Chapter 17, Bumpersville draws its lines

Benton nervously cradled his newborn baby daughter, unsure if he was holding to tightly or rightly at all. Theresa just smiled and seemed to enjoy the fact that the infant was finally our of her belly and free from her body. Labor had been long and hard and she was exhausted. Benton tried to bounce the little infant gently as he had seen countless other mother's doing in the past. The infant looked back at him with wide, deep blue eyes. Having asked about the eye color in a moment of sudden fearfulness of his fatherhood, the mid-wife dismissed his query with a statistic about new borns being born with blue eyes only to change to hazel or brown or some other color later. Mollifed for the moment, he looked into those searching eyes from his daughter and smiled. Her hands curled against her chin and alternately grasped at the air as if clutching at the hidden angles flitting about them.

As Theresa rested in silence and Benton searched the inquisitive eyes of his daughter, the aftermath of the birthing process was yet to be revealed. ninety six hours of labor, not counting the moment Theresa phoned him in a panic at work to the point they checked into the hospital. Little Billie didn't want to come out. The contractions came and went with extremes of sudden convulsions to mild discomfort. The last twelve hours being the worst, a continuous effort to force little Billie out and her seemingly unwilling to exit her warm abode. She was birthed finally and to both Benton and Theresa's relief she looked like a healthy baby girl. She passed the brief test the midwife gave her to check for responsiveness and was pronounced normal.

While Theresa dozed, Benton sat down next to her in the visitors chair and cradled Billie to his chest. Billie too seemed to be exhausted from the ordeal of being forced out of her comfortable home by a traumatic course of events not understood by her. The infant's eyes, but mere slits in her chubby face, pocketed by her rosey and puffy cheeks where firmly shut and her breathing was steady, her heart beat against Benton's chest. Fatherhood as well was suddenly thrust upon Benton, just as suddenly as had Billie's birth been forced upon her. He supposed he had something to do with it, but the pregnancy and now thier little girl had come as a surprise. He had seen other men prepare for children, talk about having them, pray for boys and fight with the Mrs. with what to name the little tikes as they leapt out of the womb, but he had given little thought to his own participation in this game of parenthood prior to Theresa telling him one night that she thought she was pregnant.

Speechless and unsure of whether to be excited because Theresa expected it or to be truthfull and wonder if it was really true, he chose to mollify his fears and pretend. Something about Theresa also bespoke of a pretending attitude. They had just gotten to a point where the depression seemed to have departed from her that thier lives would be further changed by the advent of this little gift of God. In his darker moments he wondered if the gift was but a curse for some transgression. Those moment thankfully had been few. There was little time in life to worry and to think about what was in the past. They were becoming a complete family and he was sure to see more of his in-laws now that they had a little grandaughter to dote upon and spoil. Both sets of parents had been down to the house on several occasions, each time becoming somewhat the controversy afterwards as the parents brought with them a rekindling of the cloud that dogged the house and thier very existence in Bumpersville. It was the little comments about how far away they were now, how difficult it was to drive the six hours from either Raliegh or from Columbus, Ohio to vist.

Peace that should have attended each departure was even slower in coming as the tensions of old were renewed. Now that Billie was in thier lives, Benton was sure that there would be further unrest in thier home as the parents would come and stay for longer periods, the in-laws having already invaded thier home for the past week and sure to stay for weeks more. It wasn't that Benton minded, it gave someone other than one of the other plant wives to gossip with. It was the constant complaining and the not so subtle hints about thier choice of abode that wrankled. Since the tensions in town, her mother had been aghast at what he saw as her judgement opon him and his intransigience at insisting they stay there. Theresa usually kept her mouth shut to the subject until after their house cleared of realitives.

It wasn't that Benton didn't at times blame his mother-in-law or his wife for thier feelings and opinions. It was that they were there now and what good did it do to complain? He doubted that things would get bad enough to force people to pick up and move away and shy of becoming a police state in town he could see little reason to move away, especially since he had burned several bridges to get the spot he was in at the plant. Theresa still held that it was fear of George that kept Benton glued to this one spot. He would admit to a modicum of that, but not to the extent that she insisted existed. Regardless, Benton had planted his roots down and however tenuous those roots might be he had little intention to entertain the thought of moving. The presence of Billie now in thier lives might speak more for leaving to an area where psychologically at least one might feel safer. It was now no longer just his ideas of what was real or what wasn't. He was sure that his mother-in-law would hook upon that first thing when they went home. She and new granddaddy had been watching the house and visiting each day, making the four hour round trip and making sure Benton understood how much of an inconvienance it was.

