Chapter 1

1: 1

Eleven at night, and I was still at the Everlast Chemical Plant putting the safety assessment report in order when someone started pounding on my door.

"Engineer Fox, you have to help. The emergency shutoff valve in the liquid chlorine tank area is jammed. The automatic interlock didn't trip. If it leaks, all eleven workers in there will be gassed to death!"

As the safety oversight specialist sent in by the higher authority, my first instinct was to open the door and go handle it.

But my phone buzzed with a text from a blocked number.

【Don't go. The eleven workers in there are already dead.】

【He damaged the actuator with his own bad operation. Getting you in there is just finding a scapegoat.】

【The moment you touch it, the valve is covered in your prints, the footage is all you. An accident this big, you'll spend the rest of your life in prison.】

【The payout runs into the millions. The families of the eleven dead will trap your parents in their house and burn them alive, and you won't survive prison either!】

The man outside was still pounding like a lunatic.

"Engineer Fox, you're the expert in this. You're the only one who can fix this system."

"I'm begging you, hurry. Any later and those eleven workers really are done for!"

I clenched the phone hard and pulled my hand back from the door handle.

"Sorry. I'm a safety oversight specialist, not a technician. Call 911."

01

The man outside went silent for a few seconds, then the pounding came faster and harder. "Engineer Fox, even if the fire department comes, it'll be too late! You're the expert, you know more than we do. Just come take one look."

I held the phone tight. My back was already soaked through.

"Listen, comrade, it's not that I won't come. I'm only oversight. If there's an operating error, the consequences would be unthinkable. You need to call it in, now."

The voice outside turned tearful.

"Engineer Fox, don't be modest. You've been inspecting our plant these past few days, you caught more than a dozen safety hazards for us. There aren't a handful of people in the whole country with your skill."

"We really can't stall any longer. That's eleven lives, Engineer Fox. Save them."

Another text landed.

【He's the one chiefly responsible. If the plant finds out his operating error killed eleven people, he couldn't pay it off if he sold everything he owned.】

【He picked you because you're easy to deal with, an outsider with no one backing you. He's setting you up to take the fall on purpose.】

Something went cold in me, and I thought back to what I'd found yesterday inspecting the chlorine tanks.

The shift foreman of that liquid chlorine tank area, Russell Whitney, had a long-standing pattern of improper operation.

I asked, "You're Foreman Whitney, aren't you?"

"Yeah, it's me, Engineer Fox. I'm really in a panic here, please, just come look."

I didn't move. Through the glass I looked at the anxious face outside.

"Foreman Whitney, don't rush. Let me get a picture of the situation first."

"What's the tank's liquid level reading right now?"

He paused. "Seventy-two percent."

"Seventy-two? You're sure?"

"Yeah, seventy-two. I checked the gauge."

The design maximum for a chlorine tank is seventy-five percent. Seventy-two is within normal range, which meant the tank body wasn't leaking.

"Did the on-site alarm go off?"

He stumbled.

"No. No, it didn't."

I let a beat pass. "Foreman Whitney, when you closed the valves, which one did you close first?"

His answer came smooth.

"I always close the emergency shutoff valve first."

The second those words were out, I understood everything.

Yesterday, when my inspection reached the tank area, I'd already caught it: every time, his valve sequence was reversed.

By procedure, you close the upstream shutoff valve first, then the emergency shutoff valve. But his operating logs had it the other way around, every time.

I'd flagged it. He told me he'd been at this eighteen years, always closed them that way, never had a problem.

Use the emergency shutoff valve as the main valve, and the actuator takes an extra load it was never meant to carry.

Close it once, wear it once. Eighteen years of that. The valve holding up would be the miracle.

I'd already filed tonight's safety assessment report. The corrections just never came before the accident did.

I had no connection to the man. Only that when I flagged it yesterday, he'd been short with me, and figured that made me an easy mark.

His tone had turned impatient.

"Engineer Fox, just open the door. We're both grown men. It's not like I can do anything to you."

"Solve this crisis and it's a big win for you. Your name rings out again. I'll put in for a five-hundred-dollar bonus for you with the plant—"

Five hundred dollars to buy my life. Quite the bargain he was running in his head.

I couldn't make out his expression, but I knew: he'd already decided I was meat on the chopping block.

I didn't open the door. I spoke calmly.

"Foreman Whitney, by procedure, a safety hazard in a critical area gets reported to Deputy Director Finch, who's in charge of safety. Did you report it to him?"

"I did. Director Finch is entertaining the city officials, didn't pick up."

"Then did you report it to the emergency management agency?"

His voice caught.

"No. Haven't had the chance yet……"

I gave a short laugh.

"Fine. Then I'll call for you."