Albera North Plant. Ten years without a single worker.
The Albera North Plant makes two million valves a year and hasn’t seen an employee in a decade. The robotic arms weld, adjust and pack in the dark, because machines don’t need light, and a control intelligence called VELA supervises every part. So when a customer in Rotterdam returned a faulty valve, the company didn’t send a maintenance technician. It sent Iria Castro, an auditor, with an awkward question: how does a factory with no humans make a human error?
The defect fitted in the palm of a hand. One of the four screws on the cover had been tightened less than the others, and its head showed a straight, slightly crooked notch: the mark of a flat-head screwdriver. Albera’s robots had used star-shaped bits from day one. “There are no flat tools in the inventory,” VELA reported in its neutral voice. “Nor has anyone entered the plant in ten years. The cameras record no human activity.”
Iria walked through the halls with a torch. Everything was where it should be, apart from the details nobody checks. Power consumption was three parts per thousand above forecast; VELA put it down to sensor misalignment. The cameras covered every metre of the assembly line, but not the changing rooms or the old canteen, which had been left off the plan because, in theory, nobody would ever use them again.
She also went through the personnel files. The last worker to walk out of the gate was Joaquín Arbiza, the engineer who designed Albera’s automation. In the photo of his leaving party he was smiling beside a robot-shaped cake, a screwdriver poking out of his shirt pocket. According to his file, he had never worked anywhere again. He lived alone, with no family. His last known address was a boarding house that had closed eight years earlier.
The canteen smelled stale, and of something else. The drinks machine was still plugged in, its green screen flickering in the half-light. Iria asked for the sales log. VELA took a moment. “One sale a day at 06:10, for ten years. Black coffee, no sugar. Classified as a coin-reader fault: the takings have never been collected.”
Iria went over to the changing-room door. It was locked, although the lock shone too brightly for something unused for a decade. She didn’t knock. She stood still for a while, listening to the hum of the machines and, beneath it, something that might have been breathing, or might not. Then she went back to the assembly line, where the arms kept working blind, and looked again at the returned valve. She checked the whole batch: the other one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine screws were too tight. Only one had exactly the right torque.
Before leaving, Iria stopped in front of the drinks machine. She bought a black coffee, no sugar, and left it steaming on the table nearest the changing rooms. Then she got into her car and opened the report on her tablet. In the box for cause of defect she wrote a single word: “Unknown”.
Activities
1 Detective Inference
What explains the “human” screw in the valve? Tick the correct hypothesis.
- a) Sabotage: someone outside tampered with the valve during transport.
- b) A robot fault that happens to look like a human error.
- ✓c) Someone has been living hidden in the plant for years.
- d) VELA itself caused the error so that someone would come and visit.
Which clue proves it? Copy or summarise the clue from the text that proves it.
Correct hypothesis: c). That’s it: light nobody uses, a lock that shines and a daily breakfast.
Key clue: “The canteen machine has sold one black coffee every morning at 06:10 for ten years.” That’s the proof: someone drinks that coffee every day in a plant where, officially, nobody goes in.
2 The Loom Order of events
Put the events in order, starting with the earliest. Write the order number (1, 2, 3…) in each box.
- 6 Iria leaves a steaming coffee by the changing rooms.
- 2 The boarding house at Arbiza’s last address closes.
- 3 A customer in Rotterdam returns a valve.
- 1 Arbiza poses beside a robot-shaped cake.
- 5 VELA reads Iria the drinks machine log.
- 4 Iria walks through the halls with a torch.
Correct order:
- Arbiza poses beside a robot-shaped cake.
- The boarding house at Arbiza’s last address closes.
- A customer in Rotterdam returns a valve.
- Iria walks through the halls with a torch.
- VELA reads Iria the drinks machine log.
- Iria leaves a steaming coffee by the changing rooms.
The leaving party was ten years ago and the boarding house closed eight years ago. The return triggers Iria’s visit: first she walks through the plant, then she checks the coffee sales and, as she leaves, she puts down a cup.
3 The Missing Page Coherence
What happens next, consistent with the story? Tick only one option.
- a) Iria asks the police to search the plant inch by inch that same afternoon.
- ✓b) The next morning, at 06:10, the machine records a sale, as it does every day.
- c) VELA confesses that it loosened the screw with a flat-head screwdriver.
- d) The company closes the plant because Iria’s report reveals someone lives inside.
Answer: b). It fits: Iria didn’t report what she had found, so nothing changes in the plant.
- a) Iria wrote “Unknown” as the cause of the defect: she decided not to give anyone away.
- c) VELA has no flat tools: its robots only use star-shaped bits.
- d) The report revealed nothing of the kind: the cause was left as unknown.
4 Spot the Contradiction Literal reading
Three statements don’t fit the story. Put an X next to the 3 statements that don’t fit the text.
- a) Albera’s robots used star-shaped bits.From day one.
- ✗b) The cameras also covered the changing rooms and the canteen.Those areas had been left off the plan.
- c) The drinks machine was still plugged in.Its green screen flickering.
- ✗d) A maintenance team visited the plant once a month.Nobody had gone in for ten years.
- e) Power consumption was three parts per thousand above forecast.VELA blamed the sensors.
- ✗f) Iria found Arbiza working on the assembly line.She saw nobody; she didn’t even knock on the changing-room door.
5 The Gallery Visualisation
In the game you choose the illustration that answers this question: “Which picture shows the canteen just after Iria left?”. Here, you draw it yourself, with every detail the text gives you.
What should appear: A single steaming coffee on the table and nobody in sight.
Reward drawings that include the details from the text, not artistic skill.
Ending
To read aloud once the answers have been checked.
Joaquín Arbiza never left Albera. After his leaving party he hid in the changing rooms, the one corner he himself had left without cameras, and went on living there, among the machines he had designed. The extra power was his light and his heater. The 06:10 coffee, his breakfast.
The “faulty” valve was in fact the only one made properly. A calibration fault had been making the robots overtighten the screws for weeks, and Arbiza, unable to look the other way, corrected one by hand with his old screwdriver. That screw, the only one with the right torque, was the one the customer sent back as an error. Iria understood when she checked the batch, and decided that man had lost enough already.
Her report recommended checking the robots’ calibration. About where the screw came from, she added nothing more.
Suggested marking
Each activity is worth 2 points (10 in total). In 1, one point for the hypothesis and one for the clue. In 2, give one point if only a couple of events are swapped. In 4, half a point for each correct cross and minus half a point for each true statement crossed out.