One day in the middle period of Theresa's labor, Mother and Father-in-law had burst into the hopital room in a tizzy. She had gone shopping for groceries and been accosted by Deputy Tate and but for the timely intervention of Micheal Strood who happened to be on "Tate watch" things could have gotten out of hand. Benton's father-in-law was a former Marine, proud defender of Belieu Wood in the Great War and one not to be trifled with if his temper was up. Though those days where forty years in his younger past, Charley Bosche could still cut an imposing figure.

Barely had the hello's been dispensed with than Eva launched into the story about the ruffian's in charge of Bumpersville and how irresponsible it was for her daughter and future grandchild to be in such a place. Charley merely sat queitly and let Eva vent, knowing better himself than to direct her ire in his direciton. Benton on the other hand listened intently for a few moments before silencing the woman with his usuall "we're staying," and changing the subject to the events of the day in the hospital. This time, Eva would not be mollified by Benton's tactics and this time launched into another tirade about his irresponsibility.

It was finally Theresa who shut her mother up with a terse "leave the room or shutup, Mother".

Soon, only too soon by Benton's reckoning, would he have to suffer the in laws all day every day until even Theresa grew weary of her mother's doting presence to shoo them away for good. The tiny human being he held in his arms was peacefull, serene. Her eyes where tighly closed and her cheeks a rosey red. Her breathing eminated out her nostrils and mouth in little sucks of air and she gurgled occasionally. Theresa slept in her bed as well, her own countinance not unlike that of little Billie's in his arms. The term "Daddy" hadn't registered yet, he was still Benton of the plant, Chief Engineer and citizen of Bumpersville. That he now had the responsibility to protect and care for a little person, a creation of his own self and that of Theresa's was something that bowled him over every time he pondered the changes. They would take the little cargo home tomorrow morning, letting little Billie see the real sunlight of the day for the first time, her first time and drive carefully down the newly plowed State15.

****

As all seasons do, winter changed gloriously into spring and the whites and gray's of winter rose to the greens and lushisness of new growth in the surrounding fields. The plows furrowed and planted the new crop of wheat or corn across the valley floor. The softened skin of the hands and faces from the long wintery months where reddened and roughened in the daily work that presented itself like a transference from unemployed slothfulness to haried work-a-holic. For the hill toppers, the seasons merely marked the passage of time that punctuated the dailiness of buisness life. The traffic continued to course down State15 without let up and the opportunities to earn the living only seemed to grow with each passing day, making the changes on the hill merely decorative. Like the spring however, with new life came new construction and the beginnings of a village hall and police station, another gasoline station, and a convienance store sprouted from the ground as if to bask in the new born sun.

Buisness at the plant as well continued on as if nothing had happened in the season, work was work and the process of delivering the raw materials to the factories and production partners rolled on endlessly. Trucks pulled in and pulled out loaded with gallons of caustic liquids. For three years now the plant had hummed along more or less in synchronicity with the activities of its caretakers. Accidents had been few and but for the mystery spill on the Hillcock's field, no other incident of note had occured. Each morning became routine, coffee in the break room, morning production meeting on the shop floor, paperwork and telephone calls to be attended to and the inevitable water cooler conversations that made up the buisness ethos and tied one to the culture of "the office."

Billie was not the first baby to be born on the hill and the process of multiplication had proceeded onwards in the natural pursuit of the dream of family. For Benton though, it was as if it was the very first and very novel thing to happen. Yet to Theresa, there was an odd and almost imperceptible malais about it, about thier little angel. Strood's Sister-in-law baby sat during the afternoon's as Theresa worked the hotel and if Benton had been more intune with the rhythems of life and his wife he might possibly have noted the ease with which Theresa left in the mornings for the hotel and Billie in the care of a friend but albeit stranger.

