Rise of the Discordant: The Complete Five Book Series by McMullen Christina

Author:McMullen, Christina [McMullen, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Published: 2016-05-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Repercussions

Back when I was still working for the mill, the EPA came in and threatened to shut us down. Concern for the environment was a brand new concept back then and as such, there was a loud and boisterous outcry from the concerned citizens of Blackbird. Not concern for the environment, mind you. The mill employed nearly seventy percent of working age adults and the changes the EPA required were expensive. Because of this, many mill workers feared they would lose their jobs. I remember as well that this was the first time we began to see a larger than average influx of Discordant.

Over the next two months, a construction crew was brought in and parts of the mill were shut down to facilitate the implementation of the changes. As the workers were shuffled around to accommodate the construction, rumors and speculation about job security became rampant. Tensions among those employed by the mill ran so high that I nearly considered quitting as a preventative measure to maintain my own sanity. I can’t remember another time in history where the Five Penny did such a booming business.

And then one day, nearly as soon as it began, the crisis was over. Six months after issuing their initial citation, the EPA was brought back to inspect the changes and the mill was deemed compliant. Though none of us received a raise that year, there had been no need to lay anyone off to cover the cost of the changes, so there was minimal complaining. The mill continued to operate for more than a decade before the owners realized it was cheaper to move the entire operation overseas and pollute someone else’s back yard.

Yet despite averting the crisis, the number of Discordant flocking to Blackbird continued to rise. Even as those who had worried about job security realized their source of income was secure, the number of lost souls crossing my path went up exponentially. Now, after decades of speculation, in the partially demolished and heavily vandalized remains of what had once been Blackbird’s driving economic force, I finally found the reason why.

The owners of Blackbird Paper & Pulp had cut every corner imaginable.

The scrubbers on the smoke stacks, the giant filtration system that kept the pollutants out of the river, even the lower impact acids that were used in the pulping process, were all for show. Behind the scenes, it was business as usual. The workers hadn’t installed a new system at all. They had simply dug a series of underground tunnels to surreptitiously dump the harmful waste into different river systems underground. In doing so, they not only eroded the foundation and structural integrity of the land upon which Blackbird sat, but they also eroded the barrier between the realm of Order and that of Chaos.

That this was not discovered during my time at the mill was not surprising. All the owners were required to prove was that their pollutants were no longer being dumped directly into the river. But

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