died,” she said. “But they could have. I want the bastard who set this up.” She stumped along the concrete apron, closing flapping locker doors, stopping to pick up the occasional abandoned filter mask, fingering the gleaming joints of a drench hose. “What I don’t understand is the elaborateness of it all. All those topped-up tanks and new batteries. Why? What was the point?” I had heard a woman on the street sound like that, a woman who had been on her way to the grocery shop, when a man had shouted at her, called her an ugly bitch. More bewildered than angry: What had she done to deserve such malice?
I was more interested in what was going to happen next. “Magyar, when we go out there, I don’t want any credit.”
“You mean you don’t want the attention.”
“That’s right.”
“There’s nothing I can do about what Kinnis or Cel might have said.”
“I know that.”
Her sigh sounded like the hissing of a flat tire over the suit radio. “I’ll do my best to keep the cameras off you. And I won’t mention your name. Good enough?”
“Yes.”
“Right. I’m doing this because I think I can trust you, and despite everything I like you, but one day you’re going to tell me what this is about.” I nodded. Time to worry about all that later. “Let’s get it over with.”
Decon One was waiting in the shower room with hoses and secondary suits. There were no cameras, so I just did as I was told, and stripped and showered, and let Magyar yell and fume and tell them they were idiots, that there wasn’t any danger, thanks to herself and her team . . . She was still arguing when we were passed along to Decon Two.
Another shower, this time being pestered by two tech specialists and the recon team leader who insisted on radioing everything, verbatim, to his first Go Team. Everyone more or less ignored Magyar’s protestations that the plant was now safe. My name had only been mentioned once, just so that Operations could stand down the rescue aspects of its Go Teams. They sent a medical team, which hustled us into a small room draped with plasthene sheets and filled with the paraphernalia of high-tech medicine.
Cel and Kinnis were sitting on two of the beds. “Hey, Magyar, they won’t let us out.”
“We’re following procedure,” the medic with the most flashes on his epaulets said smoothly. “Regulations—”
Magyar was like a controlled explosion. “You’re in charge here? Good. I want to talk to the operations chief, now.”
“You can’t—”
“Then you do it. Verify the following: one, that Decon can confirm that I and my team maintained air integrity at all times; two, that our medical exam shows no ill effects of the PCE; three, that we obeyed all emergency procedures to the letter, that our conversations are on the record for analysis and discussion, and that therefore our presence is no longer needed. And when you have all that sorted out, I want to add to the record my opinion that if you attempt to keep us here any longer against our will your behavior will be not only unethical but illegal.” She folded her arms. The medic gradually wilted under her stare and went to the phone.
Magyar sat down next to Kinnis. He grinned. “I’m glad they’ll listen to someone.”
She grinned back, and I realized she was not angry, but pleased with herself. She was planning something.
The medic finished on the phone. “You,” he pointed at Magyar, “you’re wanted in Ops for debriefing. You three,” to me and Cel and Kinnis, “you can go. You’re instructed to avoid the cameras.”
“Don’t worry,” Cel said shortly.
He nodded at one of his assistants. “He’ll escort you to the gate.”
“I know the way. Besides, I have to get my gear from the locker room.”
“It’s already been removed to zone three.” The cool zone. The edge of the contamination perimeter. “But—”
Magyar stood up. “Better do as they say, Cel, and just be glad they’re letting you go. Looks like I’ll be up all night.”
Cel agreed eventually, and the three of us trooped out behind the medic’s assistant.
Outside, it was as bright as day: emergency-response trucks sat in a circle with arc lights burning into the black sandstone building. Camera teams, with anchors talking into their own spotlights. Dozens of groups in flash suits and air hoses, protective helmets, radios . . . I could almost smell their adrenaline, and wondered how they would work it off now that