Read Online Containment by Christian Cantrell - Free Book Online Page B

father. It was always in Darien's clothes and in his hair, and it made Arik think about when his father used to reach over him to help him with something in his workspace, or the smell of the breeze he made when he walked by. Most people considered the smell unpleasant, but it reminded Arik of home.
    Rosemary's office was on the second floor of the Wet Pod, above the plant, at the top of an open metal staircase. When the door opened, the chemical smell was overwhelmed by the aroma of fresh coffee, and Arik remembered that Rosemary always had a fresh pot brewing even though she preferred tea. She used it to cover up the smell of the chemicals (which reminded her of work, not home), and to keep a steady flow of her staff coming and going so she could keep up with what they were working on without having to hold formal meetings. She told her class once that meetings were not actually for communicating, but for fixing breakdowns in communication. In a well-run work environment, communication should be constant and efficient and organic, and formal meetings should almost never be necessary.
    "Come on in, Arik," Rosemary said warmly. "Thank you for coming."
    She was seated in front of her workspace with her hands around a cup of tea. It was difficult to guess how old Rosemary was because her apparent age varied dramatically depending on what she was doing. When she was focused on something, the lines around her eyes and mouth became much more prominent, and her hair seemed to be more wiry gray than blond. But when Rosemary was passionate about something — when she was speaking and moving and smiling and gesturing — she assumed an extraordinary beauty, and was every bit as youthful as Arik.
    The walls of the office were currently transparent which provided a spectacular view of the entire water treatment facility. Below them were complex networks of pipes, valves, pumps, and narrow catwalks woven around still pools of pure blue water. Darien had shown Arik around the Wet Pod several times as Arik was growing up, and some of Rosemary's classes had been held in her office, so none of this was new to him. He was much more interested in the intricate model of an entire pod system on a table in the middle of the room.
    "I thought you might have some good advice for me on my first day," Arik said. He was helping himself to a closer look at the model, bending down and peering at it from several angles.
    "I do, but it's going to cost you. First, I need your help. Do you know what that is?"
    "No. It doesn't look like V1."
    "It's not. It's V2. Or at least it's the current proposal."
    "Is this to scale?"
    "Yes. What do you see that's different from V1?"
    "There's no greenhouse."
    "Yes, that's the biggest difference. Anything else?"
    "The water tower."
    "Exactly. As you know, we use pumps to pressurize our water supply, but pumps use a lot of energy, and they're difficult to maintain. Since there are peaks and valleys in water demand, we have to use several different types of pumps so we can dynamically increase and scale back pressure as necessary. Worse than being inefficient, it's incredibly
inelegant
."
    "So V2 is going to use a water tower instead?"
    "That's what I'm proposing. Water towers use gravity to create all the pressure you need, regardless of demand. And you only need a single simple pump to refill it once a day from the clean water reservoir. It uses much less energy, and there's very little to maintain."
    "Why doesn't V1 use a water tower?"
    "There was no way to build one at the time. In truth, there still isn't, but I'll worry about that later. First, I have to prove that it's a good idea. What do you think?"
    "I think it makes sense. The fewer moving parts, the better."
    "Exactly. No truer words were ever spoken in the context of engineering."
    "Why did you build a physical model?" Arik asked. "Why don't you just use computer models?"
    "Ah, very good question, and precisely the reason I asked you to come. We do have