As the Kodiak approached the heart of the uy, I pulled my armor out of the locker. I didn’t think I’d be getting into a fight, but I’d absolutely he enviroal prote. The massive settling pool, where all the als deposited their wastewater, was a toxic wastend.

  The settling pool was rge, a full sector in size, and it sat right in the middle of the uy. The area was inally designed for water treatment purposes. Tthere were a number of facilities built in the middle of the pool, but the entire plex had long since been abandoned. Slowly, over the years, the slow buildup of chemical ination hadn’t just made the pool itself toxic, but the surroundiors as well. The gases rising off the ourly wafted into the surrounding areas, making everyoremely ill. At first this meant only the most desperate stayed in the area, but over time it became so toxic that the only people that dared approach were sgers with nothing else to lose.

  As we flew over the abandoned sectors I sed the streets. The gasses were so thick that I could see pockets of sickly green and yellow gas everywhere, settling into various low points. We were actually lucky that the uy didn’t have any air currents, because I had no doubt that even a slight breeze would have carried that shit further into the surrounding area. The als surrounding the area tai a little bit, but it wouldn’t be healthy living anywhere his area.

  When we finally crossed the dead zone and emerged over the ke, all I could see was a sea of bubbling green sludge. The rusted, broken facilities floating in the middle were almost pletely obscured by a chemical haze.

  It took me a mio locate ’s operation, which was surprisingly rge, on the edge of that o of chemical refuse. He had several pristine, white mobile bs, which were all ected together by a series of airtight pstinels. Several dozen bulky hover drones were busy flying out to various parts of the ke, taking samples, theurning them to one of the trailers through secure dog ports. It was quite the operation.

  “Nyx, you let know we’re here and ask permission for us to approach?” I asked, my eyes glued to the monitor.

  I’ve been in stant tact with his AI, Yttrium, sihey arrived in the uy. is already expeg you. You’ve been asked to ehrough the deination area, in trailer three, and make sure you seal the Kodiak behind you.

  “Yeah, no shit, which trailer is hree?”

  That would be the oh the giant three stenciled on the side.

  “I barely make out the outlines of the trailers through that fug cloud, never mind markings,” I grumbled. “You’ll have to direct the pilot a us as close as you .”

  “I don’t like the look of that gas,” Bob announced as he pressed his face closer to one of the monitors. “Are we going to be okay in that?”

  “I have my armor, and you’ve full NBC shielding, but I don’t pn to stand in it any lohan necessary,” I told him. “Once we get back, we’ll have to do a full se. Both the inside and outside of the Kodiak, my armor, and all the bears. I don’t want to risk trag that shit anywhere he kids.”

  “I’ll tell the bears bae to get out the soap and water!”

  I gave the bear a sharp look. “Just get ready to run. And keep your paws pletely to yourself while we’re inside. is doing important work, and the st thing I want to do is cause an act."

  When I finally felt the gentle bump, indig we nded, I smmed my hand into the door trol. As soon as the seal cracked, the gas flooded into the . Although the mix of green and mustard yellow chemicals didn’t seem to affect the bears, I really didn’t want to risk any long-term exposure.

  After stepping outside and smming the door close button, I spriowards the brightly lit gss doors on the side of the railer. They automatically opened, allowing Bob and I to slip inside, before sealing behind us with a hiss.

  Ohe oversized extractor fans in the ceiling pulled the gas out, the doors to the se slid open. This sed se had dozens of automated arms that sprayed Bob and me down before the final set of doors opened up, letting us inside.

  Apparently this erailer was just for deination because the system dumped us out in front of one of those flexible hallways. Seeing no other option, I carefully made my way forward.

  The railer was huge it had to be three times as wide as the previous one, and it was stuffed full of various b equipment. As I marveled at all the equipment, an older, slightly balding man in a b coat came around the er. He looked like a bination of the stereotypierd dad, with his cardigaer, scks, and big coke-bottle gsses.

  “Ah! I see you’ve arrived, wonderful!” he excimed.

