The Mincer

THE MINCER

D.J.Vanderstadt©2017

The first call from Dispatch came in at around 8 PM. Stench levels reached a critical Phase.

Meyer and DeBock were on duty in the Control Room. The unwelcome call interrupted a marathon game of Banzai. Both men were notorious gamblers and not easy to distract when on a roll.

DeBock, in particular, was a well-known visitor of illegal events organized by the syndicates.

Despite the fact that he was a crafty player, he had a habit of overplaying even the best of hands. As a result, DeBock was up to his neck in financial problems. At regular intervals, merciless enforcers showed up on his doorstep demanding substantial collections. Recent threats involving severe bodily harm had forced him into hiding. His credit finally ran out.

Every time DeBock was about to win a hand at the tables, his powerful opponents doubled up the bet. DeBock reached the point where even the lowest stakes exceeded his modest resources.

Meyer, on the contrary, recently struck real gold. A distant relative passed away. To his surprise, he received a sizeable sum of money. That day Meyer had just visited the bank. Now, a duffel-bag with wads of sweet cash sat at the bottom of his locker. But Meyer being Meyer, simply had to share his secret with someone. When DeBock laid eyes on what was in the bag, his mind immediately went into overdrive. He was determined to syphon off some of the content. The fact that Meyer was unattentive to detail in games came as a bonus. He simply missed the ability to bluff his way through life. It made him like putty in the hands of his opponent.

That night the Wheel of Fortune turned clearly in Meyer's favor. To DeBock’s chagrin, his colleague won hand after hand. But, as the night wore on that would change. By the time the second call came in, DeBock had already pulled back a couple of games.

In Zone B, a critical situation rapidly ensued. But it wasn't until the third call that the men reluctantly broke off their game. Meyer went over to the control panel.

“No shit!” he cried. “Hey DeBock come over for a sec, what do you make of this?”

DeBock, Banzai straws still in hand, squinted at the row of indicators. Judged by the gauges on the panel a firm plan of action was required. “Bloody hell!” he cussed. “That's a potential Phase Red.”

Meyer grunted. “Now we're seriously screwed.”

DeBock spat on the floor. Shifts like these made him loathe his dead-end job more than anything.

Both men stared at the radio transmitter in somber anticipation.

A minute or so later Dispatch came on the air.

Meyer took the call.

Earlier that night, a Deep Sonar Probe detected abnormally high concentrations of Methane and Hydrogen in Zone B.

This meant there was a serious health risk for the surrounding areas. Zone B had quite a fierce reputation because of the slaughterhouses in the area. Meyer prayed in silence that it wasn't The Mincer they were probing.

The Mincer was a notorious black spot where people disappeared without a trace. Its treacherous reputation was more than once confirmed by graphic first-hand accounts from senior staff members. A Patrol Unit, long since dissolved, once lost three men in six months. Their bodies were never found, but some pieces of equipment had washed ashore on the banks of a Drainage Canal at the outskirts of the city. Of that ill-fated Unit, DeBock happened to be the last member still on active duty. Rumour had it that at the bottom of the Mincer mutated life forms had spontaneously developed.

Meyer and DeBock heard the H2S alarm going off from inside the locker-room. A red light above the airlock started flashing. They put on HAZMAT suits and breathing apparatus in silence. As a standard procedure, they assisted each other with the final adjustments to masks and bottles of compressed air. Minutes later they headed to the hazard zone.

DeBock steered the rubber dinghy with a steady hand through a maze of narrow canals. The underground river that once gave the city its name now functioned as its main sewer. Some of the brick catacombs dated back to the Napoleonic era.

From the high vaults, chutes released a torrent of raw sewage into the canals below. Rats the size of rabbits hid between the brickwork. In the glare of the magnesium lamps, their fat pink tails whipped up the murky waters of the canal. Above their heads, cast iron manhole-covers blotted out the bright light that flooded the city's boulevards at night.

DeBock knew the sewer system like the back of his hand. He only checked the rusty directional signs now and then, just to be sure.

Despite his protective gear, Meyer’s stomach wrenched when imagining the filth and stench out there. He often contemplated a career change. The money he kept in his locker offered a new future. He might even retire, maybe first go to Las Vegas or Macao...

Suddenly an incoming message over the radio made the men startle. Meyer almost dropped the receiver. With a shaky voice, he responded, "Yeah Meyer... Unit 7 here... Come in Dispatch...”

The Dispatcher on the other end floated in and out on waves of static. His fragmented message confirmed Meyer's worst fear. Flow-Control had finished analyzing the DSP data.

Dispatch officially declared Zone B a hazard zone, giving it a Code Red.

After a curt 'roger that' Meyer flicked the switch with force.

