Nicola Griffith - Slow River

“You’ll have to stop me when I talk about things you don’t understand.”

Maybe someone had told him to shut up at school. Asking questions did not seem to come easily. I just waited. “What’s the difference between bacteria and fungus?” he asked diffidently

Fungi, I thought, but now wasn’t the time to correct him. I wasn’t sure where to begin. “There are different ways to differentiate, but for our purposes, the difference is in how the microorganisms go about breaking down pollutants. Bacteria produce enzymes that break down the bonds between elements in a carbon chain. The enzymes are specific to certain types of organic compounds, and they’re intracellular.” He looked blank. “It means that the contaminant has to be soluble. It has to be able to enter the bacterial cell. So if the contaminant is a heavy organic, then a fungus is probably better. The enzymes they make also break down the carbon bonds but they’re nonspecific and extracellular. So they need only close proximity, not solubility.” His face was closing up. “Where did I lose you?”

“Everywhere.” His eyes were hard and dry, but his voice shook. “I don’t know enough to even learn. What’s a carbon chain? Or organic? An enzyme? What does soluble mean? I feel like there’s a whole world floating just out of my grasp, as though I’m blind and you’re talking about colors. Heterotrophic, you say, or enzyme, and you may as well be talking about… about flying to a bird that’s had its wings chewed off!”

He turned away and I wanted to reach out to him, put an arm around his hunched shoulders. I remembered just in time that he didn’t like to be touched.

“I’m sorry. It’s my fault for starting in the middle instead of the beginning.”

“You just didn’t expect me to be stupid,” he said bitterly.

“You’re not stupid.” He wouldn’t turn around and look at me. “Paolo, listen to me. You’re not stupid. Not knowing the right definitions is no different from not having the right tools to fix a burst water pipe. You can learn. I can teach you.”

He looked at me over his shoulder for moment, then turned all the way round. “Can you?”

“Yes.”

He studied me. By his expression, he didn’t know whether he wanted to believe me or not. Hope could be dangerous.

He probably needed time to think. “We need to get all these barriers checked and that feed line on forty-two unclogged before the break. We can talk about it more then.” He seemed relieved.

Paolo and I were the last into the breakroom. When we got there, both screens were off and the assembled shift was very quiet. Magyar was there, with Hepple. Her eyes were as hard as beryl.

“… and so our acting shift manager—”

“Night manager, now.” Hepple was smiling slightly and rocking up onto the balls of his feet.

Magyar forced a smile. “Mr. Hepple, recently promoted to night manager, has decided to take a look, in person, at our particular part of the operation. He’ll be on duty with us this evening.” So. That was what she was angry about. He was checking up on us and, by implication, her.

Hepple nodded at her, a patronizing, dismissive little gesture. It made me angry. “Thank you, Cherry.” Oh, he was enjoying himself: “As you may know, I have long asserted that Hedon Road could be even more efficient than at present. I have been given this new position with a mandate to improve productivity. Toward that end, I have decided to pay closer attention to the on-floor management process.” Magyar’s smile was brittle. We were her team, only she could harangue us or praise us, and now Hepple was embarrassing her in front of us all. Judging by the way she kept her body turned slightly away from him, the stiffness in her shoulders, she wanted to stuff him in our dirtiest effuent and watch him swallow sewage. “And now we’ll leave you to take your well-earned break in peace.” She stressed well-earned, letting us know that this was not her idea, that she knew we worked hard enough as it was without being dogged every step of the way.

But Hepple had not finished with us. “I’m looking forward to watching you all in action. I’m sure I’ll find—despite Cherry’s protestations of understaffing—that you are a fully capable and hardworking team. That’s all.”

He seemed to be waiting for us to leave, then remembered it was our breakroom. He nodded at the room in general and opened the door. Magyar preceded him.

“Christ,” Cel said. “That’s all we need.”

“I thought Magyar was going to pop him.” Kinnis sounded as though he wished she had. “What do you think of that crack about ‘Cherry’s protestations’?”

Cel pulled a meat roll out of its self-heating carton and blew on it. “Means we won’t be getting any more workers, and that he’ll be looking for someone to fire and not replacing them.”

“He’s an ambitious little snot,” Meisener said. There were general nods. One or two people wondered out loud if now might not be a good time to look for a job somewhere else. “I looked around before I signed on here,” Meisener said. “Nothing. Tighter than a rabbit’s arse. But I’ve seen these young turks get revved up before. Sooner or later he’ll go too far, get too greedy too fast, and then things’ll be back to normal. All we have to do is wait him out.”

I wasn’t so sure.

Hepple, immaculate in cliptogether over skinnysuit without a mask, came onto the floor half an hour after the break. I was at the influent station when he appeared, accompanied by Magyar. She explained the various readouts, and that “Bird here is on analysis.”

He turned to me blankly, then snapped his fingers. “Ah, yes. Bird. New here. Three weeks, is it?”

“Almost four,” I said.

“And how are you getting on?”

Magyar tensed.

“Very well, sir,” I said. “I’ve found section supervisor Magyar attentive to the needs of both workers and process, which makes everything run very smoothly.” There, Magyar. What do you think of that?

Hepple frowned very slightly, making his soft mouth pooch out like a baby’s. “No doubt, no doubt. But we’ll have things running even more efficiently soon enough.”

If I had been Magyar I would have been insulted.

“Now, tell me. The viability of the bugs—” He pointed to the lines that fed the various species of bacteria and their required nutrients, if any, into the troughs. “—they’re checked every two hours?”

“Yes.” I looked at Magyar for some kind of clue. Her face was as stiff as a mask.

“Hmmm.” Hepple turned to Magyar. “I think we should increase that schedule, don’t you?”

“We will of course be happy to follow any of your suggestions.” What else could she say?

“Indeed. Indeed.” He sighed contentedly, like a cat contemplating a crippled mouse. “Yes. I think we’ll have those readings taken every hour.”

That was ridiculous.

“Sir,” Magyar said smoothly before I could frame a reply, “I’m sure Bird would be more than happy to comply.” She shot me a glance. I nodded earnestly. Slave and overseer ganging up on the plantation owner. “But she and I will need some input from you on our revised priorities.”

I thought I saw where Magyar was going. “Yes, sir. That would help. I mean, at the moment the most important part of my job is monitoring the nitrogen and TOC levels. If I split my focus, mistakes will be made. Besides, the extraction and testing is routine and automated. Any significant deviation from the norm would activate the alarms.”

“Significant isn’t good enough now, Bird. From now on, any deviation, no matter how small, must be corrected immediately.”

“Sir, might I ask why?”

“I want to run a lean, fit operation. Even small deviations lead to inefficiencies.”