  “?”

  “In the flesh! And you must be Teddy. It’s o actually get a eet you, It seemed like we were destio just miss each other for a while there,” replied jovially. “Oh, where are my manners? I’m Bernard Hamilton, the Family’s resident serd. e in! And feel free to take off that helmet, it’s perfectly safe in here.”

  Disengaging the seals, I pulled off my helmet before tug it under one arm and my hand. “I appreciate the warm wele. My name’s Evelyn Cire, o meet you.”

  Bernard’s face lit up as he took my hand and shook it vigorously. “Wonderful! It’s a pleasure to meet you as well. As much as I’d like to sit down and chat, I’m afraid the situation here is far worse than I thought. It’s probably best if we go over the details now, before I get distracted.”

  The man shuffled to the side, gesturing for me to follow, before swiftly disappearing around the side of the b. “e, e!”

  I had to jog to keep up as Bernard grabbed various tablets, paper readouts, and schematics before dumping them all on a small table at the back of his b. “The problem here is far more serious than I expected. I wish I’d mao look at it six months ago! The amount of chemical runoff is atrocious, and every time it rains, the slurry is getting thicker and more dangerous.”

  I slipped into a chair across from Bernard and his bundle of papers. “I already khe runoff could dissolve flesh. How much worse could it be?”

  “The problem is that even though the water is getting evaporated, the chemicals aren’t. They’re still building up! Give it another couple of years, and that entire soup could start spilling into the streets. The surrounding areas have already been abandoned, but the affected area will spread!” Bernard pressed a map to the wall behind him, and it stuck there as if it was tacked. “Hydrogen, sulfur, bromine, fluoride along with dozens of other chemicals, stantly mixing and releasing gases so deadly that a mere whiff would kill most people. I don’t know how the city mao let things get this bad!”“It would have cost them moo fix, and the problem was in the uy, so they could ig and almost no one would fug know,” I muttered. “As far as the cil was ed, the uy wasn’t their problem.”“It should have been! It would have only been a matter of time until some of the lighter gases found their way topside and caused mass siess or death. It’s unfivable that they’d hide something like this!” Bernard fumed.

  “Well, thankfully, they’re not in charge anymore,” I replied lightly. “All we do is hope the new cil does better.”

  Bernard looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “Even if they do sider this an issue, it would be a moal uaking to it up. Hazmat teams, chemical separators, finding new disposal sites, the works. The worst part is, o is ed up, new chemicals are being flushed every few months, meaning they’ll build up again.”

  “Is there anything I do to help? I have plenty of bears that I throw at the problem.”

  “Manpower is the least of our problems. What we need is a way to separate the chemicals so they be disposed of properly,” Bernard decred as he studied a paper full of plex sce things. I didn’t have a clue what any of it meant.

  “I don’t know about separating the chemicals, but I have atomic destructors that break things down into their elements. Would that work? Although they're designed for breaking down buildings, I don’t think the trucks would handle liquids very well.”

  Bernard’s head shot up. “You do? Why would you have something like that?”

  “It takes a lot of materials to make bears,” I replied with a shrug, “and it’s cheaper for me to collect them than buy them. They’ve been tearing down the ruins outside the city for the st few months.”

  “I see… that might work. Separating the chemicals into their atomic elements would work. If you give me the specifics, I might even be able to modify the tai se. Could I see one of these systems?”

  “Sure, I’ll call one of the trucks over. Hopefully it fits our needs, because it would be nice if one of the problems around here was easy to solve.”

  Bernard scoffed. “That pool is nearly a square kilometer in size and dozens of meters deep. Even if these devices work, it might take months for them to chew through all that sludge. I wouldly call that easy.”

  “Wonderful,” I muttered, slumping down in my chair. “Well, at least it’ll be a start. We look for more solutions as we go, I guess.”“That’s the spirit! Little by little we’ll solve this problem,” Bern beamed. “Soon, this’ll all be a distant memory.”

  “I somehow doubt that,” I grumbled quietly.