It was his third or fourth awkward attempt at an apology, and Juliette appreciated it. “You were just doing your job,” she assured him. And then she thought just how powerful that sentiment was, how far down a nasty road that could take a person, shuffling along and simply doing their job.
“But the irony is that this room—” He waved a glove at the suits peering down from the walls. “Even my mom thought this room was here to help people, help cleaners survive for as long as possible, help explore the outside world that nobody’s supposed to talk about. And finally, here we are. More than talking about it.”
Juliette didn’t say anything, but he was right. It was a room of both hope and dread. “What we yearn to find and what’s out there are two different things,” she eventually said. “Let’s stay focused.”
Nelson nodded and readied his chalk. Juliette shook the first sample container until the two gaskets inside separated. The durable one from Supply was perfectly whole. The yellow marks on the edge were still there. The other gasket was in far worse shape. Its red marks were already gone, the edges eaten away by the air inside the container. The same was true of the two samples of heat tape adhered to the bottom. The square piece from Supply was intact. She had cut the one from IT into a triangle in order to tell them apart. It had a small hole eaten through it.
“I’d say an eighth gone on the sample two gasket,” Juliette said. “One hole in the heat tape three millimeters across. Both Supply samples appear fine.”
Nelson wrote her observations down. This was how she had decided to measure the toxicity of the air, by using the seals and heat tape designed to rot out there and compare it to the ones she knew would last. She passed him the container so he could verify and realized that this was their first bit of data. This was confirmation as great as her survival on the outside. The equipment pulled from the cleaning suit storage bays was meant to fail. Juliette felt chills at the momentous nature of this first step. Already, her mind raced with all the experiments to perform next. And they hadn’t yet opened the containers to see what the air inside was like.
“I confirm an eighth of wear on the gasket,” Nelson said, peering inside the container. “I would go two and a half mils on the tape.”
“Mark two and a half,” she said. One way she would change this next time would be to keep their own slates. Her observations might affect his and vice versa. So much to learn. She grabbed the next sample while Nelson scratched his numbers.
“Sample one,” she said. “This one was from the ramp.” Peering inside, she spotted the whole gasket that had to be from Supply. The other gasket was half worn. It had nearly pinched all the way through in one place. Tipping the container upside down and rattling it, she was able to get the gasket to rest against the clear lid. “That can’t be right,” she said. “Let’s see that lamp.”
Nelson swiveled the arm of the worklight toward her. Juliette aimed it upward, bent over the workbench, and twisted her body and head awkwardly to peer past the dilapidated gasket toward the shiny heat tape beyond.
“I … I’d say half wear on the gasket. Holes in the heat tape five … no, six mils across. I need you to look at this.”
Nelson marked down her numbers before taking the sample. He returned the light to his side of the bench. She hadn’t expected a huge difference between the two samples, but if one sample was worse, it should be the one from the hills, not the ramp. Not where they were pumping out good air.
“Maybe I pulled them out in the wrong order,” she said. She grabbed the next sample, the control. She’d been so careful outside, but she did remember her thoughts being scrambled. She had lost count at one point, had held one of the canisters open too long. That’s what it was.
“I confirm,” Nelson said. “A lot more wear on these. Are you sure this one was from the ramp?”
“I think I screwed up. I held one of them open too long. Dammit. We might have to throw those numbers out, at least for any comparison.”
“That’s why we took more than one sample,” Nelson said. He coughed into his helmet, which fogged the dome in front of his face. He cleared his throat. “Don’t beat yourself up.”
He knew her well enough. Juliette grabbed the control sample, cursing herself under her breath, and wondered what Lukas was thinking out there in the hall, listening in on his radio. “Last one,” she said, rattling the container.
Nelson waited, chalk poised above the slate. “Go ahead.”
“I don’t …” She aimed the light inside. She rattled the container. Sweat trickled down her jaw and dripped from her chin. “I thought this was the control,” she said. She set the sample down and grabbed the next container, but it was full of soil. Her heart was pounding, her head spinning. None of this made sense. Unless she’d pulled the samples out in the wrong order. Had she screwed it all up?