“A half dozen people have signed the complaint he brought to the town. A family called Dawes and a Stephen Iocco seem like our best bets.”

“A half dozen complaints? We’ll be laughed out of the judge’s chambers.” Joe is underexaggerating. We’ll be kicked out.

Flora looks uncomfortable. “Optimal’s the biggest employer in Barrens,” she says. “It’s hard to sway people.”

“It’s a company town,” I say, and think uneasily about what Misha said—you’re on opposite sides now. I fear most people in Barrens will be on the other side. “That’s going to be our biggest obstacle.”

Everyone nods, but the whole team has the slick look of a city—or at least suburbia—about them, and can’t possibly understand.

When I was growing up, the morning air was coated in a film of plastic ash; we breathed in Optimal chemicals every time we inhaled, and the chemical smog turned the sun into different shades of pink and orange. Our ears rang with the constant din of Optimal construction: new scaffolds, new warehouses, new storage hangars, new smokestacks. I ate my lunch in a newly added school library built by an Optimal donation and rode home on a bus purchased by Optimal, with parts made by Optimal, and went to Optimal-sponsored dances, bake sales, and cookouts. My dad was right: there was someone bigger than us, someone watching us, someone who even made the colors in the sky and textured the air we were breathing. I remember as a kid when the skeleton of the production plant went up. I used to sneak around the reservoir to play on the construction site and write my name in the rusty ooze along the drainpipes, when the house was full of the smell of sick and seemed as if it might fold in on me.

“A company town,” Joe repeats. “How quaint.”

“When is ETL sending techs?” Raj asks. He even sounds depressed. Environmental Testing Laboratories specializes in clean water supplies, with a focus on heavy metal contamination. Unfortunately, they’re one of the few trustworthy labs in the Midwest, and their backlog runs months deep.

“Next week,” Joe says. “But we shouldn’t expect results on the water to come in before July.”

“If that,” I say. “What else can we look at? What about accelerated rates of cancer?”

“In the past few years? Nope.” Only in our line of business is there reason to be disappointed that cancer doesn’t work faster.

“Optimal moved in twenty years ago,” I point out.

“You expect us to go back that far? We don’t have the manpower. Besides, you know how these hospitals work. It’s easier to get blood out of a quarter, and half of what you do get is restricted.”

“It’s data. Even if it isn’t admissible later, it isn’t a waste. We should do a survey of local doctors at least.” This is how we work: quick back and forth, push and pull. The first time I met Joe, he pointed out that the water bottle I was drinking from was a source of chemical leach, and I pointed out that he was a dick. We’ve been friends ever since.