Chapter 17 — The City Has No Smell

Thirty minutes after valve No. 3 was locked, the city's biggest question was not who jammed it. The question is whether the Clean Layer will bounce back tomorrow morning.

The emergency meeting room on the first floor of the committee does not have an opening window. The smell of cold coffee and plastic from the projector mixed together, but no one spoke. On the screen, the two options are next to each other.

Option A: restore area-wide spraying at background level, preserving title and reducing return of sewer odors.

Option B: turn off everything until the inspection is complete, accept the increased odor and the risk of people panicking.

None of the options has the word "absolutely safe".

Quynh stood in front of the board. She changed her work shirt to a protective jacket but had not yet taken off her muddy shoes. Huyen, Tung, Van, Nghi and residential area representatives sat around the table. An participated via the screen from his father's radio booth. Tu does not attend online meetings; he sent a photo of an empty air bottle next to a city map.

“I suggest not using these two options as the only two poles,” Huyen said.

A city official frowned. “We need to decide whether to turn it on or off.”

“We need to decide which clusters, under what conditions, with what notifications and what stops.”

Tung opened the valve map. Station 3 is isolated. The northern stations operate stably, but their data is not representative of the South Ben area. Station number 7 has an old calibration box, station number 2 is located near the school area. If turned on in the entire area, the city can reduce the odor but repeat the situation of not knowing the low class. If turned off completely, odors from the treatment tanks could return in places where Clean Class is actually helping residents.

“Each region has a price to pay,” Van said. "Don't let people in the area being helped by the system have to suffer instead of the area where the signal is blocked."

The residential area representative asked: "If only some stations are turned on, who decides which areas are worth protecting?"

Nghi put his hands on the table. "Don't call it security. Wherever it is turned on, it must clearly say what it is doing. Wherever it is turned off, there must be another way for people to know the smell is coming back."

Quynh wrote two sentences. Huyen suggested adding multi-sensory warning channels: electronic boards, speakers, text messages, lights at cultural houses, and door-knocking groups for households with elderly people or respiratory diseases. No one channel replaces them all.

“Funding?” the officer asked.

“Temporarily use the environmental response fund,” Quynh replied.

“That fund is for major incidents.”

"A system that doesn't know how it's distributed is an operational problem, even though there haven't been many people hospitalized," Huyen said.

No one clapped. The statement is recorded in the minutes.

Tung presented the technical plan. Turn off stations 3 and 2. Keep station 7 on manual level after someone observes. Open the water treatment area outlet according to the checked time, do not spray to cover the smell. Place the mobile device at a height of 1.5 meters at four points. Each update cycle is fifteen minutes.

“Who's on duty?”

"The maintenance team divides shifts. But people need to put signs on the spot."

Nghi said the market can record smells, but you have to pay. Van said the health station can summarize symptoms, but cannot send names. An said the group of students can draw the wind direction, but not go out if there are signs of seriousness.

Some people were surprised when he was asked for his opinion. An doesn't speak better than adults. He said he knew which way he could walk without having to stop breathing. That knowledge is not included in the administrative map.

Quynh decided: turn off clusters 2 and 3, keep the remaining stations at a monitored background level, and do not increase the dose yourself. Every pine The notice clearly states which station is active and why. Do not restore title until testing is complete.

“I will sign,” she said. “But the evaluation team must make the update public, even if the results are not pretty.”

Huyen asked: "Who approves the words?"

“Technical, medical, sensory and residential representatives jointly approved.”

“What if there is no consensus?”

Quynh looked at the board. “Note different opinions.”

The meeting ended at 03:10. No one slept. They divided into teams. Tung went down to check valve number 3 again, Huyen went to the cultural house, Van was at the medical station, Nghi went to the market, and An closed the radio booth but kept the walkie-talkie next to him.

At the cultural house, Huyen wrote the first announcement in large letters. She does not use “temporarily normal”. She wrote:

"Some odor neutralization stations are temporarily paused for inspection following a valve incident. Natural and treatment odors may be more evident. Follow instructions regarding doors, medications, and update times. If you don't smell anything but have difficulty breathing, still call the medical station."

Nghi read and changed "natural odor" to "odor from the environment and production activities".

“Naturally it sounds like everything is harmless again,” she said.

Edited by Huyen. Van added a phone number. Tung added an area not to enter. An sent an emoticon of a crossed nose and a hand placed on his chest.

