Slow River

But Stella was dead, Oster was not who he had pretended to be for all those years, and my family had refused to pay my ransom. There was no going back because what I wanted to return to had never existed, except in my Oster-woven version of reality.

I shoved the slate back on the shelf, angry for letting self-pity distort everything. Reality at Ratnapida would more likely be the family sitting at the table, pretending not to see me, pretending that the kidnap and abuse had never happened, that they had not received, not watched—over and over—the tapes my abductors had made for the net. My reality and theirs were different. Looking back, they always had been. The family had refused to hand over the money quickly enough for my abductors, but I doubted they would see it that way. Some might say it was their fault I had been subjected to such public humiliation, their fault I had ended up killing. But if I went back now they would just sip pinot grigio from crystal glasses, eat salad from Noritake china, and pretend that I had not been treated as a thing, had not had to scrabble to survive, that nothing had changed. And I would have to look at Oster and wonder if the decision not to pay had been deliberate, because I knew too much.

No. There was no going back. I had known that when I lifted the rusty nail and stabbed it into Fishface’s neck. That part of my life was over.

I breathed hard, and clenched and relaxed my face muscles. Self-pity could creep up on anyone, but I would not let it happen again.

A flickering readout caught my eye. Readouts were not supposed to flicker. Another flashed from 20.7 to 5 to 87 and back again. That made no sense at all. Then all the readouts went berserk.

I lifted the phone, tapped in Magyar’s call code. “This is station four, primary sector.” I had to shout over the trilling station alarms.

“What is it, Bird?”

“I have readout anomalies.”

“Which ones?”

“The whole bank. Going wild. Nothing makes any sense.” Magyar did not reply immediately. She probably did not know what to do. “I need your authorization to cut the flow to the secondary sector.”

“But we don’t know that there’s anything wrong with our stream…” She sounded scared.

“We don’t know that there isn’t, either, and they don’t have the sensors we do.”

“It’s probably computer failure. Or maybe the monitors have gone down because of backflow. Flooding.”

“The flood warning didn’t go off We have to-” I broke off. Judging from the entire bank of instruments going crazy, it probably was simple computer failure. There was another way. “Look, I think there’s a way I can cut the stream temporarily and divert it to the holding tanks. Fifteen minutes won’t do anyone any harm. Secondary sector might not even notice. And I can take some readings manually, if you have a handheld photoionization detector around.”

There was a moment of silence. “There’s one in the locker that’s about knee height. In front of you. Get me your results ASAP.”

The PD turned out to be an old-fashioned portable of a kind I had not seen since I was a child. It was calibrated in parts per trillion. I lugged the case out of the influent bunker and along to my trough. It took me a while to remember how to assemble it. Thigh-deep in water, I hoped I would not stumble into one of the irregular gouges the rake had formed in the gravel. With the weight of the PD I would overbalance and I had no barrier protection for my face. The machine bleeped softly in my hand. Everything looked good so far.

It was full dark outside now, and the water, under its surface of reflected bright white, looked black, like ink. If the lights here went out, I wondered, would I be able to see the stars reflected in the troughs only if someone went onto the roof and cleaned off years’ worth of grime.

Ten minutes later, when I waded out, Magyar was waiting, thumbs hooked in her belt.

“The readings are fine. Dead on normal.”

“Good.” I waited for her to say I told you so. The holding tanks would now have to be pumped out and cleaned. A lot of extra work for a shorthanded shift. She just nodded at the PD. “That’s not a handheld.”

“It’s all there was.”

“Looks heavy.”

“It’s not so bad when you’re in the water. And, anyway, it feels a lot lighter than they used to when I was thirteen.”

She gave me a strange look. “I’ll have to take your word for that.”

I pretended not to notice her surprise, but I was disgusted with myself. First self-pity, now nostalgia. It led to slips I could not afford.

Chapter 6

Lore is nearly seven and a half. The family is staying with friends in Venezuela for a month or so over Christmas. Greta is there, too.