To Benton, it was a novelty each and every morning when Billie needed to be fed and putting her to bed at night once he arrived back home. He had two wemon to care for now, one more or less independant and the other dependant upon his every move. The heart swelled and his head swam with the thoughts of this change in status from husband to father. This little being whose very life at times seemed to be held in the balence whennever she was held tightly to the chest was dependant upon him for life itself. Her growth from tiny little being whose arms and legs flailed whennever she was excited to a blue eyed growing wonder of twenty five pounds seemed to him to have happend overnight. However, the gentle cooing had too quickly given way to raucus screams and wailing too early in the mornings and evenings whennver he was home, the piercing screams that caused one to jump out of their skin and wince in pain. Theresa would dutifully attend to Billie's needs and whims and appear the loving mother and Benton would chalk it all up to the newness of parenting that he had been warned about by the Fathers and Mothers at the plant. He was prepared for them, but each time he was woken at Three AM for the feedings it all seemed to take him by surprise.

Micheal Strood's Sister-in-law had been called upon to care for Billie suddenly one evening and for reasons that Benton could not quiet comprehend. Theresa had taken her to work with her, an easy enough job considering the static nature of caring for the hotel and waiting on customers who only trickled in now and again. Theresa had taken Billie to work each and every day since coming back from the hospital and after kicking her parents out. It had been a no-brainer as far as Benton was concerned and the most natural thing to do. Yet this one evening Theresa greeted him at the door with an emphatic demand to have a sitter take care of Billie during the daytime while she went to work. She would offer no explanation that seemed to him to weigh out the concern for Billie's care being most appropriately in the mother's concern but he had relented after a futile thirty minute discussion.

Later that same week when the "Tate watchers" met to compare notes would he learn that Tate had paid the hotel another visit and had left ten minutes later. When Benton then asked Theresa about it, she shrugged off the query. His alarm at Tate's visit and un-mollified by Theresa's silence, Benton began to take note of her change but felt like he was prying overtly into his wife's personal motivations. But the shroud of truth behind his wifes eyes lay thick and impenetrable. There had always been something behind those eyes, held within the recesses of Theresa's mind that had always eluded Benton. A more attentive or gifted person might be able to see into her psyche and discern the element of trouble or problem, but he was not that person. It was not that she was a good liar, but that he was such a poor judge of action and attitude, something that she always told him in relation to his relationship with George. Though he still was unable to see anything but the good natured motivations of his boss and former buisness partner, Benton had secretly thanked Theresa for those years of harangue that saved him from going down with the Pembrook ship as it collided with the iceberg that was the senior Tate. He still held something of a decent reputation with both the valley folks and the hill toppers alike and he supposed he had his wife to thank for that.

The buisness of buisness swept those on the hill not reticient enough to discern the changes of climate of the human condition and soul into its normal vortex of bills and customer flow. A quiet had descended upon the valley as if it had lay dormant during the winter months only to spring to life with the first buds on the large oak trees by the bridge. Those who worked in the plant, who drove past the plowed fields each and every day, who drove along intent on starting or finishing another day of work, and who passed right by the foment of hatred and violence where never the wiser to its germination. Why would they have been? Who could divine the motivations of one man and his psychophant son?

Certainly not Benton nor anyone whom he interacted with each day in the office. Conversation revolved around the coming inspections on the shop floor and the review of progress in the first shipment of a new compound needed to produce PBC pipeing for the company. Shop talk and personal matters where the only things on his and Micheal Strood's mind this morning as the coffee brewed and he and Strood munched on the candied goodies someone's wife had concocted. It had become time to cease loitering and get to the work that lay on his desk when Benton felt compelled to query of Strood something he would normally have left to his imagination only.

"Have you seen Tate loitering around the hotel any longer," Benton asked, breaking the silence.

"No, not since that one day when he stopped there. I almost got out of my car to go inside just to see that everything was ok when he exited the office. I did drop in after he was gone to see Theresa. She seemed fine but a bit disturbed that he had stopped."

"That's funny because she's never said anything about it or him for that matter."

"Probably something she wanted to forget as soon as it happened," shrugged Micheal.

"Maybe. She's a little funny about some things, so at times I never know what is going on."

"Probably nothing. Nobody's seen him lately. Have you seen him the nights you've been watching?" Micheal asked as he poured himself another cup of coffee.

"No, nor any of the other deputies for that matter," Benton replied.

"Maybe they've caught on to our surveilance."

"George wanted Tate to know he was being watched, so I doubt it was a secret for very long that we've been keeping tabs on him and the others."

"That's true. You suspect something?"

"No, not really," Benton said. "Was just curious about the hotel."

"Maybe they've decided not to mess with us any longer if we're watching them so closely," Micheal stroked his chin.

"That would certainly make some people happy. I know Theresa has never felt all that safe here, the valley folks don't like anyone on the hill it seems."

