CopenHill glowed in the bright spring morning light, the shiny metal facade reflecting the sun. Way up above the steeply inclined roofline the chimney top shone red like an evil eye. Copenhagen’s new landmark resembled a flashing, living animal, lying in wait among the bushes and trees of Refshaleøen.

Kasper Skytte took a swig out of the bottle in his hand and contemplated his workplace through the windshield of his parked car. Lukewarm Aalborg aquavit—he hadn’t been able to find anything else to brace himself with. It burned the whole way down to his stomach. Still, he kept drinking.

Working at the plant this past year had turbocharged his life in every sense. He had never been under more pressure, been more successful, or had more struggles than now. It felt as if existence had sped up, that life was flying by, and all he could do was try to hang on with a pounding heart. Race through the city to make it home and buy the groceries for dinner, wake up every morning to fifty new emails, decipher emissions numbers, develop new software, research, mop the floor, and be a dad without failing too much at any of it.

They say that he who works a lot makes a lot of mistakes. But was that really a comfort? An excuse perhaps, even?

It was too late to change it.

He had stood at a fork in the road and made a choice. That always sounded great in books, as if someone were actually standing on a mountain divide and could choose to go either north or south toward new adventures. In reality here he was, sitting in his worn-down family car with a blood alcohol level as sky-high as the incineration plant’s chimney. And he could no longer turn back and confess.

When Iben was little, life had been simple. Her arrival in the world had put everything in perspective and cranked it up, so that black and white were lucidly clear. Back then he had never had any doubts what was right or wrong, what kinds of values he would pass along to his daughter, and what kind of a world he wanted her to inherit. Now he didn’t know anything anymore.

Kasper took another swig and swallowed a belch of stomach acid. His cell phone rang. Again. He didn’t answer it. As if he needed a reminder of how fucked he was.

He threw the bottle out of the open window. Then he started the car and drove toward the plant’s fire.

“HEY, WHAT’S THE deal? Where is everybody?” Thomas Larsen set a bakery box down on the cafeteria table and looked from Jeppe to Anette. “I thought we would have a whole team here. I bought twenty cinnamon rolls so there’d be enough for everyone.”