Slow River

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.”