"I've only had dealings with Ed Tate Jr., but Hattie has told me numerous times she hasn't felt that comfortable when valley people have been at the grocery or the diner. She's described it as some silent loathing in thier stares. I've never seen it much myself, but she swares it's there," Micheal said.

"That's about how Theresa has described it also, must be more than coincidence if both of them see it, although they do tend to all get together in the diner to talk often," Benton added.

"Yeah, perhaps it sounds common because they tell each other its there," Micheal chuckled.

"Although with the Tate's, one can never be too sure or relaxed," Benton frowned at the sudden thought of Tate at the hotel.

"I think we've shut them down pretty well, they can't hide in the darkness any longer."

"Let's hope so," Benton said as he finished his mug and stood a moment to let the liquid course down his throat. "Well, I suppose we ought to earn our keep, eh?"

"Yep, you think we can try that mix once more in vat four?" Micheal asked as he topped off his mug.

"I think so, I know George is anxious that we get the mix right so we can make our delivery schedule," Benton replied.

"I think I've figured out what happened last time and can correct the mix. I think we had the chemical equations correct, but the intermix valve wasn't calibrated and I don't know how we missed it earlier," Michael returned.

"As long as we get it right and soon, I don't think George is going to have any problems with the slight delay," Benton replied.

"About Ten AM then?"

"That would be a good time to do it again."

"Ok, I'll see you on the floor then," Micheal said as he walked out of the break room.

Benton made his way back to his office and stared for a moment at the pile of forms that lay askew its surface. There were orders to fill out, reciepts that needed his approval and signature and catalogues that he needed to peruse. The the delivery schedules for the various chemical products they mixed and shipped where taped to the walls of his office, each one the life blood of the plant and each one important in thier own right. They had thus far maintained a good record of delivery to thier customers and to Petro-Chem. But, the introduction of this new order and new product had caused everything to slip a little as it required the use of equipment to make that would otherwise have been earmarked for one of the staple products they had been making. The first go at it had been unsuccessful and required the refitting of several valves and pressure hoses plus the cleansing of vat number four just to try it once again. It took a week to finish the refit and that meant a week where that vat was not in production at all.

In the morning meetings George had been a little testy at the delays, but to Benton that was not really his problem nor fault, this little diversion was George's concoction from the start. Though Benton was responsible for the production floor and the timeliness of the shipments, he knew that little things like this would happen and was content to ride it out for one more week until things got a little more critical in the other deliveries. If the experiment didn't work today, he would have to tell George that his pet project would have to wait awhile. Benton remembered telling George that the new order would put a few of thier other prime contracts in jeopardy due to the time needed to engineer the mix properly and the time needed to work on it. Though he was loathe to have to tell George he might have to cancel that new order, Benton would have to see how this new test went.

The hour passed quickly and Benton donned his safety hat and eye wear and made his way to the back of the office and the thick double doors that lead down to the shop floor. The releative quiet of the office area gave way to the noisy hum of the machinery and the echoing of tools upon the concrete floor. Bathed in florescent blueish hue, the white vats and miles of pipes that snaked in and out of the vats and up along the roofing gave the huge room an air of industrial importance. For thier staple products, five large containers had been sunken into the earth below the shop floor where the supply of the composit chemicals resided. Mixing another batch required the combination in the right proportions from the right well. Pipes lead down into the concrete floor and to each well and from each well to recepticals outside in the shipping and recieving area where the well's chemicals where pumped in almost daily.

Each vat and mix process had to have a technician at the controls to watch that the proper pressure levels where maintained and the mix was in the right proportions. The early days of the plant were hectic as not all of the stations where manned properly. Today each spot had it's assigned work crew and the floor was a buzz with activity. Each man moved with purpose and things were astir at vat number four. The process for producing this new product meant doing more than just shutting down vat four from its regular duties in mixing the compounds that eventually ended up as plastic toy soldiers. It was requiring a differrent chemical that had to be brought in and stored outside in a vat that they had to install in the back parking lot. Just to prepare for the first test meant two weeks worth of time to install the vat and run the piping into the shop floor, something that Benton had not looked forward to doing. It turned into a mini construction project all on its own with engineering the flow and control pipes and valves, the safety and pressure equipment needed just for this one temporary vat, and the man hours needed to supervise and contstruct it.

