Tsim has a problem.

Tsim has a mighty large problem.

Tsim had previously assumed that he had resolved his problem.

Tsim was not correct about the resolution of his problem.

Tsim’s problem resolution techniques are still a net positive. Nobody has suffered the gasping icy grip of a terrible suffocating death because of his problem resolution techniques today. Sure, other terrible deaths are currently available as options in his service catalog, but it is certainly possible that this can be avoided by some quick thinking and swift action and maybe a significant quantity of flexible sealant.

Tsim pulls Adah away from the flowing water to make sure that if nothing else, his boss isn’t going to end up pinned into the spin and drowning. That is not an incident report he wants to file. And he’s sure there will be an incident report for this event. And he’s pretty sure that if someone dies he’ll be out of a job. And as much as he’d like to be the altruistic hero who accomplishes a great task for no dark ulterior motive, he also likes to be employable. He likes to eat. He likes to know that his family is secure. He really likes having fewer worries.

Tsim rescues his boss, but his coworker gets caught in the torrent anyway. There is no time right now to feel guilt for a second dunking. There is far too much work to do. Far too much.

Adah’s cold calculus of the logical requirements for completing her mission objectives states that the electrician is far too valuable an asset to lose to some kind of heinous accident. And that means she needs to get down to business and resolve this crisis as soon as possible.

Looking up and inward, she spots Amina clawing her way up the dangling pipe overhead. There is nothing she can do to help the carpenter, and nothing the carpenter can do to help rescue the electrician. She looks to the plumber for assistance, but he’s done a swan dive directly into his technical documentation on the clipboard and is apparently unavailable at this moment. It’s okay. She’ll just reschedule the drowning of a fellow station for a more convenient time. No worries.

And then Adah remembers to look down, into the spin, where water gathers in large quantities below. There are more people below. She does not know what condition they are in. She does not know, not certainly, just how much of a risk this quantity of water poses to those unnumbered individuals.

But there is a risk.

Tsim is doing math. It’s not hard math, but it’s important math. He’s calculating the volume of return media available to cycle the moisture of a large escape event back into the capture and purification system. It can be done, he determines, but the leak needs to be stopped first. It’s a smart bit of understatement to call it a leak, but he is certain that catastrophic though it is, this truly is just a leak.

Overhead, Amina vanishes out of view. Adah tries to find anything, anyone, that will make it possible to get Tiphanie out of danger. What she finds, instead, is only Tsim.

Adah grabs the plumber by the shoulders, and gives him a solid shake.

“Snap out of it!” she hollers over the din of moving water. “You’re the hero here! Get to work!”

Tsim is a man of action. But Tsim is not a man alone.

Overhead, something abruptly fills the gap where the ceiling for the next floor up had been visible.

Tsim has an idea.

Amina hears a shaky voice across the wire looped around her ear.

“The bend in the pipe is why it’s leaking,” Tsim explains, to the best of his ability, exactly what it is the two will have to do, and how they can complete the task together.

But before they can begin, Amina must make miracles multiply. She hurriedly complies, her damp slick shoes skidding on the tile as she scurries to snag appropriate equipment for the task at hand. Luckily, she is already in the maintenance control space. There are plenty of things she can work with.

Yes. Plenty of things. And Tessa knows exactly where they are.