The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)(40)

Then again, judging from Viggo’s body language, neither was he. “I understand that, but we cannot overlook the water treatment plant! There is something going on there. Elena wouldn’t leave the city alone for this long without having something up her sleeve.”

Across the table, Amber met my eyes, an impish sparkle in her own. She held her mouth in a slight pucker, giving her a vaguely fish-like appearance, and then began puffing out her chest. I hid my smile behind my hand, recognizing the joke for what it was—Ms. Dale had a habit of sucking in her breath before going on a particularly long tirade, and Amber had pulled it off perfectly.

Ms. Dale didn’t break Viggo’s eye contact, but she snapped her arm out in front of Amber’s face, wagging a finger in warning, and I hid my smile again as Amber made a comical face of alarm, her mouth turned downward in exaggerated mortification.

I sank down in my seat, trying not to laugh as Ms. Dale began sucking in her breath to respond. Laughing in the middle of a heated debate between Ms. Dale and Viggo would only result in instant attention, and I wanted to remain out of this fight. It had become circular at this point, and frankly, it was beginning to grate.

I understood both sides well enough to know this was a difficult choice to make. Viggo wanted to commit all of our resources to the water treatment plant, just in case something was going on there. Ms. Dale wanted to commit them to eliminating all the Matrian forces keeping the citizens inside from leaving, as well as the contingent stationed on the bridge. Both arguments had valid points, with one big exception—since the interrogation of Desmond had gotten us absolutely nowhere, there was no evidence anything untoward was going on in the plant. Viggo was working purely from conjecture at this point.

Still, in my mind, he was right. The Matrians holing up in there was too odd an occurrence for us not to take it seriously. I understood that the math supported Ms. Dale’s plan, but it seemed like we were forgetting one important thing: Elena would stop at nothing to get what she wanted.

“All right,” I said loudly, rudely butting in during Viggo’s rebuttal. “Let’s stop arguing and think this through rationally.”

Viggo bit off a growl and Ms. Dale gave me an irritated glance, but they both sat down. I shared a crooked smile with Amber and then looked at Thomas, asking the strategist, “How—in the simplest terms possible—does the plant work?”

“It’s quite simple. Water is pumped up through an underwater spring, and then processed for purification. It spends several days in the ponds out back, so the ultraviolet radiation from the sun can kill some of the bacteria that came up from the recesses of the earth. Then the water is pumped in through the first initial filter—but this one is only designed to keep out larger bits of sediment. The water is moved inside to the massive vats, boiled, and then processed through a pipe system that has more fail-safes than a bank. The result is clean water.”

“All right. So, could Elena get enough access to the system to dump something in there? Like a toxin or poison or something?”

Thomas looked up, his eyes shifting back and forth behind his glasses. I liked to think of it as his thinking face, and I could imagine all the vast calculations he was doing as floating numbers scrolled before his eyes. After a moment, he nodded. “In most of the scenarios, I theorized that the water treatment system could be overcome if the mechanical, electrical, and technological backups were simultaneously taken down. But the timing on this would have to be flawless. In addition to that, parts of the system would have to be reprogrammed to be allowed access to the recycled water. King Julian—King Maxen’s grandfather—was paranoid about keeping the water as tamper-proof as possible, and he managed to create quite a fascinating puzzle.”

“Okay, so, in theory, what is the minimum amount of time the Matrians would need before they would actually be able to begin dumping something in there?”

“Seventy-two hours, give or take.”

That meant that if they were trying to crack the system, they had at least twenty-four hours on us—closer to forty-eight at this point. “Thank you,” I said. Licking my lips, I considered the puzzle. “Let’s pretend they are doing something at the plant. Do we think Elena would be trying to kill or incapacitate?”

“Wouldn’t she just want to kill everyone?” said Amber, swiveling from side to side in the computer chair she was spread out in. “I mean, if she does, she gets the land. In fact, why are we assuming she’s doing something to the water? How do we know she’s not trying to demolish the plant, leave everyone here to die of dehydration?”

“But she loses any experienced farmers, as well as the source of water with which to grow the crops,” said Viggo, crossing his arms across his chest. “Considering Patrus has the best farmland, I’d doubt she’d want to lose either.”

“The farmers are already missing,” Thomas pointed out. “I mean, some of them could’ve traveled to the city, but Mr. Kaplan was grabbed. No reason to think she wouldn’t have collected the others as well.”

“If she did in fact capture them, then that would mean she could kill everyone else here without damaging her plan,” said Ms. Dale. “If anything, it would be simpler. She could just send Matrians over here to start taking over and restore the infrastructure with the Patrian farmers as their captive guides.”