No one writes a sentence that makes everyone completely assured. But the reader knows what to do.

In the morning, the smell of sewer returned in the Nam Ben area. Some residents called it a failure of the city. Someone else opened the window, realized the smell was coming from the treatment tank and closed the door that way. Nghi sent the market a differentiation chart: the smell of fresh fish, the smell of fermentation, the smell of sewer, and the smell of detergent. She does not claim that people can self-diagnose. She just said smells can help with direction if placed next to the wind and guide.

At school, the principal lets students study in the east room. An stayed home, but sent the map through the group. Another student took over for him and wrote down the colors according to the instructions. The system doesn't crash because one person doesn't go out.

Tung and Loc placed their mobile phones at four locations. A device was touched by a child and the data was distorted. They record events, not delete them. One machine lost its battery, the person on duty walked to replace it. One machine gives a higher number than the roof station. Huyen asked to keep both.

At noon, Quynh was called to a meeting with the city. An official said the publicity about the return smell is causing the value of riverside real estate to decrease. Quynh replied that that could not be the reason for hiding environmental conditions. The other person asked who was responsible if people panicked.

“Me,” Quynh said. “Because I signed the notification plan.”

“Do you want to resign?”

“Resigning doesn't fix the valve.”

Huyen listened to this recording later. She didn't know if Quynh spoke out of courage or because there was no other way. Maybe both.

In the afternoon, a preliminary check showed that valve No. 3 needed to replace the mixer, not just the calibration box. Some spare parts must be ordered from another province. The Clean Layer does not return to its original state within a few days.

Tung suggested keeping the off mode at the market and school, but allowing spraying with an observer at the treatment tank when the wind direction is appropriate. Nghi asked if the observer could come at mealtimes. Tung said he would make his own schedule. Van asked everyone to wear protective equipment.

Huyen looked at the board. This is not a return to the system. It is a new system, smaller, slower, and forced to accept conditions.

Monday night later incident, no one was hospitalized. There were more complaints, as the smell returned. But complaints are classified: unpleasant odors, symptoms, machine problems, support needs. People are no longer asked to choose a common word.

An message to Huyen: "If the city has to keep the smell as a warning, it may want to remove it all later when people complain."

Huyen replied: "So you have to record it even when the system helps."

An: "So as not to turn the smell into an enemy?"

“So that all future decisions have both sides.”

Huyen passed the cultural house at 11 p.m. The notice board has an additional line written by someone in red pen: "If the smell is unpleasant but the instructions are unclear, call this number. Complaints are also data."

No one knows who wrote it. Huyen kept the same.

In a city accustomed to blue numbers, the No. 3 valve failure offers no one to blame. It forces many people to look at their work: the designer, the maintenance person, the manager, the measurer, the salesperson, the person who lives under the spray tower, and the person who has been told for too long that his body is just a feeling.

The Clean layer has not been deleted. But from that night, it was no longer allowed to act like an invisible curtain.

The next morning, the team set up a board at the gate of station 3. There was no advertisement on it, just four lines: the station was shutting down, the reason, the area where the smell might return, and the update time. A passerby asked why it was necessary to write down something the machine could not do.

Tung replied: "Because the machine can't do it yet, it still affects the way people make decisions."

Quynh requested that the table be captured and uploaded to the data portal. Huyen checked the wording, Nghi corrected the name of the market, Van added the phone number of the medical station. A bulletin board becomes the product of many professions, no longer just a sentence written by the media department alone.

The recording team split shifts. An isn't the only one who draws anymore; Two other students learned how to record the wind, a security guard recorded the pump sound, and a salesman recorded the smell hour by hour. Some people write it down wrongly, then mark it wrong themselves. Huyen said the error mark is important because it indicates the method that needs to be re-teached.

In the afternoon, the city sent a notice to temporarily suspend the "no more bad smell" title. Some people laugh online, some worry about falling house prices. Quynh did not respond to each comment. She only published incident logs and repair schedules, then attended meetings with workers.

A worker asked if the system runs again, who will guarantee that the error will not repeat.

Quynh said no one can guarantee it with a single sentence. Therefore, the new process has three layers: the machine checks itself, the person on duty checks, and the community gets to see and ask questions. No class is exempt because another class seems more modern.

Huyen recorded this proposal in the file. She found it wasn't perfect, but it had one advantage: it made trust an ongoing thing, not a title given and then put away.