Meltdown

the story, of course, is about hubris.

everything had been just swell, at least on the part of the company. customers ate up every last concoction that product development could throw at them and then begged for more. they had god pinched between their fingers like a paper doll, folded down to fit into an easily swallowed capsule. there was no reason to slow down at all.

nevermind that there was; they'd been skirting environmental laws for ages, dumping waste into the wetlands just infrequently enough to not draw attention, and besides, the trek through the muck and the bugs put off even the more dedicated environmentalists. it was all another experiment anyway. researchers kept tabs on the soil and the water for adverse effects. they kept tabs on every element.

so they saw the meltdown coming even if only by days. enough time for the higher management to drop into anonymity, and even to issue an evacuation notice to the majority of the staff, though by the time the warning had trickled through to the lower levels it was too little too late. the meltdown swept through the facility in a sudden burst: not all fire and explosions, though the majority of the marketing wing did go to ash. the research labs dealt with a lot of unstable materials, and even the ones that didn't catch fire could burn their own way.

there's no estimate as to how manh staff members were left in the building when it was lost. that's an NDA no one is no left to break.

now the swamp. it wasn't a swamp then, but suddenly introducing a massive amount of volatile unstable waste will make some changes in the world. after the headquarters had been ravaged, the land followed suit, destruct and change blooming like mold in a petri dish. every inch of greenery and wildlife was perfect nutrition for whatever mixture of waste it was that changed things. the swamps emerged sickly green and wet, with sucking mud and wide rippling lakes, trees twisting overhead. moreover, it grew, pulsing outward right to the edges of the city, and then in.

the swamp eroded into the west veldt, a blossom of hungry rot that grew over with moss and vines. the first eighth was lost within hours, all the buildings and people just vanished into the green. at least then there was some understand that something was happening, so the population at the live edge could flee. over the next week or two another eighth was eaten. manmade structures succumbed to volatile nature as though they'd never been there at all.

when it was finally satiated, the swamp was left with thick high walls of stone and trees around the edges like the city had put up a last fight to stay separated. and then it was over. tests showed no lingering pollution in the city, not until you crossed into the green. they sent teams into the swamps, in an effort to determine what happened out there and if there were survivors. no one ever returned.

ok. well. actually. most of them returned. like, perfectly fine, even. different maybe? some of them looked like they'd gone a little wild themselves, or had a few hits of the pharmaceutical's products. but they were like. okay. and they said the swamps weren't even that bad - like, don't drink the water, it'll change you, but the worst was the mud and the bugs. the things living out there weren't even aggressive or anything - yeah, stuff was out there now, more than  just animals, people, maybe, or something that had been people, or could be, but most of them were just sort of curious about these humans venturing into the swamp. none of them seemed to have any real idea of society. also the sewer rats were lesbians?? anyway all the things living out there seemed polite enough, even if no one ever got that close to the facility after all. and yeah they did lose one of the squad but it's because he fell into a puddle and came out with lizard scales and said he liked it out there so they just figured they'd let him stick around.

so anyway this did not help to keep people out of the swamp. it turned out that yes, the swamp will do its utmost to change you, but mostly only if you kind of want to be changed. the creatures out there think being plain standard human seems so boring, and they love to share their point of view, but they all seem to know how to accept a no for an answer. and the sewer rats are gay. the green haze and difficulty in getting from point a to point b out there still does plenty to keep people from wandering in willy nilly, but people aren't strictly terrified of the place. at least up to the site of the facility, where everything seems a lot more dangerous, but very few have ever made it that far.

the meltdown has dampened the city a lot, thanks to the sudden cut-off of a major source of money, and a lot of people left town when the disaster first happened. but those who have stuck it through have found a way to live with it. some are even talking about making it a tourist destination. maybe that's a little much.