“Hold on.” Some noises. “Kinnis and Cel now have their gear. I’m on my way. Tell me what’s happening.”
I briefed her on the PCE; it was the metabolites—the vinyl chloride and dichloroethylene—that would be most dangerous. “But the weakened bugs mean the system is unreliable. There are a score of things that could-”
The door opened: Magyar, huge and clumsy in her silver flash-coated moon suit, lugging a large case. “Your suit.”
It was strange to see her in front of me but hear her voice from behind. I took the case, put it on the floor, snapped it open, lifted out the equipment. The tank and two-stage regulators were heavy. I swung them out upright on the floor, then squatted to check the tanks and valves. I turned on the air, felt it cool and steady against my palm. A quick glance at my minitank. Reading empty. I slung the harness of built-in air hoses over my shoulder, then ripped off my EEBA and fitted the larger, silicon face piece over nose, mouth, and jaw. The air was cool and slightly metallic. The face piece fitted tight and clean. I chinned on the radio. “Keep your eyes on the vinyl chloride while I get into this thing.” I stepped in the heavy neoprene boots and pulled the suit up to my waist. The bat-winged upper half was awkward, but I managed. Hood next. It cut my peripheral vision a bit.
Magyar studied the board and flipped a switch, then pushed a button. The noise and flashing red lights stopped abruptly.
Cel and Kinnis came in. “What happened?” Kinnis asked, at the same time as Cel said, “Tell us what to do.” They both looked uncertainly from Magyar to me and back again.
“For now, we all do as Bird says. Except when I disagree. Kinnis, help her on with that thing.”
I was already done, just checking that all the zips were fastened. Everything felt very unreal. I couldn’t make out Kinnis’s expression from behind two layers of metallicized PVC, but he moved tightly, tensely.
“I asked you both to stay because I trust you, and Magyar and I may need your help. In the present concentrations you should be safe enough with SCBAs and skinnies—but give each other a quick visual check for tears or weak spots in your suits. If conditions change, I’ll ask you to leave.” They both nodded. “Here’s the situation. Somewhere upline there’s been a massive spill of PCE. It got into our pipes. It’s killed everything in the troughs. Right now, everything’s being pumped back out into the holding tanks. Influent has been diverted to other plants, but we’re monitoring it. As soon as it runs clear, we can take it again.”
“Only if the troughs have been cleaned,” Cel said.
“That’s your job. And Kinnis’s. Even if you get only three or four back up, it’ll keep the system moving. First, a warning. PCE is toxic, in liquid and vapor form. First signs are dizziness and nausea. Either of you two feel dizzy, leave immediately. The gas will irritate your eyes and burn your skin. Check your masks carefully for a tight seal. Do that by turning off your air for three seconds and trying to draw a breath. If you can, you’re leaking. Do it now, before the fumes get bad. When the fumes get concentrated enough—though they shouldn’t, especially where you’ll be—you could suffocate without your respirators. So don’t remove them for any reason whatsoever. Once the bugs start to metabolize the PCE there’ll be vinyl chloride and dichloroethylene.” I hesitated, then decided there was no such thing as too much information. And I didn’t know exactly how much Magyar did or didn’t know. “Vinyl chloride and dichloroethylene are much meaner than PCE. Carcinogenic, recalcitrant, and very flammable with a low flash point. Neither of you have flash suits. Once the concentration of those chlorinated aliphatics reaches a certain point, you leave. Got that? Good. Now, either of you know how to program by remote?”
They both nodded. Kinnis remembered his radio. “Yes.”
“Kinnis, you stay here and reprogram the rakes for removal of reeds. Cel, I want you to start hosing down the troughs. The two of you will coordinate pumping out the tainted swill.” The members of the emergency-response team were probably only just arriving and climbing into their gear. “Kinnis, keep an eye on this number at all times.” I pointed to the vinyl-chloride readout. “If it gets above two-fifty, evacuate immediately. Stay on this radio frequency-” I glanced down. “-frequency A. Magyar and I will be on B.”
“Where are you going?”
“The holding area. At the emergency station.”
The emergency station was set up like the readout station. Magyar and I ran through the checks. Amber numerals at the top of the console ticked from 14:04 to 14:05.
It was hard to believe it had only been fourteen minutes.
“All strains online,” Magyar said.
“Check.”
“The emergency-response crews will be arriving about now. Lights flashing, lots of shouting.”
