“Put something big or lethal in there and, assuming the systems catch it in time, they’ll close everything down. If they don’t catch it at once, then the contamination will go on through to the whole of the primary sector and pollute four or five million gallons. And then there’s human error.” I showed him the spigot, the initial test readouts—all automated—the various lights that indicated what bacteria and algae were currently being used, their estimated biomass and suggested nutrients. “Depending on what’s coming in, we add biomass, or change it, or decrease nutrients. So if we get an influx of something nasty that kills selected strains, we can re-add. Or if some strain is struggling, we can add preferred nutrients or decrease the nutrients of the strain that’s proliferating too much and suffocating the desired strain. The initial readouts here, and then the ones I give to Magyar, determine what amount of which strain is needed.”
I led him out of the concrete bunker. “It’s important to understand the general principles.” I stopped by trough forty-one. “Looks like the gravel here needs reraking. You start at that side.” We pulled on our masks and got to work. I waited until we had both established our rhythms. “What did you learn from the orientation video?”
He pulled himself straight, as though this was a school test.
“Keep working. Magyar won’t be on her break forever.”
“Oh. Well, undifferentiated waste comes in there,” he pointed with his chin back to the bunker, “where it’s churned up to mix the solid waste into the liquid. Then the slurry is split into eighty treatment streams and piped into the troughs. That’s where bacteria change some of the more poisonous nitrogen compounds into less poisonous ones.”
I was impressed. “You picked up a lot from the orientation video. But the troughs do more than start the denitrification process. They also begin the biodegradation of some of the other substances. Go on.”
“The surface water is siphoned off to the next stage, to those big tanks, the transparent ones, where it’s busy and noisy and hot.”
“The silos are kept at over forty degrees Celsius—forty-four to be exact—for the mesophilic bacteria that do all the work at that stage.” It felt good to talk about species after so long. “And the water’s kept in violent motion—spiral jet mixers, coarse bubble diffusers—to eliminate stagnation and prevent liquid stratification, always likely with heated water. And it helps to keep those solids suspended.”
He pulled down his mask to get more air. It was hard to work and talk and get enough oxygen through the filters all at the same time. “You know a lot.” Faintly challenging. His look around—at the rakes, the troughs, the stinking brown smear on my plasthene-coated thigh—was clear. If you know so much, how come you shovel shit like the rest of us?
I was not in the mood to play games. “You don’t know me, or why I’m here. I don’t know you. But I’ve decided to trust you, anyway. And you can learn from me.” I needed him to trust me. I needed to help him. I needed, just this once, to feel good about myself.
My bluntness disconcerted him. He raked away at the gravel for a while. I was content to just do my work, too, and let him think.
Eventually, he stopped. I stopped, too, and waited. “I thought that water treatment was all about separating the sludge from the liquid. But…” He shrugged, and I noticed again how graceful he was, but how that grace stopped short of his arms and legs. A vague memory of some hotel room and Katerine on the screen scooted almost within reach, then disappeared.
“That’s the way it used to work, when the solids were going to be buried or just spread around in fields to dry and decompose as best they could and be carted out to sea in barges. Here, they’re actually used. Once at the tertiary stage and beyond, the algae, moss, and duckweed use the nutrients in the sludge. The moss is taken away and recycled for the heavy metals consolidated in it, but the algae and duckweed are eaten by snails and zoo-plankton. The snails are harvested and added to the next stage—where they’re eaten by the bass and tilapia and minnows. The fish add to the solid waste, of course, but in a form readily used by the lilies. Except in the primary sector, where the air scrubbers take out some of the more toxic gases, everything that’s produced is used to increase production of something else. That’s the beauty of-” I broke off and pulled my mask back up. Magyar was heading our way.
Her stride was stiff and fast, and even from here I could see the muscles in her jaw clenching and unclenching. My PIDA might be safe, but something had obviously happened to make Magyar very, very angry. I steeled myself, but Magyar walked right past. Her rage radiated from her like heat. I wasn’t the only one who had noticed. Kinnis looked over from his trough and shrugged elaborately. I wondered what was going on.
I spent the rest of the shift alternately looking over my shoulder and telling Paolo about the delicate ecological balance of the plant.
“The snails and the plankton reproduce at a rate directly proportional to the amount of algae available, but the zoo-plankton is far more susceptible to metals than the diatoms, so the proportions are constantly in flux. The algae have to be monitored very carefully, and in conjunction with the moss and metal uptake.”
It was a beautiful system. Every time I arrived at the pseudo-Victorian monstrosity that was this building, I was amazed that such a pile of metal and stone and glass and electricity could facilitate such a miracle: fish and flowers and shrubs from sewage and deadly chemicals. Sometimes I wasn’t ashamed of my family and how they earned their money.
I might be doing a low-grade job, but what I had said to Paolo was true: We made a difference. And it didn’t have to be just in the general sense. By taking the risk of talking to Paolo, even just a little, I was making a difference to him and his life, teaching him things that he could use or take with him wherever he went. Seeing the change in his face, those unguarded moments, made a difference to me, too. It made me feel as though I was doing something worthwhile. I hadn’t felt that way for a long time.