Now all was ready for another go at it. The first attempt had produced a sludge that reeked of turpentine and was discovered to be quite nausious in vapor, forcing the clearing of the shop floor while the ventilators worked to excise the vapor. This time, everyone also had thier respirators on thier belts in case this next attempt produced similar results. Clustered around vat four where Micheal Strood, Charlie Pence the floor supervisor, William McDonald the vat four technician, and David Moore the shift two tech who would have to learn the mix process if the expirement ever worked.

The faces that greeted Benton as he walked up where jovial and unconcerned. The pressure had not come to the point of major crises yet and to this they owed thier professionalisim and attention to detail on this next start. The problems from before had been identified and fixed, it only remained to see if the mix would come together as it was expected without them having to wear thier respirators once again.

When all had been prepared there remained only to flip the switch. Michael, Charlie, William, and Benton all exchanged glances and nodded in turn in a comic display of male communication and each then looked at the read out panel of gauges and indicators expectantly. Vat four was huge and could hold several hundred thousand cubic liters of liquid and the chemicals had to be added one at a time. The vat rumbled with the sounds of the first chemical being forced into it from the underground storage tanks. As if watching the big game, the four men stayed glued to the control panel and watched the lever track how full the vat was becoming. Once the first compound had been added, the second then the third needed to be flushed in in precise ammounts. They had worked out what those amounts should be using slide rules and equations that littered thier offices along with the chemical equations as each chemical was added it changed the nature of the first to produce something new based upon thier atomic properties. It was highschool science one hundred times more complicated in tracking the interactions to produce the desired substance. There was also the ever present danger of too much pressure in the vat, too much of one substance in the wrong order, too much of another substance to produce a reaction that would span out of control and possibly blow the safety valves, and the less important but ever mindful wastage of time and money.

Time came for the addition of the special storage tank outside the shop. Hurridly thrown together and untested to Benton's taste, the wild card had to be played. Success would mean the relief of the burden of schedule and money with new orders and new deliveries and failure yet another week lost. The chemical flowed through the piping from the storage tank to the fat and through the control station. Each man strained to watch the dials more intently for this part of the process as if its success or failure depended upon thier utmost concentration. This is where thier advanced degrees and advanced calculations would have to play out, for none of them had ever made this compound before. The dials registered the flow and each man tensed to be ready to shut off the flow at just the right measurement.

The time came and as each man prepared to hit the control lever several hands bumped into each other in the scramble to be the first to shut it off. Nervous grins lightened each face as the flow was stanched and the pressure gauges where watched for any sudden spikes in the vat. So intent where they on the pressure gauge in the vat that no one noticed the pressure gauge for thier temporary storage tank outside dropping. It would be several minutes before Benton happened to glance over at that portion of the control panel and saw the needle slowly dropping.

"What's up with that?" Benton said motioning the the gauge. Since the outside storage tank had been added on in haste the guage was duct-taped to the side of the control panel that had been fitted out with the gauges for the underground tanks.

Each man turned his attention to the tumor like growth hanging off the side of the panel and thier mirth turned to concern.

"What the hell!" Michael blurted.

After exchanging looks of wonder each man turned to the vat and as if epiphany occured to each at the same time the thought process collided to the one and only explanation and then to fear.

"Shit! Their must be a hole in the vat or the pipe for pressure to be dropping like that! What's the result of that much O2 in the mix?" Charlie asked.

Benton looked at him and his mind raced back to the chemical equations and the mix ratios.

"Whatever it is it can't be good," Michael muttered. "We'd better go inspect that tank. What do we do with this now?"

"I have no idea, don't know how much O2 might have gotten in there. I suppose we'll just watch the pressure inside it for the moment. Charlie, keep an eye on it while we go outside to look at the tank." Benton said as he turned to go outside.

The temporary tank stood five hundred feet from the outside of the shop floor as per the safety regulations. The piping needed to run into the shop where elevated along support beams made of wood that formed a tunnel all the way to the tank. The control valves and the pressure system that ran on a generator where astride the portable storage tank. The group had gotten a few paces out the shop floor door that lead to the parking lot and recieving area and stopped.

In an arc that seemed to Benton to be at least one hundred feet the chemical was spraying out of one of the flow pipes that seemed to have exploded. The spray was pouring into the field adjacent to the boundry of the plant and left a long greenish trail all the way from the hole to the tank. It was no longer a question of whether the second test had failed or not, but of what the sudden introduction of air and the chemical would have on the rest of the mix in the vat. The hole in the feed pipe was in front of the control valve and the only way to shut off the spew was to turn off the pressure generator whose control was fixed to the generator itself and not inside the shop.

