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 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.”
Cel agreed eventually, arid 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 are 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.