>>5858937>>5858959>>5858964>>5858984>>5858992You smirk back at Theresa, letting the noise build a little longer before you raise your arms for attention. Instantly, the crowded little room is silent. You let that linger a while too, till everyone is practically holding their breath waiting for you to speak. "We all know why we're here," you finally say. "The overseer's water rationing has gotten out of hand."
"I'll say, I haven't had a hot shower in weeks," says a big, burly looking man in the crowd.
"The shortage only affects drinking water, Stone," you reply.
Stone shoves his hands in pockets as the others erupt in laughter. You raise your arms again for silence, this time to let Theresa speak. She takes out a small holoprojector and places it on a stack of boxes in the middle of the room. The others gather around it. When she presses a small red button on the side, the head of the projector dilates and emits a beam of blue-green light that slowly diffuses into a three-dimensional cutaway of the vault reservoir.
"As we all know," says Theresa (her favorite preface when she's about to show off, inherited from her father) "the water that's piped into the vault comes from an aquifer about forty feet below level 3. This water fills up our reservoir and then is distributed throughout the vault." Theresa presses another button and the cutaway begins to fill with water. The hologram then switches to a transparent layout of the vault, showing the water flowing through the (ordinarily invisible) pipes inside the walls. "Water we don't consume--like for hot showers, or heating--goes through a minimal level of filtration, mechanical for the most part and sufficient for its intended use, but drinking water has to go through the Vault-Tec purifier." The hologram switches to a schematic of a complicated looking machine with lots of connected tubes and valves.
"Is there a point to all that gobbledegook?" says Stone.
"The point," says a lithe young woman, standing across from Stone, "is that if the shortage only affects the drinking water, then there must be a problem with the purifier." The young woman looks to Theresa to confirm, and Theresa nods. "Which means--"
"We've gotta tell everybody," interrupts Stone. "People oughta know there's no more water."
"I didn't say there's no more water," Theresa quickly corrects. "In fact, the reservoir should still have enough water to last us quite some time with the rationing."
"How much time?" asks Natalia.
Theresa glances at you. You shake your head, but she ignores you. "By my calculation, given the progressive acceleration of the rationing... a few months. Five at the most." The crowd starts up again but this time it's the overseer himself that silences them.
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