Click.
“This is Decon One. Be advised that your team has been taken to Decon—”
They were safe. That was all I needed. I switched back to Magyar’s channel. “Brace yourself. I’m bringing on line methane.”
Magyar froze. Her gloved fist tightened on the crowbar. If she dropped it, there might be sparks. I imagined a hiss as the methane started to jet down the lines.
“What’s happening now?” Magyar asked after a minute.
The MMO numbers were not moving. “Nothing.”
“Talk to me, Bird. What should happen?”
“The methanotrophes will use the methane as their primary substrate, the vinyl chloride as secondary. . .” Still nothing.
“Come on,” Magyar muttered.
The amber numerals ticked.
41:33. 41:34.
“There!” It was a slight change, and sluggish. “Yes!” The MMO counter was climbing faster now. The vinyl chloride stopped. Began to decrease. “It’s working.” I watched for a while, just to be sure.
52:07. 52:08.
Everything was working. Running perfectly. “I’m going to reduce the methane.” I did, slowly, cautiously. The numbers remained steady. I nudged it down further. Fine. I stretched, inside my suit. “You can put that crowbar down now.”
She laid it flat on the floor. Always careful. She leaned over the readouts. Her head moved inside her hood, which I interpreted as a nod of satisfaction. I watched the incident clock for a while, feeling drained. “Now what do we do?”
“Now we wait.”
I was hoping she would say that. I would hate to have left before the end, before the influent ran clear and we could switch everything back.
There was no conversation, no lowering of barriers now that we had worked shoulder to shoulder or any of that nonsense. We were too busy watching readouts, checking lines. Now that the immediate danger was past I realized how hot it was inside my suit, how the sweat trickling down beside my ear alongside the silicon mask seal itched. I pulled my right hand carefully out of a batwing sleeve, ran a finger around the seal, and put the hand back.
“There.” Magyar was pointing. A light on the board switched from red to green. Volatile organic carbons were back down to preincident levels.
I beamed at Magyar through my faceplate, though I doubted she could see it. She did not seem to smile back, anyway. “Let’s check the numbers prior to accepting influent,” she said.
I looked at the board. “We have . . . nine operational troughs in the tertiary sector.”
“Nine? Kinnis and Cel did a good job.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to think about them, where they were now. I didn’t want to think about the debriefing. “What percentage of influent should we accept?” The larger the percentage we had to turn away at this point, the greater the damage to our standing in the industry. All the plants were built with overcapacity. Even though our reduction might only last a day or two, the impact on our market share might be permanent.
“We’ll take forty percent.”
I nodded. If everyone went on bonus, did double shifts, and doubled up on the troughs it might work. “You want to do it?”
She waved me back to the switches and cleared her throat. Although everything we said would have been intercepted by Department earwigs and snooping hams, this next bit would be the part of the record that got replayed most often. “It’s oh-one-hundred forty-one. Influent reads VOC at seven parts per million. Taking pipe locks off-line.”
“Check.”
“System reinstated.”
“Check.”
“Holding tanks locked down—”
“Check.”
“—and negative air pressure enabled.”
“Check.”
“That’s it, then.” She reached up and punched the black button beneath the steadily ticking amber numbers. They froze at
69:23.
Just over an hour. It felt like a week. “Emergency declared stabilized at oh-one-hundred forty-three.” She stretched. “Lock it down.”
I entered the commands to seal off the holding area.
“Let’s go take a look at the damage.”
The vast space of the primary sector was very strange, full of the hissing sound of filling troughs, without the usual overlay of rake whine, aerators, and people sound. I wondered if Magyar was as tempted as I was to crack open her hood and breathe deep.”No one died,” she said. “But they could have. I want the bastard who set this up.” She stumped along the concrete apron, closing flapping locker doors, stopping to pick up the occasional abandoned filter mask, fingering the gleaming joints of a drench hose. “What I don’t understand is the elaborateness of it all. All those topped-up tanks and new batteries. Why? What was the point?” I had heard a woman on the street sound like that, a woman who had been on her way to the grocery shop, when a man had shouted at her, called her an ugly bitch. More bewildered than angry: What had she done to deserve such malice?
