Davon asks a few technical questions here and there, obviously taking mental notes for work. Good. If it turns out my job offer is officially off the table, at least I can help somehow. The deeper we get into the tunnels and the more I outline our tried-and-true process, though, the more my frustration rises to the surface, speeding my steps and locking my jaw in a permanent clench.
What happened here? We’re good, really good, at what we do. There’s no logical explanation.
I pull up a diagnostic app on my lenses and look over the mechanical workings of the MMC infrastructure as we proceed farther down, stopping to examine each pressure valve along the way. I need something, anything. The pipes were damaged, or someone was lazy in their maintenance. Some accident that triggered the explosion. Something.
The closer we get, the more the walls around us show evidence of scorching from recent fire. Nothing else.
Did we actually cause the explosion? Did the pressure backup from farther up the pipe affect this area? Did some firaz get forced out and meet with some sort of combustible?
My steps slow, then stop, as we turn a final corner and find ourselves face-to-face with the faint thready glow of a barrier ward just beyond the final valve, marking the border of the contaminated area. This tap point is our last chance. I close my eyes and breathe in . . . out . . . until the hot pressure behind my eyes recedes. There’s still a chance. This one, tiny, final chance.
“Diz, look,” Davon says. His voice sounds odd.
My eyes fly open, and I see it.
Something that wasn’t there on the last tap point, or on any of the points we’ve hit in the past.
It’s like a small box wired directly into the pressure management system, its casing shiny and unscathed, other than the signs of the recent explosion. A new installation, then. What is it, some kind of upgrade? A new augmentation for the system, something to help it better regulate the maz-15? Is it more unstable than the other strains?
I slow as we approach, cautious around the wreckage. It’s eerily quiet; the faint sound of maz flowing through pipes mingling with trickling water and the occasional scurrying rat feet is the typical soundtrack for our jobs. Now, all that remains is the water. Even the rats are unlikely to have survived the blast, and the system of maz pipes sounds . . . empty. Maybe they diverted the flow while they make repairs. I turn to Davon with pursed lips.
“This maintenance point is the kind of place we’d normally tap. We have the pressure release valve, which means we have a way to access the maz without damaging the pipe or setting off an alarm, and each maintenance point has a small digital control system I can splice into. Typically I’d sync wirelessly if possible, or solder in some cables if necessary, then open the valve while Remi directs whatever maz we need into vials for transport. Normally we do a little recon to find a pipe that’s both easily accessible and holds the strains of maz we need, but for this job we were hired to come here specifically.”
I step forward carefully, sinking into the logic of it all, letting my diagnostic app be a shield between me and the damage. Be an investigator, solve the crime, find a suspect, and assign some blame. Someone has to be to blame.
“I keep a constant eye on the pressure readouts as we siphon off the maz, mostly to make sure we don’t drain it so fast that it triggers a leak warning somewhere else down the line. But today the pressure didn’t drop. It spiked. And that should be impossible. How can the pressure increase when you’re removing material from the system? That’s not how physics works.”
“Maybe it really wasn’t related to you at all, then,” Davon says, stepping carefully over a blackened pile of twisted metal. “Maybe something was wrong with the system and it was just wrong place, wrong time for you.”
“But the news said MMC is blaming it on us,” I say. Why can’t I just accept the life preserver he’s throwing me?
Davon snorts. “Of course they are. I love working for MMC, Diz. They treat us well, pay us well, and do a lot of great things for the city. But if they accidentally unleash a second spellplague, and they have easy scapegoats in the form of people who weren’t supposed to be doing the illegal things they were doing anyway? Why wouldn’t they use that? It’s the logical thing to do.”
He steps over to me and rests both hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. “Dizzy, even if this disaster wasn’t actually your fault, what you were doing was still illegal and really dangerous. They’re well within their rights to send the cops after you. Especially if it keeps the blame off them. Despite all the people mad about their pricing and restrictions, they’re like saints to a lot of people in this town, with the way they stepped up after the plague. Can you imagine what this would do to their reputation? I can’t even entirely blame them. It’d be hard for them to do the good work they do without that reputation.”
It makes sense. It’s logical, and it ticks all the boxes.
I hate it.
I let his hands fall away and creep closer to the digital control system. The case is charred and the access panel hangs loose on one end, but it’s otherwise intact, and identical to the one I tapped in to earlier today. Identical except for the little box tucked away against its far side, hugging the wall of the tunnel.
My gaze sharpens. I pull out my mini soldering kit and cables and put together the same setup from this morning, then pull my deck from my back pocket and get to work. Davon watches over my shoulder as I query the access node about all the devices currently occupying its ports. It happily retrieves the information I need:
PORT 26—TK421 AUX PRESSURE REG UNIT MODEL 992654821
And there.
Right there.
IF valveID(XS416682:XS416698) status = 1 AND datetime ≥ 07:18:344:11:59:00
THEN call(PORT 26) AND RUN(dir/sub/go.exe)
Translation: if one of the valves along the maz-15 pipe is opened after a certain day and time, then talk to the pressure regulator and tell it to run the file called “go.”
The date listed is the day I took the job while we were at the club.
A suspicion blooms in my mind.
I hold my breath against the growing dread and dig into the pressure regulation unit to look for the file go.exe. I already know what I’ll find, I know, but I have to have proof. The code spills across my view as I open the file.
leakpoint1 = (GET valveID for (valveID status=1))
IF pipeID(247-24) pressure < 100%
WAIT 30000
TRIGGER(TK421AUXPRU) AND SET(leakpoint1) pressure = 400%
It takes a moment to parse. If the pressure in the maz-15 pipe drops below 100 percent, meaning if someone taps the pipe and causes that slight drop in pressure, wait and see if it’s short, like an automatic triggering. If not, figure out which valve it’s at, trigger the new pressure regulator box they installed, set the pressure . . . to 400 percent. At that pressure, all the maz in the pipe would come gushing out from the tap point, right in our faces.
That was what happened, exactly what happened. The pressure spiked for no reason at all, and venting the other points only helped briefly. That was the surge Remi caught, held, protected us all from, right before the explosion. It was designed to trigger an overload as soon as someone tapped the pipe. And the makeup of the maz in this particular pipe was 60 percent firaz. With that amount of pressure behind the raw maz, it would have ignited in a flash. We would have been killed instantly.