Nicola Griffith - Slow River

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.