The only smudge on the horizon was Magyar. I wondered what had happened to anger her so much. My PIDA was safe. Spanner had fixed it. Hadn’t she? But if Magyar was as smart as I thought, then no matter how my PIDA matched my height, weight and DNA, she would know I wasn’t Sal Bird, aged twenty-five, the line-worker grunt from Immingham. She would keep checking, keep digging. And a PIDA could not protect me against a personal call to Bird’s last job site, a chat with the supervisor…
If I could just explain to Magyar what the job meant to me. Tell her about Paolo, how good I felt to be teaching him. How much easier life would be for me, for all of us, if we just let down our guards a little and talked, helped each other. Maybe I should try trusting her the way Paolo was trusting me.
I waited for her outside. Fog condensed on the street-lights and dripped onto the pavement. Even here in the city, the night smelled of autumn: damp leaves mulching, wood smoke, wool coats slightly musty from six months in the closet. Ten minutes became twenty, then half an hour.
Then suddenly she was through the gates and five paces away, fog billowing around her.
“Magyar.”
She whirled, pulling her hands out of her pockets. “Bird! What are you doing here?” We stood ten feet apart. The fog made everything feel enclosed, quieted, unreal. She put her hands back in her pockets.
“I want to talk to you.” My voice was steady. How odd.
“It’s too cold to stand around. You can talk while we walk.” She set off, obviously not caring whether I walked with her or not. She walked fast, with big strides. Her shoes were soled with some soft, absorbent material; I felt as though I were watching a film with the sound turned off
Try it, I told myself. Just try. “You seemed angry. Earlier.”
“I was.”
“I just thought we could clear the air between us.” It sounded lame. She seemed to think so, anyway. She snorted. This was a mistake. “It’s just… Look, you were angry-”
“I still am, Bird.”
But the
anger did not seem to be directed at me. “Is something wrong at the plant?”
She stopped abruptly, swung to face me. “Now why should I want to tell you?”
I felt a bit bolder. “Because it might affect me and everyone else who works on the night shift. I don’t like surprises.”
“You don’t like surprises? What a shame. I don’t much like being lied to, by you or anyone else. You want to know what’s wrong with the plant? Then go to your bosses and get them to tell you what’s going on.”
“I can’t. I’m not who you think I am.” And I was stupid for thinking I could have achieved anything, risking myself like this.
“I know you’re not Sal Bird.”
“I’m the only Sal Bird there is,”
She waited, hands clenching and unclenching in her pockets, but when it became obvious I wasn’t going to tell her any more, she walked away.
* * *
The woman on the screen had dark brown hair cut in a sharp, shoulder-length line. “Spanner? Ellen. Sorry we missed your birthday. Thought you might like-”
A woman who knew when Spanner’s birthday was. With brown hair. Lore hesitated, then sat before the video pickup and touched a button. The woman on the screen frowned.
“Who are you?”
“Lore.” She remembered to make the word slippery, in her new accent. They stared at each other a minute. Dyed brown hair, dyed red hair.
“No wonder we haven’t heard from her for a while.” Ellen smiled. It was an open smile, genuine, and Lore immediately liked her. “I was calling to invite Spanner for a drink. A belated celebration. You’ll both come?”
They looked at each other some more. Lore wondered what Ellen saw. She almost asked her. Instead, she nodded.
“The Polar Bear, then.”
“Who is it?” Spanner came through from the shower, drinking coffee, no towel.
“One moment,” Lore said to Ellen, and turned off the video pickup. “It’s Ellen,” she told Spanner.
Spanner motioned Lore aside, slid into the chair. Lore was not surprised when she turned the video back on. “Hey. Did I hear something about a drinks”
“You did.” Ellen grinned, looked Spanner up and down. “You seem in the pink.”
They both laughed, and Lore felt like a child left out of a grown-up joke.
“Ten tomorrow?”
“Fine.”
“We’ll expect both of you,” Ellen said, and the screen went gray.
“Who’s ‘we’?” Lore asked.
“Ellen and Ruth.”
“The PIDA picker?”
“The same. Maybe some others.”
“I feel like I’ll be presented for inspection.”
Spanner shrugged. “You know how it is. People always want to check out who you’re with.”
People, not friends. “Business?”
“Dilettantes. Ex-dilettantes at that.”
Later, in the Polar Bear, as she sat at a table with Ellen and Ruth, and Billy and Ann, Lore thought she must have imagined the edge of disdain in Spanner’s words.
Spanner was in high gear, drinking hard and dragging the others along in her slipstream. She smiled at Ellen and Ruth, bought them drinks until their cheeks were red and their eyes sparkled, until. they laughed out loud and their bodies moved more freely. She drew the normally surly Billy into the circle until his pinched face relaxed and he stopped looking at everyone sideways; she listened attentively until Ann stopped punctuating all her sentences with a nervous laugh. Spanner’s energy pulled them all together, made them relax and feel good.
Lore found herself being sucked in, despite herself; felt Spanner’s attention like a small sun. She wanted to turn her face to that warmth, bask in it.