DeBock, drowned out by the sound of the outboard, made a questioning gesture. Meyer simply gave him thumbs down. In response, the dinghy accelerated sharply, and the men were on their way for a confrontation with the Mincer.

Blockages in Zone B were notorious. They almost always required high-pressure flushing to be cleared away. The Mincer was a concrete elbow pipe with a diameter of two meters. Its shape caused trouble. Twice a day a diagonal chute that gave out onto the center of the Mincer dumped tons of organic waste from the slaughterhouses above it. The flow consisted of half-digested chunks of meat and splintered bone. It had the nasty habit of piling onto the grid at the bottom of the Mincer.

De Bock checked his watch. He knew exactly what time the chute would start pumping. Dumps took place simultaneously with the passing of the last metro that ran through a tunnel alongside the Mincer. Time was short.

When the men arrived at the spot, all detectors went crazy. The digital readings of Methane CH4, H2S, and CO2 were off the chart. DeBock cursed aloud. One of them had to go down the Mincer to place the probe. After they lifted the heavy manhole-cover onto its side, DeBock set a crowbar to keep it in an upright position. The opening barely allowed one man to squeeze through, let alone with a bottle of compressed air on his back. By using a flashlight, the men peered down into the Mincer. They could see all the way to where the chute bent. Neither of them showed any initiative to go down the slippery shaft. They avoided direct eye contact.

As always, it was DeBock who broke the stalemate. After all, there was nothing that couldn't be solved with a quick round of Banzai. From his breast pocket, he took two toothpicks of which he broke one in half. The idea was simple and straightforward, the person drawing the shortest straw would go down and install the probe.

Meyer, who had been winning all night, rose to the challenge. He felt invincible. “Bring it on,” he jeered.

While DeBock brought it, he observed Meyer's every move. He also witnessed how the smugness on Meyer's face gave way to disbelief when he discovered the broken toothpick in the palm of his glove.

Before Meyer went down, DeBock attached a rope to his safety harness. The radio transmitter stayed on the surface in case Dispatch contacted them with the latest data. Meyer slung the probe and hose for the pressure injector over his shoulder. Carefully he squeezed through the manhole.

While abseiling, his boots explored every inch of the slippery wall. He found nothing that could serve as a foothold. Each time the safety rope tightened DeBock let it slip a couple of inches. He watched his colleague's descent until the light on his helmet disappeared around the bend.

Meyer almost immediately stumbled on the source of the problem. Partially solidified sludge almost reached chute levels. On the rippled surface, pale insects on high legs performed a dance macabre. Everywhere around him, Meyer detected tiny life forms.

The Mincer resembled the giant bowel system of a heavy meat eater. He once read that big carnivores could carry up to a couple of pounds undigested meat in their rectum. He imagined himself as being gobbled up by a huge Ogre.

Meyer balanced precariously on a small ledge where the two pipes joined. Now and then, bubbles of methane escaped from the surface. With each outburst his gas detector flared, so he switched it off. Things can’t get any worse than they already are, he thought.

A pink hairless creature with teeth like a beaver shot up from beneath the sludge. His heart skipped a beat. It stared at Meyer with shrouded eyes. For seconds, the creature hung mid-air before it fell back with a splash. Meyer panicked and almost lost his balance. One foot slipped off the edge, and his leg ended up knee-deep in sludge.

After Meyer calmed down, he realized an undercurrent must have ejected the creature. Pre-flushing typically meant the next dump was about to start. Soon the floodgates of hell would open. It was time to clear out.

After having attached the clamp to the probe with his wrench, Meyer gave the rope two short tugs as a signal for DeBock to pull him up. DeBock would then acknowledge with a similar reply and start pulling his colleague out. But something wasn’t right. When Meyer tugged at the rope, it felt limp. No acknowledgment from DeBock either.

Blind panic gripped Meyer, and cold sweat prickled his forehead. The walls were too slippery to climb on his own. His cry for help smothered in his oxygen mask. He then tried to remove the mask just long enough to shout to the surface. The wrench in his hand accidentally took out the light on his helmet while he fumbled with the mask. The Mincer went pitch dark.

Meyer, totally disoriented, clung to the slippery edge. Despite hours of professional training, he was about to lose his cool. The toxic gases he briefly inhaled gave him a throbbing headache. For a moment it felt as if he might lose conscience. He kicked his sludge-covered leg violently when something tried to crawl up it. In a desperate attempt he tried to pull himself up using the rope, but each time his boots lost grip. To his horror, Meyer realized that his only chance of escape was with the help of DeBock. Surely his partner will be back any minute now.

Somewhere in the distance, Meyer could hear a growing rumble. The last metro was on its way to the Terminal. The deafening sound of wheels soon passed inches away from him before fading into the night. For a moment the Mincer went eerily quiet.

Then the sludge around his feet started moving

D.J.Vanderstadt©2017