I was more interested in what was going to happen next. “Magyar, when we go out there, I don’t want any credit.”
“You mean you don’t want the attention.”
“That’s right.”
“There’s nothing I can do about what Kinnis or Cel might have said.”
“I know that.”
Her sigh sounded like the hissing of a flat tire over the suit radio. “I’ll do my best to keep the cameras off you. And I won’t mention your name. Good enough?”
“Yes.”
“Right. I’m doing this because I think I can trust you, and despite everything I like you, but one day you’re going to tell me what this is about.” I nodded. Time to worry about all that later. “Let’s get it over with.”
Decon One was waiting in the shower room with hoses and secondary suits. There were no cameras, so I just did as I was told, and stripped and showered, and let Magyar yell and fume and tell them they were idiots, that there wasn’t any danger, thanks to herself and her team . . . She was still arguing when we were passed along to Decon Two.
Another shower, this time being pestered by two tech specialists and the recon team leader who insisted on radioing everything, verbatim, to his first Go Team. Everyone more or less ignored Magyar’s protestations that the plant was now safe. My name had only been mentioned once, just so that Operations could stand down the rescue aspects of its Go Teams. They sent a medical team, which hustled us into a small room draped with plasthene sheets and filled with the paraphernalia of high-tech medicine.
Cel and Kinnis were sitting on two of the beds. “Hey, Magyar, they won’t let us out.”
“We’re following procedure,” the medic with the most flashes on his epaulets said smoothly. “Regulations—”
Magyar was like a controlled explosion. “You’re in charge here? Good. I want to talk to the operations chief, now.”
“You can’t—”
“Then you do it. Verify the following: one, that Decon can confirm that I and my team maintained air integrity at all times; two, that our medical exam shows no ill effects of the PCE; three, that we obeyed all emergency procedures to the letter, that our conversations are on the record for analysis and discussion, and that therefore our presence is no longer needed. And when you have all that sorted out, I want to add to the record my opinion that if you attempt to keep us here any longer against our will your behavior will be not only unethical but illegal.” She folded her arms. The medic gradually wilted under her stare and went to the phone.
Magyar sat down next to Kinnis. He grinned. “I’m glad they’ll listen to someone.”
She grinned back, and I realized she was not angry, but pleased with herself. She was planning something.
The medic finished on the phone. “You,” he pointed at Magyar, “you’re wanted in Ops for debriefing. You three,” to me and Cel and Kinnis, “you can go. You’re instructed to avoid the cameras.”
“Don’t worry,” Cel said shortly.
He nodded at one of his assistants. “He’ll escort you to the gate.”
“I know the way. Besides, I have to get my gear from the locker room.”
“It’s already been removed to zone three.” The cool zone. The edge of the contamination perimeter. “But—”
Magyar stood up. “Better do as they say, Cel, and just be glad they’re letting you go. Looks like I’ll be up all night.”
Cel agreed eventually, and the three of us trooped out behind the medic’s assistant.
Outside, it was as bright as day: emergency-response trucks sat in a circle with arc lights burning into the black sandstone building. Camera teams, with anchors talking into their own spotlights. Dozens of groups in flash suits and air hoses, protective helmets, radios . . . I could almost smell their adrenaline, and wondered how they would work it off now that they wouldn’t be needed. While I watched, two ambulances turned off their flashing lights and drove away. There were probably about two hundred people watching and waiting for survivors. While most of them would be the next shift waiting to go in, many were media.
“Cel.” She turned. “Wait.”
“What’s going on?” Kinnis asked.
They had trusted me earlier, with their lives. “I can’t afford to have my face seen on the net, or my name mentioned. I need to avoid them.”
Cel shrugged. “I don’t see how we can help you.”
“I thought that if everyone was swarming to talk to one of you—or both of you—I could get away unnoticed.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. She didn’t relish the idea of a media feeding frenzy, and I didn’t blame her.
I had a sudden inspiration. “Kinnis, won’t your wife be worried?”