Ten minutes later the generator had been shut down by the HAZMAT team and the spew slowed to a trickle out of the hole in the pipe that formed a widening pool below on the asphalt. Another section of the Hilcock's field had been sprayed with hazardous chemical and the parking lot had been turned into a hazardous zone ruining several vehicles.

By the time the generator had been switched off and the spewing from the tank slowed to a trickle out the hole everyone from the shop floor had emptied out into the parking lot to watch the specticle. It was then that Charlie came running up to Benton and Micheal.

"You'd better come look at vat four! Tempreture and pressure are rising."

Running back into the shop, the three men huddled around the control station and watched as the pressure gauge climbed.

"We're going to have to vent it I think," Michael stated.

"It must be the damned O2. Do we know what gasses are in there now?" Benton asked.

"We'd better figure that out fast before we vent it, could be releasing something toxic," Michael added.

"If we don't vent, we'll be releasing something more than just gasses if this vat don't get some room," Charlie said.

"What's the rate of pressure build up? Maybe we just release it slowly to where it keeps up with the pressure, that way we're not releasing too much into the air if this stuff is toxic?" Benton said.

"We got fifteen minutes before the vat reaches critical pressure," Charlie said.

"We don't know how much of the outside tank actually made it into the vat, so we'll have to guess at what gas has been created in there with the O2. What if we try super cooling the vat? Maybe that will regulate the pressure build up," Michael said.

"Let's figure out what gas is in there now before we do that, we could be making the situation worse," Benton said and headed back to his office. Shuffling around on his desk he pulled up the scratchpads where he and Michael had made thier equations and notes about the test and what compunds would be produced by the mixing of the chemicals. They knew that certain gasses would be by products but would dissipate at certain stages in the process. The unknown was the outside air that had leaked in through the hole in the pipe. The control vats were pressureized and self contained once the chemicals were mixed. They could go from the vat straight to the tanker trucks without ever being exposed to the outside air and thus never be let out into the local environment.

The vats also had heating and cooling systems as some of the compounds the plant produced needed a regimine of cooling or heating to produce the right chemical reactions. It was industrial science on a huge scale. The plant had several safety valve systems that would allow for emergency pressure releases of gas from the vats after the gas had passed through several scrubbing systems of water and steam and filters. Even with the scrubber system, the unknown by product in vat four could still release something deadly into the air and affect everyone inside the plant. They had kept the emissions down to something akin to spoiled cabbage and aside from the early complaints of the local residents about the odd odor, everyone had gotten used to the smell.

"What's up?" asked George as he stood in Benton's doorway.

"Big problem with vat number four and your Phillip's order. We'd better call this in to Corporate," Benton said, jarred by George's presence.

"From the spill?"

"O2 in from the pipe, pressure is building in the vat and we might have to vent it."

"Do we know what the gas is?"

"No,"

"Accident?"

"My opinion? I can't see how, but from looking at that pipe it was shredded. I can't see how a pressure build up from the outside tank could have cause the pipe to blow like that. But, it could have been a weak spot in the pipe, I don't know. I'm trying to figure out the toxicity of the gas in there before we attempt to vent it. But, if we don't vent we'll just be releasing it eventually when the vat pops its seams. I need to figure out if the scrubbing system can handle the output."

"Ok," George said glumly, "I'll let HQ know we've had an accident. Do you think you'll need some help from thier engineers?"

"Yes, but we need help now, not in four hours when they could get here. From what I can tell, we knew that Amonium Sulfate would be a by product of all the chemicals combined in the pressure vat, but it dissipates and becomes Amonium di-Sulfate after five days. If we add the O2 in some unknown amount, I'm guessing it has produced Amonium tri-Oxcide and it's pretty deadly in a confined space, one part per million enough to render someone unconcious. If we introduce it through the water scrubber, the Hydrogen should bond with the new compound and produce something inert, but that's the best guess I can make without knowing how much O2 actually got in there," Benton stated.

"So, we'll just have to scrub it and hope for the best?"

"I suppose so, I can't guarentee that this is even correct, but if we vent it just slightly, hopefully it will keep up with the pressure in the vat and we can minimize the release."

"Well, go do it, I'll inform HQ and have them send you some help," George said and walked away.