The late evening turned to midnight, then one. Ellen and Ruth made vague motions toward leaving, but Spanner waved them to sit down again and ordered another round. She made some joke about enjoying life while you can, even when you had joined the ranks of the faceless employed, and everyone laughed. And in that unguarded moment Lore saw Spanner’s expression change.
It was a subtle thing: the raised eyebrows that had been full of concern and interest were now canted just differently enough for Lore to reread them as sardonic—contemptuous, even. She glanced around the table, caught Ruth’s face, and realized that Ruth knew: Spanner was scoring at them for joining the sheep; for no longer living on their wits; for being soft. She looked away, studied her beer.
* * *
It was a bright, sunny morning, cold in the metallic-tasting breeze but warm where the sun bounced off sandstone and pavement. I stopped in one of those sun traps on the way back from the shops and enjoyed the warmth while I could. It felt like a moment, a bubble stolen from the summer, as though maybe while someone had been away for July and August with their windows closed, the sun had heated their room, made it warm and round and smelling of dust and hot carpet, and then the flat owner had returned from a long holiday and opened the window and let out this last, little bit of sunshine. I didn’t want to go back to my flat and be alone all day.
I knocked on Tom Wilson’s door. “I bought some Lapsang souchong.”
“You’d best come in, then.” His eyes were bright, but he walked stiffly. “Sit down, sit down. The kettle’s boiled.” I sat while he fussed with trays and teapots and cups. His slippers shuffled as he carried everything carefully to the window-side table. I poured. “Now, then. What’s on your mind?”
“I need your help.”
He smiled. “Well, that’s gratifying.”
“What I want you to do isn’t exactly legal. That is, what I want you to do, here, wouldn’t break any laws, technically, especially if you said you didn’t know what it was all about-”
“You’re planning to get caught?”
“No.” I wished he wouldn’t yank me to a standstill like that.
“Glad to hear it. Is what you want to do dangerous?”
“Not physically, no.”
“Who will it hurt?”
Not Will it hurt anyone? but Who. He wasn’t smiling, exactly, but his sandy-gray eyebrows were slightly raised, and the deep lines in his cheeks were deeper. “Some people’s pride. A few very rich people who get their kick out of patronizing the poor, and the executives in charge of net security.”
“And who will it benefit?”
For one wild moment I wanted to treat him like a father confessor, pour out my whole life—the kidnap, the years with Spanner, the trouble I was in and how this might, once and for all, get me out, but then I realized I was looking for forgiveness, absolution. “Me. It will benefit me, and a friend, and you. If you decide to help.”
“Then tell me more.”
“Spanner and I are going to piggyback the net signal with a thirty-second commercial of our own. No one will know that it’s not genuine.” I told him about Stella, the fashions of the rich Almsgivers. “So we put our signal out there and these ghouls send money, which gets electronically shunted up, down, and sideways and pops out in the form of anonymous debits which we then take and spend. End of story, except that we need some footage we can’t get from the library. We… I need to film you.”
“Nice to be needed. But as you can see,” he gestured at his swollen knuckles, “I can’t always get out and about. Could you film it here?”
I nodded. “And I can doctor the disk, make it look as though I shot through a zoom—maybe through a window or something, without your knowledge. Just in case.”
“Good enough. What sort of things will I have to do?”
“The main thrust is going to be about how the elderly are feeling bemused by the world. I want to show how things have moved too fast for some.”
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
“Um,” I said, noncommittally.
“You don’t agree?” His hand shook a little as he put down his teacup. “Rape, murder, torture, it’s all been done before. Loneliness, joy, love—been around for thousands of y
ears. Clothes are different, but there’s always been fashion. Food is different, but there’s always been taste and fads. Oh, there may be new ways to read books these days, there’s the net instead of radio and these silly PIDAs instead of a good leather wallet, but people don’t change. Not really.” He laughed. “The expression on your face! Live a few more years and you’ll find out. Nothing really changes.”
“But how did you feel when your money no longer worked and you had to get a PIDA?”
He shrugged. “It was twelve years ago. I was a bit uncertain at first: What if something went wrong in a computer and my account got tied up? How would I pay the rent then? But after a month or two I liked it. No more rushing to the bank. No more filling out bills. Everything’s so easy.”
“For some,” I said. “I heard a story once about when the book reader first came out, a young man gave one to his grandfather. He turned it on, pulled up a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, and showed grandfather how to change the pages. Granddad said, ‘Thank you very much.’ The younger man left him happily reading. A year later, when he went back to visit, the young man found his grandfather reading the same book. ‘Wonderful thing, this reader,’.the old man said, ‘but I wish they’d brought out some different stories.’ The old man had no idea that there were nearly twenty thousand different books on that disk. That he could have bought hundreds of other disks, or simply downloaded others—anything at all—from the net. He was used to a book being immutable. The fact that the words on each side of the ‘page’ changed didn’t make a difference: this was To Kill a Mockingbird, so how could it be anything else?”
We looked at each other thoughtfully.
“Anyway,” I said, “that’s what I want to look at. And don’t worry about acting. All I want is some standard shots of you sitting, walking, talking, reading, eating. My programs can change your expression and put you in the street or whatever. I’ll give you ten percent of my cut.”
“When do you want to start?”
“How about now?”
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