“Christ, yes. I hadn’t thought about that.”
“One quick way to let her know you’re safe would be to get on the net. You, too, Cel.”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly.
But Kinnis was looking at the cameras happily. “Being on the net would make me a hero to my kids, Cel: the guy who saved the city. And like she said, it would let my wife know I’m safe.”
“I don’t know,” Cel said again, then sighed. “I don’t know why I keep doing what you say.”
Because I ask it. Katerine was right.
“Come on, Kinnis. You head for those teams over there, I’ll take this side.” She walked out, waving. “Hey!” Lights swung her way.
Kinnis stepped out after her, to one side. “Me, too!”
I slipped into the shadow left behind by the piercing light and hurried away.
It was almost dawn by the time they were dressed and outside. The woman and Spanner stood in the doorway, murmuring. Something changed hands. Lore looked around, ignoring them. The apartment building was a converted warehouse, made of the long, thin bricks manufactured before the eighteenth century: they were in the center of the city, surrounded by trees and a high wall.
They found a café. Lore stirred her coffee aimlessly. Her body felt hopelessly confused: whenever she thought about what had happened she felt a flush of arousal followed quickly by shame.
“I don’t want to do that again,” she said quietly, not looking at Spanner.
“You enjoyed it.”
“Yes. That makes it worse.”
“It would have been better if you hadn’t liked it?”
“Yes. At least then I would have felt more like me. More in control.” She stirred the coffee some more. It slopped over into the saucer. “I just feel so . . . used.” No, she
wanted
to feel used, but she did not. She felt as though it did not matter, and that frightened her. She stared blindly across the river, broad here, and slow moving.
“Anyway, it’s done now. And you did enjoy it. You can’t tell me it wasn’t good.”
And it had been; it had been very good. What did that say about her?
“When did you drug me?” Her voice sounded surprisingly calm.
“Who says I drugged you?”
“Just tell me when.”
“After you had already taken off your dress.”
After you had already taken off your dress.
So she did not even have that much of an excuse; she had already unbuttoned her dress. Some part of her had been willing, even without the drug.
Spanner squinted at the rising sun, sipped from her coffee. “So,” she said casually, “do you want me to tell you when I’m doing it, next time?”
Next time.
Lore watched the sparkle of morning sunlight on the river. It looked so bright, so optimistic, on the surface. But underneath there were river reeds, and pikes to eat smaller fish, and the rich river mud was made of dead things, including the bones of thousands of people.
Next time.
“There’s no sign of business improving?”
“No.” Spanner waited for a waiter to refill her coffee. “This is more profitable, anyway.”
How many times had the river accepted victims? The river did not care whether those who slid under its surface were women or men, victims of murder or heroes trying to save a drowning child. It was all the same to the river. Death was all the same. Just as it did not matter what kind of person Lore felt she was inside: if there were many more times like last night, she would become someone else, someone who did those things.
But Spanner and the temporary fake PIDAs were all that held the implacable, uncaring river of her past from pouring in on her head. With Spanner she might drown; without her, she certainly would.
The message tone woke me minutes after I had gone to bed.
“Lore? Ruth. I heard about the plant. Are you all right?”
I staggered out of bed. “I’m here.” I found the accept button. “I’m fine.”
“Oh. I woke you. Sorry.”
“It’s all right. What time is it?”
“Half past four. Listen, about Spanner.” I sat up straighter. “Ellen’s been with her. She called and left a message saying the medic’s been back and there’s no infection. Ellen seems to think the pain’s still pretty bad, though. Do you know what happened?”
“No.” If Spanner hadn’t told them, it wasn’t my place. Maybe one day. I was too tired to care if my lies were convincing.
“Well,” Ruth said uncertainly, “I’ll let you get back to sleep. You look exhausted.”
“Thanks. And thanks for calling.” I meant it. It was good to have someone who cared.
I was dreaming about a fire when the screen woke me again. This time it was Magyar. She must have got my number from the records.
“Hey, Bird, you there?”
“I’m here.” I scrubbed my eyes. “Time is it?”