Pressure Lines

The floor of the central pump house trembled so gently that only someone like Nadia caught it with her knees and teeth. She stood with her palm pressed to a warm length of cast iron, feeling the steady thrum of the impellers two stories below. Chlorine hung in the air, faint as a cough. Through the tall windows rolled a silver strip of river, gulls looping over barges that pushed against the current like patient beetles. Her world was numbers and gauges and water that never slept.

'Flow's steady,' she said, though no one had asked. She spoke out loud anyway. The meter room swallowed voices. 'District C holding at six point eight.'

Alek, her junior tech, looked up from a tablet. 'You say that like it's good news.'

'It is,' Nadia said, and smiled. 'Good news is quiet.'

Her phone buzzed. Dad's name lit the cracked screen. She braced the phone under her chin. 'I'm at work. You're supposed to be at chess.'

'Chess is for the very old,' Sergei said, his breath creaking. 'I am only old. Listen, I left your lunch on the balcony. And, Nadia, don't forget to ask Sokolov about new gaskets. The ones he bought are from some pirate. The metal flakes like pastry.'

'He'll love that,' she said. 'Go easy on the hydrants, Dad.'

'Hah. You think I don't know better than to touch hydrants? I retired before you were born.'

The line clicked. Nadia slid the phone back into her coveralls and leaned toward the glass again. The river stank of algae and oil. Somewhere on the far bank a siren rose, then drifted away.

'Kamil playing tonight?' Alek asked, spinning in a wheeled chair. He had a stage-struck grin whenever he said the name.

'Later,' Nadia said. 'I promised to swing by after I check a pressure anomaly. District A sent a complaint. A sprinkler test tripped on its own. It happens when valves drift. Sokolov will say it does not happen. We will fix it anyway.'

As if the station had heard her, a soft skitter passed through the pipes, like beads poured down a gutter. Nadia froze. The tone deepened, not panic, something else — a distant door opening where none should be. She watched the needle for District B twitch and settle. Her skin prickled. The river slid on, indifferent.

Sokolov's boots rang on the stairs. He was square at the shoulders and pink from the walk. 'We have calls. Gallery on Krutaya, flooded by sprinklers. Insurance already howling. I need you two to stroke their egos, not admit any fault, and write a polite report.'

Nadia snapped her notebook shut. 'If it's on Krutaya, that's B sector. We just had a flutter there.'

'Coincidence,' Sokolov said, already reaching for a coffee cup that had been clean last week. 'Do not upgrade coincidence to cause. The city hates cause. Get over there.'