The alert was not sounded by an outer edge tripwire or an explosive breach. It began with the sharp, digital chirp of a potion-made flow rate meter inside the water-purification trailer.
Toby Mallow stood before the main three-thousand-gallon stainless steel water tank that supplied drinking water to the entire Iron Ark convoy. He held a heat-proof glass test tube of filtered runoff. He had been conducting his routine thirty-minute quality check, his metal pen poised over his ledger. Just then, the test chemical dye in the tube suddenly shifted from pale amber to a violent, oily crimson.
BEEP-BEEP.
The handheld digital refractometer on the shelf screeched, its small liquid-crystal screen flashing in wild amber pulses:
BIO-CONTAMINANT DETECTED: ORGANIC Glass-stone POLYMER [V7 VECTOR] CONCENTRATION: 420 PPM — LETHAL CASCADE WITHIN 180 SECONDS
Toby’s face turned whiter than bleached linen. His glasses nearly slipped from his nose as he slapped his palm down onto the emergency intake shut-off valve. It slammed the heavy brass wheel clockwise with all his strength.
“Arthur!” Toby screamed into his throat-mic, his voice cracking in sheer terror. “The pool! Someone’s tapped the backup intake pipe hub! The V7 vector is in the water tank! It’s flooding the spreading lines!”
