Its not a parallel curve, its a flushing toilet...
"Ancient ocher colored fans and sprays of blood show black under the faint light of the green glow sticks. Garrett stops beside a mother and child, their withered grey/brown skin clinging to their bones. The woman died clutching the baby, both of them left to the ages curled up in the fetal position.
Melissa gets close to Garrett and whispers. “What happened here?"
“Who cares, let’s go.” Melissa looks scornfully at Gris and turns back around."
"Garrett examines a thin spindle of jewelry still locked around the woman’s wrist. It’s white stones once held great value. “Those who drank it all up planned for everything. recycled air, recycled food, recycled energy, recycled waste. Two nuclear generators that would run almost indefinitely if properly maintained. This facility and those like it were meant to be the new arcs come the flood, humanities last life rafts. They didn’t plan for the one catastrophe that they couldn’t avoid.”
“The intellect?”
“No, their own greed.”