“Decon zones being set up,” I agreed. “No one knowing what they’re doing.” A zoo. But we were here, on the spot, and if we did everything right we could keep the system from real shutdown time.
“Everything reads fine except the PCE. Still climbing.”
What a mess. I didn’t envy whoever had the job of explaining what had happened to the press. “Who’s the designated media liaison?”
“Who do you think?”
“Not Hepple…” It was funny, really. I wondered if he even knew that some of this was his fault. “How’s the PCE doing now?”
“Still climbing.”
“Vinyl chlorides”
“Steady.”
I swore.
“I take it that’s not good.”
“It should be rising rapidly as the bacteria process the PCE. How’s the dichloroethylene?”
“Steady.”
We had a problem. I queried the system: the bugs being fed into the tanks were viable. That wasn’t it.
16:04.
I began working the board.
17:16. 17:18. 17:19.
There. “It’s the substrate. Conditions are too anoxic—probably electron deficient. The bugs need electrons to fuel their metabolism. Without them they don’t reproduce. But that should have been compensated for by… Ah.”
I stared at the numbers.
“What? Tell me what it is, Bird!”
“The system should have automatically delivered glucose to enrich the mixture. It didn’t.” I showed her the screen trace I had run.
She followed the green and blue lines carefully to the red bar. “Looks like the drum is blocked.”
“Yes. But I’ve never heard of a glucose drum clogging before.”
Silence. “Are you saying this was deliberate?”
“It’s very possible.” I would bet on it, especially given the filled air tanks, the greased pumps.
Silence again. It was hard to tell what she was thinking in the bulky suit. “I’m going to unplug that drum.” The radio flattened her voice. “Keep me informed of changing conditions.”
I switched to Kinnis and Cel’s frequency. “You’re going to have longer than we thought. How are the troughs?”
“Give us another twenty minutes and we’ll have four troughs cleaned out and ready for restocking,” Cel said.
“More now that I’ve finished the reprogramming and can help,” Kinnis added.
“Keep the channel open, and keep me informed. Out.” Back to B frequency. “Magyar?”
“Here. I’ve found the problem.”
“What is it?”
“A closed-head drum lock.” Locks, always locks. She grunted. “Damn gloves are so clumsy.”
“Be careful, there’s-”
“Sparks, I know. But whoever did this was smart enough to use a nonsparking lock bar and what looks like a bronze alloy lock body. Polyethylene gaskets.” Another grunt, then a sigh of satisfaction. “Electronic locks might be fancy, but not much stands up to a simple crowbar.”
But monsters don’t use force. They don’t dare. Gray Greta. What would she have done in this situation?
There was more noise over the suit speakers. On my board, figures began to move.
“Glucose should be running now,” she said.
“It is.”
“You know, Bird, you’re going to have to get over this impression you have that I’m dumb.”
“I know.”
I switched frequencies. “Cel, Kinnis—with any luck you can stay there a while longer. The next strain of bugs should kick in and metabolize the chlorinated aliphatics well before they reach a dangerous concentration.”
“If you say so.” Cel sounded impatient, as though she just wanted to get on with what she was doing and leave the thinking to someone else. I wondered how it would be to trust like that.
The vinyl chloride and dichloroethylene concentrations climbed steadily. I waited for the methanotrophes to start working. The numbers kept going up. Something was going wrong.
“Cel, Kinnis, I want you out of there, now. The concentrations are getting too high. There’s danger of a fireball.”
“We only need another minute or-”
“Now. Acknowledge that.”
“Acknowledged.”
Magyar came back, still hefting the crowbar. She watched while I checked one readout after another.
Nothing was responding the way it should. The readout kept climbing. In desperation, I turned up the thermostat. Maybe heat would kick start the methanotrophes.
“What’s going on?”
“No methane monoxygenase.”
“This one time, assume I’m dumb.”
“Methane monoxygenase, MMO, is the enzyme secreted by the methanotrophes as they metabolize the vinyl chloride. No MMO means something’s wrong.” The nutrient lines were clear and open, feeding steadily. “I don’t understand it. They got their food, they’ve…” Except they might not have the right food. Hepple had replaced the correct, van de Oest nutrients. Time for desperate measures. I knew, in the final analysis, what methanotrophes ate. “Cel, Kinnis. Are you out?” No reply. “Cel-”
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 showe
r, 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 Maygar’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 paraphenalia 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 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.”
Slow River Page 23
