If Not Us by Mark Smith

Author:Mark Smith [Mark Smith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2021-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

12

The house was filled with people preparing for the forum. Oliver and Ruby had covered the kitchen table with their notes as they put together the running sheet with Imogen. She met Hesse’s eye and nodded at him. Bear must have told her he’d decided to speak.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘This was on the front step when I got back.’ She handed him a large orange envelope with his name on the front. Underneath it was series of numbers and letters that meant nothing to him: tb756bnd$5#bd

‘You didn’t see who left it?’ he asked, turning it over in his hands.

‘Nope,’ she replied. ‘I thought it might be something to do with school. Homework?’ She went back to her notes.

Hesse opened the envelope. Inside were five A3 spreadsheets. The first column listed dates, with others across the page listing numbers. They meant nothing to him.

What he did recognise was the Hadron header at the top of each sheet.

‘Any idea what these might be,’ he said, putting them on the table.

‘Where did they come from?’ Oliver asked. He’d been too busy to hear Imogen’s explanation earlier.

‘I dunno. They were left on the doorstep.’

Oliver handed them to Ruby. ‘Do these mean anything to you?’ he asked.

Ruby was immediately seized by what she saw. She flicked through each sheet, checking them again and again. ‘Unbelievable,’ she said.

She had everyone’s attention now and they crowded around the table.

‘What are they?’ Oliver asked.

‘Air monitoring figures,’ she replied. ‘Specifically, sulphur dioxide. SO2.’

‘And…’

‘And, they can’t be right. They’re off the charts.’

‘What do you mean?’ Imogen asked.

‘These figures are way higher than WHO safe exposure levels,’ Ruby said.

‘But isn’t all that information on the public record?’ Oliver asked.

‘Hadron self-monitors and reports directly to the regulators,’ Ruby said. ‘But on these figures, they’d be shut down immediately. SO2 is highly toxic in these concentrations.’

‘I thought carbon dioxide was our main concern,’ Imogen said.

Ruby shook her head. ‘We’ve always known Shelbourne coal is high in sulphur. When they burn it in the power station, they’re supposed to have filters to capture the SO2 produced. If these figures are right, their filters aren’t doing much.’

‘Can we check the numbers against what Hadron has reported?’ Oliver asked.

Ruby opened her laptop and started typing. ‘Ah, of course,’ she said after a minute. ‘Because they self-regulate, all their data is held in confidence, which means we’d have to go through Freedom of Information to get at them. That could take months.’

‘What about the Hadron website?’ Bear asked.

‘We wouldn’t get past their firewall,’ Ruby replied.

‘So, we have no way to verify the figures,’ Oliver said. ‘Meaning we can’t use them.’ He sounded deflated after the initial excitement of Ruby’s revelations.

‘And the meeting starts in an hour,’ Imogen added.

‘That firewall,’ Hesse said. ‘You’d need a password?’

‘Yes,’ Ruby responded.

Hesse placed the envelope on the table. ‘Could this be it?’ he asked, pointing at the list of random letters and numbers written on the front.

Ruby brought up the Hadron website and entered the password.

Everyone held their breath as she clicked the log-in button.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.