Places
ICRU Hamburg
Lena’s institute in Hamburg, looking out over the Elbe
The ICRU is where Lena works in Hamburg. From her office on the fourth floor, she looks across the Elbe to the cranes on the other side. Lena works here as an oceanographer; after a year in reinsurance, she has been back for seven years, often in by six in the morning, when only the ventilation hums and someone on the night shift sits at a screen on the first floor. The fourth floor also has a glass-walled conference room; the fifth floor has the office of Hagen, the political coordinator; and the basement holds the archive, which Frau Bergmann has run for thirty years. Every number that leaves the building goes across the desk of Maren Seifert, head of risk communication. The ICRU also receives measurement data through a framework agreement with the company Meridian.
First encounter
- First noticed: “At six in the morning, the ICRU building was a different place.”
- Object: the coffee machine on Lena’s sideboard, “the most expensive thing in her office”
Connected to
- Lena VossOceanographer at the ICRU in Hamburg, following a falling line
- Anna KesslerLower Elbe emergency manager who has known Lena thirteen years
- Dr. Maren SeifertICRU head of risk communication, reads every warning herself
- HagenPolitical coordinator at the ICRU, guardian of the Meridian contract
- Dr. RüheICRU meteorologist who knows about the old probe in storage
- Meridian Risk SystemsHamburg sensor maker in Bahrenfeld, supplies data to the ICRU
- FS NordmarkLena’s research vessel in Book 1, captained by Kai Sörensen
- The Lower Elbe and the DikeThe land behind the dikes between Hamburg and the estuary
Spoiler-free. This describes the starting point of the book named, without its major twists or resolutions.