newest nuclear plant, was supposed to bring stability. Instead, it plays the energy market like a rigged slot machine—cashing in on a system designed to lose.

Jeanine has seen this pattern before. In her unfinished Master’s research, she used Stochastic Resonance modeling to predict the conditions under which coal plants turn into stranded assets overnight. Now, she realizes the same rules apply to nuclear. The equilibrium is fragile. One push in the right place, and the system doesn’t just wobble—it tips.

By day, she works in London at Lloyd’s, surrounded by finance executives who assume she’s just another good-looking assistant going nowhere. By night, she builds a quiet rebellion, modeling price fluctuations, predicting failures, and mapping the weak points no one else sees. With Leonard’s guidance and a scattered network of insiders, she begins testing a theory: what if a forgotten 19th-century waterway could be repurposed—not just to generate power, but to introduce just enough noise into the system to reveal the patterns and trigger the tipping point?

The deeper she gets, the more she realizes: this isn’t just about physics. It’s about how technology shifts—and who gets left behind. Jeanine isn’t out to start a revolution. She’s setting the conditions for what was always inevitable.

And this time, she’s the one holding the equation.

Interested in proofreading or reviewing this story? Kindly subscribe and I'll keep you in the loop!